Chapter 16: Reincarnation
"Death is not final, no, not yet. She waits and bleeds and weeps. And the silence fills her soul."
The Maze, Russia, April
It was death in either direction. Either hacked into pieces by magical armor or stabbed to death by foot long spikes.
What a joy.
The door slid a tray out and carved into the tray were words: The gift of life grants the way forward.
Sherry shoved him out of the way.
"Don't let these assholes get me. I know what it wants."
She held out her wrist toward Ada and waited. The other woman did what she asked, she sliced it from one side to the other.
Sherry held her bleeding arm over the tray.
Jill put a blast of the shotgun through the advancing legs of one of the suits of armor. It tumbled down in a spill of metal. And then it rose again, unharmed.
She tossed down the shotgun.
Ada set the katana down on the ground by Sherry and the three of them moved toward the suits of armor.
Leon spun a beautiful back kick at the first that hit it at the hip and sent it stumbling into the wall. Jill followed that up with a short-legged thrust to the sternum of the armor and it went over onto its back. She snatched its hatchet away.
Ada rolled away from the swinging ax of the other, grabbing its ankles as she did. She jerked, spilling it down onto the floor to join its brother.
The ceiling was head height now and they were forced to crouch. It limited their ability to fight.
Sherry was leaning heavily against the wall. She'd cut herself three times now and was desperately short on blood. Leon rushed toward her and shoved her aside.
"Are you stupid?"
"It wants life to get through. Let me finish!"
"It doesn't need one damn person to do it!" He cut his arm and held it over the tray. "Jill!"
She shoved the armor she was fighting upward, it was spitted like a moth to the descending ceiling.
Jill ran toward them and slashed her arm when Leon stepped aside. She held her bleeding arm over the tray.
Leon raced, a little light-headed, back to the battle with the other armor. Ada was on the ground, struggling. He grabbed the chest plate and pulled, sending it up to stick like its twin.
Ada rolled and they hurried back to the front of the room and a very low crouch now. Ada moved to slice her arm and the tray clicked, fulfilled. It rolled back into the door and then they opened. The group pushed through, Ada rolling through last just as the ceiling finished its final descent and smashed into the floor where she'd been moments before.
They'd made it. But now they were trapped here with no way back.
Sherry was very pale and shaky. Leon was binding her arm with a piece of Jill's lab coat.
She was trying to shove him away. "I'm fine! I'm fine! Just give me a minute."
And she was. Because her arm had healed before he even finished binding it. She bound his instead.
They were in a dining room. A long, long table stretched out before them. It was shiny and mahogany and old. It had no less than thirty places to sit surrounding it. A fireplace crackled at one side, casting warmth across the cold room.
Leon gathered his thoughts, taking a moment to feel the warmth of that fire.
And the voice came again, happy. "Six hours to find meeee! And you're doing so well! So brave, Sherry! We're you saving your lover? He must be delicious in bed! Hurry hurry! You're almost there! Of course, …you're not alone."
And the tyrant dropped down onto the dining room table, screaming. It landed with a noise akin to a bomb going off. Somehow the table held the weight without much protest. It was soaked in blood, covered in bullet holes, but still hungry.
And it stalked, slowly, across the table toward them.
Leon hefted the sword…and rolled onto the table.
"Are you stupid?!" Jill yelled at him.
"I've been known to be. Get them moving. Now!"
He rushed toward the tyrant. Jill, Ada, and Claire ran for the far door. Sherry leaped up onto the table behind the tyrant.
It stopped, jerked its head, jerked it back. Sherry had the shotgun aimed at it.
"Over here! You idiot!"
It paused, considering. Leon yelled, "Get out of here! Don't be stupid!"
"Why not? It's sexually transmitted." And she unloaded a shotgun blast into its back.
The tyrant roared and reversed, charging her. She stumbled but held didn't go down, she lifted the gun and was too slow. It swiped its arm at her and knocked her aside. She went up, smashed into the ceiling, and came back down to smash against the floor.
Jill and Claire grabbed her to pull her away. Ada grabbed the shotgun and it knocked her away as well. She hit the door and fell through to the other side.
The room beyond was open and had a telescope to look through the glass ceiling above. And a single piano that was shiny and beautiful. A sheet of music rested on the piano, daring someone to play. The doors beside the piano were happily locked.
Leon and the tyrant dueled now. It swept those claws at him and he rolled, coming up to swipe the katana at its waiting legs. Muscle and flesh split, blood sprayed and the tyrant wailed, using its none clawed hand to grab him by the throat and lift him, dangling him in a choking hold.
He drove the sword into its belly. He couldn't free it now. The sword was trapped in its body. It roared in his face and shook him, like a cat with a mouse. He felt his teeth gnash together. He saw it coming and knew there was no stopping it. It lifted its arm back to spear him with those horrid claws.
And he closed his eyes, waiting for the moment of death. Let it be quick, he prayed, just let it be quick.
The tyrant roared, roared. And Leon's eyes opened a little to see what the problem was.
Later he'd wonder if it was a delusional dream. Surely it had to be.
