Chapter 19: The Starved Saint's Last Supper
The graveyard air hung thick with the scent of wet earth and rusted iron. The crows circled overhead like vultures awaiting a corpse as Jack faced the Starved Saint. The creature stood motionless, its stitched mouth trembling, its star-filled eyes burning with ancient hunger.
Elara's fingers twitched toward the demon box in her pocket. "You don't have to fight it alone," she said, crimson energy already coiling around her gloves.
Jack cracked his neck, veins darkening beneath his skin. "This one's mine."
The Starved Saint's head tilted with unnatural slowness. Threads snapped one by one as its stitches unraveled, revealing a mouth that kept splitting wider - too wide, jaws unhinging like a serpent's until its face was nothing but teeth and void.
Then it screamed.
The sound wasn't sound at all but pure hunger given form. Gravestones shattered. The earth itself rippled like water as the Saint's starvation tore at reality. Jack's crows scattered in panic, their forms distorting as the vacuum pulled at them.
One wasn't fast enough.
The black-feathered creature flapped desperately as invisible jaws dragged it toward the Saint's maw. For a terrible moment, Jack felt its terror - the crow's consciousness screaming through their bond - before needle teeth snapped shut.
Feathers rained down like burnt parchment.
Jack's vision went red.
---
The Saint moved faster than something so emaciated should. Its clawed fingers wrapped around Jack's throat, lifting him off the ground with ease. Up close, its breath smelled of opened graves and spoiled communion wine.
Jack grinned through choking. "Bad idea."
Darkness erupted from his pores, tendrils of living shadow stabbing into the Saint's wrists. The creature recoiled as Jack's power burned through its flesh, but didn't release its grip. Instead, it squeezed harder, star-filled eyes gleaming with something almost like curiosity.
Bones creaked. Jack's vision pulsed black at the edges.
Then Elara was there, her glove blazing crimson as she drove a fist through the Saint's ribs. The creature staggered, its grip loosening just enough for Jack to twist free.
"Told you not to interfere," Jack coughed, rubbing his throat.
Elara flashed a bloody smile. "Liar."
The Saint looked down at the smoking hole in its chest, then back at them. Slowly, deliberately, it reached inside the wound and pulled out its own rib - the bone elongating, sharpening into a jagged blade.
Jack sighed. "Of course it has a sword."
---
The rib-blade moved like liquid, cutting through air and shadow alike. Jack barely dodged, feeling the wind of its passing slice a lock of hair from his temple. He countered with a slash of his dagger, but the Saint flowed around the strike like water, its emaciated body bending in impossible ways.
Elara's crimson threads lashed out, wrapping around the creature's limbs. For a moment, it staggered - then its skin split open, dozens of needle-thin arms bursting forth to tear through her bindings.
Jack saw his opening.
He lunged, driving his dagger deep into the Saint's gut and twisting. Black ichor sprayed, burning where it touched his skin. The creature didn't scream - it laughed, a wet, gurgling sound as it grabbed Jack's wrist and pulled him closer.
Its mouth unhinged.
Jack barely managed to wrench free as those teeth snapped shut where his face had been. He rolled across broken gravestones, coming up in a crouch as the Saint turned its bleeding wound toward him.
The hole in its stomach pulsed.
Then it spoke.
"Feed me."
Elara's scream snapped him back. "Jack!"
He blinked. The Saint's rib-blade was inches from his heart.
---
Jack moved without thinking. His body dissolved into shadow just as the blade struck, reforming behind the Saint. His dagger found the creature's spine, sawing through rotted flesh until something cracked.
The Saint staggered but didn't fall. It turned, its movements jerky now, starry eyes dimming. Jack didn't give it time to recover. He whistled sharply.
The largest of his crows dove from the sky, black feathers gleaming. It struck the Saint like a bullet, not with talons or beak, but by plunging straight into the gaping wound in the creature's stomach.
The Saint convulsed, its body jerking as the crow's darkness spread through its veins like ink in water. Ribs cracked outward. Spine bent at impossible angles. The creature's mouth opened in a silent scream as its essence was torn apart from within.
Jack didn't hesitate. He reached into the collapsing body, fingers closing around the pulsing, star-filled darkness that was the Saint's core.
"Got you."
With a final wrench, he tore the essence free. The Saint's body crumbled to ash, its final breath sighing through the graveyard like a satisfied diner after a meal.
In Jack's hand, the essence twisted - a writhing mass of darkness and starlight shaped like a human stomach. It pulsed hungrily, trying to latch onto his skin.
Jack smirked. "Not for me."
He turned to the crow that had consumed the Saint's body. The bird perched obediently, its feathers now speckled with tiny stars. Without ceremony, Jack forced the essence into its beak.
The crow convulsed, its body swelling grotesquely before settling. When it opened its eyes, they burned with the same starry hunger as the Saint's had.
Jack stroked its feathers. "Keep that safe for her."
Elara approached cautiously. "That was..."
"Something you'll be needing down the line." ,Jack finished, watching as his newly empowered crow took flight. The others followed, their shadows longer now, darker. Hungrier.
Somewhere beyond the Veil, the Hollow Maw stirred.
Jack bared his teeth in something too sharp to be a smile.
Let it come.