Blasphemia II: Deus Vult Pt. 07

Judith sat cross-legged on the floor with her cloak arranged over her shoulders. The stone floor of the sunken church scratched at her bare rump. It was a microcosm of the pickling she felt on the inside. Her face burned with a heat that had nothing to do with the torches.

If she looked like she wanted to crawl into a hole out of embarrassment, Luca looked like he actively wanted to fade out of existence. He'd managed to put some of his clothes on, but was afraid to don the rest, as if the Archbishop's piercing glare had cursed them to sear his skin.

Filia, of course, seemed decidedly unfazed by the whole thing. At the very least she'd made herself modest by wrapping some shadows around her body. Her expression was neutral, but she did keep casting glances at the Holy Lance in the Archbishop's hand.

"I would be lying if I said this was the strangest thing I'd seen today," the Archbishop said. He tapped the butt of the Lance against the floor. "It is far from horrifying, yet, I honestly have no idea what to do."

"Luca did what he had to to facilitate Filia's recovery," Judith explained. " There was no way for her to heal without his...essence."

"So this is the famed succubus." The Archbishop looked at Filia as if he were sizing up a bug.

"Keep your eyes to yourself, papist," Filia said, her voice dangerous. Judith blinked. Filia actually sounded a little put off. Was it the Archbishop's raw power, the Lance, or both?

The Archbishop's fingers flexed against the Lance. " Mind yourself, Infernal."

"Alright, look," Filia said. "All I want to know is what you're going to do to these two. Because if it involves that big poking stick in your hand, we're going to have a fucking problem."

The Archbishop blinked. "You concern yourself with them?"

"You're goddamn right I do."

"That does not inspire my confidence."

Filia made a frustrated noise. "Fires, now I see where you get it from, Judith."

"Please don't drag me into this," Judith deadpanned.

"I think it's too late for that," Luca croaked.

"Look, are we going to fight or are you going to play nice?" Filia said, glowering at the Archbishop. Judith knew she should jump to her mentor's defense, but shame hung around her neck like a heavy weight.

The Archbishop bowed his head, as if in thought or prayer. He considered the three of them in turn, practiced eyes moving between them. Filia's lips pulled back from her teeth.

"My disappointment is immeasurable," the Archbishop said, his gaze settling on Judith. "As you said, Luca did what he did to facilitate your group's continued survival. But you, Judith. I expected better from you." Judith bowed her head in shame.

"Oh, fuck off, you wattle-scroted holy dickhead," Filia snarled.

Judith raised her hand. "Filia! Don't." She lifted her gaze to the Archbishop's. "I will accept whatever punishment you deem fit. But only after we have finished dealing with the situation at hand."

Her mentor considered this for a moment, then nodded. "Clothe yourselves, you two. We must away from here."

"Uh, hello, have you all forgotten about the Before God in the process of breaking out of his containment at the edge of reality?" Filia asked, her tail whipping back and forth. She looked like she wanted nothing more than to lunge at the Archbishop and tear him apart, but that would be suicide with him holding the Holy Lance. "I don't know about you, but it seems like a good plan to, you know, deal with that."

"I cannot begin to imagine how we would even accomplish that," the Archbishop said. "The Lord has not shown me the way."

"Why does He need to do that?" Filia snarked. She pointed up at the ceiling. "We can figure it out our damn selves if we have to. This isn't exactly something that's going to resolve itself, you know."

"What do you suggest then?" Luca asked.

Filia puffed up her chest. "The Vatican."

Judith looked up at her. "Saint Peter's?"

The succubus waved a hand. "Whatever you prefer to call it. Yog needed the Pope because he was a concentration of holy power, right? Well, we managed to stop whatever mutation process he was putting the poor old coot through. But Yog's not going to give up easily. Evidently he needs some kind of locus of holy power to undo whatever's holding him down. The only reliable concentration of that left in this whole topsy turvy surrealist nightmare is the remains of the Vatican." She clapped her hands together. "We reduce that to rubble - more than it already is at least - Yog will be screwed."

"That just seems like an excuse to destroy the cathedral," the Archbishop said in a flat voice.

"I know it does, believe me! But I know you see the logic in it." Filia made a face. "Or, do you?"

