A/N: Content warning for graphic descriptions of torture, body horror, cannibalism, and sexual assault.
↓(For a more in-depth chapter summary, check the end notes.)↓
THE DISCIPLINE
Job is Corrected by God
"How happy is the one whom God reproves; therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he binds up; he strikes, but his hands heal. He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you."
—Job 5:17-19
DECEMBER 7TH 2039
8:42PM MST
COWDREY, COLORADO
Esteban reeled back from the surprise blow to his jaw. He did not move as feet shuffled and readjusted their stance, a body moved closer to grip his assailant more closely by the shoulders, and rough hands bent thin arms backward with a swiftness that he was grateful for.
Well, he supposed, as he turned his head back toward the girl before him, if it weren't for the swiftness of her crime he would've guessed she couldn't even feel the slice of his rosary. She'd barely gasped when he'd checked her ankles and knees, and pressed the canine against her wounds once more to ensure that the healing process would remain at bay for a little longer.
"Alice!" The hopeless man screamed at the sound of their small scuffle. Esteban could hear him writhing with rage on the ground, his arms fusing themselves together, his legs sporting an array of new openings. The man wouldn't be going anywhere, but Esteban had still instructed Daniel and Abel to hold tight to their captive as he blathered on and on.
"Get back in here you fucking coward! Leave her alone! Alice—Alice it's okay—"
Young Xavier's face had flickered with surprise before anger landed and remained. The young man was furious at the girl for striking Esteban with such abruptness. Esteban lifted a hand and placed it gently on Xavier's forehead, forgiving the lapse in his guard which allowed the girl to rip her right arm out of his grip and instinctually swipe.
The girl, finally heaving, eyes clenched tight as the pain revealed itself on her face, finally, was shaking. Her entire body overcome with tremors that could have been from fear or could have been from pain. Esteban sorely prayed it was from both.
"I'm sorry," the girl, Alice, gasped an apology as her first words spoken to him. "I—I didn't mean to," she paused, as if trying to sort out what to say but instead bowed her head and remained silent.
There were only so many ways to detach the distal phalanx. When it came to smaller bones with weaker ligaments there were not many ways to get creative. He displayed this fact cleanly, his first lesson for the girl on the floor before him. The removal of such a small appendage was not quite as clean, nor was it painless, which made it the perfect way to begin.
It was part lesson, part introduction.
"Do please try to hold still," Esteban smiled down at her, pleased as she nodded swiftly, short hair moving with every jerk of her chin. He reached out to remove her left arm from Xavier's grip and was filled with delight when she just about thrusted her hand back into Esteban's grasp. "It will be over faster that way." He turned her hand palm side up and spread her fingers wide, observing the way a fingertip hung, still attached by just a small piece of skin.
"I'm sorry," she repeated again, her words softer, more respectful. Her hand still shook as he quickly sliced the rest of the skin off, removed the phalanx and placed it in the dirt beside him. Venom pooled sweetly on the fresh opening and Esteban resisted the urge to place her finger inside of his mouth and suck.
It wasn't time for indulgence. Perhaps if this one required disposal then he could help himself to her later, but only after they rid themselves of the first man.
"Just breathe, that's right, you're alright, it's going to be okay," the man's voice was loud and only irritating in the sense that it was all lies. This man and this girl were not going to walk out of this house ever again. This was their fate. Their final resting place would be these woods and after they repented they'd be sent to their holy damnation.
Esteban placed his wrist inside the loop of his rosary and reached out, holding little Alice's weeping hand in his grasp. He leaned forward until she had no choice but to look up at him. They were nearly nose-to-nose when she slowly lifted her face to his, and Esteban rejoiced in the terror he saw. He let his eyes linger on the small ring of gold around her pitch black pupil. Such a beautiful color for a sinner so ugly to wear.
With a slow tenderness, he turned her hand palm-side up once more, his fingertips gently supporting its minuscule weight as his thumbs caressed the inside of her palm. He would place her wounds more carefully than the man's. Her size meant she was easier to restrain, easier to carve into, and easier to be molded into something almost beautiful before he rid her from this world.
