Chapter 38: Deicide
Victor scrambled away from the monster as it recovered and took a couple feeble swipes at him with its tentacles. Julia was sprinting forward towards him when she saw Chuck's broken body not far from the monster's path. Almost skidding to a halt she regained her momentum before she tripped again. Gritting her teeth in fury she badly wanted to feel Sunderland's facial muscles give way under her hands. Ignoring the moisture gathering in the corners of her eyes she made to Victor who had his eyes locked on the fleshy cube. Tapping his shoulder he whirled to see her and his wild expression softened when he saw who it was.
"Where's Chuck!?" he yelled and she shook her head back and forth with an angry, saddened grimace. The knight's often stoic countencence flashed in rage almost to the point of frenzy. Reaching behind him he tore two more of the spikes from his harness and pointed with one at the cube. "We bring that fucking thing down!" he shouted.
"What's the plan!?"
"Stab it!" he bellowed and turned to let the harness face her. Taking two of the fairly light bones spikes out the pilgrim wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. The monster had recovered and its tentacles were ready for them as Victor psyched himself up to assault it again. "For Charles Taylor!" he roared as he decided on the moment to charge and Julia almost followed him before realizing she was nowhere near as well protected as he was. Exercising more caution she ran around to the creature's side but had to cut through a few mannequins that made it past its black tendrils. She was no sword fighter but the spikes took off entire limbs when she hacked forward with the blades. Whether by the sharpness and quality of her weaponry or her enhanced strength she easily took them apart to open a lane to her target.
The cube thing was incensed at the pain it had been caused and picked up its pace moving ahead. Its many tentacles formed a formidable gauntlet that snatched up or dealt crushing blows to whatever was in its range and even the mannequin horde streaming by gave it as width a berth as possible. Julia had to put out of her mind what a direct hit would do to her and look for a moment when some of the tentacles were busy. It picked up a battering ram that lumbered to close and four appendages tore it to pieces so the pilgrim chose then to make her move.
One of the thick tendrils rose up and tried to slam down on her but she veered to the left before it hit. She felt the whoosh of air on her face it slapped down so close and she tripped up her feet just slightly. Pitching forward awkwardly she used the spike in her left hand like a ski pole and righted herself as she closed in on the cube. It dropped its frame to the ground from the seven feet or so in the air it rested and she was rattled when it hit cave floor with earthquake force. Unable to stop herself in time she ran into the five foot thick frame shoulder first and lost one of the spikes when she bounced off the rusted metal.
It was now blocking her path to its flesh and she reached up to grip onto the frame. When it pulled the cube back up she was hoisted bodily into the air and kept a vice like grip on the warm beam. Above her the tentacles attacked other prey and she silently begged that to remain so. Its mottled mass was just a couple feet past the frame and she swung herself up with a burst of energy to stab at it with her remaining spike. It screamed again and shook the frame so hard that she lost her grip and fell backward to the hard stone floor.
Shaking the stars from her vision with her head pounding from the sheer vibration of the creature's howl Julia pushed herself up and crawled towards the spikes she had lost. It was only a few feet away and getting a hand on it she forced herself up with it as a crutch. Doggedly going back to she scurried under the frame and tried to make sure she was clear if it dropped the cube again. There was a scant foot or so in between the reddish brown framework and the grotesque creature's slimy foot that she would have to hope would be enough room. Impaling the moist, slug like pad with the inscribed spike she stayed as close to it as she dared while covering her ears. It howled again and dropped the frame to make her fall onto its slimy foot with the impact. It was soft but smelled like rotting ammonia and she pushed herself away from its disgusting skin angrily. Trapped for a few moments it lifted the frame again and Julia bolted towards freedom. Trying to get distance in between her and the cube she bounded over a body just before a thunderbolt hit her from the side. She felt something make contact just before she blacked out.
The pilgrim woke up in a pool of blood among a pile on mannequin bodies. It hurt to breath and entire right side of her body was throbbing in pain. She wanted nothing more than to take a nap but it was not over. Her muscles refused to work without a fight and she sat up in a daze. Her hair was soaked with God knew what and it clung to her beat up face in clumps. Everything reeked of coppery blood as she blinked to reorient herself.
The cube monster was still moving but it had slowed to a crawl and many of its tentacles lay inert on the ground. Two of them though had Victor high in the air and he valiantly stabbed a white spike through one of them. The monster howled as the tentacle fell but the remaining one threw the knight down at the unforgiving floor.