Luca laced his fingers together, squeezing his palms together. "Unthinkable as it is, it does make a certain sort of sense. And the faith is strong, we can always rebuild. We did it in the past."

Judith looked between everyone else in the room. Luca had said it - destroying the Vatican was unthinkable, the direct antithesis of everything she had sworn to defend. But the alternative was letting a primordial deity run amok and unmake the entire world. A building versus the whole of creation was an easy choice.

Judith rose, shrugging off her cloak. She didn't bother to make herself modest as she began strapping on her armor. "It makes sense to me," she said. "But how do you propose we do it?"

The Archbishop dutifully turned his head away out of consideration. "I saw that the Sanctum Templar is still attached to the rest of the structure, despite it's new heretical configuration in the sky. Unless those strange minions have emptied out the stores, there should be a cache of explosives in the armory in the Sanctum. We can plant them in the vestibule and detonate them remotely. Even if the blast doesn't completely blow the building apart, it will at least make it structurally unstable so that gravity will do the rest."

"High-tech," FIlia said. "I can dig that."

"You're with us?" Judith asked the Archbishop.

The Archbishop rested the butt of the Lance against the ground. "I do not know of a way out of this, so this plan seems the only real logical choice. The Lord will forgive us the necessity of it all, I think. Even if we were able to preserve the Holy See's structural integrity, it's walls have seen too much evil."

Judith cinched the last of the straps tight around her waist. She buckled Celerity's sheath to her belt. "Time grows short," she said. "We shouldn't linger."

"Put your pants on, Luca," Filia said, ruffling his hair as she walked past. "We're gonna go spit in a Before God's eye."

"R-right." Luca dutifully turned around as she fumbled with his pants.

They blew out the torches one by one, until there were only four left, one for each of them. Once Luca was suitably clothed again, Judith led the way out of the underground church. The mood between them was as frosty as the underground air. It took her a moment to find the path they'd walked in, but when she did, Judith was able to retrace their steps easily.

"Despite the extenuating circumstances," the Archbishop said in a low voice behind her, "it is good to see you alive, Judith."

Judith felt her throat tighten a little. "What happened to you after everything went wrong in the Sanctum?" she asked. "Luca wound up under the Colosseum, and I was dragged into the darkness down here."

"I found myself in the archives of the research division," the Archbishop said. "Unfortunately, rather than its proper place underground, I was suspended several hundred feet in the air. However, the arms I found there served me well. I'm far from worthy of holding onto the Lance, but I had need of its power to survive." Judith heard the ancient, consecrated weapon tap against the tunnel wall. "It's the only thing I have left out of everything I took."

"How did you get down?"

A pause. "Very, very carefully."

"Did you encounter the verdes?"

"The what?"

"The mutated creatures. We called them verdes because of the color of their flesh."

"Ah, them. Yes, I did. They were human, were they not?"

"Yes. We were not sure what caused them to change as they did. It's connected to the Before God, obviously."

"Questions for later, I think. Right now, we focus on our purpose."

Judith nodded as they reached the bottom of the pit leading up to the surface. "Up this way."

"Here," Filia said. She conjured a long length of shadow chain from her cloak, pulling length after length out until it was coiled in a large pile at her feet. When she reached the end, she sharpened the link into a metal spike. The succubus hurled it up the pit, where it bit into the dirt and held fast when she yanked on it. "No sense in working harder than we have to."

Judiith nodded thanks, then took hold and shimmied up the chain. She felt strangely rejuvenated after the romp with Luca and Filia. Likely another one of the succubi's many powers, no doubt. The shame that she felt still simmered in the back of her mind, though, and she knew she would have to confront it sooner or later. It seemed impossible that she had let herself go so readily at Filia's hands, yet was now right back to where she had been. Wasn't she supposed to stay in that state of mind now that she'd given in? She didn't bear the succubus any ill will, at least.

Well, not as much as she had before anyway.

Things had gotten worse on the surface despite them spending no more than a couple hours away from it. The skies now swirled with nebulous hues of green, red and purple, all of the colors dark and sickly. Patches of clouds undulated like the formation stages of a cyclone, parting and coming together like lapsed footage of the sky stuck in fast-forward. In the gaps where there should have been sky, Judith saw alternating glimpses of stars, planets, nebulas, and even the dark void of deep space. The strange colors cast the still-floating remnants of the city into eerie relief, though the destroyed buildings no longer bobbed. They were eerily still, as if suspended from strings pulled taut.

