Cross my heart and hope to die, there are only three chapters to go before this is all over (well, two plus epilogue), so sit back and enjoy the beginning of the end.
Chapter 41: Hubris and Nemesis
'There's no way out,
You can scream, can shout,
It's too late now…'
- The Luke Warm
Jobe stopped, his fingers trembling against the wood. Beyond these twin doors was the reason he'd dragged back to this hell hole that was so much more than just a town.
He was finally get those answers he'd been searching for all this time and get away from all this, an unbelievable situation that had been spiralling madly out of control from the moment he'd set his foot down on the tarmac beyond a sign that cheerfully proclaimed 'Welcome to Silent Hill!'
Or was it just cold revenge that had spurred him on? Was he only going in there to butcher the two people who he'd believed had turned his life upside down when the only person who could honestly have the blame laid at their feet was himself? Even now, was he still running from the god honest truth, that he'd bloodied his hands long before he'd even set foot in this town? Jobe smiled grimly but the sickly phantom of a grin did not live for long. He was a living oxymoron, he screamed at the world that he wasn't a monster yet here he was, sword in hand and malicious thoughts in his heart.
'Well, I guess there's only one way we're going to find out, huh?'
Jobe grimaced in the cold air and applied that extra little bit of pressure to the door.
8 8 8
"…So now that you're…"
Parker trailed off, looking up from the rag of a girl who sat in a dejected crumple against one of the church's pillars.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" He straightened up, ignoring the creek in his back that served as a reminder to the testament that he wasn't getting any younger. "Sister Wolf?" The woman in question glanced up from a heavy volume she'd been leafing through as it rested awkwardly on the church's alter. "It would appear as though the prodigal son has finally returned to the coop." His voice slowly rose in humour but when he looked again at Jobe, the expression on the man's face clearly stated that feeling wasn't mutual. In fact, Jobe looked as though he wanted to kill someone.
This was not a good progression.
"Then, has returned to us on his own accord?" Claudia's voice floated past him as if Jobe wasn't ever there.
"Yes…" Parker felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand to at the man's tepid reply. It was so cold, but then, he hadn't really expected Jobe to still be the fresh young man he'd been the first time he'd come wondering into the church.
Jobe took a step towards the pair but fell short when he finally noticed the form of Virgil bunched up against one of the supportive pillars. Without thinking, his grip on the sword tightened.
"What are you doing here?" But the question fell on deaf ears. Virgil seemed totally oblivious to his arrival and chose to carry on with picking at the pillar's painted surface.
"She has finally seen the folly of her ways and come back to us. Now, she may assume her rightful role in the re-creation of the world." Claudia stepped out from behind the preacher's podium, her pale and bleached hands clasped together as if in prayer. "Are you not here for the same reason?"
Parker inwardly cringed. For someone as 'gifted' as his accomplice, she could sure as hell be unobservant. Just one look at the man and anyone could see that he wasn't about to come running over and embrace them in a warm hug. Running over with that obscene sword drawn and ready to split skin to the bone was a far more likely possibility.
Virgil peered up in time to see the dirty glare Jobe shot her of utter betrayal and quickly returned to desecrating the pillar. The man looked away from her in sick disgust. How could she just give up like that, after everything she'd said and done? Forget wrath, anyone could see that her crime was hypocrisy.
"I'm not here to embrace your god." He spat.
"Then why are you here?"
Jobe glowered at the woman. She was already wearing that look of pensive questioning, an expression that probed into the man and wormed its way under his skin. The urge to throw himself at her and wrap his fingers around her throat become almost unbearable.
"How dense are you!? Can't you work it out for yourself, you goddamn witch? I don't want anything to do with this!"
"My boy," Parker broke in, "That is not a decision that you can-"
"I don't care!" Jobe roared, wheeling round to face the stout man. "Do you think that you can just turn around to me and say do this and become some freak for the good of humanity?"
"But don't you think you own this world's people that after the atrocities of your actions?" The tell-tail monotone voice of Claudia pressed.
Jobe stopped, the vehement words that were just about to sprout from his lips dying before they could make even the faintest sound. The hair-lie crack of self doubt widened with a brittle snap, allowing a question Jobe hadn't even considered entertaining slip into his mind.
'Are they right?' It asked in a voice so innocent.
As much as they stung, the words rang with a painful clarity for there was no denying that he had done something awful, monstrous even.
Parker smiled smugly, peering over the rim of his glasses as he smirked to himself.
"My boy, it almost pains me to see how lost you are." He cocked his head to the side, beaming warmly at the man who was slowly falling apart before his eyes. Jobe's hand caught his forehead, the question booming away inside his head so loudly that he was barely aware of the preacher's mellow voice.
'Are they right?'
"But there is a way to free yourself from this self inflicted agony…" Jobe looked up as Parker let the sentence hang, dangling the defeated man at the end of it. "Just let go…" The aging man breathed the words, stretching his hands and fingers out in an arc that gradually lost their tension. God, he made it sound so tempting…Jobe could practically taste the fantastic liberation from guilt and…well, everything that came with his words.