"Nuh...nooooou..." her bruised brain sputtered and she haphazardly crawled on the bodies towards him. Somehow making it to her feet she tried to run to him but could barely shuffle she was so injured. The pilgrim could only watch as the monster focused a half dozen of its working tentacles to attack her green armored man with vicious slams. She heard his armor crack under heavy, direct attacks and Julia moaned as she tried to teeter faster towards him.
When the tentacles pulled back Victor's body was bloody and his armor shattered. Incredibly he was still moving and sat up with one spike left in his harness. Twisting to get to his knees he made it to his feet as his armor fell apart in large fragments. The monster screamed at him and with one hopping step and a mighty effort he threw the last spike at it. Spinning through the air it struck true just above the frame and the cubed monstrosity shuddered. The cube fell again along with the rest of the creature's tentacles and they flopped in death throes. The writhing bodies in the center groaned one last time before they too stopped and the great beast finally came to a halt.
A great cheer went up from what was left of Nothing's forces and Julia looked around to see that there weren't many left. The mannequins themselves were rendered inert as if they had been inanimate all along. The Nowherites stampeded back into the hole from which they came and at last it closed up to revert back into an ordinary cave wall. The pilgrim's brain could barely work as she witnessed the insane and impossible.
Julia hobbled the rest of the way to Victor who was watching the creature die. "Vuh...Vic!" she stammered and he turned his head slowly towards her. His helmet had been cracked and his face lacerated multiple times as blood streamed down his features. The monster had inflicted frightful injuries on the knight and hit him so hard that not only did his armor break but some of it actually had been caved inward to pierce his skin. She had no idea how he was still standing let alone able to act.
"Jewel." he croaked.
"We did it...we won." she said tiredly.
"Huhnnngg..." he blurted and started to fall backwards. Julia tried to catch him but did not have the strength to stop his inertia. They hit the ground together and Julia nearly cried out from the pain. "Vic...Victor..." she rasped as she pulled herself closer to him. He lifted his hand to her wet hair and breathed out hard.
"Julia Stormson...Jewel..." he got out. "Finish this...put him down..."
"No! I'm going to...I have to save you..." she cried.
He was wheezing hard and his chest was rising slowly but his gaze was locked on her. "I can't...Jewel...I'm departing..." he strained and she started to cry. Hunching forward she bawled and kissed his dirty, bloody face. Her tears fell like warm rain drops and carved out tiny clean streaks on the dying knight's face. She almost fainted on top of him she was in so much misery.
"I...I will never leave you..." he promised as she whimpered just above him. His eyes, beautiful, dark, were not afraid or sad and through blurred vision she could see that they never left her. "I will be a ghost...in this holy land...following you forever."
"No! No! Not like this! Anything but this!" she pleaded miserably.
"Don't...don't cry Jewel..." he whispered hard and his words were becoming more strained by the second. "Everyone dies...you made me...alive...in the first..."
"I'm going with with you. Do you hear me? I can't do this by myself. We'll be...right here, just like this."
"Nnnuhh...live...I..." his chest gurgled and Julia's heart almost stopped. Drawing in a hissing, bubbling breath Victor he fought to speak. "Jjjjewel..." he forced the air out. "...love you...see...gin...again...I..."
His chest fell and it did not rise again. The knight's grip on her relaxed and Julia stared at his face in near catatonic shock. The knight's eyes were still on her but the light had faded from them. Wrapping her arms around his mangled body the pilgrim screamed herself hoarse.
Voices caught her ear and looking up through a haze of despair she saw that the two ghosts were the last ones standing. "Sssunderland!" she rasped with a guttural hatred. Gently closing Victor's open eyes she whipped her head around to find Chuck's corpse in the crowd.
Floored by the attacks on his true body Sunderland was pinned to the ground by Nothing's knee while his daggers opened grievous wounds for every second that passed. The spears had temporarily stunned him but in that short time the vengeful Fater had opened dozens of wounds that would have killed a human. He was not, however, human anymore and as he recovered he put up a hand to push his adversary off him. Latching onto it the black clad shade ripped a dagger through his wrist and nearly severed the hand off completely.
Using his functioning arm he threw Nothing off and scooted back to get to his feet as his left hand spurted blood. The blonde spirit could not move his fingers as his hand was barely attached and he snatched his knife up. Each step he took left a small puddle of red vitals and he could not believe that he was so close to losing after everything he'd gone through to bring his spouse back to life.
"Any last words?" Nothing asked confidently as he strode forward. Grazed, cut and hit with glancing blows the enemy was losing ink but Sunderland had not managed to land a single direct attack that would have tilted the odds in his favor. The moments of fleeting paralysis his Sacraments had caused simply gave the Fater too much time to work.
