Sin-Eater - Chapter 58: Speciousness (Patreon)

Running along the wall was easy enough. This entire section near the ocean is basically unmanned, except for one very sleep-deprived looking guard, who shuffled past them, dragging his lance carelessly behind himself, as he made his way down the wall. They had hidden behind some old construction materials that in all honesty, anyone should have seen them hiding behind, day or night. But the guard didn’t and they crept on past him down the length of the wall, until they find a staircase near the beach that they go down, before sneaking into the city through the alleys, by the coastal warehouses.

Getting into the cathedral is another matter. Canta would be surprised if the underground tunnels weren’t manned now, after their escape. The same goes for the little chapel that they broke in through. But that’s fine.

The two of them make their way through the city, hiding behind a corner as a group of patrolling guards marches down through the empty street. Canta can’t help but wonder if the anarchy that had swallowed the farmland all around the city was even noticed here, inside of the tall, heavy walls. The city night-life still seems to be active enough though. A group of drunken revelers come out of a noisy tavern, the three of them stumbling together down the way, past the guards who seem indifferent to their presence.

Canta narrows his eyes, looking at the taller man on the side of the group. He’s stumbling and tumbling around with the other two, but there’s something off about his movements. Not because of his lanky limbs, but just because of the stiffness of them… Canta can’t really place it in coherent thoughts, but something in his lizard brain tells him that the flow of the man’s musculature is wrong. He isn’t drunk, he’s just pretending to be.

Demons.

He narrows his eyes, watching the group stumble away. Two humans and a demon, clearly. Why? For what purpose? Canta’s paranoid eyes scan the streets. The demon-king must have agents everywhere, ears and eyes everywhere. But he can see them. He can tell. He has eyes like Samael. He feels a little twitchy. But that’s fine. The paranoia has kept him alive for this long. It’s just like Sister had explained to him. Sometimes it’s best just to let your emotions get control of you and to burn through them until you are where you want to be.

His emotions just happen to be paranoia, anger and hunger. The demons aren’t going to get him.

A hand grabs him from the side and he jolts together, looking a second later at Alleluia who nods her head to the side and points down a side-street. He nods, catching his breath and the two of them go that way.

Half an hour later, after a lot of complex alleyway navigation through the city that they have little idea of the layout of, the two of them find their way to the edge of the massive walls of the cathedral.

“Now what?” asks Alleluia quietly, looking up at the unmanned walls in the inner-city. They aren’t as high as the exterior walls, but still too high to just climb.

“Throw me,” says Canta.

“Huh?”

“Throw me,” he repeats, looking around. He points to the side. “See that door there?”

“Yeah?” she replies, looking at the tiny servant’s door on the wall of the cathedral-grounds.

“It’s where they delivered all of the booze for that stupid celebration,” he explains. “Give me a boost, I’ll unlock it.”

“You promise you aren’t going to run away without me?”

“Please, if I wanted to do that, I would have taken my chance already,” he says. “Anyways, maybe I should be worried about you running away?”

“There’s nowhere for me to go, except my dungeon,” she says. “It was lonely. But I liked it when you came.”

“I liked it too, before we left. Maybe we should go back after we eat this fucker?” suggests Canta. “A couple romantic days without any of this bullshit.”

She crosses her arms, “I’d like it if you’d watch your tongue around an elegant creature such as myself.”

“Please,” says Canta, rolling his eyes.

Alleluia laughs, quieting herself before nodding. She grabs him beneath the arms. “You’ve gotten a lot heavier,” she says.

“Must be all the muscles.”

“Please,” she says, rolling her eyes. Canta has little time to make a rebuttal before finding himself launched up a good few meters. His arms wrap around the wall and he quickly rolls over onto the walkway, flashing a thumbs-up down back to her. Looking around to check that the coast is clear, he quietly hustles down the ramparts. It’s entirely dark where he is right now. He sees the staircase leading down, off in the distance and around the bend. But there are two guards standing there, talking about something. He’ll have to drop down from here.

Canta looks down, thankful that he can see in the dark and thankful that he practiced this. Dropping himself off of the wall, he lands in the grass, instantly rolling over his shoulder and even landing back on his feet as the roll comes to an end. With a sinfully prideful grin, he shuffles through the darkness towards the door and quietly turns the large mechanism, opening it up and waving her in. They share a quick kiss and then keep moving under the cover of the night.

Most of the cathedral is asleep at this hour, only the guards are roaming the premises. However, avoiding them is easy enough, as the two of them had made a sort of game out of finding secretive places here back during their ‘younger years’ to be alone in. It’s simply a matter of dashing between those spots, until they are eventually inside of the cathedral itself, having entered through a side door and then the process repeats itself.

“Where are we going?” asks Alleluia quietly, pressing her front against him to give her crank room to turn in the tiny broom-closet.

“Remember how we escaped the cathedral by the chapel connected to it?” whispers Canta. She nods. “Well the chapel is connected to the cathedral just like the cathedral is connected to the castle,” he explains. “We’ll never make it through the front gate, but this way ‘from the inside’ won’t be as guarded. “We just need to get past the bishop…” says Canta, looking out of the closet.

“How?” she asks. “It’s full of guards, they’ll see us right away.”

“I have an idea…” says Canta quietly, looking at the door to the nunnery across from them.