A/n's: Well, here it is. A long last. I…I don't even know what to say. I've gone around and around and back again about this thing and, well…not to repeat myself, but, here it is. I'm about a 1000% more anxious about this than I was about Devil's Left and I think that's mostly because I don't want to let anyone down. If I have, I apologize, but at the end of the day – I'm only human, and it's just a story.
As always, a couple of quick shout-outs: Sad little tiger, you've quickly become, like, my new best friend. You've made these past weeks so much easier to bear; thank you for your jokes and your time and your patience. And, of course, Beta. You've been there from the beginning, dealing with my childish meebling like a trooper, and yet, even knowing what you were getting into, happily signed on to see the sequel through.
Warnings: Sexual references. (OMG, no swearing!)
Disclaimers: The usual applies. Do not own, no profit made, please don't sue, etc. etc.
The Devil's Due
"'…The woman said to the serpent, 'but God did say, you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden...or you will die.'
'You will not surely die,' the serpent said to the woman. 'For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'"
-Obsessmuch, Eden
Chapter One
The High Priestess
"The High Priestess is the card of knowledge, instinctual, supernatural, secret knowledge. She holds scrolls of arcane knowledge that she might, or might not, reveal to you. 'I've a new idea,' say you, but what to do with that idea? This is the job of the High Priestess, to offer secret knowledge, insider knowledge, like the moon on a dark night, so that you can find your path."
-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot
She was sad.
Even if Mr. Bill hadn't said so, Sarah would have known. She knew these things.
She knew what it meant to be sad.
Sometimes, when it was dark and quiet and nobody was around…she was still sad. Sometimes, even though they'd been gone a long time and even though she was big girl enough to know it wouldn't bring them back, she still cried for Momma and Daddy.
And she'd bet her loose front tooth that the sad lady did too because she'd lost her Daddy - just like her; and that's what you did when you lost your Mommies and Daddies.
You were sad.
For a long time.
"The Two Little Orphans."
That's what the lady called the two of them when Sarah told her about Momma and Daddy. That's what she'd called them while she laughed and pretended not to cry.
"The Two Little Orphans."
That's what everyone else called the two of them when they sat together at dinner, when they read together at night, when Sarah would have nightmares and crawled into bed with her.
"The Two Little Orphans."
That's what they called themselves when they crossed their pinkies and promised to be friends forever.
Nothing would ever come between them-
-a crash, muffled by the floorboards, but still loud enough to startle, had Sarah jerking awake. Heart pounding, she stared, wide-eyed and
sightless into the heavy dark.
From below a voice floated up through the thin and aged wood. "Sssh! Be careful. Sarah's sleeping upstairs, you'll wake her!"
Too late.
"Sorry," came the soft, sheepish, reply, followed quickly by the scraping sound of whatever had been knocked over being righted once more.
While somebody laughed, and somebody called the knocker-over a name, Sarah pulled at her blanket, dragging it with her as she slipped from the bed and crept – quiet as a mouse – across the floor and out into the hall. At the top of the stairs, just beyond where the glow of the lanterns could reach, she hid, curling up with her blanket to listen.
They never let her stay for the meetings. Christy and Mr. Bill always sent her to bed…but she snuck out as often as she could to listen anyway.
"How's she doing?"
That'd be Claire Redfield, Sarah was certain. Claire was always asking that.
Getting there, she mouthed in time with Mr. Bill's response. As if she would ever be okay with it. As if she would ever understand why.
Why would she leave us? Why would she leave me? She promised! We pinky-swore!
Biting her lip, Sarah rubbed at the offending digit beneath the blanket as it tingled uncomfortably at the very thought; as if it too knew that the promise it had helped make had been broken.
While she chased her thoughts, the talk downstairs turned from her to "The Plans."
"New York," Jill Valentine was saying, smooth and even in time to gentle, crinkling noise.
Sarah imagined her smoothing out one of the old maps, frayed and torn, a pale finger tapping the city in question.
"He was re-establishing his command there. He wouldn't have gone anywhere else."
"That's a lot of ground to cover." Deep, authoritative….That was Leon Kennedy. Leon and his friend Barry Burton and their group of people had already been here - in this small, cold place - when they had passed overhead on their way to meet up with the rest of the Arcadia survivors. The plan had always been to regroup in Russia – the cold, Alice said, was bad for zombies – but finding them, Leon and the others, and that they were willing to share…that was lucky. (Luck we deserve, Mr. Bill had said, after everything...) "How do you propose we get there?"
"The jets?" Luther replied.
Luther West. Sarah liked him. Maybe more than anyone anymore. He was nice. He made her laugh.
And he never asked her how she was doing.
"Even if we had enough fuel to get there, they'd see us coming long before we ever got close."
Jill again. Sarah didn't know what to think about her. She tried to be friendly, tried to be nice, but her eyes…they were far away. Cold.
Scary.
They said she'd seen things, done things, that had changed her. Made her different.
Like her. She changed after him. He made her different.
But they told her different wasn't bad. Jill wasn't bad for being different….so why was she?
Shifting, Sarah tucked her chilled nose under the edge of the blanket, curling her toes into the cotton as she rubbed at her pinky again and listened on.
~.~
Albert Wesker was not, by nature, the celebratory type. Neither was he the type to take stock in plebeian traditions.
However….
This time, this moment….
He dug through the bottom most drawer in his desk, seeking the box of cigars – battered, forgotten, one corner slightly crushed – that he had found and dismissed upon his…borrowing…of New York living quarters a year prior.
Wrenching it free from underneath a stack of files, he nudged the drawer shut with his knee and squared the old red and brown box in front of him, popping the lid with a flick of long fingers. The cutter winked up at him, blades catching the low light and playing it back, and the scent - smoky tobacco leaves, aged rolling paper – had his nostrils flaring.
