Friend?

"Mr. J, what are we gonna do with this? Do we waste him, too? He looks like a monster to me," Harley said, keeping her gaze on the new character.

Thanks to a few runes drawn in advance on the ruins of the church, the dense purple smoke was a serious problem only for fanatics, but for us it was almost transparent, only slightly distorting our color vision. The more demonic energy the possessed person had, the more difficult it was for him to orient himself in the veil. Due to the light component, it came to the point that some opponents began to naturally slip off the skin, making them roll on the ground with a wild howl and hinting that there was nothing left of a person. It was a short conversation, and not even Bats would say anything against it.

"Mr. J," my faithful companion called out to me again, noticing my hesitation.

"Let's watch for a while. He looks a lot like a revenant, but in the wrong way. You know, it's silly to piss off an evolved immortal NEH who just wants revenge on her abuser."

In fact, it was difficult to describe what I saw, as it was more like an intuitive understanding, but as I looked at the seething strong aura, in which gray, black and red colors were organically intertwined, I could not escape the feeling that we were facing some unnatural hybrid of demon and zombie.

The stranger, whose distinctive features were a black-and-red-striped Freddy Krueger sweater and a mask of a psychopathic maniac, as if sewn from sloppy pieces of gray leather, paused for a moment, and then in one easy movement sliced off the one-eyed man's head, simply spreading his arms apart. Let's just say that even I would have to try to pull off such a trick, which means that the new protagonist is at least not weaker than me or possesses an artifact string.

As soon as the severed head fell on the melted snow, the remnants of the zealots rushed toward the vans, only to pile into one of them a few seconds later and disappear behind the gloomy trees with a slight slip.

Aside from the strange creature's interference, everything went on as normal. During their time in Shadow Peak, the sexy sorceress had explained quite clearly how to determine the degree of possession depending on the level of aura damage. So all the fanatics who had been killed were not really human anymore, and exorcism would just finish them off. The only exception was the one-eyed man, who was unexpectedly strong, having managed to overcome the influence of holy magic, survived several hits with consecrated bullets, and even possessed unpleasant spells. Clots of buzzing black-red flame when hitting the wall created by earth magic burned through it, as if there were no reinforcing charms. It was a good thing that the demonic fireballs were rather slow and had no homing ability. As for the sorcerer's surviving companions, they had apparently only recently joined the club, so they hadn't been affected by the demonic foulness yet. Besides, someone has to show us where the cult has set up its base, so letting the low-ranking subordinates go, putting tracking devices on their vehicles instead of forcing answers and then handing them over to the police, just so Bats wouldn't eat their brains with a spoon, was part of the plan.

"Show yourself, I can feel your presence! - The masked man shouted when all the bystanders had cleared out, and he was looking directly at us, despite the concealment charms.

Damn, that's bad. I don't fully understand the motives of this creature, and my memory doesn't remind me of such a "hero" from the DC Universe to estimate the degree of danger and predict further actions. Although here everything can be written off to the fact that I was not particularly fond of comics, and the masked man himself is hardly a popular character, despite the funny trick with cutting off heads. The only strange thing is that he can only sense one, but it could be the stone skin or the large amount of energy scattered in space clogging up perception.

"My patience is running out."

The masked man made himself comfortable with his strange weapon.

In principle, he showed nothing supernatural, except for abnormal strength and sneaking skills. The biggest fear is only a strange aura, but the elemental in the amulet will make even a powerful demon retreat, not to mention a strange demonic zombie. Besides, let's not forget about such a character as Etrigan. A natural demon from Hell, who stands on the side of good, despite his nature. There could very well be something similar here.

"Don't boil, we're coming out."

Leaving their hiding place and walking a little on the crunchy snow, where the corpses devoid of demonic energy were already beginning to slowly decompose, our awesome duo stopped in front of the surprised man. Here's the real deal. During our little promenade, the tense posture had changed to a confused one, and even the fishing line clutched in his hands no longer looked threatening. I'm sure if he hadn't been wearing the creepy mask, I'd have been able to admire his sagging jaw for sure.

"Hello? - I decided to be the first to break the long silence.

"You, you're the Joker! And... And Harley! - his voice, more suited to a young man, had become a little higher, and now evoked the obvious associations with an enthusiastic teenager who had met an idol.

"Ha-ha-ha, you got it. What's your name?

"Simon, Simon Dark."

"Nice to meet you. Oh, just one second."