Esteban smiled as he removed his right hand and readjusted his hold on his rosary, shifting it until the sharp end was pressed into the space beneath the swell of her palm. With a quick push he drove the tooth home, capitate and scaphoid breaking beneath the force, trapezoid shifting to make room for the intrusion. When he twisted, shards of her wrist bending and breaking beneath the pressure, the snapping sound flooded him with pleasure.
She cried out only then, shifting slightly but holding so, so still despite the pain. The man in the next room thrashed and shouted and Esteban breathed easy, picking her discarded bone from the ground. This, he placed inside of his mouth cleanly, rolling the bone, fingernail, and jagged flesh around his tongue to remove the dirt and coat it in a fine layer of his venom. The amount of her own venom that lingered was minuscule, but the sting on his tongue was divine.
He plucked the phalanx out, removed the canine, and pressed the bone inside her wrist. It almost didn't fit, but with his thumb he jammed it downward, feeling more bones shift and flesh tear under the brutality of this punishment.
Esteban moved onto her next hand and Xavier swiftly shifted his hold on her to accommodate further retribution. Esteban began to pray.
"Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus while before Your face I humbly kneel and, with burning soul, pray and beseech you—"
The words fell out of him as he spoke with a gentle hum, giving her right hand the same treatment. When she shakily presented the hand, thankfulness filled his mind, the righteousness lit brightly in the room as God shown down upon this ceremony between himself and the sinner at his hands.
The fool in the next room spoke over the sound of her bones breaking and skin splitting. "It's okay, Alice. Alice—Alice! Just listen to the sound of my voice. Breathe with me okay? In and out. In and out. Don't think about anything but me, okay? You focus on me. I'm right here."
"—To fix deep in my heart lively sentiments of faith, hope, and charity; true contrition for my sins, and a firm purpose of amendment—"
Her feet were slightly more difficult to maneuver. Once more she apologized for moving when he pushed his holy relic against her left foot. Her leg jerked to the side—she could not bend her knee due to the precautions he'd already taken—when he pressed a hole into her foot, forcing the cartilage of the talus to crumple and causing a delightful noise to reverberate in his ears.
While there, he removed a distal phalanx from each foot. After pressing deep into the wound with his thumb, ensuring there was enough space, he chose to let the injuries leak for a few seconds—the venom that pooled made his own mouth flood with want—before he drove the small bones into each foot.
"Hey ugly!" The man bellowed, "Freddy Krueger's lawyer called and said you gotta pick a different schtick. That brand of fucked face is a property of Warner Brothers."
Esteban grabbed both of her ankles in one hand and pulled her toward him instead of moving to sit by her hip again. The girl had yet to acknowledge her nudity, and her lack of shame was discouraging. Only the smallest underclothes kept her covered while the rest of her legs were whored out to the air.
The filthy garment tore as it dragged across the dirt, and a small cry of fear escaped her at the further exposure. She squeezed her legs together tightly as he settled himself at her side. It was the only deliberate movement he allowed from her. It was a flicker of humility that proved she was not entirely unprincipled. But that was not the part of her body he was looking to expose.
Xavier readjusted her arms in his grip and forced her shoulders to pull back, craning her back and presenting her chest to Esteban's waiting eyes. He lifted her shirt curiously, studying her state of dress beneath the begrimed black blouse. Esteban hummed in approval and tore the garment down the middle, revealing a small white brassiere that just barely covered his target.
"You're okay, it's going to be okay. Fuck—just—c'mon kid. Focus on me, alright? Breathe, okay, just breathe. Can you hear me? Just listen to me, that's it. Nothing else. Just you and me, kiddo."
Esteban lifted his hand and trailed his fingers down the side of her mostly-bare ribcage, counting even though he did not need to. Esteban could have hit the fifth and sixth ribs with a blow aimed from across the room. This was all ritual. Every inch of this inspection was a sacrifice to the vengeful ghosts of old who punished the wicked so the good could receive the riches of both heaven and earth. This was Holy, this was sacramental.
Esteban pushed the white covering upward with just a brush of his thumb—the girl was still shaking beneath his palm but did not flinch any further, as if not knowing what he was intending—and, finding the space between the two ribs he once more retrieved the canine and, with little warning, pushed his hand forward.