'I think…I think they might be?'
"Renounce what it is you think you are" Claudia goaded from behind. "It will be so much easier this way, for you, for all of us. Transgress beyond the bonds of man and become what it is you were meant to be…"
Didn't he deserve a break by now, after all that had happened?
"Tell me, Miss Orosco," Parker's glasses flashed in the soft candle light as he turned to the girl scrunched up against the wall. "How dose it feel to know that you are free and forgiven in the eyes of god as you serve her?" Jobe looked on in his near euphoric state of clam, a half smile creping across his face. Angela's tattered finger paused, hovering above the plaster it was so intent on destroying.
"Free?" She wheezed in a broken voice and slowly turned her head to the group, her scared and bandaged face hidden behind a curtain of filthy hair. "I am not free…" Jobe saw an eye between the strands of limp black slowly roll on to him and felt the breath catch in his throat. "And this place will never forgive me."
The eye remained on him. Whatever little life had been in them before was snuffed out, leaving them dead and tired.
'NO! They're wrong, they're never right!' Something screamed in his ear, loud enough to make him jump back and break the gentle spell of words the priest had spun.
The glower very quickly returned to his face.
"You're playing me again, aren't you? This…this is a lie and I'm not going to buy it anymore." His shaking arm rose, pointing the long kantana square at Parker's chest. A curious Virgil watched the scene unfold, slowly pulling herself up the pillar and to her feet.
"I'm not going to forget what you've done to me, and what you're trying to make me is just sick!"
The sword quivered inches from the Preacher's black shirt. Parker stared at the wavering tip, an expression of mild amusement at the sudden twist on his face as he eyed the kantana.
For a moment, all was still inside the church save for the slowly dancing candles and the wax that lolled down them in fat licks. Virgil's gaze flittered from her beloved sword to Parker and back to Jobe.
Sword. Parker. Jobe.
The man gritted his teeth as his fingers wound themselves ever tighter round the hilt.
Sword. Parker. Jobe.
Parker smiled lazily at the man at the other end of the kantana.
Sword. Parker. Jobe.
Jobe had begun to shake, his teeth clenched so neatly they were fit to shatter like glass.
Sword. Park-
"You will not do it." Claudia commented, killing the mounting tension in a fell swoop. Suddenly, the air had lost its charge and the world moved again. Jobe glanced sideways at her as he tried to keep tabs on Richard, the kantana and her all at once. Even though the sword's aim stayed true, it had lost any credibility.
"And why is that?"
"Because if you do so, you will prove once and for all what it is you truly are." Claudia smiled triumphantly. "You are so eager to shed his blood in an attempt to console yourself for your own deeds… doesn't that sound like the acts of a monster to you, Envy?"
Jobe filched at her final word and the sword shook all the more violently in his clammy grip to the point where it looked like the metal itself was having a fit. He was caught in the sticky fingers of Catch-22.
"But if I kill you…" the kantana's tip ventured ever nearer to Parker's chest. " You won't be around to make me save mankind."
"My boy," Parker flashed a crocodile smile at the trembling man. "People don't 'die' here, they just move on. Now," He laid a single, callous finger on the flat of the blade, carelessly pushing it aside. "Are we going to halt this utterly mortifying behaviour, or are we going to have to persuade you to let go of your precious 'humanity' with the iron hand of god herself?"
Jobe felt The Father's eyes bore into him and suddenly as small as a pupil before a particularly stern principal who was practically salivating at the chance to crush him under foot.
"Wait!" A small voice broke the growing silence. Three heads turned to Virgil as she reluctantly pushed herself away from the pillar she'd been timidly clinging onto.
'What the fuck are you doing?!' The twisted voice of Wrath hissed in a frequency only her ears could pick up. 'Didn't we agree that you were going to be good?'
Virgil carried on, regardless of the vindictive whisper.
"Jobe- Jobe really doesn't deserve this… He's not a b-b-bad person…"
"Oh really?" Parker washed over her feeble voice, raising his eyebrow. "Tell me, my most troublesome dear, how exactly do you know that to be true?"
"Well…I…" The girl floundered, hands wringing into nervous knots.
"Were you there when he killed the two closest people in his life out of jealousy?" Claudia pressed. Virgil dropped her head.
"No…"
'God, you're such an embarrassment.' A noiseless voice spat in her ear. 'Was it too much to ask that you just be quiet and let me handle this?'
The girl's hand balled up. Why had she let it talk her into giving up like this, in fact, why was she listening to it at all?
'Because without me, you're weak, you're worse than nothing…'
No, that wasn't true-
'Yes it is, and you know it. Hell, if it hadn't been for me, he'd probably still be fucking you ri-'
SHUT UP!
Virgil slammed her hands over her ears to block out the malicious words that crept down her throat and festered away like rotten meat in her stomach. What had she done? She'd let them finally get her after years of running and swearing that she wouldn't let them take advantage of her…
'Just like he did…'
"STOP IT!" That time she felt her throat burn into life as she screamed at the floor.
