Chapter Forty-Seven | Ye Olde Crows
Sullen was the word Catherine would use to describe Oedon Chapel upon her return.
The red moon had risen, and with it came an even more pungent stink of death. It did nothing to dissuade Emilie's good mood, thankfully, the girl certain that now that Catherine had woken all would be well.
Arianna offered her a meek smile, watching as the girl jumped about the room, while Adella lurked in the corner near the old man - she still hadn't gotten his name, nor did she particularly want it - surveying the happenings with scarcely narrowed eyes.
Must not be in the mood for cheer, with the gods hanging off the walls outside.
Catherine had woken to shouts, panicked, and the sound of crying. She rushed about the chapel half awake to see its few denizens poking their heads out the windows and clutching the frames with white knuckles, tears streaming down their faces. Great beasts made of long, spider-like limbs had taken roost atop the buildings.
She knew just by looking at them that they'd always been there. It was only with the death of Rom that they could now look out at the city and see it for what it truly was - a haven for all that was unholy, latticed skulls throbbing with eyes, peeking out from sieves of bone and flesh to gaze lazily upon their lands, passing over the humans and beasts below as if they were naught but ants.
They were statues come to life, the hideous amalgamations hewn from rock and marble that lined the entrance to the Great Cathedral, tall as two houses stacked together and clinging to the rooftops with fingers that could break a man in half.
Their forms broke and splintered if she gazed for too long, causing her mind to shudder and - no, get it away, wrong, please no more spiders god-
It seemed the most reasonable decision to have everyone stay inside.
"At least someone is enjoying themselves."
"Hm?"
"Emilie," Arianna pointed, her smile growing as the young girl waved at her. "Children always find a way to look past the horror knocking at their door."
Something about the way she said it sounded personal, and Catherine decided not to ask her of it. She knew how important secrets were.
"She asked me to check on her home. To see if… her sister arrived safe and sound. Got her note."
"Ah."
Their thoughts went unspoken. Catherine had long ago written the eldest daughter of the Gascoigne family as dead and gone.
"It wouldn't hurt to check, so… I thought I might as well. Maybe kill that imposter in the clinic."
"Poor Iosefka. I knew her. Too kind for this city, but it looks like the Choir sunk their claws into her as well."
Like spies, the Choir inserted itself into anything it could. The arm of the Church, with fine fingers for research, and coiled muscles for the sake of destruction.
Looking up through the stained glass windows, Catherine could catch a glimpse of the clocktower through the pastel shades of pink and green. Adella had mentioned it to be their home, wailing about the return of the gods, how they were to come and rain their fury down on Yharnam for some reason or another. She had prayed for them to come down from the gardens and save them, to bring their hunters and deliver the city from apocalypse.
All Catherine heard was that the Choir was behind that door she had come across atop the old workshop tower, and that maybe, just maybe, that key the messengers had taken from Byrgenwerth would gain her entrance.
"Will you go?"
"Maybe." She sat down next to Arianna, on her little bench, one arm slung over the rest and the other in her lap. "Probably."
"That's a yes, from you." The woman studied her, something inquisitive in her gaze. Inescapable. "What happened while you were gone?" she whispered, lightly pressing her fingers into the flesh just above Catherine's knee.
"A lot."
Arianna took the unspoken message, eyes dimming.
"I still can't believe it. A traveler from another world… ah, if we survive this, the stories I'll write…"
"You write?"
"A long time ago, in a different place. I think I'd like to try again."
"Would you like to?"
"Not much for writing here, surprisingly. No pens, no paper. Not much need for it with a blind man being the only permanent resident."
"Let me fix that then." Catherine got up, leaving a confused Arianna behind as she ducked out of the church, scooping up a few rocks and bits of rubble before walking back inside and shutting the door tight behind her. She went back to her seat, spreading her find out in the space between them. "Watch."
Taking out her wand, she took up one of the rocks and with a wave of her hand, turned it into a fine fountain pen. Another wave, and a second rock was turned into a vial of ink with a small spigot at the top. A third, and the remainder shimmered, twisting into a thick stack of paper, heavily weighted and crisp to the touch.
"There you go."
Eyes wide, Arianna pressed a hand to her mouth before letting out a particularly un-ladylike squeal. "Gods! That's incredible!"
"What'd she do? What'd she do?" Emilie called, running over to check out the excitement.
"Just a simple bit of magic. I made Arianna a pen and papers, so she can write her stories."
"Missus Arianna tells the best stories."