As I got closer, I noticed that the one-eyed man was still alive! At least, there was still demonic energy circulating in the severed head, reminiscent of the one in the eye, and there were no signs of decomposition, unlike the other dead possessed. Naturally, I rushed to correct the misunderstanding.

The head of the fanatics managed to sense something, opening his closed eye to see the bat approaching.

~Schmuck~

With a slurping sound, the weapon successfully crushed the skull, spilling its contents.

"I activated my true sight once more, making sure he was definitely dead now. The dark red haze inside the body had almost solidified to resemble molasses, and the remains were instantly decomposing, as if the corpse had been in a hot climate for months. I didn't want to let such a creature live, or I didn't know what kind of last chance magic it knew. I activated a simple spell to remove the stench."

"You... You killed him! - Simon bounced to the side.

"In case you're not aware, normal people without heads can't live either," Harley remarked.

"Is that so? - Our new acquaintance slumped, staring at his black-gloved hands. "But I'm… I've just recently…"

"Simon, buddy!" I hurried to put my arm around the guy, seeing that he was about to become hysterical.

He thought people with their heads cut off just sleep?! Hmm, or it has something to do with his own abilities. There's a reason he reeks of death emanations. Zombies can easily exist as a single body without arms and legs. With the head is more difficult, because it is usually located in it controls, but if you want, they can always be transferred to the main body, just most of the blacksmiths prefer not to bother and act according to the instructions.

"You did the right thing. These aren't people, they're possessed! You know what I mean? Literally meat puppets ruled by demons. Look at them, without magic, they're literally decaying pieces of flesh," I pointed at the blackened remains of the one-eyed man.

"I thought they could be put back together," Simon snickered, and his voice changed subtly again.

"Well, sometimes it works. Have you heard of Superman? You know, Superman. His heart was literally chopped into two halves, but nothing, I just put them back together with magic, and now he's alive and well. Flying around, saving people, catching criminals," I explained, waving my free hand emotionally.

"You put it together with magic? No needle and thread?"

"Yep."

Simon was silent. I didn't want to pry, but instead offered to help me get rid of the bodies, hoping to find out where he'd gotten his good looks from, and why he'd had such a strange reaction to Harley and me, as if we were his idols. It was nice, of course, but a little unsettling.

It was a good thing that, having gained access to the library of Shadow Peak after Zee's disappearance, my faithful companion and I studied not only the areas we were interested in, but also tried to photograph as many books on the various schools of magic as possible. Thus my tablet turned into a kind of analog of a reference book for a novice magician. Why not a grimoire or at least a journeyman's handbook? So grimoire is not just a book with information, but also a mediator, with the help of which you can create and modify some charms, and convenient search, due to the presence of pseudo-mind, no one canceled. And since we had photos at our disposal, we had to look for them almost manually, but our excellent memory could tell us if there was a necessary weave in the footage. As for the second part of the question, the problem is that only the initial spells can be written in two-dimensional form, while the fireball with an air elemental capsule inside, designed to strengthen the flame, and the function of homing, already uses three-dimensional form. The complexity only increases further, and the weave recording becomes multi-layered, requiring true vision to be able to study it in its entirety. And when you remember that some ancient volumes require a number of conditions to be met in order to open them, it becomes quite sad.

In short, before we managed to bury the decomposing corpses in the cemetery near the ruins of the church, I had to do a little digging in my tablet in search of a suitable "burial technique", which did not go unnoticed by our new acquaintance. And there word for word and now we are shown the entrance to the secret shelter, which all this time was right behind the altar. The most curious thing is that here was used some kind of masking charms, fueled by the mana of death. And before the demonstration of the passage, strange symbols that looked like wriggling tentacles, which gave me a headache, managed to work even on me and Harley. And we had searched the ruins quite thoroughly, but we couldn't see the huge slab covering the descent into the catacombs.

Yeah. What kind of church that burned down under mysterious circumstances, built in a time when Gotham was full of mystical cults, could do without that detail? And during the search, I was surprised that there wasn't even room for a basement. Though it could have been the energy of death, which clogged my perception and made me feel a little uncomfortable.

After a short walk through the gloomy tunnels, Simon led us to his dwelling, which looked like an inhabited crypt. A large rectangular slab on the far wall held a time-worn mattress, a bookshelf with a selection of fiction, a stack of newspapers, and a couple of cans of canned food, a comfortable brown leather armchair in another corner, and a floor lamp lit the whole place, plugged into an extension cord sticking out of the wall, which was a little out of place. There was even a black cat, which greeted us by rubbing against our legs, and immediately regretted it, as it fell into the clutches of my beauty companion.

