Blasphemia II: Deus Vult Pt. 03

A blood-covered arm burst from the rubble and grabbed hold of Filia's arm, and the succubus screamed in surprise and terror. It caught Judith completely off-guard - she'd never heard the succubus be shocked at anything before. But the arm was human underneath the claret covering it, male and hairy. Judith hurried over, sheathing Celerity. "A survivor!"

"He's a heartbeat away from not being one." Filia reached to the rubble pile and carefully moved a few larger chunks of masonry out of the way. "Hey, you want to not give a girl a heart attack when she's trying to save you, numbnuts?"

Judith shouldered Filia out of the way. Close-up, she realized the arm was covered in Templar tattoos. "Brother, I have you," she said, linking fingers with the man and pulling.

She almost fell backwards as she pulled the man free of the rubble, the masonry collapsing in on the space he'd occupied. Shattered marble slipped under her feet a little as the man collapsed, and Judith pinwheeled for a moment before righting herself. The man was brawny, bronze Mediterranean skin streaked with blood from his myriad of injuries. A grisly series of scratch marks marked his face, the lowest one following the line of his jaw almost to the bone of his skull. On his neck was what looked like a second-degree burn, the skin blistered and oozing from his throat to his collarbone.

"My...thanks..." he said, slowly raising his head. At the sight of Judith, his eyes widened. "Magdalena. You survived."

"Aye, by God's grace," Judith said. "Myself and the Archbishop were taken by shadows, but I managed to free myself. What happened here?"

"When the city came undone, myself and several others were here," the Templar said, his voice hoarse. "We tried to keep things under control, but then several of the city dwellers mutated into those things and attacked." His thick fingers flexed against the masonry underneath them. "It was chaos. We tried luring the creatures into the Pantheon and collapsing it to kill them in one fell swoop. We got most of them but..." He looked out over the Piazza and all the bodies in it. "Seems it wasn't enough."

"We're trying to find the Archbishop," Judith said. "And His Holiness. There must be some way to put this right."

"We?" the man asked.

Judith automatically looked to where Filia stood. "Myself and..." She trailed off, her blood icing over in her veins. Filia had no form of glamour on, standing proudly in her natural succubus form. Oh no.

The Templar looked at Filia, a strangled cry escaping his lips. "D-demon!" he seethed.

Filia looked offended. "Succubus, technically. Also, Infernal is the correct term, thank you."

"What treachery is this, Magdelena?" the Templar seethed.

"There is no treachery!" Judith protested.

"You swore you were free of the demon taint! The Inquisitors found you worthy again! How did you fool them?"

"I didn't fool anyone," Judith said, her fists clenching out of reflex. "My heart is pure. My faith is strong. She is here for her own reasons, but our goals are mutual. Therefore we-"

Only her training saved her life. Even a weakened Templar was still a Templar, and Judith had let her guard down. When the man lunged at her, she saw the knife at the last second and twisted. Rather than goring her in the neck, the dagger bit into the meat of her shoulder. The shock of icy agony ran down to Judith's fingertips as she shoved the other Templar away from her. The action ripped the dagger out of her flesh, slicing her open further as he fell away.

Judith staggered backwards, almost slipping on the masonry as she clapped a hand to her shoulder. Warm blood seeped between her fingers. "Why?" she howled. "I'm on your side!"

The Templar picked himself up slowly, shuddering and spasming. "All your fault..." he groaned. "This has to be all your fault...no other explanation..."

"No!" Judith cried, hating how choked her voice sounded. It wasn't the pain, it was the feeling of rejection, of losing what trust she'd managed to scrape up from those that were her allies. The first living Templar she'd found, and he'd tried to kill her.

"Gonna...do what needs to be done..." the Templar grunted, bicep flexing as his grip turned vice-like on his dagger. He made an ugly noise deep in his throat and staggered.

"Oh hells, look at his neck!" Filia called out in warning.

Judith did, and felt sick. The burn mark on the Templar's neck appeared to be spreading, creeping down his arms and across his chest like a virus. It grew green and cancerous, then black. The Templar's mouth opened in a gaping howl of soundless agony as his body bucked an mutated, bones cracking and organs shifting to accommodate whatever new form he was becoming.

Then he screamed, loud enough that Judith heard his vocal chords blow out one by one. His eyes went wide, the pupils dilating fully and going in different directions before snapping back to normal. "I see!" he howled, his voice a choked rasp. "I see!"

