Religion is Stupid Anyway

“I’m gonna kill her.”

Aeron muttered to herself angrily as she snuck her way through the courtyard. It was night time and the moon was almost completely shadowed, showing nothing but a thin sliver of light to reflect upon the surface of Earthland. The grassy area belonged to a church in the town of Clover, where she’d been hired by a mysterious figure to taint their basin of holy water. Aeron hadn’t been too thrilled by the prospect, particularly coming from so suspicious an individual, but like always Thana had to have her way.

As they’d gotten closer to the church, however, her dark haired companion suddenly decided she’d rather disappear than actually help on the mission, leaving Aeron to it alone. The woman ran through the grass, shifting the color of her skin and her hair so that both were dark enough to blend in with the shadows of her surroundings. It seemed unlikely that a church would have guards posted, nor security cameras to keep history of the events around the area, but better safe than sorry.

After a quick check around the building she confirmed that all the doors were lock, as well all the windows on the first floor. A glance up, however, showed the small belltower. Usually those had some kind of entrance for whenever they needed to be rung or maintenanced, right? A set of dark black, feathered wings burst from her back and Aeron kicked herself into the sky. As soon as she landed on the platform beneath the bell, she folded the wings and tucked them against her back so they wouldn’t accidentally bang the loud metal object. Sure enough, the trap door on the platform was unlocked and easily pulled open from the outside.

She jumped down into the room below quietly. It appeared to be little more than some kind of storage closet, holding random knick knacks and cleaning supplies for the bell tower. Only the littlest bit of light came through the window, and a pressure of sorts pressed down on the woman. Aeron frowned and shook her head a little, trying to clear the slight weight that seemed to have befallen her. Was there some kind of suppressive magic in here, she wondered? No matter. All she had to do was get in and out, hit up the second church and she’d be done with enough time to go find Thana and rip her into a thousand pieces for getting her into this mess in the first place.

It took her awhile to find the small basin where the holy water was sitting. It was in an office back behind the pulpit, where it was kept out of easy reach of the congregation. Holy water, from what Aeron understood, was not something to be trifled with by anyone, even the priests that used it. It was used only for very specific, desperate purposes such as expelling demons. Seemed stupid to her, but there were certainly weirder things in this world.

Reaching into a pocket, she procured a rough wad of cloth. Folded up within it were two coins made of onyx. There were very distinctive symbols carved into their surfaces, though Aeron didn’t really know what they were for. The man who had given her these coins had been very clear that she needed to be careful handling these. Whatever they were, they were tainted with some kind of evil magic that would be most unpleasant if she came into direct contact with it. She had to admit that she could feel a sort of… taint around them.

“I told you there was an angel..!”

Aeron turned abruptly at the sound of the young voice, and found a small boy standing there. He must have been no older than ten or so. Behind him was a priest, and further back yet three more youngsters that she could only assume at this point were altar boys peeked their head around the corner to look into the room. Aeron froze. When the hell had they seen her, she wondered?

The priest had looked quite tired like he’d just woken up, at least right until his eyes processed the dark woman standing there in front of the sacred basin, holding a cloth with evil artifacts within her palm. “That’s no angel,” he told the boy, reaching out a hand to shove the kid behind him protectively. “Go get Father Argus!” he instructed. Already Aeron could feel him charging up some kind of magical attack power.

Gripping one of the coins tightly through the cloth, she upended the thing over the basin and the loose coin fell into the water. Like a bathbomb the item began to produce a black, fizzing cloud that spread through the clear liquid and darkened it. By the time she looked back up, she had barely enough time to put her hands up to block the incoming attack the priest had thrown at her. Light had engulfed the room from his attack, nearly blinding her from the stark difference between it and the darkness she’d been operating from only moments ago.

Aeron growled in pain and stumbled back away from the basin, though the damage had already been done. Somehow she’d managed to hang on to the other coin without dropping it. Quickly, she clumped the cloth back up and shoved it into a pocket. As her eyes tried to shake their burning and adjust back to the darkness of the room, the priest said, “Well, clearly you’re not a demon or that attack would have done a lot more damage to you. What are you, foul creature?”

