I rewrote this chapter in its entirity three times XD Sorry it took so long!
.
Valtiel's answer was shocking, and for a moment, no one said anything. Lauren looked up at walter in confusion, trying to get a sense of what was happening. Walter looked repulsed by the message he'd just relayed, and maybe even just a little bit angry. How could so many interrelated entities be at such cross-purposes with one another?
"Then... What do you want from us?" Travis asked.
Valtiel 'glanced' briefly at Walter, licked the air briefly, and then looked about the room and settled his attention on Kaufmann, who had finally gotten back to his feet and was quivering with timid awe. Relay my will to them.
Michael Kaufmann cringed but then nodded obediently as a slew of word and feeling oozed through his skull. He scratched fervently at his temple for a moment, closing his eyes. "The Yellow God..." Kaufmann began, triggering the others to look back at him. "He says the Butcher is already familiar the item he wants us to retrieve-" Then Michael blanched when he realized Valtiel was referring to Travis, and to sins either absolved or all-together imagined. He looked at Mr. Grady, who was wearing a sour expression.
"The 'Butcher'?" sputtered Douglas, unsure to what Kafumann was referring. "Why do you hear him now, wasn't the dead hobo good enough!?"
Kaufmann took a breath, steadying himself. "I am dead as well, Douglas Cartland, and perhaps less useful than Mr. Sullivan as I am incredibly vulnerable if I step out from this Lighthouse. Still, I can convey this message." He closed his eyes and tried to relate the message as truthfully as he could, losing himself in its meaning. "Lobsel-Vith bids us to recover Past, Future, Present, Truth, and Falsehood. He says we must discover them before the faithful do, that we may define them. If Xipe is permitted to assemble the trinity, it will become a cage for the Witch Queen. But if we command it into a triangle, we can protect us all from hell's temptations and through it forge a fire: a demonic weapon fit to unmake demons-"
"The hell are you-" Douglas sputtered at the opaque explanation.
"The Flauros," Travis interpreted flatly, looking back at Valtiel with a measure of surprise or respect. "He wants us to get to the Flauros before Edwin does. Does he know where it is?"
Valtiel nodded. Kaufmann furrowed his brow as the answers came to him. This time Douglas didn't protest Michael's translation, looking at Travis for guidance. "You know what he wants?" the detective asked more calmly. "What's it do?"
Travis shrugged, still regarding Valtiel. "Depends on who's holding it."
"I think I understand," Michael muttered aloud, then raised his voice. "He says Silent Hill herself has taken the Flauros and scattered it. The... Past is probably in the ruins of the old Gillespie house... Future is associated with rebirth and I think it's in a maternity ward... Present is in... in the city's little Art and Historical Museum."
"And the last two?" Travis prompted.
Kaufmann blanched. "He-he says the only way to find Falsehood is to sacrifice James Sunderland and the only way to find Truth will kill Henry."
"Bullshit." Douglas disagreed with any attempt to embark on party-slaying quests.
"He wishes to accompany you to guide you around these obstacles safely," Kaufmann quickly explained. "But if he does, Xipe will know."
"So we die so he can keep his cover?" the detective continued in an absurd tone.
"No," Walter answered in Michael's stead, amused by Douglas's pugnaciousness. "He just needs a volunteer. One of you lets him inside your head; then he can direct you from afar."
"Kaufmann's already got him talking in his head," Douglas snarled, but Walter just laughed.
"Kaufmann is dead and has very little power; Mother could easily cannibalize him at any moment. He's only safe in this Lighthouse because sister tampered with it. No, no... Whoever this volunteer is, it needs to be someone with a little more motive power than that. In fact, I think even dear Henry would do."
Douglas sneered in disgust and looked around at the other men. "If either of you volunteer for this I'm going to lose any respect I had for you," he told them. This time, Valtiel merely looked irritated with the detective.
"I'll do it," said Lauren, and every man in the room immediately spun towards her, Walter Sullivan included.
"Lauren!" Henry exclaimed, dearly hoping James Sunderland did not have the power to turn into a Pyramid Head and skewer them all, no matter how badly they let him down.
She shrugged, earning a curious head-tilt from Valtiel. "What? I'll do it. You just need someone to act as your phone line to us," she asked the god, "right?"
Valtiel nodded, and Lauren stepped forward.
"Fine then, I will do it."