"I'm not done yet." Sunderland promised. Backing up he hit the column he spent much of his time perched on. He had to draw his enemy in instead of letting him use his speed and admittedly superior combat experience. "You can't kill me, not here."
"Oh, but I can, James Sunderland. It is I you cannot hope to defeat no matter how many times you strike me down." Nothing gesticulated grandly.
Sunderland tensed and when the Fater leapt at him with his blades in the air the blonde shade acted. Slipping to the side he brought up the flat of the knife to hit Nothing in the back when he chipped the stone column with his daggers. Reacting far too quickly the demon spun around just as Sunderland caught him in the stomach with the tip of his knife and lifted the hated Fater into the air. Pouring every ounce of strength he had into this one movement Sunderland drove the knife through his opponent and into the column.
The other shade coughed black ichor onto the knife as he struggled to free himself. Fastened like a bug to a wall impaled by a nail he was doomed but would not accept it. "That...is what you get." Sunderland breathed hard and clutched his flapping hand. "Now you die."
Grinning with ink in his mouth and a stream of it running down the column the Fater ground out, "You think I am done? You know naught of the ways of the misty land."
"How about I cut your head off? Bet that's a good place to start."
Movement to the right caught Sunderland's eye and he jerked over to see the last Sacrament coming towards him. She was ashen faced, completely soaked in blood from head to toe, beaten up and barely able to walk at more than a limp towards him. He was well worn himself but still more than a match for a single human.
"Mother Reborn..." he nodded. "At last."
"No!" the Fater gasped from where he was mounted on the column. "Julia, run!"
The woman did not listen and continued towards them over the bodies in the way. He bare feet left five toed, red prints on the parts of the floor that were not already shallow pools themselves and he could almost smell her breath from here.
"Come to me." Sunderland urged. "Let us end this once and for all. No more distress, no more struggle."
She did not react to his words but did not stop walking either. When she was ten feet away she brought out from behind her back a rather ordinary looking revolver. He had to marvel at the thought that he could be stopped now by a few bullets.
"Huh." he said thoughtfully. "Do you-"
Raising the barrel she shot him in the chest. The slug tagged him and instead of barely feeling it the weight of the world followed the bullet. He was slammed to the ground by a force greater than anything he could have stopped or had felt before. An invisible weight ground him into the stone floor and squeezed blood out of his body like a sponge. It lasted only for a short time but it felt like an eternity to the shade.
As quickly as it came it was gone and Sunderland sat up in a stupor. Julia Stormson, so close had to only reach out and end her life, was waiting with the revolver pointed at him. He blinked as he tried to wrap his head around what just happened and she shot again. The effect repeated and he could barely think as whatever force the gun summoned smeared him into the floor. Sunderland felt his insides compacting and when this one passed he coughed up blood. Rolling to his side he struggled to prop himself up with his good hand.
Stormson kicked it out and he collapsed back to the floor. Looking up at her he searched her impassive, implacable face and realized that she was purposely letting him recover. He tried to say something and she shot him in the throat at almost point blank range. He felt the bullet blast out the back of his neck just before the weight came again. Reduced to making bubbling, hissing sounds he could do nothing as she shot him again before the pressure had lifted. Doubling the effect Sunderland would have been shrieking if he could move a single muscle in his body. Spittle began to froth out of his lips and he mentally raged at the injustice being done to him.
The cruel Sacrament backed away until the pressure subsided. Sunderland breathed hard as his wits slowly returned. He sat up again and realized that she only had two bullets left. Gulping he gathered himself as she stared down at him. "You've only got...two more left...you'd better hope they'll do the job."
"Don't worry." she spoke with icy calm. "This last one is a doozy."
Rolling out the barrel of the revolver she adjusted it to what looked like a red bullet in the chamber. He felt something unholy in that small bullet and his eyes went wide. "Wait, hold on, mercy-"
She lined the barrel up with his eyes and Sunderland got out, "N-"
There was a flash and then nothingness.
Sunderland's head was a caved in mess of red mush. The Aglaophotis bullet had done its job killing that which was already dead. The spirit of the man in the green jacket was finally stamped out but the cost...the cost was too high. Looking over at the Fater she saw that he was still moving despite being run through by the horrid knife. Dropping the heavy revolver Julia grunted and shrieked as she tried to pull the gigantic blade out from the stone column but Sunderland's monstrous strength ensured that it was never coming out.
"Gyah! Ggh! Fuck! Come on!"
"Leave me..." Nothing breathed hard.
"No! You have to bring him back!" she cried. "Take my body, take my soul, I don't care! I'll do anything you want!"
