Chapter 27 – The Ritual
James groaned in pain, his head leaning forward as the rope tied around his chest chafed against his bruised ribs. Blood trickled down the corner of his mouth and his jaw ached, bits of glass still here and there, and he barely had the energy to keep his eyes open. His beaten body protested against every breath, yet he had no other choice but to endure the pain.
Across the room, Deputy Wheeler lay sprawled on a rusty spring mattress. His hands and feet were cuffed to the coils, and wires trailed from the mattress to a nearby car battery. The mattress hummed faintly, the only sound in the room besides the heavy breathing of those present.
The Enforcer stood beside them, his massive frame towered over everyone else. He gave a slow nod to a younger man, a cultist fiddling with the battery connections. "Torture is simple," the Enforcer said, like a teacher explaining basic math. "You don't need any of that fancy crap. Do you want results? Keep it raw. Direct. Pain is honest."
He glanced over at Deputy Wheeler, who remained unconscious after the first shock had rippled through him. The Enforcer spat on the ground and scoffed. "Cops," he muttered, shaking his head with disdain. "Always thinking they're untouchable. They act like they've got all the power until someone reminds them what real power looks like."
James stirred in his chair, managing enough strength to lift his head to croak out, "He doesn't... deserve this..."
The Enforcer's eyes snapped toward James. Under the mask, he smiled, like a predator toying with his prey. "Deserve? What does 'deserve' have to do with it, James?" he said mockingly. "This isn't about who deserves what. It's about making you talk. And making him suffer."
He motioned over to the cultist. "When he comes to, double the voltage."
The younger cultist hesitated, looking at Wheeler and then back at the Enforcer. "What if he-?"
"What if he what?" the Enforcer snapped back, stepping forward. His massive hand clamped onto the cultist's shoulder, and his voice dropped to a menacing growl. "What if he dies? That's not your concern, kiddo. If I wanted him dead, he'd be dead already. Do as I instruct."
The cultist quickly nodded and adjusted the connections. The Enforcer smirked, his eyes returning to Wheeler. "See, James, this is why you don't befriend cops. They're weak." He looked back at the beaten man in the chair. "And just like you, they bleed and break. You should know all about that by now."
James struggled to speak, the words bubbling up through the blood in his mouth. "You're... a monster..."
The Enforcer only laughed. "Monster? Is that what you think I am?" He crouched to James's eye level, his face just inches away. "You haven't even seen what I'm capable of yet."
He stood abruptly, motioning to another cultist nearby. "Make sure they're ready. Wheeler here is going to be... educational."
The other two cultists began preparing the room, moving items and muttering amongst themselves. James could only sit there helplessly, forced to watch as the Enforcer leaned against the wall, casually lighting another cigarillo. The smell of burning tobacco mixed with sweat and blood.
Wheeler stirred slightly, letting out a low groan. The Enforcer leaned forward. "Ah, here we go. He's back. Round two."
The cultist hesitated for a moment before flipping the switch. A violent jolt coursed through the mattress, and Wheeler's body convulsed, his cries ripped through the air. James turned his head, unable to watch but he couldn't block out the screams.
The Enforcer exhaled smoke and chuckled. "Good, good... maybe this time he'll wake up ready to beg. It's better when they beg, don't you think so, James?"
But James, broken as he was, held his silence.
For now.
Wheeler's screams soon faded into gasps as the mattress buzzed faintly beneath him, the voltage easing after the last jolt. Wheeler's glare burned hotter as he forced his head up to meet the Enforcer's gaze.
The Enforcer smirked as he paced toward his prey. His scarred hands flexed at his sides. "So…," he began calmly, "is this the part where you're supposed to hold out for your friends? Die nobly for the cause?" He snorted. "How's that working out for you so far?"
Wheeler shifted defiantly against his bindings. "Fuck you... psycho," he spat.
The Enforcer tilted his head back and laughed. You've got spirit," he admitted, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye. "But it'll get you nowhere." He jabbed a finger toward the young cultist managing the battery. "Turn it back on."
"B-but-" the cultist stammered, looking uneasily at Wheeler's limp body.
"Fucking do it." the Enforcer barked.
The cultist scrambled to obey, trembling as his fingers adjusted the voltage. The Enforcer leaned in close to Wheeler. "You think being a cop means you're untouchable, Deputy? Out here, you're nothing. Just another rat scrambling for survival."
Wheeler clenched his jaw as another shock tore through his body, his muscles jerking uncontrollably against the mattress. The Enforcer grinned, reveling in the power he wielded.
Satisfied, he turned his attention back to James, who remained bound to the chair, his face pale and soaked with sweat. The Enforcer approached slowly, his presence looming, almost suffocating.