“I’m a gods damned human, you asshole!” Aeron spit back, beyond aggravated with this entire situation. Nevermind the fact that she’d technically started this altercation simply by being here, she was angry that he had attacked her. He looked appalled by her response on a number of levels, mainly the fact that she was just a simple human and then that she had referenced the gods in her cursing. “You know what, I was just going to get in and out, do my job and leave you all alone. But now? Now I have to go out of my way to kill you and all your little crotch monkeys.”

Yet another thing that her cloaked employer had been very clear about: No witnesses. Now she had to take everyone in this place out. It didn’t bother her on a moral level, of course, but it was certainly going to be a hassle. With a snarl, she called upon her magic to take on the fullness of her Hag aspect. To her horror and rage she found that she could not quite call upon the magic. It was there, she knew it was, but it would not fully come to fruition. Her face and torso took on the grotesque shape, but her arms remained human. “What the hell?” she asked angrily, looking down at the limbs.

The priest smirked at her, a grim but victorious expression. “Creatures of evil will find their powers greatly reduced in the sacred houses of the gods,” he informed her as he charged up another spell.

“Creatures of... ? You know what, I don’t care.” As the priest launched his next light attack, Aeron threw herself at him. His spell hit her squarely on the chest but her partial take over form sucked up a solid chunk of the damage. Her body slammed into his, knocking them both out of the room and onto the pulpit where they both rolled around the ground together. Aeron bit him several times with her maw of stained, razor sharp teeth, ripping flesh from his body with each snap of her jaws. He screamed in agony, surely loud enough to wake everyone that called the church home but at that point Aeron didn’t even care. Those little boys had already run off to grab another, probably more annoying priest. She needed to go deal with them before this got too out of hand.

Unfurling her wings, she let out a terrifying howl. It was more of a shriek, really, given her half Hag form. Throwing herself into the hallway where the stairs was, she tore through the building looking for anyone else that was still alive. In total, she’d found the four altar boys, a younger priest in training, and the head priest. The head priest had by far put up the most fight, but ultimately he died at her hands like all the others. By the time she was done, the upper floors of the church -- as well as the dias in the main sanctuary -- were soaked in blood. It was certainly going to be a gruesome sight for some unfortunate soul to stumble upon in the daylight, but that was of no matter to her. She still had another church she needed to hit, and paranoia had set her on a time schedule about it. There was no telling what kind of word any of the priests had managed to get out before she slew them.

Not even bothering to keep be quiet about it anymore, Aeron threw herself at a window, smashing it open and jumping into the air. Her wings spread out around her and snatched onto the currents in the wind, lifting her up into the sky. She quickly flew to the other church which was some ways down on the other side of Clover Town. A light was on in the building, which made her even more angry than she already was. Decided to just forgo caution entirely, Aeron reassumed her partial Hag form and folded her wings half way, dive bombing the church.

For the second time that night, she broke through a window. Her body rolled across the ground and she landed on her hands and knees like a wild animal. The priest in the room -- the head priest, by the looks of it -- jumped in shock and panic, and fell out of his chair. The sacred book he’d been flipping through for some late night reading clattered to the ground. Aeron wasted no time in launching at the man, recognizing his robes as being the same level as the priest that had given her the most trouble at the last place. It would be better to get him out of the way now.

He recovered quickly and made a valiant attempt to strike her down with his holy magic, though they were weakened by her magically resistant form. He even delayed his death a couple times through the use of some tricky healing spells, but by the end of it he was just as dead as the others. As she bit the final piece of flesh from his body, tearing a hole in his esophagus when reinforcements barged into the room. They cried out in horror and grief when they saw the fate that had befallen their leader, but were not given time to mourn.

When all was said and done, Aeron had murdered eight altar boys, five random priests of varying levels, and two head priests of the churches. Her face was caked in drying blood around her lips, and her entire body was dripping with the stuff. She’d have to clean herself off if she wanted to get rid of the evidence. Probably burn her clothes or something, too, which meant she’d have to steal new ones. With a sigh she uncovered the second basin of holy water and dropped the unholy coin within it, to the same effect as the first. She cared not what would become of it, anymore.

All she wanted to do was take a bath and get as far from Clover as possible...