"Does she, now?"
Arianna looked up, and it was Catherine's turn to be surprised as she was drawn into a sudden hug, squawking and slapping open palms against Arianna's back in some strange facsimile of an embrace.
"Thank you!" the woman effused, drawing away and offering Catherine an expression of unabashed joy and wonder. "You really didn't have to."
"It's no trouble at all. In fact, do you like to draw, Emilie?"
The girl nodded excitedly, giggling loudly as Catherine duplicated the stack in an instant. "There ya' go."
"You're the best!"
It was Emilie's turn to hug her, and she took great care to be gentle as she wrapped her arms around the little girl's shoulders and rubbed her back. "It hardly took an effort. It's fine."
"It's so, so… so fantastic! I love magic!"
For the first time in weeks Catherine wore a genuine smile, feeling at ease around her little family here in Yharnam. The only thing to complete it would be Eileen. Speaking of…
"Where's Eileen? She go out on another hunt?"
"Mmhm. Said it was a particularly dangerous one this time, told us to stay away from the Great Cathedral."
"She did?" Catherine's blood ran cold, wondering what on earth could be so dangerous as to make Eileen offer warning. She was territorial, yes, but not one to speak of danger. "How long ago did she set out?"
"A short while before you woke up? She rested in the room next to yours before heading off."
Her fingers drumming over her leg, Catherine wet her lips. She didn't know what it was, but something just didn't feel right. Not with the blood moon, not with everything that had already happened.
What if she got the attention of one of the gods hanging from the rooftops? What if there was something new, something even worse out there that she hadn't yet run into?
That decided it. "I'm going to go help her."
"Leaving already?"
"I don't… I don't feel right. Has she ever, once, mentioned how dangerous a hunter was, or simply that she was off to work? Emilie?"
The girl shook her head, letting out an emphatic, 'nuh uh.' "D- Daddy always said Auntie Eileen was- caw-kier than him."
Shit.
"I'm off," Catherine announced, snatching her hammer out of the mist and offering Adella a curt nod and salute as she sprinted out the doors, slamming them shut behind her. She didn't much care for noise right now, what she cared about was getting to the bloody cathedral.
All of the beasts that stood in her way didn't stand a chance, no matter how much they'd changed, those strange churchmen bearing lanterns that now shone with a hundred pulsing eyes, fel magic dripping off it in thick rivulets of purple steam.
Their heads were no less difficult to crush, painting the streets with matted chunks of gore, corpses left behind her in a twitching heap.
It felt like years running through those streets, but it hardly took her ten minutes to sprint from the chapel to the cathedral, practically skipping over bodies and leaving mulch against the walls like some sort of rag-tag graffiti artist, splashing the stone with meat. But her pace did nothing to quell the thunder in her chest and the sharp spike of adrenaline needling at her worried mind.
Like picks and prongs they sank deep into her, drawing ragged breaths from her lungs and she swore she could feel her pupils narrow into dagger-sharp pins as the cathedral came into stunning view, backlit by the flaming moon and swathed in its panoramic embers.
Her heart sunk as she leapt up the steps, two at a time, to see a much too large crow slumped against the railing.
No, no no no. Not her.
She'd never seen a friend die before.
"Eileen!" Catherine roared, skidding to a half as she crouched before her. "Oh for god's sake, please be alive." She pressed her hands clumsily to the woman's chest, unable to feel a heartbeat through the thick leathers she wore. Swearing loudly and arms shaking, she ripped off Eileen's mask, hardly paying attention to what the woman looked like as she scrabbled at her throat with two twitchy fingers.
But she couldn't help noticing the wounds. Awful, awful wounds, her left shoulder nearly cloven down to the armpit, hanging sickeningly by a few scraps of sinew. There was a slice across her belly, stab wounds pocking her arm, and one just barely missing her heart, pushed through the centre of her chest.
She almost sobbed with relief to feel a pulse, her other hand softly lifting the woman's chin so that she could push a vial against her lips, fingers kneading at her throat and forcing the blood down.
A stuttered cough shook Eileen, harsh as hail, and her eyes flickered open - blue, very blue - with sudden alertness.
"What- girl, what are you-?" She pressed a fist to her mouth, another vicious cough ripping through her, leaving her knuckles flecked with crimson. "Told you all to stay well away."
"Idiot. You bloody idiot."