"You're quieter now, James," he drawled, crouching again. "Starting to realize how hopeless this is?" His grin widened. "Good. Maybe you'll be smarter than your buddy over there."
James's reply was short. "Go to hell."
The Enforcer's smile faltered for a moment before he chuckled. "Still feel like fighting, huh? Playing the hero?" he mused. "All right, let's talk about fighting."
He stood abruptly, beginning to pace as he spoke, his voice a mixture of curiosity and calculation. "I know about Alex. That little nephew of yours. You must be proud of him. Army Ranger, right? Impressive... for a pup." He waved his hand dismissively. "But that's all he is. Just a kid playing soldier."
The Enforcer's shifted his tone, his next words dripped with intrigue and respect. "But that Adam, though. The Papa Wolf." He stopped, locking his eyes on James. "Now, he's interesting. Ex-Green Beret, now Sheriff. Battle-hardened. The kind of opponent that gets my blood pumping."
James flinched at the mention of his brother-in-law, his beloved Mary's brother. The Enforcer noticed, sharpening his grin like a knife.
"You know him better than anyone here," the Enforcer pressed. "So, why don't you tell me about him? What else he got up his sleeve?"
James tightened his fists against the armrests of the chair.
The Enforcer's eyes narrowed, and he leaned down, his face inches from James's. "You want to protect your family, don't you? You don't think Holloway's gonna let your pretty little nephew and that daughter of yours waltz right out of this unscathed, do you?"
Still, James refused to answer, his lips held tightly.
The Enforcer sighed, then straightened, rolling his shoulders. "Fine, be a stubborn bastard. But I've got all day... and so does my battery operator over there."
He glanced at Wheeler, then back at James with a mocking smirk. "How about a front-row seat while I keep shocking the life out of your buddy here? Unless you're ready to talk."
He drew a knife from his belt. Slowly, he pressed the tip against James's chest, just enough to prick the skin. "Your call."
James's breathing quickened, and his chest heaved against the bindings that dug into his shoulders. His voice cracked, desperate to change the subject to a different direction. "What have you done with Angela?" She had been dragged out of the room, to God knows where.
The Enforcer paused as if genuinely pondering the question.
"That girlfriend of yours?" he asked, almost casually. "Oh, don't worry about her. She earned my respect back there."
James flinched at the word "respect," mind racing with possibilities.
"A pretty, fragile little thing like that," he continued. "Risking her life to save her good-for-nothing boyfriend. It's cute. Almost touching." His tone shifted to mockery as he leaned closer.
"She's earned my respect... and a rest," he said in a menacing whisper. "You, Sunderland? You've earned nothing but my contempt."
James's stomach twisted, his heart pounding. He didn't trust the Enforcer's words, there was something in his tone that suggested a game was still being played.
"What does that mean?" James croaked out.
The Enforcer stood and loomed over him, the smile gone from his face, replaced by a cold, calculating stare. "It means," he said slowly, "that I've got better things to do than waste time on someone who'd piss himself at the first sign of danger."
The memory of the earlier humiliation burned fresh in James's mind, but before he could speak, the Enforcer's voice boomed again.
"But you want to worry about Angela? Fine. Keep worrying. Maybe that'll motivate you to tell me what I want to know." He tapped the knife against James's shoulder for emphasis.
"She's resting," he repeated, his tone now dripping with disdain. "Which is more than you'll get if you keep wasting my time."
The Enforcer straightened up and James's eyes widened in horror as the larger man held up an old cassette recorder, the device looking as worn and battered as the man wielding it.
"You see, to catch a wolf, you need some bait," the Enforcer said, his voice was disturbingly calm.
James's heart pounded, a sickening dread clawing at his insides. "What are you doing?!" he rasped, his voice cracking with panic.
The Enforcer ignored the question, casually playing with the recorder, the buttons making a soft click as he turned it on. The faint sound of the tape whirring filled the room.
He smirked. "That girlfriend of yours? She ain't my type. I don't like damaged goods like you seem to. But Holloway? Oh, she's got her way of getting people talking. I can respect that the Angela girl put up a fight, and didn't want to talk at first. Takes guts. But everyone breaks eventually. Amazing what a few well-placed words can do."
James's stomach churned. He couldn't help but picture Angela's face, her defiance, and how it might have crumbled under Holloway's manipulations.
"But When Holloway whipped out that little digital recorder of hers," the Enforcer continued, "it got me thinking. What more could you even know about Adam? Is it even worth the effort?" He shook his head as if pondering the futility of James's resistance.
"Nah," he said with a shrug. "I've got all I need to know."
Instead, The Enforcer reached into his backpack and produced a drill with a thick bit designed for concrete. He held it up for James to see, letting the light glint off the steel as he pressed the trigger, the motor roaring to life.
