"Hand it over."
"Whoa, gentlen, please. If there's sothing you want, just tell ."
He raised both hands, letting the package and cane he’d been carrying clatter to the ground.
"Not that. The other thing."
The middle-aged man gestured with the dark muzzle of his gun toward the mask in Jenkins's left hand.
"This?"
He asked, feigning confusion, then let his hand go slack. The mask dropped to his feet.
"May I leave now?"
Bang!
The gunshot cracked through the air, completely unexpected. Jenkins staggered, a bullet slamming into his chest and throwing him backward.
"Did I miscalculate?"
A wave of disbelief washed over him. His plan had been to maneuver out of this pincer attack before striking, but he’d never imagined they would be so brazen as to kill soone in the middle of a busy street.
"Am I really going to die here, just like this?"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Several more shots rang out, riddling Jenkins's collapsed form with bloody holes.
The n finally let out a collective sigh of relief. Holstering their pistols, they closed in. The younger one grinned and knelt, but before his fingers could touch the mask, another hand clamped down on his wrist.
"Aah—!"
In an instant, flas consud him. The man, wreathed in a blazing inferno, managed to wrench his arm free from Jenkins's grasp and began rolling frantically on the ground, but the fire only raged stronger.
With a grim expression, Jenkins rose to his feet. He bent down, scooped up Chocolate, and settled the kitten on his shoulder before glancing down at the bullet holes peppering his clothes.
"That was too close. This world is a dangerous place."
The middle-aged man was frozen in terror, his legs refusing to move. He could only watch as his partner was incinerated into a desiccated husk. A dark puddle spread from the man’s own trouser leg, staining his black leather shoes.
The only beings he knew of who could survive a bullet to the heart were the cruel, terrifying monsters from the stories his mother used to tell him as a child—creatures that lurked in the darkest shadows.
His legs gave out, and he fell back, trying to scramble away on his hands. But there was no escaping Jenkins's now uncontrollable fury.
"So damn close..."
He bent, picked up the dropped pistol, and fought to keep his face a mask of calm, but the flaring of his nostrils betrayed his rage.
"I almost died."
He drew a knife with his left hand, pressing the muzzle of the pistol in his right firmly against the man’s forehead. "I’ll ask, you’ll answer. You get one chance. First question: What are you here for?"
"I... I... God... Aah—!"
Jenkins scraped the knife against a rusty steam pipe on the wall before plunging it into the man's shoulder and yanking it out just as quickly.
The man's face, already twisted in terror, was now a ss of tears and mucus.
"If you don't answer, I'll burn your body to cinders and cast your soul into the deepest pit of hell. I'll find your family, one by one. I'll drag back the souls of your dead ancestors just to defile them. I will curse every last one of your friends and relatives..."
Even in his rage, he knew exactly which words would be most effective.
"We ca for the mask! I saw you take it, so I followed you with Baines, ah—!"
Jenkins plunged the knife into his other shoulder and pulled it out.
"Second question. Why steal the mask?"
"I... I don't know! Boss Higgins sent us! Oh god, save ! God, please, just look at , ah—!"
Jenkins sliced off one of his fingers.
"Third question. Does the museum curator know his item is being targeted?"
"I don't know! You're a devil, no, oh..."
This ti, he sliced a piece of flesh from the man's nose.
"Fourth question. Who is this Boss Higgins?"
"He's the leader of a gang in the south side. He should be at the Black Rose Bar right now, yes, he's always there. We normally just deal in smuggled liquor. I don't know why he wanted this... Oh, thank you, thank you!"
He cried out desperately as Jenkins tossed the pistol aside and stood up, knife in hand.
He lifted his empty right hand, then slamd it downward. A massive boulder materialized out of thin air, instantly crushing the man into a bloody pulp.
"Hmph."
He took a deep breath, his racing heart finally beginning to steady.
"Don't be afraid."
He wiped the blood from his hands on his ruined shirt, then began to gently stroke the kitten on his shoulder.
Chocolate patted his finger with a soft paw and let out the most tender ow Jenkins had heard since he’d first adopted him.
He finally had a clear understanding of his [Undying Man] ability. The effect was simple: he could not die. To be more precise, he was immortal as long as his body remained mostly intact and his spirit was plentiful.
The mont the bullet had slamd into his chest, Jenkins had felt it clearly. It was as if his body had rely been punctured. His spirit, suffused throughout his being, was sustaining his life.
He had known it the instant he was pulled back from the brink of death: his soul was that of a god, rely lacking divinity, and his physical body was now only a step below that of the Saints. He no longer had vital weak spots, his resistance to negative effects had soared, and most importantly, as long as he remained an Enchanter with the world’s spirit flowing through him, his age and appearance would remain frozen in ti, forever unchanged.
This was what it ant to be truly undying. The ritual had been a pact with the world itself, which had acknowledged his immortality and compensated for the frailties of his mortal flesh.
The white text of his [Undying Man] ability still shimred in his vision. Only after he gritted his teeth, dug the bullets from his flesh, and closed the wounds with his Breath of Healing did the glow fade back to normal.
He raised a hand, and a sheet of fla erupted, engulfing the charred corpse and the bloody pulp beneath the boulder. True to its nature, the fire would not extinguish on its own, and it quickly reduced the remains to ash. Jenkins even took the ti to patiently dig up the blood-soaked soil to dispose of it.
He gave the alley one last look, picked up his package, and hurried away.
Acting as if nothing had happened, he took a carriage back to the Church and dropped off the package, though he kept the mask with him.
He greeted everyone he saw with cheerful enthusiasm and even ate lunch with the children from one of the choirs. They had all read his fairy tales, and despite the matronly nun’s repeated warnings to be quiet, the children couldn’t contain their excitent.
In the afternoon, he spent nearly two hours reading stories with them and even hired a photographer to take a group photo. On top of that, everyone insisted that Jenkins wear his Ritter Prize dal and the insignia of his barony.
There was a reason the study of decorations and dals was its own discipline. The peerage system of the Fidektri Kingdom had exacting requirents for the insignia of each noble rank.
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