"No. No you will not." The words rocketed viciously across the room in a sharp and poignant hiss. Remarkably, the speaker was not an oncoming James Sunderland, Heather Mason, or either of the protective old men who were already occupying the room. As Lauren moved towards Valtiel, Walter Sullivan seized her by the arm and dragged her backwards, stepping between her and the god with his considerable height and glaring down fiercely at the blonde woman.
"But-"
"You. Will. Not." repeated Sullivan in a whisper so powerful it filled the room, and he seized her shoulders and squeezed to force her gaze to his. Lauren frowned in confusion and Valtiel gave an inquisitive gurgle. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Walter stood up straight and looked back towards the assembled men, his fellow ghost, and lastly at the god. One of his hands dripped free of Lauren's shoulder and clenched into a fist. "... I will," he decided, light colored eyes staring piercingly at the deity. "I will go with them. I can endure Silent Hill for that long and I will relay your instructions faithfully."
Valtiel made a baffled noise that twisted subtly into amusement.
"How do we know we can trust you?" Travis asked Walter, and Douglas harrumphed in agreement.
Sullivan glanced at the two men. "I suppose you'd rather turn on the evening news late one Saturday night and see Ms. Sunderland being carted off by the police, covered in blood, screaming the Devil made her do it?" Lauren winced. Valtiel yowled in displeasure. Henry cleared his throat.
"It'll have to do," Henry said softly. "Walter helped us more than once and that has to count for something."
Lauren looked at Water in baffled confusion. Then she looked at Valtiel and frowned. "Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," Lauren protested, remembering something that ought to have been obvious to everyone. "Hold on, time out, wait a second. You guys were just in a huge hour long psychological debate over him just a second ago!" She suddenly stepped forward, elbowing her way past Walter who grabbed at her but did not pull her back behind him. Valtiel seemed confused and looked down at her.
"You!" she accused the deity. "You're the reason Walter says Heather's doomed! He came and told everyone that the reason she'd never get out alive is because she couldn't stay focused on Edwin; the real reason she was still here was she wanted to save you!"
Valtiel perked up in surprise, 'staring' down at Lauren in amazement. She kept talking:
"-And Walter went on this big discussion about how that was impossible, how you didn't really exist. There was something about puppets and angry gods and dolls and demons and hell I don't even really know what else because this place is weird and I can tell no one has the slightest clue what's going on half the time anyway. The point is, I still remember what we were talking about a minute ago: we were talking about whether Heather was crazy or sane to keep trying to find a way to get you to remember her. Well you remember her, don't you? Jesus, she's like falling apart she wants that so badly- why are you avoiding her!?"
Valtiel visibly cringed, and turned his face up towards the Lighthouse staircase. A soft and yearning croon escaped him, a bizarre noise that unsettled and confused nearly everyone in the room. Lauren frowned at the monstrous entity.
"Heather must not learn I- he- he was here," Kaufmann said prohibitively, and it was clear the strain of being used as Valtiel's mouthpiece was starting to overwhelm him. "To be brief and to put things simply: Xipe. He must avoid her for now, and help from afar."
"Well- well- what happened?" Lauren protested the lack of reunion. "You remember her! How?
Valtiel looked slowly back down at them, then shifted his posture. He slipped his fingers into one of his boots, and drew out a familiar bundle of folded papers. "These were clever," Kaufmann said for him.
At that, Douglass really did stare. Travis glanced at Henry in surprise; Henry beamed radiantly. They looked back at Valtiel and for perhaps the first time it occurred to them that they might genuinely have the wrong idea about what sort of creature they were dealing with. The doctor looked up at them as Valtiel tucked the papers carefully away. "He begs us to watch Xuchibara closely.'
"Why?" Lauren asked, surprised out of her thoughts. "I-I mean... you know, aside from the obvious reasons."
"He says Xuchibara is Xipe's enemy," Kaufmann explained. That does not make him our friend. Or Heather's."
"So he's going to hurt her? Betray her?" Lauren pressed.
"He is a demon of Punishment and Justice," Kaufmann answered softly, eyes slightly glazed. "His presence here is not entirely understood, and his future actions cannot be foreseen. Perhaps he will bring down fire on those who murdered the Mother's consort; perhaps he will seek to unmake the Mother herself for witchcraft. He is a terrifying unknown. Watch him closely."
"Shouldn't we just kill the monster and be done with it?" Douglas argued.
"Even if you could, what good would it do you?" Kaufmann continued, his voice calm. "He would be reborn with the next descent of paradise which, given the current state of things, occurs every evening promptly at nightfall. And if his intentions are uncertain now, they would be easy to guess in the event that you'd once killed his flesh. You should also recall this Lighthouse cannot keep him out; the Demon goes where he pleases."