"I ain't gonna lie, Sunderland," the Enforcer said, his voice cutting through the noise of the drill. "This is gonna hurt." He stepped closer, looming over James. "So scream. Let it all out. Maybe it'll make you feel better. Hell, maybe it'll even sound convincing on the tape."
James thrashed against his restraints, terror coursing through his veins as the Enforcer brought the drill closer to his thigh.
"God No! Please, no!" James begged.
But the Enforcer's face remained cold, devoid of empathy. With surgical precision, he pressed the spinning bit against James's leg and began to drill.
James's scream ripped through the air, raw and primal, as pain exploded in his thigh. The sound of flesh and muscle tearing mixed with the high-pitched whirring of the drill.
The Enforcer leaned in closer, the recorder still running. "That's it, James," he said mockingly. "Give me everything you've got."
James's head lolled back as he gasped for air, his face pale and drenched in sweat. Blood pooled beneath his leg, dripping onto the floor.
Satisfied, the Enforcer finally pulled the drill away and turned it off, the room falling into silence broken only by James's ragged sobs.
The Enforcer held the cassette recorder up, inspecting it with a grin. "Yeah... that'll do nicely," he muttered.
James could barely lift his head, his vision swimming. "You're... a monster," he choked out.
The Enforcer chuckled as he wiped the drill bit clean with a rag. "Monster? Nah. I'm just practical." He turned to leave, the recorder still clutched in his hand. "Rest up, Sunderland. You'll need it."
Judge Margaret Holloway leaned back in her leather chair, a smug smile on her lips. Before her, a grid of flickering monitors lit up her dim office, casting shadows across the lined pages of scattered Order documents on her desk. Her eyes darted between the screens, tracking the scenes unfolding across her dominion like a conductor watching her orchestra.
On one screen, the Enforcer loomed over James Sunderland, drilling into his captive's flesh. The camera's low resolution blurred the blood seeping from James's thigh, but the pain on his face was unmistakable. The sound of James's screams, though muted to her ears, played vividly in her mind.
"Efficient as always," she muttered, sipping from a mug of hazelnut coffee, her favorite. The Enforcer was brutal of course, but he got results, and unlike some of her more fanatical followers, he knew exactly when to stop.
On another feed, Deputy Wheeler convulsed against his restraints as electricity coursed through his body. Holloway's lip curled as the cultist at the battery controls hesitated. She reached over to a microphone linked to the intercom. "Double it again," she said evenly, her voice cutting through the static.
The cultist was startled, fumbling to obey her command. Satisfied, she moved her attention to another monitor.
Angela Orosco huddled in her cell, her knees drawn up to her chest as she rocked slightly, mumbling to herself. Holloway noted the girl's eyes and the trembling of her hands. 'Weakness', she thought, a sneer creeping across her face. The girl was damaged goods, no question, but perhaps not beyond use. People like her either shattered or sharpened under pressure. Holloway made a note to decide her fate soon, she had also taken the liberties to make sure that every single scream and moan from James and Wheeler as the Enforcer worked his magic was broadcasted towards her. "Can't let our guest get too comfortable."
Her gaze shifted again. Another screen showed the cult's day-to-day chaos: members walking hurriedly through corridors, others muttering in hushed tones while huddled in darkened corners. In one frame, a single cultist leaned against the wall, cigarette smoke curling lazily in the air.
Holloway grimaced in distaste. "A disgusting habit," she muttered under her breath, making a mental note to remind everyone the rules forbade smoking near the sanctified areas.
Her attention returned to the Enforcer's feed as he held up the cassette recorder for James to see. "Bait," he growled. Holloway leaned forward, watching the Enforcer work. His methods were crude, yes, but there was a poetry in them, savagery tempered with a soldier's discipline.
But she also knew he couldn't be left unchecked.
Pulling her notebook closer, she began to sketch out plans. The Enforcer was a necessary evil, but her Order demanded more than brute force. He was invaluable now, but once Alex and Adam Shepherd were dealt with, her other "project" would ensure her absolute control.
Holloway smirked to herself, whispering under her breath, "Everyone breaks."
Her sharp eyes scanned the screens in her office, her lips pressing into a thin line as she observed the chaos unfolding in her domain. The sacrifices, what a quaint and delicate tradition that masked the real power struggles underneath. As she flicked through the feed, her gaze briefly lingered on Deputy Wheeler's convulsing frame, shocked into spasms by the Enforcer's methodical handiwork. James Sunderland's anguished screams crackled faintly through the surveillance speakers, and Margaret barely spared a glance at the feed of Angela Orosco's cell, where the poor girl sat trembling, knees to her chest, hands clasped over her ears to drown out the screams.
Since pity and fairness were entirely alien to nature though, Margaret pleasantly recalled the relentless needling to ensure that Ms. Orosco would never heal.