"Make yourself at home," the boy said uncertainly, trying not to squint at Harley, who pets cat.

"Huh, you don't have to be so embarrassed," I clapped him on the shoulder. "It's quite nice in here. It's warm, dry, light, and the cloaking spells at the entrance are really nice."

"I don't remember who installed them and didn't know they were available at all..."

"Whatever, we'll figure it out later, now let's look at your problem."

So, while cleaning up the bodies and covering my tracks, I managed to get our unexpected acquaintance to talk. The demonstration of magic and the fact that Simon was aware of the latest events and my contribution to saving the planet from an alien invasion played a role. For once, the official news media didn't make up their own stories and reported the attack clearly enough to reassure the citizens. The latter, by the way, did not panic so much, quickly returning to their usual lives and trying not to notice the black towers standing here and there.

Simon was not a human, but he was a metahuman, a revenant, or even a demon. In fact, he is at once nineteen young people, united by science and magic in one body and have a common mind, no matter how strange the latter fact sounds. He's also a bit of a mortal, since he can actually sew a lost limb back on and it will function without any problems, and he's also a bit of a demon, judging by the small red-black flecks of energy near his heart. In short, a kind of Jeepers-Creepers or Frankenstein's monster with very good tactical and technical characteristics. By the way, the latter comparison was supported by the fact that Simon's body was naturally made of different pieces.

Another peculiarity of the undead guy was his head transformation, because of which he preferred to wear a creepy mask, despite the fact that he didn't care about anonymity. It's real, you talk to a blond guy, about seventeen years old, and then bang, and in front of you is a natural redhead guy with puff cheeks. At such moments, given the strange clothes of the villain from horror movies and hovering around the mana of death, even I get a little uncomfortable. What to say about the civilians, who are afraid of everything unusual and prefer to see in front of them an ordinary man in the mask of a maniac-psychopath, rather than a magical chimera. At least, that's the only way I can explain Simon's desire to use such an image instead of some motorcycle helmet or carnival mask.

And as a bonus, the guy had amnesia, so he's not aware of his past or how he ended up in this place. Only the images that come in his dreams help him shed a little light on his own origins, like the number of souls he's sacrificed. So he likes to sleep a lot, and his last dream took him almost a whole year to complete. All in all, there's nothing strange about the new acquaintance being almost unknown to the general public.

But let's get back to the problem for which we were taken to the secret hideout. Simon has a very negative attitude towards cutting and stabbing objects, including needles, and, by the way, this is one of the reasons why he uses string as his main weapon. His body is not rotting, but the numerous scars held in place by the coarse threads are a constant presence, so it was my job to carefully remove them all. This, of course, was not without its difficulties. The sun boy had some abnormal vulnerability to magical manifestations, while the chimera's aura strongly resisted interference from the outside.

After several experiments, a dozen drank diamonds and almost an hour of time, I managed to remove only a small five centimeter scar on the patient's forearm.

It's a bit of a load, to be honest.

Simon understood my reaction perfectly well. He went from blond with sunken cheeks and blue eyes to his older, red-haired version, and he tried to jump up and run away, but I was quicker, slapping him.

"Ow," the mad blacksmith's creation once again changed its head, looking at me with a surprised and bewildered look.

"Calm down, just calm down, it's a long and energy-consuming procedure, but damn it, Simon, you've been in this place for years. Even if I took my time, it would take two years at worst to remove all the scars. Besides, there's another way I can help you."

"Really?" His voice was full of hope.

"Yes. I'll teach you the right spell and you can do it yourself! That way there's no rejection."

After some time, during which I had time to explain the basics and get into the student's head the general principles of weaving, Simon suddenly raised his head to the ceiling, warning me that someone was once again poking around the burned ruins. The unknown man did not try his luck and left rather quickly, and we also decided to call it a day, promising to visit the guy tomorrow night.

"What do you think?" I asked my faithful companion when the car left the church, following the beacon that tracked the movement of the escaped fanatics.

"Security guard."

"Hmm, I think so, too. Strong, fast, virtually invulnerable, senses another's presence..."

"Doesn't require a paycheck, long-lived, food and water is only needed as an imitation, or his metabolism is much lower than the average person," the girl continued my thought.

"That's right. And if there is a guard, it means that there is something hidden nearby that he is guarding, and it is hardly a trivial treasure, given the abundance of magical manifestations."