"'Tis too late, sweetest of pilgrims, most glittering of Jewels..." the shade drawled and his voice was on the verge of cracking with emotion Julia did not think he was capable of.
"No! You can't die! I won't let you!" she howled.
Lifting a quivering hand sticky with his own tar colored blood he reached out to her and the distraught pilgrim abandoned her impossible task to clasp onto his palm with both of hers. The shade's grip, able to crush spines and bend steel, was weak but he still clung to her crimson hands with as much tenacity as he could.
"You...you have within yourself the power of the rebirth..." he uttered slowly.
"I don't understand!" she cried with intense grief distorting her features. "What do I do!?"
"The holy items...the Grail and the Words...they are close...take them from this place that they might not be misused again...use them..."
"How...how will they help...?"
"Brave leaf, unconquered, strongest of all of us...gucnk..." he hacked. Grimacing in mortal pain ink streamed out of his low hanging mouth and dribbled off his chin as he spoke. "You are...the sole survivor...I bequeath the misty land's care unto you...and you am become...hnnng...the heir of Jennifer Carroll..."
"I can't! I can't do it!" she bawled uncontrollably. "Not alone! Not without him! I'm not...I don't have the strength..."
"You must...nnnnhugh...there is...hngh...no one else." he strained to say. With great effort and floating pupils he whispered harshly, "Julia Stormson...it is in thee that all begins...and we will always be with you..."
His hand went limp in hers but she refused to give up. "You can't go!" she clenched her teeth while hot tears burned her eyes. "You can't because...I believe in you. I believe in you, Daniel Kewahqu. You'll never die as long as I'm still standing."
With a distant look on his face he smiled at her words but not the usual kind that made her cringe. It was a very human, exhausted, half-hearted one as if he'd been waiting for her to say exactly that but knew he would not live to enjoy it. When he spoke again his eyes were glossy and far away. "And the People wept in fear and joy at the reunion...but my faith in the salvation of Xuchilbara...still...hnngg...yet...huuukc...does not waver..."
Exhaling one last, long breath his torso and his forehead sank to rest on the top edge of the very knife that had killed him. Julia finally let him go and the Fater's hand swung lifelessly in the air. "No! No! Tower, can you hear me!? Someone, anyone, bring him back!" the pilgrim cried. "Bring him...bring them all back...don't leave me here alone..."
Staggering away from the column all her rage, sorrow and emotion threatened to overwhelm her. Her head was spinning, eyes puffy and red, nerves shot and drained. Yet in spite of her frayed condition she felt eyes on her back and the fractured woman slowly turned to see Pyramid Head standing some twenty feet behind her among the many bodies. Mute, immaculate, uncaring, it stared at her with its rusty blade hanging at its side.
In a state of trauma, hysteria and grief beyond anything she'd ever felt before the lone survivor of the battle approached the looming giant. Pulling off her heavily soiled gloves with her blood, Victor's blood and a hundred others staining them she threw gory knuckles to the side as she stepped on corpse after corpse. She would not run, not battle the demon after everything she had gone through. If it wanted her, it could have her. Coming to stand in front of the grotesquely muscled fiend no more than an arm's length away she was not afraid.
"Go on then." she dared it and tears rolled down her face though she could barely feel anything anymore. "Go on. Send me to Victor. I will not keep him waiting."
Folding her legs she knelt down in front of it and closed her eyes. In a strange way, this wasn't so bad. Almost everyone who had meant something to her was here with her now. Her only regret was that neither she nor the Fater would be able to keep up their end of their bargain. No matter. She had come back to Silent Hill like she promised. If she was able to meet her parents in the next life then she would ask them to forgive her.
It moved and she waited patiently for the death blow. Knife screeching against the floor as it walked the creature dragged itself away from her. Opening her eyes she watched in dismay as it left her there unharmed. She wasn't even worth killing and the knot of despair in her stomach grew a little tighter as bile rose in her throat.
Getting up she swiftly leapt over the dead to put herself in it's path. Waving her arms she said, "Hey! Asshole! I'm right here! What are you waiting for!?"
It jerked along and when it came to her she refused to move. With one hand it simply brushed her aside and sent the pilgrim tumbling away back to the floor. Outraged and hurt she sat up to glare at it incredulously. The monster awkwardly pulled itself to the headless body of Sunderland and dropped its heavy knife to the cave floor. Picking up the ghost's corpse with one arm it threw the mutilated flesh over its shoulder. Moving away towards the rear of the chamber it passed out of sight beyond the carved wall and Julia could take no more. Lowering herself back to the wet floor among the blood of the dead she curled into a ball and began to wail.