"Ms. Orsoco." Margaret Holloway said to her prisoner. Angela didn't look up, she had remained quiet after the Enforcer's cruelty, but Holloway wasn't finished with her.
"Did you ever consider how young your father was when you ruined his life, Angela?" Margaret had begun. "Nineteen. A child himself. Barely old enough to understand what it meant to be an adult, yet suddenly thrust into the burdens of fatherhood. Forced to work a job he hated to support a family he hated even more."
Angela didn't respond, she had kept her gaze fixed on the cracked cement floor. The silence hadn't deterred Holloway, only emboldened her to push harder.
"Perhaps he believed you owed him something?" Margaret had continued, the corner of her mouth twitching in faint amusement. "First, you ruined his life. Took away any chance he might have had for a better future. And then, well, you had ended it, didn't you? Did you even feel guilty, Angela, when you ended your father's misery? Or was it simply relief?"
Still, Angela hadn't turned to face her, though her trembling hands and the tears streaming unchecked down her face had given Margaret all the satisfaction she needed.
"Not that you shouldn't have, of course," Margaret mused aloud, her words aimed at no one in particular as she glanced once again at the screen. "Someone had to put the poor man out of his misery, assuming he didn't just resent her too much to live."
For Margaret, it wasn't about the truth, nor even about gaining new information. It was about control, about ensuring Angela Orosco remained broken, trapped in the nightmare Margaret had carefully crafted. Every calculated jab, every cruel reminder of Angela's past, worked to ensure she would never heal, never resist, not in a way that mattered anyways.
And None of it phased her.
The Order's dogma was a carefully crafted narrative, useful in controlling the weaker minds. The "fifty-year sacrifices" had been presented as divine decrees, but to Margaret, they were pawns in a game much bigger than salvation. Her mother used to drone on about their sanctity as if an offering to this supposed god secured their town's future. "Ridiculous." But she had played along, long enough to become the hand that strangled her daughter, Nora. Holloway's lips curled into a bitter smirk. "Yes, I sacrificed my child. I endured that grief. And for what? For their damn rituals to stagnate and fester like the rest of them?"
Her thoughts turned to the Shepherd family. Bartlett was predictable, a coward to the end. Fitch was pathetic, tethered to a ghost. But Adam Shepherd? No. He was different. Dangerous. He had always had a fire in him. She had seen it brewing behind his eyes, that unflinching defiance. But it wasn't that she hadn't expected his rebellion. She had counted on it, relishing the opportunity to steer it into something that would fit her needs. His betrayal hadn't at all surprised her.
Margaret tapped her fingers on her desk as she shifted her gaze back to the screen displaying Adam's brother-in-law.
"Scream, James." She said to herself. "Wail, weep, resist, none of it will change what's coming."
Holloway chuckled dryly, her eyes narrowing on her Enforcer driving a concrete drill into James's leg. That man was an instrument of perfection, the ideal weapon of control. Unlike the rest of these so-called devout idiots, the Enforcer didn't care about gods or prophecies. His faith was in control, and Margaret admired that simplicity. The others gawked at his violence with both fear and begrudging respect, but they failed to understand that his loyalty wasn't to her, it was to results.
Holloway leaned back in her chair, the weight of her true work pressed against her. All these sacrifices were necessary not for their imagined salvation, but for her ascendance.
Adam Shepherd was coming, of that, she was certain. He would bring war to her door. Exactly as she'd planned. He thought he fought for Shepherd's Glen, but in truth, every step of his rebellion only added to her throne. By the time he understood what she was building, it would be far too late for him.
Margaret smirked at the image of Adam gathering his ragtag little force, emboldened by fury. She could almost hear the gathering dissenters in her ranks too:
"How could she betray the Order?"
"Because" she smiled. "I am the Order now. They just don't know it yet."
She leaned back in her chair, the muted glow of the surveillance monitors casting shadows over her sharp features. Her fingers tapped a beat on the polished wood of her desk as she contemplated the events unfolding within her sphere of control. The sacrifices, and rituals enshrined in centuries of tradition, had become inconsequential to her. The blood of children had always been the currency of the Order's devotion, but Holloway saw further than the antiquated dogma.
No, the fifty-year sacrifices were a means to an end. Bartlett and Fitch had embraced them wholeheartedly, weak-willed zealots shackled by tradition. They needed the rituals and craved the validation they brought. But Adam Shepherd? He'd always resisted. Holloway recognized that defiance early on, the fire in his spirit that no amount of persuasion or punishment could entirely snuff out. He obeyed only when the threat of force hovered above him.
And she had counted on it.
Adam's rebellion wasn't a failure of the Order, it was a crucial piece of her plan. His insubordination, and his refusal to conform, made him the ideal distraction. While he rallied his family and allies against her cult, she could quietly advance her ambitions, unchallenged and unseen.
