Chapter 33: White Roses
It dragged its aberrant limbs against the walls — two long arms, twisted at irregular angles and segmented into four parts each, stretching out with elongated fingers ending in sharp claws, painted black and dripping with blood. Its legs, or at least what passed for legs, shared a similar structure to the arms: two warped limbs jutting out from beneath the robe, lost in the thick darkness.
Its crimson eyes, like broken lanterns, flickered in rhythm with the brief convulsions running through the upper half of the abomination's body at short intervals. Its body felt like a flaw torn straight out of reality, writhing, rejecting the very nature surrounding it.
Evelyn swallowed hard. She stepped back as the beast dropped down behind the altar. It took a moment for it to right itself, dragging its grotesque hands across the mound of flesh resting on the stone slab.
"Bonnie," Thieving Cat whispered. "Run…"
Bonnie didn't hear her. She stood frozen, staring at the creature with wide, unblinking eyes, her body gone cold and rigid. Sweat poured down her forehead, her lips trembled, and she couldn't breathe. Her most primal instinct screamed at her not to move — that any twitch, any motion at all, would mean death.
"Bonnie, run!" Evelyn shouted, lunging toward the tunnel.
She made for the exit, straight into the darkness, certain Bonnie would follow once she saw the monster — but when she glanced back, Bonnie hadn't moved an inch. Her hands trembled weakly around the golden revolver, but she couldn't find the courage to fire.
The hooded beast, cloaked in the anonymity the darkness offered, dragged its hands and feet across the floor, closing in on Bonnie, stalking her like some bloodied insect.
Its macabre laughter echoed through the chamber, and it whispered a few broken words:
"What a delight. What a delight."
Clack. Clack.
The abomination's teeth clicked together.
'I… I never chose this…' Bonnie thought.
On the heels of that small, helpless thought, the cultist lunged at her — its body suddenly expanding with countless misshapen segments of flesh, sprouting dozens of arms, every hand reaching straight for Bonnie's face. Two more pairs of legs tore through the flesh, propelling the creature even faster.
Evelyn considered turning back — but it was already too late to save her, so she turned instead to save herself. She froze dead in her tracks, though, when she found a pair of silver eyes standing right in front of her. In that split second, a gleaming silver coin, etched with the ancient symbol of some forgotten deity, shot out from where those eyes stood.
The coin struck the side of Bonnie's face — an instant before the beast could reach her — and exploded, throwing both of them back as a blinding white light erupted alongside the blast, washing over the entire scene and revealing the figures of those who had just interrupted the massacre.
"The Church…" said Evelyn.
They were the same men Adam had crossed paths with only moments before. All three moved toward the altar, ignoring Thieving Cat entirely, while the beast recoiled in pain. The surface of its fleshy body seemed to burn under the light, its eyes twitching in ways no living thing should twitch.
The light died out a second later. The albino man stopped in front of the creature, looked over the bodies on the altar, and let out a short, tired sigh. Then he opened the case he carried, and from it — like a ghostly apparition — a black leather book rose into the air, hovering in front of him. Its pages began turning one after another, as though caught in a current of wind tearing through the paper, symbols in some mysterious language spilling out from the corners, as if the words themselves were crawling through the air in trails of silver light.
Bonnie groaned in pain. Crumpled on the ground, she opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was the presence of those men dressed like priests.
'What's happening…? Who are they?'
The beast's broken roar pulled her back to reality. She raised her gun, aiming at the writhing shadow at the back of the room.
The cultist had its hands pressed to its face.
"It hurts! It hurts! What is this?! Who are you?! My power! My power! What's happening to my power?!" the monster screamed through tears.
Cold as ice, Albino raised his hand, palm turned upward. He held the book in his other hand and settled into a posture that was rigid, but elegant.
"Richard. Joel," he said, his voice low and rough.
Following the albino's command, his two companions opened their respective cases.