Then he lifted his dagger towards his face. Judith's throat constricted and she lunged towards him. "No, stop!"

She was swatted away, rolling heavily as she hit the ground. Agony flared in the cut on her shoulder as she picked herself up, trying to tune out the horrifying squelching noise of her fellow Templar gouging his eyes out with the dagger. "Why?" she muttered. "Why?"

A moment later, the grisly task was done.

The Templar's hands shook as he held his eyes in them, the jelly-like orbs bloody and mutilated. He slowly turned them to the side and let the organs fall to the stone below. "I see clearly now," he said, slowly turning towards Judith. She was rooted to the spot by the sight of his bloody eye sockets. The corruption on his neck spread rapidly, causing his body to buck and heave. "And soon, you will too."

Judith let out in incoherent howl of fury and attacked. Rubble crunched under her boots as she leaped high in the air, intent on coming down and cleaving this... thing in half.

A mutated arm shot out faster than should have been possible and grabbed her by the head. Sausage-like fingers squeezed tight around her mouth. Her hands flew to a meaty wrist, trying to saw the thing's hand off. The mutant Templar raised the dagger, intent on doing the same to her that he'd done to himself.

Then Filia's chains sheared through his wrist and Judith dropped like a stone. "Hey, leave her peepers where they are, ugly," Filia snapped.

The mutant Templar gurgled and staggered, the flesh on the end of his severed wrist glowing cherry-red. He raised his arm, corruption snaking down it like an aggressive virus. The flesh hissed and twisted, bone protruding and sharpening into an organic blade that gleamed in the late-afternoon sunlight. "Bless me, True Father," he muttered, his voice wet and ragged. "Bless me."

"Okay, this is starting to creep even me out," Filia said, her wings flaring. "Templar, let's go!"

Judith's knuckles popped as she clenched the hilt of Celerity. Her free fingers formed a malocchio, and she channeled her righteous fury into her arm. A blast of white fire rippled free of her inked arm and spread out in a wave aiming to engulf the mutated Templar. He simply stood there and let it wash over him, his outline becoming darkened in the twisting fire.

As it passed, Judith's jaw dropped. The Templar was still standing, his skin charred and blackened as any unholy thing would be when exposed to holy magic. But before Judith's eyes, the flesh healed and flaked off, the man's build growing even more and more grotesque. Judith saw a series of eyes crack open along the bulging bicep, bloodshot pupils looking every which way. "God have mercy..." she breathed.

"The True Father has blessed me!" the former Templar cried. The empty sockets in his head had filled in with something new. His new eyes were multi-faceted like a fly's. "I am the first to ascend to herald his arrival!"

Filia was behind him in a moment, her chains looping around his neck. "Congrats," she deadpanned. "And now you'll be the first to die."

She tugged hard. The former Templar's head came free with an ugly crunch. His body fell to its knees. "Interesting that my stuff works on it when yours doesn't," Filia remarked, pushing the body over with a shove of her boot. "Maybe because he was once a Templar?"

Before Judith could ponder the question, the former Templar's body rolled over. His mutated arm lashed out and punched Filia in the chest. The blow was hard enough to sent the succubus flying across the square and through the facade of a nearby building, glass shattering under her impact. The Templar slowly rose, then reached down and picked up his severed head. He set it atop his shoulders, and the flesh knit together as if it had never been damaged at all. "You presume too much, succubus," he said. "My body is as malleable as clay."

Filia shouldered her way out of the shattered remains of the building front. "Okay, new plan. I'm going to chop you into enough pieces that you won't be able to put yourself back together!"

She sprang off the ground, rocketing across the square as Judith hurried up the other side of the rubble pile. If her holy magic couldn't get the job done, she'd brute force it. It seemed to work for the succubus.

The former Templar threw a ferocious backhand at her as she approached, but Judith ducked under it. She drove Celerity deep into his mutated side and ripped it free, a plume of foul-smelling ichor spraying the shattered marble around her. As the Templar turned to deal with her, Filia smashed into his side. Her chains clattered on the rubble as they struck and snapped, tearing massive gouges into the verde Templar's body. Another snap and they sheared off his unmutated arm. At the same time, Judith gored him in the small of his back, Celerity angled upwards towards his collarbone.

