Night Hospitaller

In the good old days, Arsene Clemente didn't hunt demons for a living. He had a proper nine-to-five gig right in the heart of Ortigas, and friends that can be considered relatively normal. He also used to be very poor, something that was true not only on a financial standpoint but on an equally sad emotional scale. Connections just weren't his thing. His aversion to commitment showed in his anemic following and the trail of jobs he'd slaughtered over the years.

But it all changed one fateful night, when he was approached by this woman from cyberpunk Westeros. As Arsene left the office, she stepped out of a limo parked next to his beat-up moped, juxtaposing not only its aesthetics, but the technological gap of three decades at bare minimum. The strawberry-blonde was a petite five-flatter, a detriment she nullified with disarming looks, air of prominence, and crowning posture of royalty. She also wore a dress that's worth twice of everything Arsene owned, and lugged around requisite beefcake bodyguards, who probably wrestled Tamaraws to entertain her.

"Mr. Clemente, do you have a minute?" the woman said in an almost local accent. Think Gal Gadot if Wonder Woman took nineteen years to make—in a purely Southeast Asian setting.

Arsene looked at the two suited brutes that now flanked him. "Do I have a choice?" he asked with shaky bravado. He tried desperately not to piss his pants, especially when the chauffer, who looked like he shat infinity stones, came out to join them.

"I promise that we mean you no harm—quite the contrary actually. Coffee?" She pointed to a café across the street. The place was teeming with customers—of living, breathing, insurance policies. The gesture at least hinted, "We are not the mafia, we're really just here to talk." Stranger danger was still in full effect though.

So Arsene concurred. It sure beat the alternative of getting manhandled into a seemingly bulletproof, heavily tinted vehicle. The woman then ordered her security detail to stay put, while the two of them sauntered off to the slightly safer company of caffeine enthusiasts and burned out call center agents.

The woman introduced herself as Clarinae Monikha Fray over cups of the promised coffee. She confided having hailed from Israel, and that she was chosen for the engagement because of her parentage. Her mother was full-blooded Filipina, meaning she spent a great portion of her life in the orient. Under bettered lighting, Arsene not only affirmed this through her mixed features, he also found out that she was definitely-maybe his type. Picture almond-shaped, starry eyes cropped out of the smoothest, milk tea complexion. Then add a mildly contoured nose that ended up in a pair of bubblegum lips. Now imagine the majority of local girls trying too hard to rub their morena features off, while the rest charred theirs with some harsh toner brand called pollution. Finally, try not to drool on your cappuccino like Arsene did with his.

"Have you ever wondered why you don't have a middle name?" Clarinae segued.

Arsene broke his reverie no less than three seconds later. "Come again?" he asked her back.

"Do you know what your middle name is?" She rephrased.

Arsene found himself reopening an age-old case file. The mystery of his non-existent title has been unfulfilled since forever. It proved even more problematic when he got into studying, where the faculty grew a habit of pestering him for it every year. Both his parents always found clever ways to distract whenever he brought it up, leading him to this painstaking ultimatum. He was taught never to keep a girl waiting, yet all he managed to do about it was grimace at the notion of his upbringing.

"It's okay," Clarinae assured him after a while. "It was your mother's choice to strip down the name—she wanted nothing to do with the family legacy."

"It must be quite the legacy," Arsene mused. "My mother is very emotional woman—it must have been difficult to cut ties like that." In hindsight, he didn't know anyone from his mother's side of the family, save for a trio of uncles who visited without fail during the Yuletide season. He didn't even know if his grandparents were still alive.

"Well, do you want to know?"

"Know what?"

"Your middle name."

"Okay…"

"It's Solomon," revealed Clarinae with such gusto, her noble bearing dislodged for a few moments. She waited for a matching reaction that never came, leading her to a sigh that would break the hearts of men.

"I'm sorry but I don't get it," Arsene told her. "It's not your fault or anything… I'm just not good with names. Is that name supposed to mean something, by the way?"