Silence. She froze, lifting her eyes at a snail's pace only to have them met by six others, all staring at her with an equal degree of bemusement.
"Can you not curb your primal behaviour for five minuets? I know it something to have actually have you here with us without trying to tear ether Sister Wolf or myself apart but can you at least be quiet? In case you hadn't noticed, we are in the middle of something and can do without interruptions from you!" Virgil saw the lip and moustache twitch with simmering rage as Parker tried to keep his voice low and level. From the glint in his eye, she could tell that he was very tempted to march over and clip her one smartly across the ear for her impudence.
She went to back down but something stopped her, jarring the gears in her legs. Why should she take that from him of all people? She owed him nothing, in fact, all he'd cause her was painand hurt and she'd gone and given into him so easily.
'Just like you gave into him…'
For a second, reality blurred and Parker shifted into a father of a different kind. In the space of a lone moment, that straw moustache was replaced by day old stubble that was the colour of dirt. The glasses were gone and the light hair had been pulled away like some discarded wig, revealing the scruffy, black hair beneath. Suddenly, Angela was back in the living room, staring at the back of a chair with that kitchen knife gripped tightly in her hand.
She didn't need her sub-concise to will her on this time.
"BASTARD!"
The girl lunged at the man, not caring that the roar pealed the skin of her throat and the tinge of blood was slowly creeping into her mouth. Right now, the only thing in her world was-
CRACK
Pain exploded in the side of her face as something slammed into it without an ounce of restraint. The force of the blow set her stumbling off course and crashing into the red carpet as she reeled back from the blow that had seemingly come from nowhere. Parker just looked down on her with a sneer, the heavy volume that Claudia had been reading gripped tightly in his shaking hands as she gasped and wheezed, eyes rolling as she tried to make sense of the sharp ache. Richard's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. This creature made his stomach turn. To think, Claudia thought this rag of a human was even worthy to partake in the salvation of man…It made him want to be sick.
"Now, Jobe…" Claudia watched Parker's back rise and fall with each breath as he sagged, the fight draining from him as he let the book fall from his hands and clatter noiselessly against the padded floor. Worry played with the corners of her mouth as her hand toyed with the idea of trying to comfort the man but thought better of it. She'd never, in all her long years in the Order, seen him lash out like that…
Parker straightened up and continued. "Are we all going to do this the easy way, or the hard way? It's up to you…"
Jobe looked at the two. Parker's tongue darted nervously across his lips and he seemed more like an eager child than a fifty year old priest whilst Claudia just regarded the man with her normal, cold indifference.
Just what the hell could these two actually do if he chose to turn his back and walk straight on out of there? Better yet, what could those two do if he chose to extract his bloody revenge on the pair?
Jobe grinned and gave his answer in the simplest way he could.
"Fuck. You."
Claudia felt the muscle in her jaw jump. Next to her, Parker sighed; a noise that was more tiered than angry.
"Very well…" He plucked his glasses from the bridge of his nose. Virgil watched as he let them fall to the ground and bounce off the open paged of the heavy book that had smite her, killing the notion of rebellion only seconds before. A cold dread filled the empty void it had left. Very quietly, she began to crawl back towards the pillar.
"Maybe…" Parker continued as his fingers reached for the row of buttons that adorned his shirt and slowly began to un-weave them. "You will change your mind once you see the true power of our faith." Jobe gasped as the shirt fell open while Virgil whimpered quietly at the sight of the priest's bear flesh. There was no reaction from Claudia as he shrugged of the top, letting it float slowly down-wards to keep the book and discarded glasses company. "Can you give me an amen to that, Sister Wolf?"
"Amen." She echoed, but Jobe hardly hear the words, for his eyes were glued to the preacher's exposed torso. Etched in the brown-red of dried blood were a whole library of symbols and unfamiliar words that were sketched across every available inch of skin. Jobe felt his stomach jolt when it hit him that none of it had been written or tattooed on, for each and every one of those occult drawings and lines of scripture had been carved deep into Parker's flesh.
"Oh my god…"
The priest gave Jobe one last wolfish leer before turning to his black and white accomplice with his hand out expectantly. In it was placed an extravagant knife that was for more elaborate than any implement you'd find in a kitchen draw but just as sharp.
Virgil shrunk into the pillar and watched with a single eye over her shoulder as she tried to crawl into an even smaller ball. Someone was praying in shaky and the girl quickly scanned the church to see who it was, only to realise that it was herself.
Jobe stepped back and tried to swallow but his throat stuck together. He'd tempted fate with hubris and it had retaliated with nemesis. He flinched further away as Parker shot out his empty hand, holding his palm face down while his fingers stretched madly as if they were trying to rip themselves apart from one another. The grin was still on the priest's face, and it was there as he drove the knife straight through the top of his hand and out the other side.
- - - - - - - - -
.A.N- I know, as places to end this chapter, that was a pretty crappy one. My appologies.
SlapDash- Yes, you were right about that. I must confess that I've become dangerously obsessed with that fantastic series and the name of the opening song jumped to mind when I was trying to name the last chapter.
Again, my thanks to you all.