That action seemed to faze the monster. Judith made a frustrated noise as his meaty fists whipped down towards her. At the same time, a new appendage burst from his upper back, a length of spine snapping side to side like a power line before flesh swirled around it to form a sharp stinger. It thrust at Filia, making the succubus curse and back off a little. The monster mutated even further, three tendrils covered in eyes bursting from the space previously occupied by it's human arm. Each was tipped with what looked like a rib. They punched deep into the rubble around Judith like lances as they sought to run her through.

"Will you stop fucking mutating, dammit?" Filia seethed, locking her chain around the stinger and pulling hard. It came free with a crunch of carapace. "What's it gonna take, huh?"

The verde Templar swung his blade-arm at her midriff, but the succubus danced backwards. Judith stayed behind him in his blind spot, ramming Celerity into his shoulder. The blade pierced through as though there was nothing underneath his skin to stop it. She looked up at his back, realized the stinger hadn't regrown, and realized what was happening. "Succubus!" she said.

"I have a name!" Filia retorted.

"He can only change himself by repurposing existing mass!" Judith cried, ducking another swipe. "If we keep cutting him apart, he won't be able to do anything!"

"So, just my original plan then!" Filia set to it with a will, her chains snapping and searing through the Templar's flesh.

"You shall not cut me down!" His arm remade itself in a matter of moments, going from a sharp bladed appendage to a massive mallet. He moved into a tiny gap in Filia's chains and belted her with it. Judith caught a glimpse of Filia's body contorting as if it had been hit by a truck before the succubus was launched away from them. She hit hard going down the pile of rubble before crashing to the Piazza below.

"I am beyond your capability to destroy, Infernal," the monster said, raising his arms. "All of us are. You are-"

He trailed off as Judith ran him through from the back. Celerity burst from his chest, the Templar's heart speared on the end of it, looking like a rotted tomato. "You are not above mine," Judith seethed.

Then she ripped the blade back out through his back, taking his heart with it. The Templar staggered, the eyes in his arm going wild, their pupils crossing every which way. "True Father..." he gurgled. Then he collapsed onto the ground.

Judith looked down at Celerity and the organ skewered on the end of it. "When faced with evil, no matter what form it takes, it always has a heart," she muttered. "Destroy the heart, destroy the evil."

FIlia picked her way back up the rubble, breathing heavily as she popped her shoulder back into place and straightened out her arm. The process made a series of crunching noises that made Judith wince. "You get that from some kind of Catholic inspiration pamphlet?" she grunted, rolling her arm.

"My teacher," Judith answered, looking down at the fallen Templar. In death, he looked even more horrifying. Now that she wasn't trying not to die, she could carefully observe the nightmare his body had become. The eyes in his arm were the worst part, glassy and half-closed.

"Wasn't him, was it?"

"No. I didn't know him."

"Small mercies," FIlia said, closing her eyes for a moment. Her wings fluttered, then stilled, then she opened her eyes. "So we've got zombies, mutants that infect humans, and Templars changing into nightmarish abominations. It's a horror movie jamboree in here."

"Who is the True Father?" Judith wondered. "One of the Before Gods?"

"Probably, given all the tentacle and eyeball nonsense that we've seen so far." Filia nudged the dead mutant with her foot. "Not like we can ask this one now." She eyed the heart on the end of Judith's sword. "Although maybe we don't have do."

"I really don't like the way you said that," Judith groaned.

"Relax, it's not that gross." Filia walked over to the corpse and shook out a chain. A single swipe freed the dead thing's head from it's shoulders. She wound the chain around the head and picked it up, holding it away from her body and making a face. "Okay, so maybe it's a little gross."

Judith shook the heart off Celerity and scorched the blade clean with a quick burst of holy fire. "Explain yourself."

"Remember when I went rooting around inside your head at Saint Bethany's?" Filia asked, placing the head on a flat piece of rubble.

"Vividly." Judith remembered the lingering feel of the thrall rune branded on her neck like a coal. Having another being root around in her mind - delving into the depths of what made her her - had been a nauseating experience to say the least. Only her rigid training had kept the rune from taking her completely. At least at first.

"Well, turns out you don't really need the head to be attached to do that little trick." Filia bit down on her thumb, breaking the skin so blood could flow. WIth it she painted a rune on the severed head's forehead. "Okay, never touch that, it feels disgusting."