Feeling tempted to slap the woman, Catherine focused instead on the task at hand, letting instinct and the unseemly knowledge all bundled up in her head to guide her useless hands. Her wand sparked a vibrant teal as it passed over Eileen's shoulder, muscle and bone visible through the heavy cut. Jaw clenched, she set to work, jabbing another vial into Eileen's thigh as she knitted her body back together as best she could, whispered knowledge from the blood itself trickling in one ear to course from skull to fingertip, out her wand and into the near corpse sat in front of her.
"Don't you worry about me-"
"Shut the fuck up and let me heal you. You're not dying here."
"It's my score to settle, Catherine. Not yours."
"It is now."
Eileen snorted, trying to raise her arm to push Catherine off, only to barely nudge her, weak as a babe. "Not one to listen to your elders, are you?"
"No. Never." She moved down to stitch up the cut across her belly, wincing as she lifted up a bit of intestine and put it back together, spilling out Eileen's breakfast across her lap. Gently, she pushed the organs back inside, fingers wet with sludge as she checked over for any other internal damage. "You don't look that old either."
And she didn't. Eileen couldn't have been older than thirty-five when she was taken to the Dream, and even with that Catherine guessed her to have been younger - the wear and tear of Yharnam leaving her face cut with far too much horror.
Her jaw was sharp, broad, with a beaked nose and thin brow. Eileen's lips were curled into a permanent scowl, made even more severe by the short, sweat-soaked hair matted by her mask and slicked back over the top of her head. If Catherine didn't know better she'd say she was looking at Snape's far prettier cousin.
"Ha! Don't look that old, she says. My eyes, girl, it's always in the eyes."
"Damn your eyes, and damn your score. You're not going to leave Emilie all alone, do you understand me?" Catherine punctuated her words with another vial, pushed between her ribs.
Hissing, Eileen shook her head. "All but useless now," she growled, once more trying to bat Catherine away, a bit more strength in her. "What's an old hunter like me to do? Glory days are long behind me now. Naught but blood and ash."
"Emilie doesn't need a hunter, she needs family." Huffing, Catherine ran her thumb over the newly knitted flesh, scanning over Eileen a second time just to make sure she hadn't missed anything and letting out a breath of relief to find her, not hale, but no longer on death's door. "Now you're going to sit here while I make you invisible, and I'm going to go slaughter the sack of shit that did this to you. Understood?"
Eileen's mouth opened when Catherine leveled her with a heavy stare. "Understood?"
The woman stared at her, flabbergasted, but some amusement shone in her eyes. "Gods, what happened to you, girl?"
"Gods? I killed one of them."
"So you're to blame for the moon then, eh? They've all gone mad. Knew you were different, knew you'd shake things up." She laughed, low and strained. "Should've never underestimated you. Scared little thing, but look, the blood's in you now, and there's no stopping it."
"You calling me blood-drunk?"
"No, no. You've got that fight, here," she punched Catherine in the chest playfully, knuckles brushing thick leather. "Little hunter's not so little anymore."
"Quit talking like you're dying, you arse. Now sit tight, I'll be right back."
Not giving her a moment to argue, Catherine tapped her wand on the top of Eileen's head, adding a few repelling charms and a bit of magic to remove her scent as well. She went with the flow, knowing she'd never sat down to learn them but now knowing why they're a part of her. The Truth, and some semblance of the magic left over from Oedon's blessing, mingling with the Blood to set fire to her mind, so soft and low their embers that even she could not notice the steady stream of magic pouring into her being.
It was like she'd always cast these spells. Movements sure, not even a breathy word to mark them as they spark into existence.
Feeling, wanting was all that mattered now. Simply the urge and the imagination needed to picture that which she required. The idea of it terrified her to some degree, to already have that much power at her fingertips and still not know the true extent of what she's capable of. Another part, the larger part, took it with her learned pragmatism.
No need to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Shut up. Stay still. I'll be back in a jiff."
"A what?"
Finger to her lips she let out the most aggressive shush ever uttered in Yharnam. Catherine felt nothing but anger as she took the steps, leaving Eileen as safe and sound as possible behind her. This anger was tempered, hammered and refined into a point so sharp it would even cut her if she paid it heed. So she did what she did best, turned it outward until her rage was made manifest, light pulses of magic flickering over her so scant as to be nearly invisible if it weren't for the static in the air or the smell of something more lingering in her wake.
Amelia's corpse had been dragged off somewhere since she'd been to the cathedral. The stains remained, caked blood dried to a crumbling mess splashed up and down the walls, clinging in the cracks of the stained glass and festering between the flagstones.