The glee in her eyes flared back almost instantly. "Seeing as how you're this clueless, it's going to take an overly long explanation. But long story short, the Solomon clan is one of the richest, most ancient lines in Israel, and before its patriarch died three months ago, he left the bulk of his estate to the most legitimate of his heirs." Clarinae dug her bag as she spoke, producing a manuscript the size of a J.K. Rowling afterthought. She placed it over the table, where it thudded loudly from weight alone.

Arsene maybe slow, but he was far from stupid. He had a good guess on what followed, but just had to confirm it, lest he embarrassed himself further. "That heir being me?" he mouthed as he examined the paperwork. There was this cryptic insignia cresting its front page. He didn't quite make sense of it, though he recognized the Star of David that made up most of the design. Then came the rest, peppered around it like toppings to uncooked dough: glyphs and odd letterings, altogether imagery evoking vague yet well-known suggestions about the Freemasons, Templars, and even the notorious Illuminati. "Is that the will for the inheritance?" he added.

"Quite," Clarinae indulged him. "It's also a contract, however…"

Mention of a contract caused Arsene to pipe down a bit. Contracts meant fine print inclusions and reading between lines, something a sane person wouldn't want mixed up with Masonic symbolisms. It seemed only right to raise another question. "Why would an inheritance require a contract?"

"Because a thirty-three billion dollar estate is all kinds of complicated, Mr. Clemente," She smiled victoriously. "We have to run some screening trials to ensure that you're the stipulated heir, trials that require your express permission—among other things."

The staggering amount in question cost Arsene the rest of his coffee, which he spilled even though he wasn't currently sipping on it. Apparently, he trembled enough to simulate the equivalent of a 4.2 magnitude earthquake native to their table. If Clarinae hadn't already finished hers, they'd be looking at a resulting tsunami of caramel espresso, and more attention a nouveau riche hopeful would ever want. In the following moments, he reclaimed some composure to at least fan him through. He palmed the contract/will and cleared his throat, trying to ignore the sound of billionaire-playboy-protagonist still ringing in his ear. "This is one thicc paperwork… We both know that I can't leaf through it in one sitting, and not especially in a public place like this. But all I really care about is if I'm going to have to sell my soul for this gig. So am I?"

Clarinae scoffed and looked like she fought the urge to roll her eyes. She was almost tempted to call him out for the cliché, but was ultimately sincere when she said, "No, of course not."

"Do I have to sacrifice someone? Or kill pets, animals—living things? Harvest organs?" Arsene kept at it.

"None of the above."

"Worship something? Join or lead a cult?"

"No and no."

Then Arsene v-turned to the opposite direction, hoping he was fast and furious enough to derail her. "What happens if I fail the trial?"

"Then you go home twenty million dollars richer," she said as if talking about some loose change. "At the end of the day, you are still a Solomon, eligible to a portion of the family's wealth."

"Do I at least get your number?" Arsene was surprised at his own audacity. He figured it better to do the hitting now, when he was still the questionable billionaire.

In response, Clarinae asked for his phone and smiled as she keyed in her personal line. "Are we good, Mr. Clemente?"

Twenty million is not a bad deal. Some would even argue it a decent asking price for the soul already, which this transaction didn't even broker. That kind of money would set someone like Arsene for life, throwing in some not-so-lofty prospects he had in store. After examining Clarinae's eyes a bit more (and relishing the allowance to note of their beauty), he took the pen attached to the document, flipped past both its old and new testaments, and readied his signature on a blank line footnoting Revelations. "Good enough for me." He smiled right back.

He was done writing his name in caps when Clarinae interrupted him. "There's no haste Mr. Clemente," she said, holding his hand with a mild but firm grip. "We'll return for the contract after three days and three nights. Whether or not you have signed it then, we'll either part ways or personally walk you through the proceedings. Take your time—we insist."

Maybe she thought it a further display of good faith. Maybe she was simply being professional. But for Arsene, signing up to make Donald Trump your bitch was something you don't sit around thinking over for. Regardless, he took Clarinae's advice and packed the will inside his duffle, making sure none of his other effects threatened its integrity. And this time, he accepted the offered ride to a homeward destination.