Ch.129Ch.8 – The Demon Lord’s Daughter (Part 2)

Father Michael offered a prayer. I couldn’t understand the content. It seemed to be in Latin rather than English.

Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison.

“So, they’re the bad guys?” whispered Abassina, drawing her pistol. I nodded. A creaking sound made me look to the side, where I saw Sister Beatrix lifting a section of the floor to retrieve weapons. Two pistols, two shotguns. Even a submachine gun.

“You need plenty of thieves to justify this,” Abassina said with a smile as she shot at the magician. The magician stood motionless in the central aisle. From the outside, he didn’t appear to be hit at all.

“Oh my. Not an ordinary thief. Wait a moment.”

Abassina ran toward the waiting room. The magician waved his staff. Lightning struck, and snake-headed humans pushed, knocked over, and trampled the pews as they approached.

But when the light disappeared, they were nowhere to be seen. No chairs had fallen. The cathedral remained unchanged, with only the magician still standing. Were there really snakes?

Again, lightning struck.

Suddenly, a snake with its mouth wide open appeared before me. I could even see poison dripping from the tips of its fangs. Its forked tongue flickered as if about to strangle my neck, and I could see the folds inside its throat.

I fired my gun. When the revolver’s flash lit up, the snake vanished. Stone dust fell from the cathedral ceiling where the bullet had hit. The magician suppressed his laughter.

Again. Lightning.

Snakes. Snakes filled the entire cathedral. The pillars were snakes, snakes fell from the ceiling, and the floor swayed like the wrinkles of a living python. Each pew had a snake sitting with its head raised.

All those eyes. All those vertical pupils. All those split tongues and venomous fangs and hissing heads were focused solely on me.

“Don’t be fooled,” Beatrix cautioned me.

“You mustn’t be deceived. It’s fake. And don’t point your gun carelessly. You might hit Father, us, or Crayfield.”

“No,” came the magician’s murky voice.

“Is that really so? Look at that nun. Does she look human to you?”

I looked at Beatrix. She appeared human. But I saw it. A small snake, a red and black-spotted viper, climbing up her back with gleaming eyes. Opening its mouth wide toward her snow-white nape!

I raised my gun. I told her there was a snake on her shoulder.

“No. There’s nothing there. Nothing at all!”

As Sister Maria spoke, a massive boa constrictor above her opened its mouth wide, poised to drop down and swallow her whole with a single movement.

The magician. If only the magician were gone. I aimed my revolver.

“That’s the Father! Look properly!”

Beatrix pushed me away. I lost my balance, staggered, and collided with a pew. I felt a dull pain in my lower back. As I felt the pain, my senses returned.

What had just been a corridor was the altar, and where the magician had been laughing stood the priest. He was sweating profusely as he purified Crayfield and the stone tablets.

When I turned around, I saw the magician grinning with his mouth stretched wide. He opened his mouth like a snake and teased the air with his cunning tongue. His hands were long like devil’s claws, and his upturned tail made a sound like that of a rattlesnake.

The cathedral windows shattered.

Long fingers broke the glass. Sharp nails scraped the walls. They tried to tear apart the cathedral as if it were made of paper.

Through the gaps in the glass, snakes, snakes, and more snakes poured in.

I turned my head. The nuns were nowhere to be seen. Father Michael was also gone. Everywhere I looked, there were only broken windows and fingers, endless streams of incoming snakes, laughter, voices shouting not to shoot, and Father Michael’s slow prayer.

Aurora. This must have been the scene Aurora witnessed.

With a cracking sound, fingers smashed through the cathedral wall and shot upward. Bricks, timber, and statues fell between the fingers. Beyond the shattered ceiling, I saw a snake opening its mouth wide.

I fired. Shot, shot, and shot again. I didn’t think these meager pistol rounds would stop it. Such trivial things couldn’t possibly stop that creature. But I had to do something. I had to do something for myself. If I didn’t resist somehow, I would be overwhelmed, suffocated, and die!

Click. Click.

The drum rotated weakly. The revolver fell silent. A faint gunpowder smoke tickled my nose, but that enormous snake head that had torn through the ceiling with its mouth wide open!

The snake head descended. The snake’s head came down. Those writhing maggots instead of scales! The blood and pus flowing from the maggots’ mouths! The boiling snakes that feed on and indulge in every drop of that blood and pus!

That massive snake head wasn’t just one. It was a form maintained by thousands, millions, billions of snakes boiling, devouring, being devoured, joining together, and tearing at each other. That was Yig. That was the world!

Clink –

The snake flinched and retreated.

Clink – Clink –

The clear sound of metal. The pure sound of steel. The honest sound that only genuine steel could make after enduring the heat that melts its body and the hammer that strikes it almost to breaking.