Douglas shifted, not having realized or considered this.
"Rest assured, there is no one who wishes to kill the Red Avatar greater than I, except, perhaps, Xipe," Kaufmann continued on Valtiel's behalf. "And that 'except' is significant to us all. I must go. Take care of her."
"Wait!" Lauren exclaimed, earning a perplexed glance from Walter and from almost everyone else in the room. She blinked at their stares and then looked at Valtiel. "... Does Xipe have an anglicized name?" she asked.
Kaufmann blinked dumbly for a moment. "Pardon?"
"An anglicized name... An Abrahamic name? You know... Er... Lobsel-Vith, Valtiel. Xuchibara, Samael... Xipe...?"
Travis furrowed his brow and shook his head incredulously. "What? Kid, what's it matter what she's called? Those are pretty cult names stolen from other religions to cover up the truth of things anyway."
Valtiel frowned, baffled by the question for a moment. He looked down at his hands and tasted the air, glanced up at the ceiling, and then finally looked back at Lauren.
"Akrasiel," Kaufmann answered quietly. "Her name is Akrasiel."
Then they heard above them the creaking of bed springs and the low rumble of a familiar Red Wrath. Valtiel glanced upward and then stepped backwards, straight into the mirror behind him. He slipped through it as effortlessly as if it were an open door to another room. The glass clouded up with his passing, and within seconds he was gone from view.
Kaufmann wavered and then sunk to his knees, clutching at his head. Travis and Douglas both relaxed considerably, while Henry beamed at a mobile phone he was holding. "Finally," the quiet man murmured, flicking through his new photographs with a happy little smile.
Lauren looked at all of these men and then looked up at Walter Sullivan, who was still clutching tightly at her shoulder. "Hey," she said slowly, reaching up to put a hand on his arm. "Are you okay?" she asked him. Walter tilted his head to the side and said nothing. Instead he regarded her quietly for a long time; so long it made her shift and twitch awkwardly. Douglas nudged Henry, who managed to look up from his new photos of Valtiel just long enough to realize that a certain undead cultist was gazing intently at James Sunderland's daughter, and that he probably ought to be worried. "Is there something on my face?" Lauren asked at last, bewildered.
Walter stared at her a moment longer before looked behind him and considering both Henry and Travis. Then he looked back at Lauren. "This family," he noted as he released her shoulder and moved to step around her, "sets an interesting precedent for showing kindness to monsters. You fit right in, Miss Sunderland."
"Wait, where are you going?" Lauren queried. "You're sure you really are healed?"
"I'll be around," Walter told her, his voice somewhat sardonic. As she watched, rust and ash drifted up around him. "Though not close enough to make the big angry brute upstairs nervous." Then with a rush of ash he had simply vanished.
"... I was in the middle of talking to you!" Lauren exclaimed to the air. "Bull. That's starting to get annoying."
When Heather Mason got down the Lighthouse stairs for the day, it was an hour past noon. A number of her family members were talking conspiratorially with one another in the atrium. She smiled, still scarcely believing they were with her and that they were safe. Behind her, she heard an annoyed grumble as her gargantuan monster once more attempted to negotiate the staircase.
"Watch your head," she called helpfully up behind her, earning a return growl. At the sound of her voice, Douglas turned about and then stood and quickly came up to her. The others each paused in what they were doing to look her way. "You want some help?" she called up to Samael. 'Down' did not appear to be his best direction. The irritated grumble he gave her in response made her laugh.
"Heather," the old detective murmured in relief as he reached her side, hesitating a moment before coming forward the last step and hugging her. "How you feeling?"
Heather chuckled and hugged back warmly. "My arm wants to detach from my body and run away," she joked.
"Mmh," the old man grunted, pulling back from her. "You should have Lauren and the others take a look at it then." There was a heavy thud from the staircase as the monster managed to lower himself by one more step. Douglas looked up in its direction, though he couldn't see it just yet. "What are we supposed to do about that thing?"
"Try not to piss him off?" Heather suggested.
"Mmph, noted," the detective agreed as he took her arm and gently led her towards the kitchen table for breakfast. Now that Valtiel had explained the monster would simply be resurrected if they killed it, he realized they had to be careful around the monster and hope it remained friendly for as long as possible. "But there has to be a way to put it down for good."
