The Final Piece of the Puzzle

Kyra remained where she was on the floor as Eryc finally stepped to Dante's side. He gazed down at the casket. He opened his mouth to speak, but Dante's expression made him think otherwise. Dante dropped down into the grave feet first. Dante's gloves squeaked as he tightly balled his fists. With a short battlecry, he lifted his fist and dropped it straight through the casket lid. His fist stopped a few millimeters above Lilith's face. Wood flew through the air as he retracted his hand. The hole was large enough to expose her face and shoulders.

Lilith moaned and tried to turn from the light she had been locked away from for three days. Her face and pillow were stained with the blood of Sparda's Sorrow. It was still pouring from her eyes until she was exposed to the light. As if he were midwifing, Dante reached into the hole with both hands and seized her shoulders. He yanked her through the hole with a single heave. She squealed with pain as he pulled her to her feet.

"Eryc," Dante called. Eryc needed no explanation. He leaned down and took Lilith from Dante. He lifted her by her arms. "Lay her down," Dante ordered as he pulled himself from the grave.

Eryc dragged her away a short distance before obeying. Dante kneeled beside her. He forced her eyes open. She snarled in disapproval and turned away. Dante grabbed her shoulders and forced her back down. He held her head down with both hands. She opened her eyes and struggled as if attempting halfheartedly to break free. Dante quickly slapped her to calm her down. To his surprise, she slapped him back.

"Okay, I deserved that." Dante motioned to Eryc. "Hold her head back," Dante said. Eryc pressed a hand against Lilith's forehead. He cringed in disgust when he saw a lump in her throat. It wriggled and undulated beneath her skin. He nearly lost his balance when Dante withdrew Lilith's bone knife. In a single smooth motion, he slit the skin of her throat. A familiar black substance oozed from the wound.

"Whoa!" Eryc stood and backed off.

Dante flung the last of the fluid away before closing the wound. "What's your problem?"

"What the hell was that!"

"It was Kaliel's," Kyra answered from behind him. "He was using it to absorb and transfer her power."

Eryc waited in silence as Dante leaned closer to Lilith's face. Her struggles quickly ceased as she and her father locked eyes. Shortly afterwards, he nodded at her as if confirming a telepathic message. Lilith quickly nodded back.

"She'll be fine," Dante said as he sat up. "Take her to safety. Anywhere will do. I'll find you."

"Right." Eryc lifted Lilith into his arms. He walked past Kyra without looking at her. Dante waited until Eryc descended the stairs from the entrance before acknowledging Kyra.

"Well?" Dante asked. Kyra sucked blood from her lip. Dante stood over her. "Is there something you would like to tell me?"

"What good will it do if I did?"

Dante snorted with contempt. "I am quickly wondering what the hell I've been doing for the past twenty years. I guess I was right about my previous impression. That you were a liar and a traitor."

"You don't understand. Things were complicated twenty years ago. Things are no different today."

"Yes," Dante conceded, "but this time there will be no happy ending. It's past time to kill this charade."

Dante ran towards the caryatid with his fist raised. He punched into the stone as hard as possible. It was enough to ruin the statue's foundation. Stone broke and crumbled to the floor. As Dante expected, two sword handles were exposed as the bottom of the statue fell apart. The cracks moved upwards. Large chunks of the statue fell away up to its waistline. Sparda and the Yamato clattered to the floor as their stone prison crumbled.

Dante picked up both swords. "Get up," he ordered Kyra without offering her help. "I'll let you explain yourself before you die."

"And afterwards?"

"That is not my concern."

(X)

An elderly woman opened the cellar door and turned on the light. "Hurry," she said to her grandson and granddaughter, "before you make a mess."

Her grandson, a young dark-haired man, and her granddaughter, a curly black-haired adolescent, carefully lifted a large black plastic bag and carried it to the cellar. "Watch your step," the grandmother urged as they all descended the staircase. When they reached the bottom, both youngsters tossed their burden onto a pile of black bags.

"That's the last one," the young woman said as she stretched. "The final corpse."

The young man coughed. "Just another day at the office."

"Stop it!" the grandmother ordered. "We've been through this before."

"The lecture or those monsters' murderous rampages?"

Before the grandmother could return with her own smart quip, they were all startled by the doorbell upstairs. The grandmother flicked her hand at the granddaughter. "Get that, Miriam."

Miriam grimaced. "Why do I have to do it?"

Her brother leaned over her. "Because I'm tired of doing it."

Miriam flashed him an obscene gesture as she climbed the stairs. The doorbell rang again when she reached the top. She ran to the door and opened it with more force than intended. She gasped when she saw a man standing in the rain with a woman in his arms. Then she calmed upon realizing she recognized him.

"I know you," she said. "You were at the funeral."

"Yeah," he said hurriedly. "My friend here needs a place to hide. Now. Please," he added as an afterthought. Miriam slowly stepped aside. He pushed past her just as her brother and grandmother were returning upstairs. He purposefully ignored them.

"Wait a minute!" the grandmother called as she chased him to the second floor. She waited for him to pick the nearest room and drop his charge onto the bed. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Who are you, and what do you want from us?"

"All I want are your patience and silence. At least until my friend finds his way here."

"Do you have anything to do with those creatures out there?"

The man laughed as if it were a stupid question. "Not willingly, if that's what you mean?"

The woman on the bed gasped and sat up as if she'd been stabbed by hot needles. She seized the man by his arms. "Where is my father!"