Chris Redfield was holding that clawed arm in his hands. He was covered in blood and his chest was scarred but he was alive. The black tank top made the scars on his skin stand out in sharp relief.
He grabbed the hilt of the katana and jerked it clean. It exited the body of the tyrant in a burst of blood and torn flesh. The tyrant roared and tossed Leon away.
He rolled as he landed and couldn't quite believe what he saw.
Chris rolled the bloody blade in his hand. His face…his face was empty, calm. He even did something incredible, smiled at it.
"Thought you'd had the last laugh, didn't you? You ugly piece of shit."
The tyrant swiped at him and Chris severed its clawed hand from it with a single swing of the sword. It sliced through flesh and bone with inhuman strength behind it. He hipped a kick into the belly of the beast next, driving it back from him as it wailed in denied rage.
And then he drove the sword into the beating heart on its chest. He stabbed it clean through and twisted, jerking it back out in an arc of blood and pulsing muscle. The tyrant teetered, tottered and fell down on its face…still.
Covered in the tyrant's blood, Chris put his hand down to Leon and jerked him to his feet.
"How?"
Chris shrugged and met his eyes. "I don't know. I woke up…healed. Better then healed. Stronger, faster, alive."
They moved into the room with the women.
Ada was messing at the piano with Jill. Claire turned first and froze. She took a step, then a second, and then ran.
He caught her as she leaped into his arms and held her close.
She was laughing and crying. "You have to be kidding me! How are you here?"
Leon shifted his eyes to Sherry. She was clutching her hands and unclutching them. "I'd say it worked."
Sherry nodded, slowly. "It must have…but…how do you feel?"
Chris smiled, rolled his shoulders. The scars were very prominent. He looked like he'd lost a fight with Freddy Krueger. But he felt fantastic.
"Awesome. Seriously. I should have been afraid of that damn tyrant but I wasn't. I KNEW how to kill it. I knew where it would strike and how it would move. I just knew."
Sherry nodded a little, still wringing her hands. "There might be side effects. Growing up I had a lot of things there were weird about me. I could smell people, first off. And sense them."
"Cool."
She shook her head, moved a little toward him. "There's one thing…we should get it out of the way now."
She put a hand out for Ada. Ada lifted a brow.
"May I see your arm please?"
"Why?"
"Ada…it has to be you. I'll explain in a moment. But we need to know how bad it can get."
Ada gave over her arm, slowly. Sherry put out her other hand for the katana. Chris, curious, handed it to her. She knicked Ada's skin at the elbow. The other woman didn't jerk but stared at the tiny drop of blood that turned into a little stream.
Jill started to ask a question, "Ok but wha—"
He knocked Sherry away in the rush. He moved like one of them. Like the tyrant, like the beasts. He grabbed Ada's arm and hyperextended it, his other arm wrapped at her waist as he picked her up to bring her closer to him. She watched, fascinated, as he stuck his mouth to the wound like a vampire. It was painful, yes, but not really more than a little stabbing jerk.
He feasted at the bend of her elbow like a thing possessed.
Jill moved forward and Sherry waved her back. "It's ok. Just wait. He can't help it. He can't. I couldn't either when I was little. My Dad he…kept me away from everyone for a long time until I could control it. The bloodlust. The hunger. Think of it like Blade. Bigger, faster, stronger…hungrier. You have all their strengths and…this. It's like a junkie looking for a fix."
"But why Ada?" Leon sounded curious, watching the show.
Sherry sighed a little. "He loves her. Emotion..it puts a smell in the blood, a nearly undefinable something that makes that person almost an obsession. It's hard to resist."
She turned her eyes to him. "Love is the best flavor of all. Like putting cherry syrup in your coke. It just makes good…better."
Chris licked at the wound like a dog now but it had closed. Ada was looking into his face. She felt like she was floating in a sea of something undefinable. She felt like she wanted to die right where she was, pressed against him.
Oh. Her blood hummed. He'd healed her arm. Clearly, something in him was restorative and communicable. Her fingers touched his mouth and he sucked one into the warmth of it. It tightened things low in her body.
She whispered, "Good?"
"...good. The first time I met you? I wondered what you'd taste like."
Goodness. Her blood was singing. He let go of her arm to tug her into him tighter. She made a small sound and let him roll his face against her chest, like a cat scent marking or something. He rubbed his chin all over her tank top-clad breasts.
The thing about it? They were both oblivious to the room around them watching with anime doll eyes. Wide - surprised - interested.
She was NOT a woman that played footsie with a man in public. And not in life and death circumstances. What was it here? Him? Or what was in him now? A hard question.
Sherry moved toward them. "Chris?"
He turned his eyes to her. They were very clear, very calm, and very Chris.
"Better?"
He smiled a little. "A little blood or being dead? I think I'm ok. I used to drink the stale beer at J's. This is nothing."
He lowered Ada down the front of his body. She slid against him and was very aware of how deliberate it was. She was also very aware of how happy the blood sharing had made him. She lifted a brow at him and said, quietly, "Not exactly the best of times for that. Seeing as we'll be dead in less than six hours."