A rush of panic fluttered through the Mason girl's stomach and she looked worriedly at the detective. "Douglas?" He didn't immediately look at her, still glaring back behind them at the staircase. "Uncle." That got his attention. "You're focusing on the wrong Silent Hill monster," she told him. "I need Xipe dead, not him."
"Heather, that thing is going to kill you. It is dangerous."
"Jesus holy fuck is he dangerous," she agreed. "He chewed through a church full of armed cultists like they were shooting out bubbles instead of bullets; cleaved them open like warm, strawberry-filled poptarts!"
"And you're not focusing on killing it?" he asked her, remembering Valtiel's warning. "Heath, why?"
"He's helping me," she pointed out, irritated.
"It's going to kill you!" Douglass protested, and wished he could tell her about Valtiel. She'd been right and he'd been wrong and now he wasn't even allowed to admit it. Plus that was the monster she really wanted near her, not this thing; she deserved to know Valtiel was alright. "You talk about keeping us out of danger and you want to walk out there with that thing like it's some kind of protector? Well it's not, Heather. It's not even on your side. We are. We are your friends, and you need to talk to us so we can help you get out of this place alive!"
Heather was starting to get irritated at how little progress she was seeing Douglas's acceptance of this whole situation. She of course was not aware that he'd just come to terms with Valtiel. All that worry and frustration had to transfer over to something. "First of all," she growled, "he is not an 'it.' Literally. You're welcome to sneak a peek up his skirts if you doubt me."
Douglas made a disturbed face and Lauren perked up from where she was working her way through a shaved turkey sandwich Lisa had made for her. "Wait, what now?"
"Second of all-"
"How big?" Lauren asked, whirling about and grabbing on to the back of the cult, looking at Heather wide wide and curious eyes.
"Lauren!" James exclaimed in horror from where he'd joined Travis, Henry and the others. They'd been planning out their illicit escape from the Lighthouse and how they planned to track down the Flauros pieces. Heather looked at the girl incredulously while Douglas resorted to a face palm and Travis merely sighed.
"What?" Lauren complained. "I was just curious! Oh come on, don't you think I've seen all the beach ball-sized breasts in that bestiary you guys have? You're trying to tell me you didn't get a little excited once or twice? I saw those ladies Heather drew in the bestiary for her experience, detective; you can't tell me that monster came from her psychology."
"It's a personification of rape," Travis tried to explain as Douglas turned a funny maroon shade and Heather wondered aloud ("Oh, so that's why I saw them..."). Lauren laughed.
"So?" she asked as if Travis's concerns were absurd. "I don't want to have sex with him, are you crazy? He's the size of a horse, he'd rip a person in half! But why shouldn't I admire a living Statue of Hercules when it walks by?"
"This conversation has gone on long enough," Heather decided. "Alright, everyone, it's early. I want my breakfast. I want to hug all of you and ask you how you've been and yell at you for being willing to endanger yourselves and all that great stuff. But seeing as I'm going to get accosted at every turn on account of this brute," she continued, jerking her thumb at where the Pyramid Monster was finally getting down the last few steps of the staircase, "let me set down some groundwork first-"
Samael could smell Valtiel, and that made his shoulders rise. He gave a short burst of a roar, sniffing at the air and turning his helm towards the damaged mantelpiece. His noise drew the attention of everyone in the lighthouse. Lisa had been cooking in the kitchen and when she heard the noise she cried out and ducked behind the kitchen cabinets. Eileen and Elle were in another room and they poked their way out to see what was happening. Those people already in the atrium touched their weapons uncertainly. Douglas- made nervous by the monster- reached out to grab Heather's arm. Unfortunately he grabbed her previously dislocated shoulder, and Heather gave a small cry of pain. The red helmet's tip whipped towards him and the monster advanced menacingly, fingers curling at the air, body hunching down towards them.
"Easy," Heather encouraged soothingly when she realized her companion was about to throw a fit. She wormed free of Douglas, intercepted her Pyramid Monster, reached up to touch the low-hanging tip of his helm and then draped her fingers over one of his grasping hands. Samael focused on her with relative ease; he seemed more lucid or at least less temperamental than he had the day before and it was only a brief instant before his tongue writhed out to find her face. The black appendage trailed up and down her cheek for a moment before pushing greedily back into her hair. His posture loosened and his hands lowered back to his sides.