A man twirled around the room, a tapered sword in hand etched with filigree, and his outfit all but the same as Eileen's if not for the steel helmet that curved over his head and ended in a wicked point below his chin, curving outward like a beak. It was carved all over, flowers and swords and all manner of finery painstakingly drawn into its surface - but beneath the latch of its face, hidden behind the mask and just barely made out as he jumped to and fro, was the outline of a skeletal jaw and teeth moulded from the steel. A helmet of beauty and despair, stained in Eileen's blood and echoing tinnily with the man's laughter.
"Yharnam, Yharnam! I beseech thee! Send your finest and most loved!" he tilted dangerously, knees flexing as he somehow continued his motion, the hair (decorative? A part of his armour?) that jutted out of the back of his helmet brushing the floor as he swept along it, parallel to the ground before flinging himself back up. "Only old crows and mutes! I need more- more more more, give me more-" another laugh, bouncing and mad, as he noticed her, and though Catherine could not see his leer she felt it nonetheless. "I require retribution! Can you offer me penance? Can you give me that blood? Sweet, rich, not as vile as mine?"
His sword dragged against the floor, churning up sparks and painting a thin trail of red across the stone."You broke us, you know? Scattered us, burned us, ground us up like wheat - and for what? Jealousy? No, no, you needed it all! Every scrap, every drop, greedy little birds!"
"Ground up who?"
"She doesn't know? You hear that, she doesn't know!" He stopped over his sword, crooning as his finger ran a path over the blade.
"Tell me."
The man howled, stamping his foot. "Cainhurst! My beloved, made of battle-milk and the truest red! You stole it from me! With hammer and nail, with wheels to smash us all to bits!"
"I'm no Yharnamite. I did no such thing."
"Lying! Liar, liar, liar! I can smell it! I can taste it on you, reeking stench! They sent you! They sent you! Moon-scented hungerer! Took our blood, took our souls, carved it out of us!"
Cainhurst.
Tom had been to Cainhurst.
Who else had dabbled in matters of the soul? Where else would his task be, if not to put out the fires of a country where Yharnam gods were not worshipped? Where they followed their own creed, debauchery from what she had heard.
Catherine already wanted to kill this man for nearly murdering Eileen. Now she wanted to put him down for his own sake, and for a taste of the blood buried in his veins, so that she may know his secrets.
She'd heard enough. Thank god for the ramblings of a mad man.
The room flashed with a blinding light as she painted the floor with spikes and so much ice, the crackle of hoarfrost echoing along the great walls and staining the air white with the fog of her breath. The man yelped, one part fright and one broken enjoyment, nothing in him but rage and the perpetual yearning for but a drop more of that delicious crimson.
Cackling, he stomped across the spikes with iron-clad boots, kicking over them as if they were paper. Catherine cursed under her breath as she tempered them with steel, grinning viciously as he skewered his own foot with his next step.
Wand waving, she kept her distance as she blew open the window, summoning the glinting shards towards him.
In a flash, the man disappeared, her eyes widening as she leapt away just as his sword crashed into the space where she once stood.
He can use the same magic as me, she realized, veins throbbing with energy as she kicked off the ground once more, hammer raised to deflect a wild blow.
"You're back! I'll kill you! Kill you!" the man shrieked, sword a blur as he harried her about the room, sparks flying as it bounced off her hammer.
A hole opened in his side, cloth and blood flying as she shot a conjured bullet through his flank. It did nothing to stop him, drawing up a pistol from a thigh-holster and blowing her hand off at the wrist, wand clattering to the floor.
Hissing through her teeth, Catherine swiped her hammer through the air, kicking her hand that still clutched tight to her wand over to the other side of the room. The man's ribs cracked as the stone struck his flank, blood bursting out from under his mask and dribbling across the front of his chest.
Quick, too quick, he had a vial jabbed into his thigh, sword swiping upwards and catching her in the waist. Nary a peep came out of her as it dragged up her belly towards her lungs, carving through bone and muscle like they weren't even there. Catherine smashed the stump of her wrist against the side of the blade and forced it away as she backpedaled, chest still as her cloven diaphragm flexed uselessly, blood pooling in her throat and spilling across her lips in waves as it was forced upward.
Her body screamed for air, hardly able to drag in any past the blood she was choking on, that burbled in her chest. She grasped onto that feeling, hoping against all hope that when she died she could make it back here in time to stop the man from venturing forward and stumbling across Eileen.
The tip of her boot catching on one of her own spikes, she toppled, three of them slicing into her as she fell over and pouring oil on the inferno that would be her death.