"It's my penis…makes me do dumb stuff," He cupped the side of her face, "Ada. I was lying there..I could feel you. I could feel your grief. If I could have come back for you right then, I would have."
She shied away from the tenderness of it. But she craved the feeling of him.
She watched him, raptly, as he ducked his head to her. Her mind said: in front of all these people?! And he kissed her.
Yep. In front of all the people.
Worse yet? She opened her mouth for his tongue.
Jill bobbled her brows. Leon was staring at Sherry. She said, "Yeah...it's like that."
He tilted his head at her.
And she added, "Yeah, it's like that in me for you."
Claire rolled her eyes. Her brother came back from the dead to suck face with a spy. What was the world coming to?
"Not to interrupt your lovemaking over there, Romeo and Juliet, but does anyone know how to read music?"
Chris laughed a little and tugged Ada's hands out of his pants. She was nails deep in his ass and sorta...grinding a little on him.
He hated to set her away but they were in, at the moment, ass deep in enemies and on borrowed time. She was flushed and heavy-lidded and a little out of it. The moment she realized she was, she snapped upright and looked angry. He winked at Ada and turned to move toward his sister. She was giving him a very dirty look. He settled down at the piano and looked at the music.
"It's Whispers in Time," He put his hands on the keys and started playing, effortlessly, "It's Vermue."
Ada glanced at Leon who was watching her drolly.
"What?"
"...just wondering why I didn't get that reaction in Spain with the plagas in me."
Ada rolled her eyes and gave him a deadpan expression. Leon chuckled, enjoying her discomfort.
The ceiling started to spin, slowly, rotating to show the stars above turning and shifting. Ada put her eye to the telescope, watching it.
"It's spelling something out."
The pace of the music increased, spilling its haunting reverie over the room. And a place on the floor opened with a metal hiss.
A hunter leaped into the room, roaring. Chris stopped playing and the door started to close, the ceiling reverting to its previous state.
"No!" Sherry yelled, "Keep playing! We'll do this!"
Another panel opened and the second hunter emerged.
Ada picked up the sword and Chris started playing again. The music was their backdrop, their soundtrack, it acted as a cushion to make the tableau of fighting almost serene. The hunter rushed Claire and she unloaded five shots into it from her pistol. It whipped its ruined jaws around and smashed into her, taking them both into the far wall.
Ada drove the katana into its back and it turned, roaring. Jill obliterated its face with the shotgun in a spray of brains and blood. The other hunter was cornering Sherry. She shot it twice and it knocked her into the wall. It went in for the kill and Leon smashed a lamp into the side of it, swinging high and hard like he was trying to hit a home run.
It turned on him and Sherry put the pistol to the back of its skull and pulled the trigger. It jerked, jerked, twitch, and fell over still twitching. The song ended…and the door was open.
The piano started to play now…on its own.
Chris rose from the bench, watching the keys press inward and the familiar and beautiful haunting thrill of music pour forth. It was something sad, beautiful, and made his chest tight at the emotion of it.
The voice came over the room.
"The plot thickens! We find our hero survives. Or does he? Time will tell."
They moved through the door and into a chamber beyond. It was a…throne room?
A throne sat in the middle of the floor…waiting.
"You've found my favorite chair! Of course, who will sit upon it? Who of you is brave enough to be…me? The only way into the tower is in that chair."
Jill moved toward the throne. She didn't hesitate, she sat down upon it.
The voice was laughing. "So cocky! So arrogant!" The throne locked her down. It drove steel spikes into her back, into her wrists, into her shoulders and she gasped in shock. Her blood spilled, red and hot, down upon the golden seat.
Claire yelled, "Let her go!"
"Oh don't worry! It won't kill her! Not yet! But it takes blood to face your fate. And it costs you everything to fight it!"
The floor depressed in a circle and the room began to spin, spin, faster and faster. They couldn't hold on. They tried. But it tossed them around like toys. It rose, spinning, spinning, spinning. Jill's blood propelled it up and out and out and out.
And it finally came to a stop with a clunk and a grind of metal.
The voice said, "Well done! Well done!...Five hours. Come find me! Let's play!"
And the throne released, spilling Jill to the floor. She was bleeding from her wounds but they were manageable. Mostly superficial.
Chris helped her up.
"You ok?"
She studied his face as he looked at the wound on her forearm. And then she lifted it to him and he put his mouth to it. He moved next to the one on her back left shoulder. Her breath shuddered out in a line and she couldn't help it, she liked it. She liked his mouth on her. She always had. It was all wrong. The timing and the situation and the world. It was all wrong. But it felt good to let him.
And it was probably ok to feel good in a shitty situation.
The doors opened and showed the endless expanse of the tower beyond.
They stood there, waiting, but they didn't have to wait long.
The voice came over the intercom. "I was going to show you my masterpiece. But you're not ready! Not yet! So come on! A little farther! Don't you want to see what's waiting at the top for you? I can't WAIT to show you!"
And somewhere in the distance, a bell began to toll.