"Mastery of life and death," she murmured to herself, the words reverberating like a chant. That was her true goal, not the appeasement of some antiquated ancient gods, not the hollow promises of rebirth from a blood-soaked pact. She sought dominion over the very forces that bound mortal existence, to transcend the chains of humanity.
Holloway glanced at the screen displaying Angela Orosco, huddled in her cell. The young woman's defiance was admirable but irrelevant. Like the rest, Angela was a pawn, her suffering another component in Holloway's grand chessboard. On another monitor, she observed her Enforcer exacting agony upon James Sunderland with precision. A cruel smile tugged at her lips. The man was breaking beautifully, his screams recorded to draw Adam and Alex deeper into her carefully spun web.
"It's almost poetic," Holloway mused aloud, swirling the glass of wine on her desk. Adam would be so consumed by rage, by his vendetta against the Order, that he would never see the true betrayal of the Order coming. Not until it was too late.
Everything was proceeding according to plan. Adam's defiance had become the perfect cover, his rebellion a smokescreen for her ascension. Holloway sipped her coffee, her thoughts already drifting to the next phase of her plans. With mastery over life and death, she wouldn't just lead the Order, she would become a god.
Judge Margaret Holloway reflected bitterly on the inevitability of her situation, drawing on her memories. While still being a mere initiate of the Order herself, ambitious and eager to climb the ranks, she had consulted an oracle, drawn by whispers of destiny and power. The oracle's prophecy was clear: Holloway was fated to lead, her vision to reign supreme. A hearty prospect perhaps, but with one fatal drawback, it had come with a price. Her reign, though glorious, would be painfully short.
And now, as the cancer ravaged her body, that prophecy loomed with a cruel irony. The diagnosis of pancreatic cancer had sealed her timeline. No amount of rituals or rites had slowed the disease, no prayers to the old gods granted her a reprieve. No specialists in Portland or Boston, recommended by Dr. Fitch could help. The only certainty was that time was slipping through her fingers, faster with every breath. The truth is, she had only mere months at best to live, four to six by the medical professional's best estimate.
But Holloway wasn't one to crumble under inevitabilities. If the gods of her mothers refused to intercede, she would craft her path, one beyond their limited scope of life and death. She was going to outwit both prophecy and mortality. Adam Shepherd, his rebellion, the chaos in Shepherd's Glen, all of it served her plans perfectly. Let Adam think he was striking a blow for freedom or revenge; she would use his rebellion as the smokescreen she needed. While the others fought their petty battles, Holloway pursued a far grander design.
She wasn't merely prolonging her life. No, that was far too small an ambition. She would transcend it entirely.
On the corner of her desk sat an old leather-bound journal, its pages yellowed with age and edges frayed from years of neglect. This relic, discarded and forgotten by Dahlia Gillespie, contained the key to a ritual, only that set it apart from the esoteric rites the Order typically relied upon. Unlike the 21 Sacraments or the Ritual of Rebirth, this ritual offered something far more personal, far more profound: a means to cheat death itself.
The ritual promised the ability to transfer one's consciousness into another vessel, transcending the limits of mortality. For a leader staring down the barrel of her demise, the allure of such a ritual was undeniable. Holloway had spent countless hours poring over every detail of the ancient text, ensuring its translation was accurate and its methods viable. There were seven translations recorded over the years, each slightly different in nuance, but all centered on the same promise of immortality.
Her predecessors had disregarded it, dismissing the concept as heretical or impractical. Perhaps they lacked the vision to see what she saw. They clung to their rituals, their gods, their sacrifices, bound by tradition and their desperate hope for divine intervention. Holloway, however, was different. She had no faith in gods, only in power and control.
Her predecessors' blindness was her gain.
Of the seven translations, Holloway had identified common threads that bolstered the ritual's credibility. Each translation described specific requirements:
A vessel of exceptional vitality, young, healthy, and ideally pliant of mind.
A tether to the consciousness of the original body, forged through pain and suffering inflicted upon the vessel.
The destruction of the initiator's physical form to sever the mortal coil and allow their essence to pass freely into the vessel.
The last point, in particular, lingered in her thoughts. The complete obliteration of her dying body didn't trouble her, it was a necessary sacrifice.
What she needed now was time and patience. Her preferred choice for a vessel was obvious: her daughter, Elle. Young, strong, and forever defiant, Elle had always stood as a reminder of what Margaret herself had lost to time. While she had raised her to think freely, to fight, and to survive, those very traits now made Elle a perfect candidate.