"—While I contemplate, with great love and tender pity, Your five most precious wounds, pondering over them within me and calling to mind the words which David, Your prophet, said to You, my Jesus—"
The thrust was so abrupt, and with so much force behind it, that it buried three of his fingers inside of her chest right alongside his rosary. The two ribs broke cleanly out of the way of the intrusion, and Esteban was gifted with the cleanest sounds of snapping bones that he'd received all night.
The girls first sob broke through then. It was more of a crackling mewl, unintentionally expressed with the sudden exhalation of air in the body, sounding like a crying child more than a suffering woman. Her heaving breaths were wet with venom, a slight whistle accompanying every exhale she expelled as she fought against the agony.
Esteban pulled his fingers out slowly and brought his hand back up to his face, pressing the tip of the rosary against his tongue once more, finally getting a heavier taste of the girl. In a blind ecstasy he sucked each of his fingers clean, the sweetness of the venom setting his neurons ablaze with the uncomfortable burn that trickled down his throat with each swallow. There were small bone fragments between his index and middle fingers and he drank them down greedily.
"Alice, Alice it's okay," the man's babbling persevered over the sound of Esteban loudly licking his fingers clean, "I'm right here," his deep, wobbling voice called out desperately, "Breathe with me kiddo, it'll be alright. I'm right here, okay? Don't forget that. It's—I'm—" his voice cracked again before breaking momentarily. "I'm sorry, Alice. It's going to be okay."
Esteban indulged for a rare moment—something he did not usually do, for indulgence was the sin of the gluttonous—and leaned forward, letting his halved tongue run along the trail of venom trickling down the girl's ribcage. His tongue met the caved in hole in her chest and he pushed it inward only slightly. Then, his lips formed a seal around the opening and he sucked directly from the wound, once, long and hard.
The man's endless babble took on a furious, semi-hysterical tone as he continued to yell and coax and ramble on. The girl gasped quietly, unable to control the twitching of her torso as the animal in her body bucked and thrashed, trying to escape his mouth.
Ah, the cries of the wicked sounded so sweet.
Esteban finally leaned back, licking his lips, and opened his mouth to finish his prayer.
"They have pierced…My hands…and My feet," the girl cut his words off, gasping the ending of his prayer out softly. Her head was bowed, her eyes tightly closed, and her voice trembled alongside her wounded body. The inhale of her next breath rattled interestingly, the fifth rib no doubt impeding her lung's ability to force these words from her lips. "They have…numbered all…My bones."
Esteban felt the power of the Holy Spirit surround him with those words, his joy and elation swelling within him. He leaned back on his knees when he said "Amen," and the feeling intensified as he watched her attempt to bow her head further.
"You are a Christian," he spoke, smiling and staring down at her small, naked form with wonder. "Have you been baptized?"
She nodded silently, head jerking up and down multiple times with what almost looked like desperate exaggeration, and Esteban waited for her to quit her dramatic huffing and puffing and speak to him respectfully.
"As a girl," her words still rattled. There was not enough air in her lungs to allow her voice to raise very high. Thankfully, her words silenced her irrational partner in the adjoining room. "It was a," another gasp as she pulled air into her one functional lung to use for speaking, "long time ago."
"And yet here you are," he spread his arm wide after she opened her eyes, gesturing broadly, "amongst sinners that are most unforgivable."
Esteban twitched his fingers upward and Xavier slowly leaned her forward once more. The shirt fell closed over her exposed breast and leaking wound, and her head struggled to stay up as she looked toward him.
"I try to," another gasp, "live without," another, "sin the best," a third, "I can."
"An honorable attempt if it is to be believed," Esteban stood himself up slowly, dusting off his vestments and feeling refreshed at the sight of fresh venom eating away at some of the fibers. "Unfortunately, I am not inclined to believe your words. To prance alongside these vessels of evil implies wickedness within your heart, too, dear one."
"Forgive me," gasp, "father." He listened idly as he sucked on his rosary once more, gathering up the rest of the venom before returning the teeth to its spot. "For I have sinned."
Esteban paused, his rosary halfway inside of his pocket as she spoke. "Are you looking to confess today, my child?"