He could appreciate, at least, as he plucked one free and brought it to his nose, that the desk's previous owner had squirreled away the finest; and, admittedly, the knowledge that it could have been the very last box of Cubans on the planet only added to the pleasure.
Snipping the end of the cigar neatly, he pushed the others aside for the plastic lighter – a study in contrasts, expensive cigars, cheap lighter – and leaned back as his thumb stroked over the wheel, cigar tucked into the corner of his mouth.
The lighter hissed, sparked…and eventually spat a sliver of flame that he cupped around the end of the cigar, leaning back in his chair as it caught and smoke began to curl lazily around him.
To the future, he mused on the inhale.
To us, he promised on the exhale, smoke rings drifting from between his lips; neat little "o's" that expanded as they traveled across the room, dispersing into nothing more than hazy wisps of fragrance by the time they reached the bed...and the woman dozing in it.
He tapped the lighter against the arm of his chair, turning it slowly between his fingers as he silently smoked, puffing like the mythical dragon she'd once laughingly compared him to. His eyes played over her, retracing the limbs cast askew, the arch of the body pale and bare in the tangle of sheets, the sweeping fan of hair that was like a dark and gleaming crescent across his pillow.
His Diana of the Hunt...
She shifted sleepily, nose twitching - the unusual scent stealing into her dreams, no doubt - and with a soft, murmured sound, a hand slid across the mattress, seeking….
He didn't move. Didn't make a sound. But he felt it; a tell-tale heat, rising in his veins.
...My Eve.
The questing hand clenched, tightened...and then relaxed as her eyes - jade and bronze - blinked open. For a moment, a shuddered heartbeat, she stared at nothing, gaze distant and uncertain, then, dark and heavy-lidded, those eyes found him; locked with his own - scarlet and gold.
What color, he wondered, mind turning curiously at the possibilities, will our progeny wear?
Her mouth curved, her lips a sharp little bow, and the hand lifted to him.
"Come to bed," she murmured, sheets rustling as she shifted. Reached for him.
Beckoned.
Come hither, Adam.
His mouth mirrored the movement of hers, pulling upward around the cigar as he dragged at it, pulling another lungful – one last – of the heady smoke before stubbing it out.
Before he went to her, and she opened her arms to him - warm and welcoming, eager and strong.
Before he whispered her name at the pulse in her throat, and before she pulled at his clothes; her hands as desperate, as possessive, as the ones he ran over her.
Before they tangled together, entwining…like a pair of serpents in the shadow of Eden.
~.~
So they had been called, so they arrived. Alone or in groups, Umbrella's directors – they who survived – shimmered into existence around the great table.
From his place, Sergei Vladimir watched them appear. Watched how their slick, impassive faces slowly creased and frowned; how their eyes darted down the table's length to the chair at the end.
The one that sat, most conspicuously, empty.
He waited as their silent confusion broke into a soft buzzing, into whispers that hissed quickly, sharply, back and forth amongst them.
Where was he? (Busy with his whore no doubt!) Why had they been called? (Because it amused him to see how fast, how high, they would jump!) How dare he? (They were the best, the brightest – they could not be treated this way!)
Unable, unwilling, to contain it, his head fell back suddenly, barking with laughter; a baying hound hidden in their midst by a three piece suit.
"Say it loud, comrades," he told them as they stared, untenting his fingers to hold out his hands, palms up. "Do not fear. Tonight, we speak freely. Our malevolent Highness will not being joining us."
"Oh?" Across the table the slim, perfectly arched brow of Umbrella Romelifted. "And how can you say for certain?"
Excella Gionne: young, beautiful...vicious.
Sergei could see the hunger in her eyes as easily now as he had when she'd first taken her chair, slipping smug and easy, into the place of the prior director - whose tragic infection they'd never quite been able to explain.
She will be easy.
He smiled, cool and confident and amused. "Because he didn't call this meeting - I did."
More whispering. Quick glances shared around the table, and, to his right, Paris' Saunders leaning away, shifting delicately.
Coward.
It pained him, almost physically, to share an opinion with the Chairman.
"By what right does Director Moscow call upon us without the approval of our Chairman?" asked small, bespectacled Samuel Barns of South Africa, sitting stiff and straight in his chair.
Unfailing loyal, despite everything. Of course.
As expected, Barns would be hard won. But...if he could be swayed...the others would
fall into place like so many dominoes.
"Tell me, Mr. Barns, why should I - we - seek the approval of one as unworthy as he?"
Barns' head snapped back, color blooming in his face. "You dare-"
"Of course," Sergei interrupted, unmoved by the other man's indignation. "As should you. What has he done for us, this chairman?" He looked around the table, one face, one pair of eyes, at a time. "Even if we could forgive his tempers, his shameful waste of company resources, and the unholy hungers that make him no better than the very creatures we seek to destroy, we are still left to address the fact that even now, six long years after the fall of Raccoon we have made no progress on the cure. We are still trapped. We are still dying. And why? Because he has failed us. Time and time again."
"And you," spoke up Kenneth Maul, Director New York, for the first time. He was still pale, still twitchy - a muscle ticking oddly just beside his left eye - but had somehow found the nerve to speak.
Sergei took it as a good sign. A step in the right direction.
"You believe you can do better?"
"Yes." He saw no reason to beat around the bush. "I know what needs to be done and how to see it so. Stand with me, comrades. Free yourselves - free Umbrella - and we will finally take back what is ours."
Barns' stared, wild-eyed, but silent. Maul looked down at his hands, apparently absorbed in the way they twitched uncertainly. Gionne tipped her head, eyes dark and hungry.
It was, in the end, she that broke the silence.
"I call for a Vote of No Confidence in Chairman Albert Wesker."