Page 23 of Where Exorcists Cannot Lie

Inuel grimaced. “It’s more than fucking, at least it is for me.”

I waited for him to be hit with searing pain for his fat lie, but he stood there without presenting with any symptoms of agony.

My heart began thumping as if it were paid by the beat. My hopes built, together with my confusion. “Explain the grey robe part,” I said, pointing to his attire.

He sighed and indicated the patio chairs. “How about we sit down for a moment?”

“Oh, goodie,” I couldn’t help but say. “One of those you-had-better-sit-down types of stories, is it?”

Inuel gave me a somewhat helpless look and lowered himself into one of the seats.

Following suit, I crossed my arms and opened my ears.

“I admit,” Inuel gave a noisy exhale, “I never planned on, you know, settling down or whatever when we first started, err—”

“Fucking,” I said and raised an eyebrow in challenge.

A muscle twitched in Inuel’s cheek. “Right. True, it was simply fucking back then. At the beginning. But later, well, later…I’ll be honest. At first, I thought I would forget you pretty quickly. I really tried, too. But you see, you endear yourself to people so easily. Somehow, you wriggled your way into my heart.”

“Like a worm, you mean,” I said with a tilt of my head.

Inuel gave a dopey smile, my sarcasm lost on him. “Yeah. Something like that. The problem was, I started missing you almost right away. It might be a cliché, but it’s true. It isn’t until you lose something that you understand the value of it.”

I dug my nails into my palms. “But why the fuck did you leave me in the first place, huh? Why?” It felt good to finally shout the question I wanted to hear the response to for the past two years.

Inuel’s jaw tightened. “I’m not proud of it, all right? But I got myself in some bad shit right before I met you. You know the illegal enchantment business I was involved in?” I nodded, and he continued, “After one major deal went tits-up, I ended up owing a lot of silver to a bad crowd. And I’m talking really vile people, Taz. People you don’t want to go owing coin to. In the way of repayment, they began forcing me to do odd jobs for them—the dodgy sort, even for me. Things I normally wouldn’t touch with a barge pole, bad boy of Ghadarra or not. Sometimes, they also needed me for stripping other demons of their powers. Or blocking their abilities. Sometimes counteracting the Exorcists’ rites.”

My shock at hearing the last sentence must’ve shown on my face, because Inuel gave a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, believe it or not, it can be done, and I can do it, all right. Either way, the situation turned grim pretty damn fast. Or rather, nasty as fuck. When I realised the full extent of what I’d got myself into, I wanted out. But the interest on my debt kept growing. Nothing I did to repay it sufficed. I was well and truly fucked, in way over my head. When I refused to take on jobs, they started making threats. Against you. Trust me, staying with you meant putting you in danger.”

“Fuck.” I said, my mouth going slack. Out of all the possible scenarios I had thought of, nothing like this had ever crossed my mind. “But why didn’t you tell me any of this? We could’ve figured out something together. Or at least, why didn’t you say goodbye?”

Inuel rubbed his hands together, cracking his knuckles. “I couldn’t risk it. It had to look convincing. There wasn’t time, either. The situation progressed faster than I’d anticipated. I had to disappear and make it look like I’d abandoned you. I always regretted doing that, you have to believe me. Luckily, you played your part well.” Inuel’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “All that drinking in the taverns? Calling me all names under the sun to anyone who would listen? It must’ve helped. Whoever was watching you, they must’ve believed I didn’t give a damn about you and that you had no idea where I was. So they left you alone.”

My cheeks became engulfed in fire at the mention of those pathetic early weeks. I cringed at the notion Inuel knew of that low point in my history. To divert attention from this topic, I fired a barrage of questions at him. “So, are you still in danger? They sent a miccorah to attack you? Is that why you’ve ended up here? And I still don’t understand how your becoming an Exorcist ties in with that?”

He made a calm-the-hell-down gesture. “No. No. And also, no. I’m getting to it, Taz. Gods, gimme a chance. It’s a complicated story to tell,” Inuel shook his head. “As you can imagine, I felt pretty desperate at this stage. So, I turned for help to the only people who, firstly, had the resources to sort this shit out, and secondly, who I could offer something in exchange.”

“The Guild of Mages,” I said in immediate understanding.

“Yup.” Inuel threw me a guilty glance. “I contacted the Head of the Exorcist Department. Your friend Xendra Hun.”

“Xen? She was in on it?” I gasped, a new wave of hurt crashing into my heart.

“Listen, Taz, please don’t hold that against her. She cares about you deeply. And she really did help. Under her influence, the Guild cut me a deal. Get trained, become an Exorcist, and the people who bothered me would disappear. It wasn’t a tough choice. The tough part was not going back to you.”

My pulse throbbed in my ears. “And then what?”

“Then they sent me to the Academy. I got my grey robe in thirteen months.”

“Bollocks. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.” I sucked air through my teeth.

“It’s true.” The corners of Inuel’s mouth curled upwards. “To start with, most of the stuff they teach I could already do or I knew by instinct. Besides, I had a clear goal in mind. It turns out I can be pretty tenacious when needs be.”

“Fine, and after you qualified? Why didn’t you come looking for me then? Your deal with the Guild was fulfilled, the bad people were done for. What stopped you from coming back then?”

A flush rose to Inuel’s high cheekbones. “Stupid alpha’s pride. I didn’t even know I had a pinch of it in me.” He chuckled. “You’re going to laugh, but I didn’t want to return with bare hands. I wanted to have something to offer you. So I kept taking assignments from the Guild, and private work, too. The silver started flowing and I kept putting it aside. Within six months I had enough. I then planned to come to you, spill everything and beg you to forgive me. Even though I was shit-scared you would hate me and send me away. I needed to tell you that I love you.”

I gasped. My eyes became a little stingy. I extended my hand across the table. Inuel covered it with his and squeezed it.

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