The dark-skinned one drew a silver revolver with a long barrel and an eight-round cylinder, while the long-haired one — strangely enough — pulled a silver greatsword nearly six feet long out of a case far too small to have held it. It was a Montante-style blade, the steel etched with rose engravings running the length of the design, its guard far too wide for anyone to wield comfortably — though its oversized hilt more than made up for it.
Bonnie was disoriented. Her head throbbed and her vision blurred. She could barely make out Evelyn at the tunnel entrance, her eyes screaming at Bonnie to run with her. That snapped her out of the shock holding her in place, and she clumsily pushed herself off the ground. Her body swayed a couple of times, her ears ringing painfully, and she could feel blood trickling down her face.
She fought to put one foot in front of the other and finally reached the exit. She braced a hand against the wall — but stopped cold, her eyes drawn back toward the victims of this tragedy. She closed her eyes, helpless, and forced herself to take one more step toward the way out.
Thieving Cat grabbed her hand to help her along — but right then, Albino spoke:
"White roses that cover my field will never wilt."
Evelyn and Bonnie froze in place. White flower petals drifted past them, and the entire scene transformed in the blink of an eye. A clear blue sky stretched out above them. Beneath their feet, hundreds of white roses bloomed across an endless field of green grass. Birds sang, and a warm, generous sun shielded them from the darkness.
Both women turned their eyes back toward the men.
"Exorcists," Evelyn muttered.
Bonnie's eyes widened in shock. Standing beside the exorcists were four figures, each crowned with flowers. Their faces… were the same faces of the girls who had lain on the altar moments ago. They wore white, and their bodies looked as delicate as silk.
Albino took a step forward.
"Perpetual life, eternal life. A flame that never goes out."
With his next step, the girls behind him raised their hands, pointing toward the beast, their faces hardened with pain, silver tears spilling down their pale cheeks.
Richard: the revolver.
Joel: the sword.
Both men followed Albino — but only Richard stayed back, raising the revolver and firing. The beast couldn't do a thing. Too slow to react, the bullet tore straight through it, shredding half its body apart.
Its blood stained the white roses, but that wasn't the end of it. Joel charged forward, swinging his sword with both hands, but the cultist didn't stop even with half its grotesque body already gone. It reached out with dozens of warped hands toward Joel, its flesh stretching like rubber — but he sliced through every single one with ease.
Albino tightened his open palm into a fist.
"Eyes that judge. Tears that mourn. Souls broken in the darkness of blasphemy."
He opened his hand, and from it emerged a butterfly as white as the beautiful roses surrounding them. The tiny creature, its wings as thin as paper, flew straight toward the beast.
Richard fired once more. The cultist's head vanished entirely — but it kept moving, kept lunging at Joel.
"May they find rest in the arms of the True God. May the wickedness of this world be purged by your beautiful light."
The creature's limbs dropped one after another. The bullets neutralized most of the mass of flesh the cultist had become. It could no longer move at all. That was the punishment it deserved.
Then the small butterfly landed on the beast. Albino closed his eyes, and the girls did the same.
Together, they said:
"The end, written in tears of silver, fades away with one final breath."
The butterfly fluttered its wings a couple of times, glowing in a brilliant white. A second later, a massive burst of light engulfed the beast. A scream rang out — wails and hundreds of broken voices rising together into a horrifying, hellish chorus.
White flames, like flower petals, flared and faded, carried away on the wind. When it was over, nothing remained in that place except a few scraps of fabric from the beast's robe and a handful of objects that had once belonged to its victims.
Albino opened his eyes. He closed the book, and darkness returned with the next blink.
Bonnie and Evelyn stared at each other, stunned — but the moment they noticed the three priests looking their way, they took a step back.
"Let's go, Bonnie. We can't get tangled up with them," said Evelyn.
Bonnie opened her mouth to say something — to speak to the very people who had just destroyed such a horrifying abomination in an instant — but she had to do as Thieving Cat said. So, moving a little better than before, she ran for the exit, her face twisted with the complicated weight of defeat.