He waited patiently for her to gasp out her words, as it took her several long seconds.
"It's been…one hundred and…nineteen years…since my last…confession."
Esteban could not help the smile then. Who was he to deny a child of god their right to repent their evil ways? This would be a soul he would escort so warmly to its judgement.
He moved back toward her, sitting himself comfortably on his knees before her, hands resting in his lap. "A long time to be without quite an important sacrament, I see." He nodded toward her, pleased at her willingness to repent. "Continue on, my child."
The girl, Alice, spoke for a few minutes, following the same format that even his most loyal Saints followed while confessing, first listing, slowly, a plethora of small venial sins before building up to more serious and larger ones. At one point she paused, flinching as a snap in her chest reverberated through the room, one of her ribs righting itself. She hissed with pain and her head drooped forward once again while she focused through it, breathing in and out slowly. Her lung no doubt was knitting itself back together as she tried to speak.
It was pity that forced him to nod toward her. "If you wish to regal them all, please do so. If we must stop here that is quite alright. I can absolve you of all that you are conscious of."
Little Alice shook her head childishly and for the first time Esteban wondered about her age. She mentioned nothing promiscuous in her visions, and appeared to be unmarried, but he doubted this woman who dressed with such flimsy undergarments was as holy as she claimed. There had so far been no mention of family, of a mate, or of others; only of herself and her own wicked sins.
"No," she inhaled slowly, and the rattling had finally decreased exponentially, "there's one more I have to confess." Esteban waited patiently. "I am the psychic you are looking for."
"Hey, hey! Stop no, Alice—"
The renewed shouting of the large man was so easy to ignore as Esteban sat back on his heels, staring at the girl with wide, satisfied eyes. If she was being truthful then this was it. This was his ticket to freedom; her retrieval granted him permission to do what he wished with the rest of Major Whitlock's wicked, wretched coven.
He tried hard to temper his excitement. "That is quite the confession." Alice's face was scrunched in a frozen wince as she looked up at him, and it delighted him so much more now that she was prone before him like this, a supplicant with venom still dripping sweetly to the dirt beneath her. An example of God's wrath and a display of what happens when wicked women let the devil in their hearts.
It was time to move onward.
"Your penance will be severe," he nodded and inhaled deeply, letting the joy of their successes fill the space in his chest along with the promise of God's rewards. "But if you are willing then your sins will be absolved, dear one…"
Alice nodded, her eyes glassy, her body still trembling where it bowed before him.
"Do you remember the words?"
She nodded again, stiffly. Esteban reached back into his pocket, wrapping his fingers around his rosary. He allowed the canine to press into the tips of his fingers, drawing venom from each one before pulling it out of his pocket and moving onto his feet. When she began to pray, he circled her and thought to himself about where to mark her, all while listening as her wobbly prayer spilled forth.
"Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you…"
The wounds of Christ sat holy on her supplicant form, and Esteban decided that before he handed her over to the Volturi messenger, he would dig into them once more, as a parting punishment.
Esteban stopped behind them and lifted a hand, signaling for Xavier to back away.
"And I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell…"
Alice's limbs were pliant in Esteban's grasp as he spread her legs, bent her knees, and gripped her thin wrists in his hand. He positioned Xavier between her legs and pointedly ignored the way the boy's eyes widened when he continued to arrange them, guiding Xavier forward until his legs hooked over hers and around her hips.
"But most of all because they offend you, my God…"
Esteban crossed Alice's arms across her body, handing Xavier each broken wrist to hold onto in a vice grip, and encouraged Xavier to pull her against him with his feet to further lock her in place. Now, he'd be able to hold her close in case she tried to jerk away, or push her back if she tried to bite him. There was no mistaking the hunger in the young man's eyes at such permission; to be able to press against a woman this close in this state of undress was as much of a temptation for Xavier than it was a test for this witch to resist her own promiscuous tendencies.
"Who are all good and deserving of all my love…"
Xavier tightened his hold on her wrists and on her backside and in that moment Esteban knew that he'd likely be sought out for confession later; the pleasure Xavier was about to derive from this act of penance was one that was expressly forbidden on a typical night.