Foolish, pathetic Elle. Her daughter had a strong head on her shoulders if it weren't so stunted from disuse. Yet, Elle would be ideal. The girl was her daughter, after all. A fact Margaret never let the girl forget even as Elle became another pawn in her plans. "Children always struggle to see the big picture," Holloway muttered, her lips curling into a smile as she stared at one of the screens displaying Elle's battered and defiant figure in captivity. "But they'll thank you later. If they survive long enough to understand."
But if not Elle, Holloway's plans were flexible enough that there were backups. That Orosco girl, with her shattered mind, would be easy enough to manipulate if needed. Laura, Sunderland's little stray, also presented an option, though the young woman's untainted innocence might prove more of a hurdle. Holloway even entertained fleeting thoughts of taking one of the Order's acolytes as a last resort, though the idea was distasteful. The vessel needed to be more than a mere shell, it had to hold up to the legacy Margaret intended to craft.
The complexity of the ritual's preparation ensured she could not rush the process. She had time, not much, but enough to ensure everything would proceed as planned. Adam Shepherd and his rebellion served their purpose well as a distraction, ensuring her followers remained divided, their attentions scattered. Even her Enforcer was too focused on Alex and Adam Shepherd to suspect what his master truly sought.
Holloway reached for a pencil and scribbled notes into the margins of the journal, refining her understanding of the ritual. While the cult squabbled over their old gods and traditions, she would ascend, not as a mere ruler of the Order, but as a woman unbound by death's design.
For Margaret Holloway, salvation wasn't divine, it was self-made.
Her consciousness, her essence, Margaret Holloway, would move beyond the constraints of mortal flesh. She had already taken the first steps: her secret project, hidden even from the prying eyes of her closest acolytes, had yielded fruit. The process wasn't flawless, but the foundation had been laid. All she required was a suitable host, a young vessel strong enough to bear her will and cunning enough to thrive under her guiding hand.
"This isn't about you, Adam," she murmured, almost amused at the thought. "It was never about you."
But the chaos Adam stirred in his rebellion, the horror visited on the Order's enemies, oh, that she welcomed. While she moved her pawns with the meticulous care of a master player, Holloway reveled in the looming collapse of everything. Behind her ruthless determination and cold intellect, there simmered a truth that might terrify even her most loyal cultists.
Judge Margaret Holloway wasn't simply saving herself from death. She was aiming to reshape the very foundation of Shepherd's Glen and the Order itself, casting both in her image, fueled by her boundless will. For now, she ruled from the shadows. Soon, she would ascend far beyond mortal comprehension. And nothing, not Adam, not Alex, and certainly not the Enforcer's brutish simplicity, could stop her.
Nothing would be left to chance. Margaret Holloway had long since learned that sentiment was just another weakness and loyalty was a commodity to be bought or forced. To achieve her goals, she had been ruthless, starting with the murder of her own mother. As a young initiate, Holloway had seen her mother's stagnation, and her adherence to tradition as a betrayal of potential. The old ways, the rituals, and the so-called gods of the Order were relics meant to pacify the weak. Margaret ensured her mother's "graceful exit," seizing control of the Order and redirecting its vast resources to suit her ambitions.
As for The Order's so-called soldiers were little more than cannon fodder, pawns to further her designs. From the start, Holloway had directed them toward useless, doomed-to-fail campaigns, wasting lives to eliminate rival factions she cared nothing for. That hippie cult in Washington State, who claimed their god was a sentient, carnivorous plant, their roots had been burned out. Those cannibalistic pig-worshipping zealots in Iowa, slaughtered like their livestock. Most recently, she had sent her Enforcer, Mark Graves, and a team to deal with the Dagonite cult of New Innsmouth, wiping their degenerate order from the face of the earth.
Each mission served a dual purpose, one, to thin out potential threats while ensuring that the Order's most zealous acolytes would be too dead or distracted to stand in her way. She did not fear resistance, but the fewer obstacles the better.
Holloway's long game had always been clear, escape the Order's dying traditions and leave them as ashes and ruin. Let the survivors of her purge fend for themselves, descending into chaos and paranoia as the enemies they had antagonized over the decades came looking for revenge. Let the soldiers and cultists squabble and die in their self-imposed darkness. They would never see the truth of their exploitation. Margaret Holloway had never intended to lead them into paradise. She intended to leave them behind.
Her new path required precision and a loyal blade, one sharp enough to cut down all who defied her. Graves, the Enforcer, had proven immensely valuable in this regard. Though not a believer in the Order's dogma, he was a weapon with unmatched focus and cruelty, a tool of execution. If he remained useful, Holloway intended to make him the first acolyte of her New Order. One forged not in blind worship but in the ultimate mastery of life, death, and control.
Graves' pragmatism and unwavering ruthlessness fascinated her. He understood power in its purest form, and should he survive the coming chaos, he might serve her still, perhaps even as her second-in-command. But she harbored no illusions. If he ever outlived his usefulness, the Enforcer too would fall, left to rot among the ashes of the old Order.