"He does that every time you talk to him." James noted nervously. Heather glanced back at her friends, noticing different levels of disturbed concern on their faces. Douglas approved the least, of course; but then he was the one most firmly rooted in normality and he'd been there watching Heather grow and develop since she was just a teenager. "The... tongue..." James specified, realizing his question was vague. "It always looks like he's going to strangle you."
Heather shook her head. "It's fine. I think he just likes my hair." She looked back up at the monster. "Let's see if we can find something you can eat for breakfast, mm?" When she slipped her hand down into his and tugged him along he did not hesitate, but followed her into the kitchen. She glanced at Douglas as she passed, knowing the man desperately wanted to say something. "Douglas, don't you dare do anything to make yourself look like a poptart."
Lauren watched the giant creature appreciatively as one might admire a work of art, at the muscles which slid elegantly under tight skin and at the shapes the heavy leather skirt suggested about the hips and rump. James cuffed her over the head. Lauren winced and scowled at him; she had no doubt every man in the room would either be staring or looking away with a blush on his face if there were an eight foot partially nude female monster in the room. Double standards. At least she wasn't ashamed to admit she was only human!
"It eats?" Henry asked curiously, his concerns regarding the monster's hostility forgotten as he moved forward to watch the giant creature.
Heather shrugged as she led Samael along. "Who knows?" she asked as finally reached the refrigerator and pantry and began rummaging for food.
Travis stepped forward, not certain exactly sure how to approach without setting the creature off, but holding his hands slightly elevated and apart from his weapons to show he had no hostile intention. Samael glanced at him briefly but then lowered his attention back to Heather "You're alright?" Travis queried, looking warily up at the monster. "He won't hurt you?"
Heather laughed as she pulled out a large tub of plain yogurt and a crate of week-old strawberries. "Don't tempt him," she cautioned wryly. "Far be it from me to make promises for him." She was just about to stand when she noticed Lisa was cowering in the corner of the kitchen, staring in horrified awe up at Samael. Woops. Time to lead him back out again.
"You're treading a thin line," the trucker murmured as Heather wrestled open the yogurt tub and then picked out a strawberry and dipped it into the white cream. She examined the resulting confection and then looked up at her monster.
"Is this small enough?" she asked. "It's not much thicker than your tongue." Samael wavered slightly as if confused by the question. Then, after a few moments of silent wondering, his tongue disentangled from her hair and reached up to wrap uncertainly about the treat. He held it for a moment after she released it, as if he didn't know what to do with it. Then his tongue retracted in fits and starts. In a few seconds it had disappeared into some unknown crevice of the helmet, and a short moment after that the monster suddenly gave a tremendous shudder.
Heather blinked and then broke out laughing. "A little sour?" she asked wryly, unable to keep the giggles from her voice. "Wait a minute, couldn't you taste it when you were holding it?"
Her monster reached out his tongue and coiled it upward, demanding more strawberries; and Heather knew she had a winning breakfast item. This time she didn't bother to take his hand, but rather backed up out of the kitchen (trying to save Lisa Garland a terrible death by heart attack) and back towards the atrium. Her monster followed unhesitatingly, and then snatched up the very first yogurt-covered morsel she offered him next.
"Are those strawberries?" Lauren protested, getting up off of her couch and coming up to investigate this phenomenon. "Doesn't he know he's a giant monster? Has he no shame? Surely he is mistaken and would like some liver and fava beans now?"
Heather laughed loudly and shook her head. "Nah, not the strawberries. He likes the yogurt."
"How the devil can you tell that?" Lauren asked, mystified; she and Henry both wore looks of fascination while the rest of the party looked on in confusion. "How did you know that ahead of time?"
Heather tossed the next strawberry into the air and her monster caught it and gobbled it up. "Valtiel liked yogurt," she answered.
At that, Samael gave Heather a startled 'glance' and then made a vexed growling noise. Lauren winced, and she too wished she could tell Heather about Valtiel.
"Oh come on," Heather protested, laughing. "Your and Valtiel's respective deities are like twins or something. You can like the same dairy products without me confusing one of you for the other." Samael gave a disgruntled hiss, but seemed partially mollified. Still, when she offered him another strawberry he didn't immediately take it. "Samael," she laughed. "I promise you I love you for more than your passing resemblance to Valtiel. Please, I'm sorry if you feel I'm teasing you. It is normal for a person to laugh when they're happy."