But Catherine grasped the thread, holding it tight with disembodied fists and yanking as hard as she could, not letting it drag her into the Dream but instead tearing at that vicious magic and forcing it down her own gullet. She curled her nails into it, dredging up the same feeling as when she had been thrown headfirst into the walls of the Great Hall, when she had leapt off the tower and kissed the earth with flesh and bone and jagged teeth that erupted like shrapnel, tearing her mind to ribbons and spraying across the grass like an overripe fruit.
The mist came to her, that familiar sort that swept her away as her last breath rattled her lungs, and with it came the sensation of her body knitting back together, bone lengthening and splitting into writhing fingers - sprouting, splaying, a fan of petals in bloom.
She hoisted herself off the spikes, blood pouring from the sieve of her torso and splashing loudly as it pooled along the ice.
It only took a twitch of the wrist for her wand to fly into her waiting palm, raising to bore a hole through the man's throat, mask bent and broken, moulded to his chin as the metal crumpled inward, some of it curling into the open wound and singing the clean-cut flesh.
The man only cackled through the horror of his throat, pouring an open vial into the end of it and then smashing another into his hip. His sword arm shook, clicking the blade back into its scabbard in a single sweep before unleashing it once more, Catherine spitting as blood was flung across the room to stain her glasses in great big splotches.
A wave of her wand got rid of it, and she was more than intrigued to see a long slice along his thigh beneath the sheathe, the sword now drenched in blood and somehow retaining it.
Vilebloods all take of their namesake, in their world and weaponry. For them, it is as much a tool as it is art.
Specks of red flew through the air as the man swung the blade wildly, each one dagger sharp and enough to nick and cut even her armour as he pushed forward. But Catherine had stolen of the immortality that held her in its grip, broken its fingers and pointed them in the direction she wished.
So, she waded through it, a gash opening in her throat that she all but spat on, eyes dimming for a flicker of a moment before relighting with an even fiercer contempt while she crushed the top of her hammer into the man's chest with a sharp jab. The air left him and she followed it up with a cutting hand, wand all but forgotten as she smashed her fingers into his throat, his sword dropping to the ground with a clatter as he clutched at his adam's-apple, his gun hand firing two rounds through her gut that expanded as soon as they met flesh, bouncing around in her belly and tearing it to shreds.
It meant nothing to her, fingers pushed together to form a spear, plunging through the air like lightning and pushing his sternum aside as she ran her nails along his heart. Catherine grinned, fist wrapped around the leaping muscle and curling tighter as it fought, twitching against her sticky palm. Like the thread, she yanked, dragging the thing out of his chest with the snap of meaty cables, arteries flailing as the sprayed crimson all over the room.
She kicked his body aside as he collapsed, stamping on his head once for good measure and shuddering in ecstasy as the helmet warped, crumpled, thick gouts of blood spraying out from beneath the metal.
His body wasn't important right now. What was, was his blood.
Lowering her mask, Catherine gripped the tube of an artery and pressed it to her lips like a straw, sucking greedily at the sweetness within and fading out of reality as the man's life swept before her eyes.
Archibald.
Cainhurst standing in all its glory. Great balls, feasts, slaves and thralls thrown to the ground with open throats and foggy eyes in front of hundreds with nary a worry.
But she saw black hair, a sparking wand, curls of red smoke torn from corpses as a young man cut his way through the castle with Executioners at his side, all of which garbed in that same pallid gray as Alfred. Oh the screams, the fear, the burning knowledge that these men had come to slay them and they and their knights stood powerless before magic not known by their kind, nor any that called this world their own. They knew no mercy, took no prisoner of man, woman, or child, all of whom crushed beneath their step with glee.
Black hair. Magic. Tom.
Tom had been there.
Was that his task? No Paleblood, but instead the genocide of an entire civilization? Their tunics red, now stained in their own blood, and oh- oh - Arianna wore the very same filigree. Was that where she hailed from? Was that why Arianna spoke of Yharnam with almost as much derision as she?.
The Vilebloods truly did not worship Yharnam's gods. Only hedonism did they know, the temptation of flesh, food, and wine, but the worldly to worship and that of which may be touched and tasted worthy of their adoration.
That was why the Executioners came for them. Because they did not pretend.
Catherine wanted to scratch her eyes out, needed to tear through a library and find a map, a path to that place so she could learn of Tom's destruction
But first, Eileen. God, Eileen. Then, to Cainhurst may she go.