What was moving around them were the verdes. Judith spotted the mutated servants of Yog-Sothoth swarming, far more of them than she'd expected to exist. They'd grown wings, but hadn't mastered them yet. Their movements were lurchy and jerky, and Judith even saw one simply plummet out of the sky to land on the ground in the distance. But they did all have one thing in common.

They were all slowly making their way towards the Vatican, still floating ominously in the center of all the other buildings.

"As much as I hate to admit it, it seems like you were right in your assumptions, succubus," the Archbishop admitted.

"A demonic clock is right twice a day and all that," Filia said, laying the smugness on thick.

"How are we even going to get close to that?" Luca asked.

"Stay low, move quickly," the Archbishop said, forging forward. "And have faith."

"And maybe have a succubus run a little interference," FIlia said. Her wings whooshed out, and she lofted into the air with a mighty flap.

"Wait!" Judith hissed.

But Filia was already gone, speeding up towards a cluster of verdes. Sparks burned like fireflies in the air as she extended two more chains from her arms. With quick motions full of malicious purpose she sliced the pack of mutants to ribbons in a few heartbeats' time. "Hey you ugly cunts!" she yelled as loud as she could. "Come get a piece of this succubus ass if you think you're hard enough!"

Nothing happened for a few moments. Then a loud shriek pierced the air from a nearby rooftop. A verde lofted into the air at Filia, then another, then six more from various places until a flock of them converged on FIlia. The succubus turned in midair and sped off, the verdes hot on her heels like a pack of hungry crows.

"Quite bold of her," the Archbishop commented.

"That's Filia in a nutshell," Judith sighed. "She'll be fine." I hope, a part of her thought, much to another part of hers surprise.

With the verdes distracted trying to run down Filia, the three Templars hurried forward, keeping low to the ground in case any of Yog-Sothoth's servants lingered to ambush them. Ahead of them loomed what remained of the Vatican, arranged in some mind-bending configuration that made some primordial instinct in Judith's head recoil. The lower part of the structure had changed, however. It now extended towards the ground like the tail of a snake, a once short hallways stretched out like taffy to admit them to the inside of the structure.

"Seems like an invitation," Luca said, sounding wary.

"It is one we cannot refuse," the Archbishop said, striding forward with purpose.

As they started up the incline leading into the structure, Judith looked past the whole thing towards the main building of Saint Peter's. The massive church loomed large above them, ominous in its size and scope. A large mountain of earth had been compacted together underneath it, where the Sanctum Templar had previously been located. It looked like an upside-down dome, and Judith couldn't begin to fathom what lay within.

She followed the Archbishop and Luca up the incline into the hallway. It was the familiar metal of the underground structure, twisted into an alien configuration. Luca kept himself between the two warrior Templars as they ventured upward. As they did, the structure around them shifted, and all of them went still. Judith felt her center of balance shift backwards as the incline beneath her leveled out. "We're ascending."

"Take hold of something!" the Archbishop said. He drove the point of the Holy Lance into the floor and held out. Judith jammed Celerity's blade into the wall, grabbing Luca around the waist and pulling him close.

After a moment, the hallway reached a level plane, and didn't move any further. The Templars remained still for a time, until the sounds of approaching verdes spurred them into action. The Archbishop yanked the Lance free of the floor. "Judith. Watch my back."

"Yes, sir." She ushered Luca behind her. "Stay close."

His hand squeezed hers. "Right."

The verdes swarmed forth, many of them wearing tattered military fatigues or the colorful remains of Swiss Guard uniforms. The Archbishop held the Lance in both hands, lowering his center of gravity slightly. "May you find peace in the arms of the Lord," he murmured, before roaring, "Deus vult!"

The first verde met its end at the point of the Lance, the weapon punching clean through the putrid flesh. Even though the blood of Christ coating the end of the weapon had long since dried, there was no stemming the pure power radiating from it. Just a touch was enough to reduce the verde to ash. The Archbishop recentered himself, sweeping the Lance back and forth with wide sweeps. Any verde that got nicked was atomized, and in the enclosed space, their numbers meant nothing. Judith watched with Celerity ready, but the experience of the Archbishop ended the fight in a matter of moments.