Samael did not look exactly pleased with her, but despite all the other shit the universe had done onto Heather Mason, it had somehow brought into existence two twinned and monstrous deities who loved the taste of yogurt. Her monster could not resist the allure of the white cream, and after a moment he stepped towards her again and lapped curiously at the yogurt tub. She supplied him with another dipped strawberry. He grumbled contently.
"Heather, you're weird," Lauren told her, impressed by what she was watching. "How the hell is this your life?"
The older woman laughed and offered up the whole yogurt tub to Samael, helping him get his calloused and uncoordinated hands around the container so that he could eat at his leisure. "Well," she said, "beats the alternative of running and screaming, mm?"
"What are you going to do with him?" Lauren asked her as Heather backed up from the monster and smiled to herself. "Walter seems to think he's going to turn on you and that it's inevitable, but... well... Kaufmann suggested that maybe Silent Hill is oriented such that his purpose is to kill Edwin. I don't think either of them are accounting for yogurt-eating weirdness, though. What's your angle?" Honestly, Lauren was starting to think that when it came to monsters, Heather's interpretation was the only one that mattered. Had something to do with her Alessahood no doubt.
"Thanks for reminding me I wanted to say something," Heather realized. Then she turned to face her friends. "Look, I want everyone to listen up so we can get this out of the way," she began. "Samael- that's what I call this specific Red Pyramid to tell him apart from others- is my babysitter. His purpose is to keep Xipe and Edwin from killing me long enough for Xuchibara to arrange my gruesomely bloody and poetically justified end. Presumably if that doesn't work out for him in the end, and everything else fails to kill me, Xuchibara will eventually try to use Samael to finish the job."
That sent a chill down everyone's spine. Samael lifted his head from the yogurt tub and stared at her.
"Why believe that?" Kaufmann asked, disturbed. She'd clearly won Valtiel's heart, why not hope for the best? "You summoned him, and you summoned him because of Edwin. Why not believe his sense of justice is tied to yours? Why assume the god himself wants you dead?"
"Because he told me so. Repeatedly. He has shown up in my dreams, in visions, and through his avatars, as a gigantic flaming smithy, and has said: "Summon me. I will unmake you. Summon me and I will unmake them all.""
Before Douglas could say something about how Heather was clearly going crazy, Lauren asked a sardonic, "And you're here feeding this one yogurt?"
Heather looked up at her monster, and realized Samael was staring at her. The feeling she got from him startled her so much she stepped forward nearly with the intention of reassuring him. Then she became confused by the impulse, and by the realization she had no idea how to reassure even her own friends, because she didn't want to set Samael off into an anger fit like the one earlier that morning. She paused, stuck in place by a bunch of 'rules' she barely understood about how to keep her monster docile.
"He's Justice. He's our sins," Lisa whimpered from behind the counters, and at that Heather laughed.
"You guys need to lighten up," she advised. "This place is too awful to bear otherwise."
"Awful to bear?" Elle asked in an incredulous voice. She was carrying a spare Uzi and had stepped out in front of Eileen and was glaring at Heather. "Awful to bear? This is hell! Of course it's awful to bear! Look at Douglas, he is worried out of his mind for you, and you are making jokes and playing with a monster whom you yourself believe is going to kill you. Take us seriously! One wrong move and you're dead; we're dead! You need to grow up, Heather Mason."
Heather glanced at the young woman and then looked back up at her monster, who was still staring at her.
"Samael, Listen," she addressed Samael, completely ignoring the woman's outburst. "I love Disney movies and I hate shitty endings." She smiled. "But let's face it, Silent Hill hasn't exactly given me much sunshine or rainbows just because I believed in them." Her smile softened into something gentler and composed. "You and I both know you're more than a simple puppet. But I'm not going to hold your obligations to justice against you either. Do as you will. Just promise not to hold it against me if I have to fight back. Is that fair enough?"
"You-" Elle was insulted and ready to advance, but then the Pyramid Monster was moving as she shied backwards reflexively from him. Samael stepped towards Heather, looming over her, his helm still cocked slightly to the side. After a moment, he turned slightly and, with both hands and with a care that could only stem from a very large and powerful individual with clear intent but shoddy fine motor skills, settled the yogurt tub down on an atrium table.
Samael turned his gaze back towards Heather, and then shifted to lean down over her. His tongue lifted up and brushed over her face. Then his hands followed, his knuckles brushing slowly over her arms. Baffled silent, the party watched. Samael shifted to better support the weight of his helmet, and then carefully touched the backs of his fingers to her face, her hair.