Judith sheathed her sword. "Whatever you're doing, do it quick. We're incredibly exposed out here."

"Easy, girl, I know that." Filia painted a rune identical to the first on the back of her hand, then made a gesture with her hand. A red sigil flared to life around the head on the flat piece of rubble. It glowed bright for a moment, lines of Infernal power flowing into the neck of the head. The eye sockets shimmered red for a moment, like stained glass windows. The forehead rune began to spin, before bursting with a soft pop. Smoke flowed out of the hole in the skull like a chimney.

"This seems a tad forceful," Judith said.

"This is what happens when you do this on a dead head," Filia grunted. The succubus was sweating from the effort. Judith pawed at Celerity. It would be so easy to run the succubus through while she was distracted like this. But so far Filia had been instrumental to Judith's survival, and she lacked critical information.

The smoke coiled into a sphere, then widened. Images began to flicker across it, here and gone in the blink of an eye. "Don't need childhood stuff," Filia muttered to herself. "We can skip the indoctrination and repression, blah-dy blah-dy blah, coming of age in the church and having to retire your free will..."

"Anytime would be wonderful," Judith deadpanned.

A grin quirked the corners of Filia's mouth, and Judith knew the succubus had gotten another little victory over her and kicked herself. "Ah, here we go, the last couple days."

Judith looked at the smoke cloud. She saw brief flashes of fighting, running through corridors, more fighting. "He wasn't kidding when he said things went crazy," Filia said. "People jumped off this section of the city to their deaths."

"God spare their souls," Judith said, crossing herself.

"Then the fighting with the verdes, going into the Pantheon. Somebody brought explosives and... huh." Filia frowned. "And then it gets fuzzy."

"Fuzzy how?"

The image in the smoke shifted to the inside of the Pantheon. The area was choked in smoke and dust, the flash of an absolution silhouetting a verde among the gloom. The Templar had an arm raised, and Judith saw the corner of a verde's head on the far left of the image, a spray of blood gushing horizontal across the field of view. "He was bitten," she said.

"Yeah, and after that..." Filia made a face and set her jaw. "Oh, that doesn't feel good."

She listed to the side, wings flaring to keep herself upright. "What's happening?" Judith asked.

The succubus was sweating profusely now, her eyes wide and unfocused. "Holy hell, what the fuck is that?"

Judith looked at the smoke cloud. The image had become distorted and fractured, but familiar. It was when the mutated Templar had looked down at them through multifaceted eyes. Judith was bright green in his vision, Filia a dark red. Beyond them, there were invisible leylines connecting the floating pieces of land together.

Beyond that, where the barrier around the city would be, was a wall of massive eyes, observing them from afar. As Judith watched, they blinked as one.

"Destroy..." Filia groaned. "Destroy the... damn head..."

Judith needed no further prodding. Celerity cleared its sheath and split the head right down the middle, cleaving the rune in two with a sound like breaking glass.

Filia collapsed onto all fours, wings draping down over her back as she sucked in massive gulps of air. "Oh, fuck, that sucked."

"What just happened?" Judith asked.

"You know the saying about staring into the abyss long enough and it'll stare back?" Filia said as she picked herself up. "Well, that thing's got a look that'll kill ya."

"But what did you find out?"

Filia wiped her face. "Let's find some place to hunker down for a little while. I need to get myself righted."

They left the ruined Pantheon behind, moving down the street away from the Piazza and into a small building that had escaped major damage. Judith left Filia in one of the upper apartments and searched the place from top to bottom with Celerity in hand to make sure it was free of threats. She turned up nothing and returned, arriving back just as the sky grew the dark red of congealed blood.

"All clear," she said, putting her sword away. She heard Filia rummaging around in the kitchen. "We're safe for the-"

She coughed as she entered. Filia was buck naked, her shadowy garments gone save for a black choker around her slender neck. The succubus was rummaging through the cabinets, pushing aside bottles wine and containers of garnishes. Her rear swayed back and forth as she moved, drawing Judith's eye to its supple curve.

"Come on, where's... aha!" Filia yanked out a wedge of cheese from the cabinet, along with half a salami. "Dried meat and cheese, keeps good when the power goes out." She tore the salami in half, then tossed one of the pieces over her shoulder. "You must be hungry."