Holloway's lips curled into a thin smile as she watched the screens before her. Everything was moving toward her carefully orchestrated conclusion. Adam Shepherd's rebellion, Alex's desperate struggle, and even James Sunderland's suffering, all of it was part of a grand distraction to keep her enemies occupied while her true work neared completion.
When the time came, Margaret Holloway would ascend, not as a servant of the old gods but as their replacement.
Margaret Holloway drummed her bony fingers on the polished surface of her desk, her face illuminated by the glow of her monitors. The Enforcer's ruthless interrogation played out on one screen, but her mind was far away, entrenched in the complexities of her great work.
The ritual, the key to her transcending death, was far from the spiritual nonsense the Order clung to. She'd long abandoned those archaic rites and chants, understanding that the divine had no place in science. It wasn't faith but precision that mattered. Refinement of technique, a reduction of sacrifice into mere metrics, experimentation transformed into data. What once served as devotion to an eldritch god had become the roadmap for eternity, carved from blood and bone.
The blood. It seemed endless, coursing through her countless test subjects, spilling onto cold steel and worn tiles, staining every fragment of her being. How many had there been? Holloway had stopped keeping count after the first dozen sacrifices. The faces all blurred together, a catalog of whimpers and cries that dulled into white noise as her focus sharpened on her goals. All she remembered was the blood. So much blood.
Then there was Joshua Shepherd.
Margaret's lips tightened into a faint semblance of a smile at the thought of Alex Shepherd's younger brother. How fitting, she mused, that the boy who had inadvertently set Alex on the path to rebellion would be the cornerstone of her experiments. Though initially taken as leverage to force Lillian Shepherd's compliance, another insurance policy to ensure Adam's wife assisted in Holloway's work, Joshua had quickly become something more useful.
Joshua had been a perfect candidate, young, impressionable, and easily manipulated. Holloway needed test subjects capable of enduring the grueling transformation process her research demanded, and a boy so close to the Shepherd family was irresistible. His body became a canvas for her experiments, each sacrifice carefully recorded, every alteration painstakingly measured.
"Everywhere, anywhere, and nowhere," she had told Alex. The phrase was not a lie. It was the truth warped into something Alex simply couldn't comprehend. His little brother no longer existed in the singular, human sense of the word. He was a piece of something greater, fragmented and distributed among her experiments.
What made Joshua unique, what made the sacrifices worthwhile, was the potential of his existence in flux. Holloway wasn't merely chasing eternal life, she was chasing the ability to bend the rules of mortality. To reshape it.
"His essence is scattered now," Holloway muttered under her breath, almost reverently. "A part of this experiment, a part of everything."
Joshua's sacrifice wasn't the first, nor would it be the last. She knew what necessary, bodies, and many more were. Innocents, sinners, it didn't matter. Their screams all bled together into progress. With each test subject, she pushed closer to the brink, closer to a ritual purified by science. And as for Joshua, his role was pivotal. The boy who was "everywhere, anywhere, and nowhere" was now nothing but threads in her tapestry of eternity.
A chilling thought crossed her mind, though Holloway would never admit it: "What would Alex Shepherd do if he learned the truth?"
The memory of Joshua Shepherd's face lingered in Margaret Holloway's mind as she stared at her reflection in the dark screen of her monitor. That boy's death had been a necessity. The testing ground for her ritual, her ascent. When she had experimented, she had known there was no margin for error, but... "Better him than I."
She had learned to live with it of course. To endure it. She was a practical woman after all. What had happened to Joshua was... unfortunate, but his tethering to Shepherd's Glen was merely a lesson to refine her methods. His death was a stone that paved her path to perfection. The creeping fear, was it anger, or judgment, in Joshua's presence could no more deter her than her deteriorating body could. Her mission was absolute.
Still, she couldn't ignore that his tethering might have unintended benefits. If the boy's soul was locked within the boundaries of Shepherd's Glen, it could serve as a perfect example of her true plans. This tethering mistake could yet teach her something crucial, a way to evolve her work into certainty before her time ran out. Holloway knew this: the next sacrifice, the next vessel, would bring her closer to eternity.
She pushed herself up from her desk and swallowed another pill. She frowned, the bottle was almost empty. Fitch had died too soon, and she didn't like having to space out the pills. They had gotten her through law school, and she was determined what little pills she had left would get her through to the final ritual. She turned off the monitor displaying her security feeds. She needed to leave Shepherd's Glen soon. This town was little more than a testing ground now, a decaying symbol of the Order's ancient beliefs. If tethering Joshua's soul to this place was the price for ensuring she could refine the ritual for herself, so be it. The boy's ghost would remain here, long after she transcended.