But this night would end in purification for all.
"I firmly resolve," her voice trembled further, as she tucked her chin as low as it could go, now under Xavier's wide, watchful gaze. If she were trying to ignore the immoral press of hips against hips, she was doing a poor job of it. "with the help of your grace…"
Esteban took two steps outside of the room where a long, wooden trunk lay. He lifted the lid of the worn, unassuming crate, reached down, and with a delicate grip he pulled out the weapon he'd so lovingly crafted for nights like tonight.
The spinal column was the oldest relic in his personal arsenal; the product of multiple beautiful experiments. Over the centuries he had tested the strength and regenerative properties of bone in the bodies of the souls he'd sent to hell. This was a marvel of his own genius and a phenomenal tool to dole out punishment. He'd fused countless teeth into the ridges of many of the spinous and transverse processes, creating a tool able to inflict damage to the skin of their kind.
"To confess my sins…" Alice's voice sounded scared now, her words falling faster as emotion threatened to choke her, "to do penance and to amend my life. Amen." The rest of the words fell out in a rush, her Amen catching on a sob.
The weight was familiar and comfortable in his hands as he walked behind her once again. Xavier kept his head ducked forward, as if trying to force the girl to look him in the eyes; Esteban could not tell whether her eyes were opened or not, but it mattered little to him what the sinner amongst them thought or did.
Esteban began his absolution, "God, the Father of Mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the world to himself." With one swift movement he swung his arm downward, as if cracking a whip, and sliced the girl's back open. Her cry of agony was everything that her earlier cries had not been: so, so satisfying.
He ignored the screaming man nearby and the sound of senseless thrashing. "And sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church." Esteban struck her again, and watched as the fabric of her shirt split along with her flesh, embedding itself within the skin. Her back was already wet with venom. "May God give you pardon and peace." The third strike caused an extra snapping sound to reverberate within her, and the promise of more broken ribs sank further satisfaction into him as he swiftly delivered a fourth blow. "And I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father," another strike, "and of the Son," a sixth, "and of the Holy Spirit."
Three more blows in quick succession had her finally scrambling to get away. She pushed against Xavier with willing desperation, as if closer proximity to him would spare her from her pain. Her useless movement, mangled legs flailing and torso pressing forward, merely aligned herself more indecently against young Xavier, who pulled her tighter against him in response to her desperate jerking.
The next three strikes he delivered slowly, one after the other, after the other. Esteban gave her just enough time to writhe, cry, and calm her struggles before he struck again. After the twelfth blow—one for each sinful decade of immortality that she'd endured while living with her demonic abilities—he stepped back, marveling at the sight—the contrast between the black shirt, her pale skin, and the purple-silver of her wounds was beautiful—and smiled, releasing a firm and resolute, "Amen."
Esteban stood back and ignored the large man's screeching and crying just as he ignored Xavier's panting and rocking. The witch was theirs. Once she recovered from her penance, she'd be handed over, and Esteban would be free of half of his obligation.
The other half of his task did not feel like a mission at all. It felt like the gift that it was.
Esteban lifted his weapon to clean it, licking each vertebrae and tooth clean as the hymns of proper penance sang through the air. The man's violent screaming, the girl's death rattle, and Xavier's sudden gasping.
He would silence the man, deliver the girl, perform absolution for his loyal follower, and regroup with his congregation to plan the fight that lay ahead of them.
The death of Jasper Whitlock could not come swiftly enough.
A/N:
Summary: Esteban tortures and interrogates Alice while one of his men restrains her. The torture gets progressively worse and more intense, with Emmett (mangled in the adjoining room) calling out toward Alice consistently throughout it, attempting to offer whatever comfort he can. Esteban removes pieces of her fingers and toes to recreate the wounds of Christ, including puncturing her chest, in addition to drinking venom from her wounds. Alice eventually babbles out a lengthy confession for Esteban, who absolves the injured girl—a Christian, to his relief and joy—of her sins. Her final confession is that she is the psychic he is looking for. He delivers a violent, ecstatic penance and the chapter ends as Esteban celebrates his successes, his follower assaults Alice, and Emmett rages in the background.