“…appeared to Solomon that night in his dream. What shall I do for you, what do you wish from me, He asked. Then Solomon answered…”

A somewhat acrid yet sharp scent. The smell of sulfur and myrrh. The snakes that filled the cathedral retreated in surprise at the smoke and smell.

“…give me wisdom to govern your people and to distinguish right from wrong. Then He replied: Because you have not asked for long life or wealth or revenge, but for what is right, I will grant your request…”

Abassina appeared from behind the smoke. She swung a golden lantern bound with silver chains, and with each movement, smoke, sulfur, and myrrh spread out. The snakes looked up at their master in fear.

The snake of snakes, the king of snakes, the boiling, gathering, crawling mass struggled desperately to bite Abassina, but smoke and flames rose up.

Finally, Abassina stood before me. I knelt down. She set the incense burner beside me and gently placed both hands on my head.

“…you have now become wise and discerning, and there has never been anyone like you before, nor will there be after. And I will gladly give you what you did not ask for, wealth and honor…”

My eyes hurt. When I blinked instinctively, something like scales fell away. It resembled a snake’s shed skin, or perhaps a transparent membrane.

Only then could I properly see inside the cathedral. The ceiling and walls were intact, and not a single pane of glass was broken. Father Michael was still offering prayers, and Crayfield and the bricks remained unchanged.

The other nuns were still suffering, but they too seemed to be trying to shed their membranes as they rubbed their eyes.

“Get up,” said Abassina, helping me to my feet. Then she stood between me and the magician in the corridor. As lightning flashed again, the magician’s body melted away. His fine and expensive clothes were soiled, and something like writhing boils flowed out from beneath his trouser cuffs.

A monster in the shape of a snake with burned vines, bleeding tentacles, and snake heads growing in place of eye sockets revealed itself. Even in the confusion, I saw that it had seven heads wearing crowns made of molars, and insulting words that defiled one’s mood just by looking at them.

Lightning pierced through the cathedral. With each spark, snake-humans leaped out one by one. Just as I had seen on the bricks, they had human upper bodies but snake heads and lower bodies, carrying long tridents.

With a crash, they pushed against the cathedral chairs. The wooden pews shattered and flew up.

The nuns counterattacked. The snake-humans charged forward, throwing their spears, but the nuns didn’t simply take the hits. They kicked off chairs and kicked the snakes’ heads. Sister Beatrix slid under a snake-human that was pouncing on her and fired her pistol repeatedly.

“Let go, spawn of the devil!”

Sister Maria placed her shotgun under a snake-human’s chin and fired. A flower of blood bloomed, staining her habit, but the nun didn’t care at all. She swung the empty shotgun like a club, smashing the snake-human’s mouth.

“Watch out!”

Abassina embraced me and threw herself backward. A snake-human’s spear plunged into the spot where we had just been standing. More snake-humans rushed forward, but Sister Lucia protected us by firing her submachine gun.

“There are too many,” Abassina said worriedly, looking at the snake-humans and the tentacled monster. The nuns were fighting valiantly, but sparks continued to fly, and Yig’s children kept appearing.

Unable to think of another solution, I exposed my neck and shoulders. Abassina’s eyes widened, but I nodded.

“Beast, forgive me! Lord, I’m sorry!”

Though the sequence seemed a bit off, Abassina’s fangs bit into my shoulder. Unlike before, I didn’t even feel a sting. I just felt endlessly languid, warm, and comfortable.

But it didn’t last long. Abassina removed her mouth from my shoulder. Her lips were stained with blood, but her eyes were clear. Her skin glowed brightly, and angel wings sprouted, tearing through the back of her habit.

Abassina grabbed a snake-human’s spear and took flight. The snakes hesitated before leaping toward her. They looked exactly like jealous snakes trying to bite a glorious eagle.

With each lightning strike, Abassina’s spear parried it. With each swing of her spear, a snake’s head was split. Cold red blood gradually stained her white wings, but Abassina didn’t hesitate.

“Our Mother Superior is excited again,” said Sister Maria, setting down her gun with its red-hot barrel.

“I think I’m feeling it too. Let’s get into the mood. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Even Beatrix threw down her gun. Sister Lucia and Sister Miriam did the same. The nuns cracked their knuckles.

Then they all grabbed their necks, as if trying to scratch an itch. The nuns gasped in agony. They bared their teeth, making growling sounds, and with each sound, their mouths elongated slightly.

It wasn’t just their mouths. Their arms thickened, and their legs grew thicker and bent. Their suddenly elongated fingernails and toenails retracted, leaving only bloodlust.

Saw-like teeth grew from their canine-like muzzles. Their once kind eyes were now those of predators seeking prey. The nuns were gone. In their place stood wolves. Walking on two legs, tearing apart anything in their way with their two hands, biting with sharp teeth.

Werewolves straight out of legendary fairy tales.