The man hushed her as he pushed her back down. "Just relax. He's taking care of some business with Kyra."

The woman released him. "There's something I have to tell him."

"I know. He has to tell you something, too."

The woman grimaced and turned away from him. He stood and placed a hand lightly against the old woman's arm. "We won't get in your way," he assured her, "and we won't get you into trouble. We just need time."

"Why should I oblige you?" The question was not a hostile demand, but a curious request.

"If you do," he promised, "you'll never have to deal with those creatures again. Ever."

(X)

Lilith lay in feverish spurts of sleep and dreams. Miriam kept a water basin in the room to clean off the blood that kept mysteriously appearing from Lilith's eyes. "I've never seen the likes of it," she heard Mirian say several times. "That girl must be some sort of devil." Rather than correct her, Lilith simply kept her eyes closed and waited.

Some hours later into the night, Lilith awoke fully to a touch on her forehead. She instantly felt herself regain what sanity was still eluding her. "What took you so long?"

Dante pulled his hand away and leaned back in his chair. "Coming here, or finding you?"

Lilith sat up and swung her feet to the floor. "How long was I down there?"

"You were buried alive for three days."

Lilith leaned forward. "That's a long time to endure artificial death. I saw depths of heaven and hell I didn't know existed. And everything in between."

"That's nice, but there is something I have to tell you."

"Let me go first." Lilith slowly stood and tested her balance. When she was sure she wouldn't fall, she took a step towards the window. Dante offered no help as she struggled to reach the window; if he had, she would have refused it anyway. When she finally reached it, she leaned against the wall.

"You were saying?" Dante asked.

"About Kaliel," she said. "He was sucking my energy to extend his own life. Now that I'm free and regaining strength, he'll notice he's getting weaker."

"I know. Those creatures that attack the city take people away to feed him. Some of them he eats literally. The ones that he dries out are all buried in that cathedral, like you were."

"I don't believe he's doing it simply from a fear of death." Lilith stretched on her legs.

"Revenge," Dante offered. "They skewered him as a child, and he's torturing them to preserve his life."

Dante felt a bit of intrigue when Lilith shook her head. "That's what the people believe, but that story, though true, is misleading. I learned something very disturbing while I was in that coffin. I saw all kinds of ugly things invading my brain."

"Like what?"

"Don't you ever wonder about those creatures that attacked us over the sea? That attack this island? Don't you want to know why they even care about Kaliel?"

"He said their lives depend on his."

"But why?"

Dante leaned forward in his chair. "What did you see?"

"They're tulpas."

Dante shrugged. "What does that mean?"

"It's a Tibetan concept." The new excitement Lilith felt caused her to return to the bed and sit on its edge. "It's like magic. If a group of people, or even a single person for that matter, believe in something powerfully enough, the very energy of that thought can make it real. This could explain any number of things on this planet, like Nessie or Yeti. Imagine, if you will, that thousands of years ago, Asian and Siberian folk psychically created the Alma or the Yeti, then when they crossed the Bering Strait into North America, they brought it with them. As cultures changed, it became Bigfoot, or Wendigo. Maybe even the Nuahli or Chupacabra." Lilith shrugged. "It's a simple idea that makes itself very complicated."

"Fascinating. In other words?"

"A powerful enough belief can turn fantasy into reality. Those creatures on this island exist because Kaliel thought them into existence. That's why they're so diligent in keeping him alive. If he dies, they cease to exist."

"That does explain one thing," Dante said, "but Kyra said that if I were to kill Kaliel, then everyone else on the island would also die."

To Dante's unease, Lilith nodded. "She spoke the truth. I saw something, a vision, of when Kaliel almost died as a child. There was a violent earthquake that day. If Kaliel's entire family had died, this island would have dropped into the sea."

"Why?"

"This island, the very ground these people walk on, is also a tulpa."

Dante's expression betrayed his surprise. "That explains it," he whispered to himself.

"Explains what?"

"Why Kyra saved him. He was the only one alive, and she took him down because she knew he had to keep the belief in the island's existence going."

Lilith nodded. "This island has been a family heirloom for millenia. Every member of the family was trained in continuing the island, so to speak. Since Kaliel is the last, if he dies, everyone will drop into the sea with nowhere to go."

Dante leaned forward and propped his chin against his palm. "Damn!"

"Sucks, doesn't it?"

"Not just that." Dante looked up at Lilith. "Kaliel has a brazen bull." Lilith winced at the mention of it. "I was with him during some executions yesterday," Dante continued. "Before he ordered the last person into it, the man looked up at us and said that the son of Sparda would doom the people. If I kill Kaliel, the island is destroyed. If I don't, nothing changes."

"How do you know he was talking about you? Everyone here thinks that is Kaliel."

"Not anymore. Some people, anyway, saw me walking around with the swords. I found them in the cathedral. Some of them probably have it figured out."

Lilith wrung her hands. "What do we do?"

"Believe it or not, I have no idea."

"How can Kyra live with herself? Letting this guy live. I'm sure someone else could take care of the island."

Lilith noticed how Dante looked away when she mentioned Kyra. "You wanted to tell me something?"

"Perfect timing. It's about Kyra, though you probably already know that."

"I had a hunch. What did she do?"

"It's not what she did. It's whom she is? Do you remember when we first arrived, and Kyra acted as if she knew you?"

"I guessed that she did," Lilith said. "How?"

"She's known about you since before you were born. She's your mother's sister."