Heather frowned, a little surprised. Then she felt a warmth permeating through her bones, a heat that went more primitive than words. Her breath caught in her chest temporarily and then she felt a rush of sadness and relief. The monster rumbled warmly and then cupped the back of her head with his fingers and drew her a little closer, looping his tongue about her further.
To say the party was absolutely and utterly estranged would have been true, with the possibly exception of Henry Townshend, for whom this was instead quite fascinating. Well, and then there was Lauren; who at that moment wanted to compose a rather blush-worthy but suitably dramatic romance novel.
"Heather..." Douglas called uncertainly, but then when it was quite clear the pyramid monster meant her no harm and she wasn't distressed, the detective had no idea what to say. Travis wore a sour expression. He glanced at Kaufmann and wondered bitterly if the man wagered this was some 'sign' that Heather was impacting the greater forces of Silent Hill.
Elle scowled bitterly, but before she could move forward she felt a presence come up beside her, and looked to see Murphy standing there. He looked from her face down to the Uzi she was clutching- Eileen and her now each had one- and then back to her face. He did not have to ask aloud if she were okay.
The Pyramid Monster grasped at Heather's arm and when she suddenly winced, he paused. Then he gave a grumbled and clasped a hand firmly about the base of the girl's neck. He stood up straight, looked to Travis, and after a moment of licking the air, gently propelled Heather in the trucker's direction.
"Your arm," Travis realized suddenly, stepping forward gingerly to receive her (and keeping an eye on the monster to make sure he wasn't upsetting the brute). Apparently bandaging Heather up the night before had made him a qualified medical professional. "Come on, let's have Lauren take a look at you." Heather winced and glanced back at where the Pyramid Monster was loitering innocently at the edge of the kitchen. He was retrieving his yogurt. Then she looked up at Travis and nodded.
"Sit her down on the couch," Lauren suggested. "Let's see what you've done to yourself." Travis and Douglas moved to help Heather along, settling her down on the couch as if she were some kind of invalid. Lisa was finally managing to crawl back up to a standing position in the kitchen, and gave a faint, "I'll make some more tea..." Lauren sat on the couch edge and rolled up Heather's shirt sleeve.
The Pyramid Head watched for a moment and licked at the air. Then, apparently either bored or curious, or perhaps just satisfied with his quarry's safety, he turned and walked back towards the kitchen. This time, Lisa had the good sense to flee.
Travis eyed the monster and then looked down at Heather. He didn't know what to say, whether in understanding or concern. One thing was for certain; she did have an odd way of securing at least the partial allegiance of things everyone else would be running away from.
Henry was snapping some photos of the Red Pyramid, but after a bit he came back and peered curiously down at Heather's black-and-blue shoulder. "Heather," he began, and glanced at where Murphy had drawn Elle off to the side and was apparently counseling her. Henry was very concerned Elle wouldn't be able to handle much talk about Samael's individual personality components. "Permit me to review your plan verbally. If I am correct, you plan to leave the Lighthouse tomorrow or the day after with the Pyramid Monster in tow. You want to go to the third Seal and, as with the two previous Seals, you expect there to be a 'guardian.' You want none of us to come with you; you wish for us to remain in place at this Lighthouse."
"That plan's shit," Douglas told her flatly.
"It's not," Travis disagreed, although it was hard for him to do so. Douglas glared at him in surprise.
"How you figure?"
"Timing," Travis responded. "There's two Seals left. That's two more chances for 'justice' before her monster needs to turn coat."
"That thing is a killer," Douglas said disapprovingly.
"Good, I could use that," Heather growled.
"We want to help you," Douglass told her. "Don't walk out there and get killed trying to protect us!"
"If you try to come with me, you'll be liabilities," Heather told him bitterly. "Not because you're incompetent but because Silent Hill will use you against me. But Samael? Samael can't die. He's the kindest thing Silent Hill's ever done for me. If a cultist shoots him, he can't die. If a monster knocks him into a pit of lava, he can't die. If he turns on me and I have to blow his brains out or drop a building on him, he can't die."
"Which is bloody terrifying!" Douglass exclaimed.
"To you!" Heather tried to make him realize. "To me, it's a godsend! It means no matter how bad things happen, no matter how badly Silent Hill's poetic justice fucks me over, nothing I or anyone else do can cause the death of the one person- thing- whatever- who has been my singular and constant companion since the moment Alex Shepherd died." Douglas blinked at her. "I don't want to kill him, Douglas!" she begged him to understand. "I want to live more than I want to die believing in happy endings; but the fact that I will never have to kill the thing that saved my life and took care of me is sort of really fucking important to me."