Holloway smiled grimly. "A small price," she muttered. "The gods demand sacrifice, and I am happy to oblige."
Margaret Holloway froze as the door to her office creaked open. She straightened from her desk, every nerve ending flaring in cautious alertness. Alex and Adam couldn't have made it this far, not past her Enforcer and the gauntlet she had laid before them. The Order knew better than to disturb her sanctuary without permission.
Yet the sound stirred something she couldn't quite place, a chill that ran deeper than logic.
"Who's there?" she demanded.
She reached down into her desk drawer and pulled out an old Beretta, the metal cool and familiar in her palm. A relic from her days in the military, back when she believed discipline could conquer anything. That naivety had long since burned away. Survival wasn't won with discipline but with decisiveness… and force.
The door swung open wider, revealing a shadowed figure, its movements unnervingly fluid, yet jagged, like something animated by spite rather than muscle and bone.
"Nora…" Holloway breathed, gripping the gun tighter. That single word escaped her lip.
The figure shambled closer, allowing the dim light over its grotesque form. It wasn't Nora, or, at least, not entirely. Where once had stood her daughter, brimming with life and rebellion, there now loomed a twisted nightmare. Her daughter had returned as Asphyxia, her elongated body encased in sinewy flesh, hands fused into jagged legs that wavered between.
Holloway's throat tightened. Fitch and Bartlett, her weak-willed counterparts in the Four Families, had been destroyed by retribution, crushed beneath the manifestations of their sins. Scarlet and Joey had returned for their fathers as monsters crafted from pain and vengeance. Now it seemed Holloway wasn't immune to the same cruel justice.
Her daughter stood before her, resurrected by Silent Hill's will, twisted into a hideous parody of vengeance.
"No," Holloway hissed, drawing the gun and taking aim at the creature. She would not meet the same end as those fools Bartlett and Fitch. "Not here. Not now. I worked too long, sacrificed too much, to let you, take me down."
Asphyxia slithered closer, her deformed body moving with a serpentine grace. Her daughter, or whatever remained, stopped only when her faceless head loomed inches from her mother's. There was no voice, no accusation, only the grotesque cacophony of dripping fluids and shifting flesh.
"I did what was necessary, Nora!" she hissed "It wasn't supposed to be like this!"
She fired. Once. Twice. The bullets sank into the amalgam of flesh, spraying ichor across the room. But Asphyxia didn't falter. Instead, the creature let out a bone-rattling wail that reverberated through the air, forcing Holloway back a step.
"I am not Bartlett! I am not Fitch!" Holloway spat, readying herself even as she raised the gun for another volley. "You will not kill me!"
Her daughter's monster form surged forward in response, her legs snapping with the force of a predator lunging for its prey. Holloway flung herself to the side, the desk between them tipping over in her haste. She landed hard, the wind knocked from her lungs, but rolled to her knees, Beretta still in hand.
If her creations, her cult, and her ambition had led her here, to face her daughter in this monstrous form, so be it. Holloway wasn't about to die now, especially not by her daughter.
"You should've stayed dead, Nora." and opened fire again.
The confrontation had been as inevitable as it was violent. Nora, no, Asphyxia, had emerged from the depths of nightmares, a grotesque creature of pain, betrayal, and wrath. Her movements were an unholy contortion of limbs, her form a monstrous parody of the daughter Margaret Holloway had once known. The sight might have unnerved others, but Holloway merely stood firm, her lips curling into a mirthless smirk.
Asphyxia lunged forward, her many appendages flailing with aggression. For a moment, the chamber shook with their clash. The creature's rage, born of the betrayal that had ended her life, met Margaret's determination.
But while Nora's return was driven by a need for vengeance, Margaret's resolve was carved from stone. Every strike, every scream, every flash of violence was met with precision and ferocity. The cultists stationed nearby cowered in fear, unsure whether to intervene or flee entirely. None dared approach the office.
Margaret fought not with emotion but with calculated ruthlessness. The very same that had brought her to power. A ceremonial dagger, small and unassuming but sharp and deadly, was all she needed. With a series of strikes aimed at vulnerable joints, she cut Asphyxia down piece by piece, her cold fury relentless. The creature howled in anguish, her monstrous frame buckling.
Finally, as Nora's grotesque form slumped into a lifeless heap, Margaret stood over the shattered remains. Her breathing was steady, her expression unreadable. She gave no sign of triumph or regret, no glimmer of maternal instinct. This was a battle she had long accepted as necessary.
Without so much as a glance at the broken mass on the floor, Margaret wiped the blood from her blade with clinical precision and sheathed it. Turning on her heel, she spoke without emotion, her voice echoing with finality:
"Be a good little girl this time, Nora, and stay dead."