The Archbishop brought the weapon to his side with a flourish. "We keep moving."

Nothing else accosted them on the way forward. The hallway twisted and turned, growing more familiar as they went. "I think-" Judith began.

They moved through a doorway and found themselves back where it all began. All the technology in the central command center of the Sanctum Templar was dead, the power supplies likely dangling out in open air outside. The bloodstains, however, were still there. Judith screwed her eyes shut, but the memories of the screams that had started all this came back.

"You know, in some way I feel like these men were the lucky ones," Luca whispered.

The Archbishop nodded. "From a certain point of view." He looked towards the door. "We keep going."

They pressed on, navigating through more compact, twisting hallways that put their sense of direction to the test. Now the hallways they passed through were a mixture of the cold steel ones of the Sanctum, and the vaunted halls of the Vatican proper. They passed by sections of steel wall that abruptly transitioned into Baroque paintings seamlessly, the walls blended together like the oils of a master painter. The halls were silent, their boots echoing like gunshots.

As they passed several high-vaulted windows, Judith saw a flicker of motion past one. She stopped short, causing Luca to bump into her back. A moment later, the instantly recognizable lilac form of Filia crashed through the window, rolling a few times on the tile floor. She popped back up, put her hands together, and thrust them out. A geyser of hellfire erupted from her palms, searing through the air and incinerating the flying verdes that had been chasing her into ash.

Once they were gone, the succubus stood up and brushed off her shoulders. "That takes care of that," she said.

"You killed all of them?" Luca asked.

"To a one." Filia looked around. "You know, if it weren't for all the nonsense going on with this building that has it up in the air and all out of sorts, I'd probably have burst into flames the moment I punched through that window."

"You walk on hallowed ground," the Archbishop said, giving Filia a dangerous look. "Tread lightly."

"I'll mind the art," Filia shot back, uncoiling lengths of shadow chain around her arms. "Let's keep it moving. There's some gnarly energy permeating the air around here."

"I sense it too," Luca said. He pointed down the hall. "In fact, I think it's..."

A moment later, a very familiar shape barreled around the corner. It had six legs, two heads, and far too many eyes. "Nightmare!" Judith yelled, just as the mutated equine reared up on its hind legs and screeched.

"We don't have time for you, you ugly asshole!" Filia yelled. Her chains shot out, biting deep into the Nightmare's flesh. It reared again, but Filia pulled back with all her prodigious Infernal strength. "Hit him with the Lance!" she yelled at the Archbishop.

Needing no further prodding, the Archbishop overhanded the Holy Lance at the Nightmare, and it struck true, the point embedding deep into the Nightmare's skull. It screeched again, blowing out the rest of the windows in the hallway. Though for a moment it seemed it would take more, after a few seconds white light suffused the Nightmare. The light ruptured, splitting the beast's hide as it incinerated it from the inside out. The Lance clattered to the floor as the Nightmare became dust.

"Go team," Filia said, with a wry grin on her face.

Another screech came from behind them. Filia turned to see another swarm of verdes running up the tunnel behind them. "More coming!"

At the same time, another swarm rounded the same corner the Nightmare had. "In front of us too!" the Archbishop said.

"They're just going to sandwich us in here!" Filia said. Her chains snapped back to her side. "Everyone behind me, we need to get out of here!"

Fire licked off the shadowy metal as the succubus surged forward. She swung the chains in a wide sweep, bisecting the front line of verdes. Judith was at her side a moment later, Celerity cleaving in large arcs as she hewed heads from shoulders and split the freaks down the middle. Claws snuck through her guard and slashed across her arm, and the stinging pain only incensed Judith to hack harder and swing faster.

They forged a path through the swarm until they reached the Lance on the ground. A verde tried to pick the holy weapon up to keep it away from them, but got incinerated for his efforts. The Archbishop scooped up the weapon and immediately speared two of the verdes through the middle. He grit his teeth and forged forward, leading the business end of the lance. The verdes that tried to intercept them got skewered through the middle for their efforts. The smarter ones kept out of the direct path of the Lance and swarmed around them. For as accurate and quick as Judith and Filia were, the sheer magnitude of the enemies around them meant that they couldn't get every one. More claws sliced into Judith's arms, shoulders, and back, and she felt blood running down her arms as they forged ahead towards a high-vaulted archway.