Tariq was alone now. It was difficult for him to distinguish the shapes in the ruins, even with his night vision. He could make out a few destroyed pews, and the empty niches where saint and angel statues were supposed to be. His heart skipped a beat when he saw an image of the Infant Jesus from Prague with the head crushed, as if someone had stepped on it.

What kind of beast would do this?

Walking a little more through the lateral wings, he noticed a row of sepulchres which belonged to important figures of the time when the church was active.

He nearly threw up when the smell of rotten flesh and dead rats pervaded his nostrils. All visible graves were uncovered and violated. There were bones; crushed skulls; dirty, ripped shrouds; and muddy torn dresses, doublets, and religious garbs everywhere, which had all belonged to the deceased. Now, they were spread out and mixed up in piles of clutter inside the pits.

The boy's legs trembled when he saw there were also some...relatively fresh corpses... Three of them, all swollen and covered in cockroaches. Their flesh was rotten and dark, already melting and revealing their bones, but Tariq could still tell they belonged to boys of varying ages… One was a child, another a young teen, and the last was around Tariq's age. They were all naked.

Shit...

There was something unsettling in his gut, beyond the horror and disgust of that scene. He felt a knot in his throat, but he forced himself to keep going.

He must be here...

And he was.

Three graves down, he saw Filip lay motionless on top of a heap of bones and mortuary garments. His black hair that he always proudly combed into a ponytail was loose and dishevelled. He was wearing only a shirt, ripped below his navel. His eyes were shut and his lips were already turning blue, his skin a shade of a pale grey.

Shit… Shit...

The prince put his sword back in its sheath and climbed down into the pit, doing his best to not step on the body of the boy.

He couldn't understand why his eyes were so unfocused, and why he felt such a heaviness in his chest. He barely knew Filip, after all... And based on his relationship with Honza Dvorák, he didn't appear to be much of a saint.

But he helped the doctor when he was hurt... And he did everything he could to help me feel comfortable around the other boys… Maybe...in his own way, he was just trying to fit in.

Tariq took a deep breath, wiping his eyes again before landing inside the grave. Filip was at the prince's feet, his face wan in the glow of the moon.

Guess I'll never know for sure now.

The prince put an arm underneath the boy, holding him against his chest, then put Filip over his shoulder, the boy's legs hanging in front of Tariq, with his torso, arms, and head hanging over his back.

His body isn't stiff, so I think he must have died just a few moments ago...

The prince climbed back up and rested Filip's body in the cleanest place he could find. He rushed to remove his layered cloak to cover the boy so he could take him back to the university with dignity.

As he started to improvise a shroud for his dorm mate, Tariq noticed several scratches and bite marks that looked like they had come from a human. They were all over his neck, around his nipples, and at the base of his member. At a glance, there was no sign of blood or any deeper injuries, though.

What the fuck did they do to him?

With a closer look, the canine marks in the dental arches seemed to be too deep for a human, and the wounds weren't as irritated as they would have been if a human being had done it...

For God's sake! There are loads of priests less than a mile from here!

Then he remembered Mabel's words.

He is not alone...

There is another presence...feeding on him...

They aren’t feeding on him anymore.

The prince shook his head.

I'll bring his body back, then take care of this later.

Tariq was almost done covering Filip when he noticed pale clouds of condensation forming in front of his nose.

"Oh, shit!"

Tariq held the other boy's face with both hands, gently shaking his head and patting his cheeks.

"Svoboda! Svoboda! Wake up!"

"Hngh..."

"Svoboda! Come on!" He began shaking his shoulder and rubbing his hand.

The groggy boy shook his head, his eyes rolling around behind his eyelids, trying to open.

"Ah... F-Father..."

"Come on! We need to leave!"

Tariq made the other boy sit up, shaking him a bit more. Filip opened his eyes slowly, as if his eyelids were made of stone.

He inspected his surroundings for a while, his arms now leaning on Tariq's chest. Then his expression fell and he started to cry. He tried to scream, but his voice was gone.

"Ah... ah..."

"Hey, everything is fine now! I'll take you back to the school!"

"Ah! Ah! Ah!"

Filip kept whimpering, looking everywhere with his watery, red eyes open wide. Tariq took his face in his hands, calmly making the boy look at him.

"It's me! I'll bring you home!"

Svoboda began to strike him, slapping and punching the prince’s chest to fend him off. He was still crying in despair, but there was no sound coming from his mouth.

Tariq figured he must be confused by the whole incident, plus the fight before, and the lack of medication...

He decided to just carry the boy back and get away from this hell as soon as he could.

As he held Filip in his arms, Tariq noticed that the boy’s lips were quietly forming words.

"Demon... Demon..."

Suddenly, Tariq was surrounded by an odour even worse than the smell of the decomposing corpses around him... His breathing sped up, and a cold wave of anxiety and fear washed over him when he realised he was being watched.

GRRRR..... GRRRRRRRRRR...

He felt the urge to just run away, as if an invisible pair of hands were pulling him. He swallowed, frozen with fear as he tried box breathing to push the adrenaline into his blood.

GRRRRRRRRR... GRRRRRRRR.... SCHLANGER....

He spun around immediately, pulling out his sword.

However, something darker than the night sky and stronger than an avalanche of stone hit him in the head, flinging him several metres away and smacking him against a wall, knocking him out. However, before he lost consciousness, he could make out very easily two rows of dirty, sharp canine teeth approaching him.