Wooooooooo –

The wolf pack leaped into the snake horde. As the blood-soaked angel swung her spear to cut through the snakes, the wolves exploited the gaps. They crushed, trampled, and bit. They tore, severed, and ripped apart. They clawed, threw, and shattered.

The beasts of this world were driving out the demons from the other world.

Abassina deflected the final lightning bolt. The wolves’ fangs tore at the snakes’ necks. The more blood they drank, the more ferociously the wolves rampaged.

When the seven-crowned snake howled, the fallen snakes were sucked into it. Now it was no longer a snake but a living mass of flesh moving as one.

Dripping venom, with fangs instead of scales all over its body, the seven-crowned creature howled fiercely, tearing down the cathedral walls and lifting the ceiling.

Abassina swung her spear, and the wolves clawed at it, but it painfully dragged its body toward the altar, even as it sacrificed its own flesh.

Whether bitten or clawed, it did not stop. Persistently, persistently, persistently it crawled forward. Like a tenacious snake that would bite with its teeth even if only its head remained.

“Just wait one more day.”

A cold voice filled the cathedral. Emma Scully walked up the cathedral entrance stairs. She held a stone tablet in one hand and a staff in the other. The demon turned toward Emma, but when she pointed her staff at it, it was slammed against the cathedral wall.

The wolves howled at Emma, but when they saw Abassina flutter her wings and descend in front of Emma, they charged at the demon again.

“Who are you?” Abassina glared, ready to aim her spear if necessary.

“That’s what I’d like to ask, vampire lady in a nun’s habit. No… anyway. I’m temporarily working with that gentleman. Does that answer your question?”

Emma pointed at me with a bewildered expression. I nodded to Abassina.

“That stone tablet. What is it?”

“Once the purification is complete, it’ll be nothing but a rock.”

“Give it to me.”

Emma willingly handed over the tablet. Abassina flew toward the altar, her blood-soaked wings trailing behind her. She placed the remaining tablet before Michael, who was still reciting prayers.

The demon twisted its body and howled, smashing itself against the cathedral in frustration, but the wolves methodically tore at it. Like a wolf pack hunting large prey, the thing that had mocked, defiled, and insulted humans was now being reduced piece by piece.

Emma tapped the floor with her staff, tap, tap. When she let go, the staff stood on its own like a seedling planted in the ground.

“I issue the fifth decree of Governor Nown-Ta and Naga-Phariom…”

The staff twisted on its own. The demon’s frenzy intensified.

“…destroy those that have no legs, no arms, that crawl on their bellies and hide in crevices…”

Fire ignited at the top of the staff. Fire also ignited on the demon’s head. Emma’s hand cut through the air.

“Behold, unclean one. You who can only live in the crevices between solid bricks, between trusted humans, in the gaps of darkness, jealousy, and hatred. What was your name? You who cannot proudly declare your name before thousands and tens of thousands. You filthy thing that stands on the threshold of time’s door, merely blocking the way. If you are so great, speak your name.”

My heart pounded. My head spun. I heard a tickling sound in my ears.

That spell is dangerous.

“You foolish thing that doesn’t even know its own name. You non-existent thing that parasitizes what exists. You who reveal yourself only through negation, negation, and negation! You who wreak destruction on everything that passes! Speak your name! I, the last priestess, representing the supreme court of Hyperborea, command you, declare! Tell us that you are there! Show us that you exist there!”

The staff twisted. The staff shrank. It split, tore, and twisted. Among all things here, it alone consumed time. It rotted, became mushy, grew moldy, and withered away hideously.

Each time, the demon reacted identically. It split, tore, twisted, rotted, became mushy, shrank, and withered away.

“Shine. Or else disappear!”

Emma recited the final spell.

The demon flew toward me, breaking through the wolves’ interference.

Its muzzle tried to devour me.

Abassina soared up like a spear of divine punishment and struck it down.

The demon’s teeth landed right in front of my feet.

Then it rotted away and turned to water. I covered my nose, too nauseated to look at it.

“Amen.”

Thud.

Father Michael collapsed. The staff was gone. The demon was gone. The stone pieces supposedly brought from Yig’s temple split on their own, then crumbled into fragments worse than street stones.

“Assistant?”

A welcome voice. It was Crayfield. I ran to him.

Crayfield looked at me with hazy eyes.

He saw Abassina flapping her angel wings, covered in cold blood. He saw the nuns returning one by one from wolf form to human form. He saw Emma Scully wiping sweat from her forehead and twisting up her long straight hair.

“Do you have any alcohol?”

I said no. I also said I could get him a drink if he wanted. Crayfield tapped my arm with his phlegmy voice.

“No. Not a drink, but a bottle. I need you to hit me on the head with it. What am I seeing right now?”

I laughed. I told him there was nothing here.

That was true.

And there was nothing there.