Chapter 75 – The Unequal Pact
"This should do."
Gideon tightened his grip on an iron rod, nudging the pile of kindling closer to the growing flame. The rod itself was something he had pried loose from a roadside car.
In this desolate town, where every resident lay dead, all the vehicles were nothing but abandoned property. It wasn't as though Bo would call the police on him.
As he fed the flames, the fire roared higher, thick smoke curling upward toward the ceiling. The heat at the edges of the blaze began to warp the floorboards.
Not long ago, once he had confirmed that something had happened to Sadie and the others, Gideon had abandoned waiting. He could not risk a direct exorcism—the holy verses might just as easily harm his allies if their condition was uncertain.
So he chose another method: lure Bo out.
And what better way to draw out a creature than to strike at what it loved most? Vincent and Bo, like their predecessor Trudy, cherished their "waxworks" above all else. The quickest way to enrage such a being was to destroy its collection.
"I am no arsonist," Gideon murmured, pressing two fingers to his forehead, then to his left and right chest in the sign of the cross. "This fire is a path to cleanse evil. The Lord will forgive me."
"Amen."
The word had barely left his lips when the fire vanished. One moment the blaze licked greedily at the wood, the next it was gone, as though the air itself had been sucked into a void.
Gideon's brow furrowed. The air grew cold, unnaturally so.
From within the wax museum, tendrils of gray mist seeped outward, heavy and suffocating. Shadows began to take form inside the hall—figures with blue-tinged skin, their flesh mottled with rot.
"Wraiths…" Gideon whispered.
As if hearing him, every head turned sharply, their hollow eyes fixing on the priest outside.
The sight would have broken a weaker man.
"Judging from the wounds… these must be the victims of the Sinclair brothers," Gideon noted grimly.
His inner sight confirmed it: from each wraith stretched invisible threads, tethering them beneath the floorboards—down to the basement.
"You dare defile my wax museum," one of the wraiths growled.
The voice was unmistakable: Bo.
"Defile?" Gideon's lips curved in a cold smile.
"You butchered innocents and enslaved their souls. Compared to that, arson is almost an act of mercy."
Bo did not dignify the remark with an answer. The wraiths advanced instead, their movements silent and inexorable.
This was the horror of American wraiths—unlike most spirits, they could move even under the bright sun of day. Anywhere else in the world, Gideon could have stood in open daylight and rendered them powerless. Here, that advantage was denied.
He stepped back a few paces—not out of fear, but to buy time. His hand slipped into his robes and drew out a charm.
Not one of his own holy relics, but an artifact from a past ordeal—the plane crash incident at Hawkins.
[Talisman of the Dead]
Effect: Reduces the malice of the dead toward you. While worn, grants the ability to commune with spirits.
The moment he raised it, the wraiths faltered, their advance breaking rhythm.
Deep beneath the museum, Bo's face twisted.
A pang of resistance had echoed through the souls he commanded.
Impossible.
These wraiths were bound by a Slavery Pact—a covenant of hell itself.
Such contracts were absolute: one soul pledges servitude, forfeiting all chance of reincarnation, until the end of the world. It was a binding Bo had obtained from Azazel himself.
A true relic of the Pit.
A soul bound by it could never defy its master's will.
And yet… here they were, hesitating.
Bo's frown deepened. Something was wrong.
As for why those people in life had agreed to sign such contracts?
Hah.
The reasons were always the same. A lure of freedom dangled before them, a few carefully worded "minor clauses" slipped into the deal—nothing that seemed significant at the time. And once the parchment was signed, the oath could be violated without consequence.
Hell never concerned itself with such trickery.
Bo narrowed his eyes and once again forced his will upon the wraiths, driving them at the priest outside.
But this time… several spirits tore free of his command.
His eyes widened in disbelief.
---
Outside, Gideon could already feel the amulet working its strange influence. In essence, the charm allowed him to resonate with the wraiths. Not as a master commanding slaves, but as something more fundamental—a unifying instinct.
Like ants responding to the pheromones of their queen, the spirits moved in concert around him.
They drew close, yearning for his presence, while recoiling in fear from the chains that bound their souls.
With a single wave of his hand, Gideon snapped several of those bindings.
Moments later, the dead had shifted allegiance. The wraiths now stood at his side.
---
In the basement, Bo slammed a fist against the wall, his face twisting with horror. The tether between him and his slaves was gone—all of them.
Sadie, watching silently from the corner, didn't understand why he had suddenly faltered. But if it bought her time, she would use it to gather her strength.
Then Bo winced, clutching his chest. He yanked a slip of parchment from his pocket and hurled it into the air.
It burned instantly, blood-inked sigils dissolving into ash.
"This was… from Hell itself…"
His throat tightened. That priest outside—how could a man of the Church command the dead in such a way?
"Could he be from the Underworld?"
Bo clenched his fists, unnerved by the possibility.
---
Meanwhile, Gideon took a few minutes to master the method of directing his new allies. Then he set them to work.
Through their familiarity with the building, he located Bo easily. The man was still drowning in his own doubts.
"One injured… the other two's minds clouded by interference…"
Through the eyes of the wraiths, Gideon surveyed the basement and saw Sasha tied to a workbench. She was unconscious, stripped to her undergarments, though her body bore no wounds.
The moment the spirits surged into the basement, Bo moved to respond.
He reached for Carly and Wade, intending to use them as hostages.
But Gideon acted faster.
Several wraiths swooped in, snatching the pair to safety. Each was given a holy relic—objects Gideon had entrusted to the dead before sending them down.
The rest of the spirits swarmed Bo.
He tried to unleash a psychic assault, but the attack slid harmlessly off them. Even worse, the relics shielded everyone else from his influence.
"No… stay away!"
Nearby, Sadie panicked as two wraiths advanced toward her. She recoiled in fear.
"Don't move—it's me."
One of the spirits spoke.
"W–Gideon?"
Her eyes widened with disbelief.
The wraith nodded.
Sadie gasped, more shaken than before.
"What… what are you?"
---
Soon, the captives were freed. Carly and Wade had regained consciousness, their faces pale with terror. When they learned that the priest now commanded the undead, they could only stare at him as though he were a monster.
Sasha awoke as well, tears streaming as relief washed over her.
"I thought I was going to die…" she sobbed, realizing at last how reckless she had been.
Sadie, however, never took her eyes off Gideon.
He fought like a bandit, performed exorcisms like a cleric, and now commanded the dead like a necromancer.
The more she saw, the less she understood what this "priest" truly was.
"Don't relax," Gideon's voice cut through the tension. "It isn't over yet."
At that moment, Bo appeared in the doorway of the wax museum. His hair was disheveled, his face a grotesque mask of fury.
"You won't leave here alive."
With a guttural snarl, he drove a blade into his own side.
Then, with a gruesome motion, he ripped open his chest, plunging his hand deep inside.
What he pulled out was no ordinary heart—it resembled a grotesque, pulsing brain.
And his eyes, once dark, now burned a hellish crimson.