Douglas thought of Valtiel and grimaced to himself. He was on the brink of blurting it all out to her, to keep her from transferring her attachment to that knife-wielding thing. He scratched his chin and looked up at her. "Something you ain't telling me," he said. Then he thought back to her fight with Elle the day before and he blinked at her. "Heather... did it... or he... just... 'kiss' you?" he asked about the odd intimate behavior they'd just witnessed.
Heather wrinkled her nose and looked up at Travis and Henry, who both looked like they wanted to remind her that the Pyramid Thing was only an echo, and most certainly not her boyfriend. "Yeah, something like that," she agreed. "So if you try tucking a grenade under his helmet, I am going to have a panic attack. Lay off and focus on how I'm going to fight Xipe. I will deal with Samael when and how I have to."
Lauren blinked up at her from where she'd been examining her shoulder. "Dayum," she said. "Why were you looking under his skirts again?" Heather gave Lauren a critical look.
"Do not follow that thought," she told the younger girl. "I have enough to manage with a bipolar, homicidal, eight foot demon following me around. I don't need your imagination making it worse."
"Alright, alright," Lauren relented, and went back to her work.
"Is Walter around?" Heather asked.
"I think so," the woman answered. "He said he'd be. Only I think he's avoiding your new friend."
"I want to talk to him," Heather sighed. "But maybe that's best for now."
"You need a week of bedrest," Lauren told her. "You've got bruises as black as the ace of spades, and you're covered in them. You're lucky some of these cuts closed without needing stitches, and the others should be medicated to keep infection out."
"We don't have weeks," Travis told the younger woman quietly. "See what you can do with a day." He looked to Heather. "We need to do something to help you. Need. Tell us anything we can do. Something that puts us as far from the cultists as you'd like, but something."
Heather shook her head, biting her teeth together as Lauren rubbed something in her injuries and rebandaged them.
"We are all of us survivors," the trucker disagreed. "We are not going to sit here on our hands. If you don't give us something, we're more likely to follow you."
Heather looked down. "Aglaophotis. It's an herb, a red preparation from an herb. Kaufmann might know where to find some or might not. If the worst happens and the cult catches me, maybe it'll give us all a second chance."
"I'm going to tie your arm up in a sling," Lauren told her. "Avoid using it for today. I'd tell you not to use it at all but obviously that's not an option with you."
"I need to be able to hold a katana," Heather answered as she let Lauren tie up the arm. The younger girl laughed.
"You won't even be able to hold on to a gun through the kickback," Lauren retorted. "Put your thumb and forefinger together and try to keep me from pulling them apart. Tch. How did you manage to kill anything in this condition?"
"Adrenaline," Heather supposed. "I need that arm."
Lauren shook her head. "A chiropractic adjustment might help give you some strength back, but you're still going to have the endurance of a paper fairy without proper healing. One unlucky over-extension and you'll throw it out again."
"You can do chriopracty?" Heather asked, surprised.
Lauren made a sort of 'ehh' expression by tilting her shoulders back and forward and then splaying her hands out palms up for a moment. "Officially?"
"Do it then," the older girl told her trustingly. Lauren smirked and then went to feel carefully along Heather's spine and had the older girl straighten herself out and turn about and shift her arms and legs a bit.
"I'll never know why you prefer that katana," Douglass muttered, trying to get over what he'd just realized about Samael. "You're going to go out there with nothing more than a tiny knife to protect yourself, with a bad arm?"
They heard a sharp bark, like a laugh, from the kitchen. Douglass blinked and turned around to see the Red Pyramid was watching them. He had been looking around their kitchen out of curiosity or perhaps boredom, and his fingers were now wrapped around the handle of a four inch long, incredibly sharp, vegetable knife. As the group looked at him, he lifted up the culinary implement and then brought it down quickly on the kitchen table, burying the tip up to the hilt through the slate counter top, shattering the stone. He released it and then looked up at them curiously.
"No," Henry said slowly. "She's going out there with a very big knife protecting her. About six feet I'd wager. Heather, he won't be able to follow you straight to the end. Will you trust myself or Travis to go with you?"
"You wouldn't be able to go any further than him," Heather answered. "I'll leave tomorrow night so even the cult doesn't see me. Little monsters are the least of my worries, and I won't have to sustain much of a fight until I get to the Seal; I'm more worried about people and guns than anything else."
