Chapter 49: Red Light

"The man of the hour has arrived!"

Music

The curtain of muffled screams and pounding music parts in an instant. You almost stagger backwards— grateful for the cane— as you're hit hard with the smell of sex, blood, and smoke. The throbbing percussion picks up your pulse, a mild headache, and has you looking around immediately for the source.

You put out a hand instantly to stop the women from taking a step further. Everything is red. Flat walls devoid of decoration are punctuated only by a sharp split in the moist corridor ahead. It branches hard to the left and right. Out of prudence, you sneak ahead and peek around the leftmost corridor first.

The source of at least half of the screams and moans is made evident by countless demons. They garishly grind against one another under a huge expanse of black lights, red walls, and bars. Every surface is adorned with more demons than you've ever seen— and they're dancing. The unholy congregation moves against one another to the rhythm that's pulsing through your skull. Every beat elicits droplets of blood from the ceiling. Smoke hangs heavy in the air.

You have never been so worried for your life. You pull back from the corner with a hand to your holy symbol. There was also a fair amount of liquor beyond the dancers. Staircases wound up and away to private rooms. But the demons. You couldn't count them all. There must have been no fewer than fifty, from every level of the hierarchy— save for an archdemon.

Your companions look to you with concern, but you can't hear their words over the music. You lean in, trying to hear them. The damned music is really not helping your head.

Mercy, does it have to be so loud?

Ofelia pulls hard on the bottom of your jacket, gesturing for you to kneel down to her. You oblige, and she pulls you in only an inch from her lips. "I said: what did you see?!"

You wince at the impossible increase in volume. Not wanting to shout back, you point around the corner, and gesture for her to be cautious.

She pulls Celegwen with her.

They both instantly pull their heads back. Ofelia has two daggers in either hand.

You swallow hard, and look to the right without hesitation. The corridor is incredibly long, and perfectly straight. It reminds you of a coffin with its flat wooden walls, and dripping flesh clinging to its narrow planks. Darkness.

You can still somehow see to the very end. It seems as if the music would die down as you move along. The source of the noise is to the left, after all. But what bothers you isn't that you'd instantly be seen once you turn the corner.

It's what's in the walls. There are spaces in between the planks of wood. Red light sifts out into the corridor, and punctuates the darkness. Twenty or more rooms are illuminated from countless more demons in revelry. Their illuminated screams drifts over to you, through a haze of pleasure, groans, fornication and murder.

As the monstrosities tear each other to pieces, it seems that they are not discriminating between any given sensation.

There are also demons dancing alone, in a testament to their own sin. Their own mutilated and utterly abused forms. Owning it. Celebrating it. Leering towards you. Beckoning for you to come closer.

The cacophony of sex, violence, and more sin than you've ever laid your eyes on at once is almost more than you can stand. You can't help but flush from the volume of skin, leather, lace and paint. Taking the Goddesses name is not out of disbelief, but out of the sheer depravity of it all.

"Mercy."

Your headache is getting worse by the second— and you've only just entered the building.

Ofelia tugs on your coat again. You realize you have a hand to your temple, and look down to her with pain coloring your sight.

Her and Celegwen gesture towards the rightmost corridor. The halfling gives you a reassuring smile, baring her weapons with enthusiasm.

As badly as you don't want to shout, you're left with little other choice. Leaning in as close as you can to Ofelia, you gesture to Celegwen to kneel down as well. The elf obliges, with her chest brushing against you slightly as she comes closer. Ofelia's bosom is heaving as well— pressing up against her bodice, her breath obviously heavy from the smoke, liquor— and that damn look she won't stop giving you.

You want to take a step back, but there's no other way they can hear you. "No one is getting killed in here! Move quickly! This way!"

It's all business, as you all pull back. Ofelia frowns, stows her daggers, and keeps close to your side as she holds onto Celegwen. You turn the corner— and your blood runs cold.

The music instantly stops.

The screams, the moans, and the sounds of revelry all stop.

A piercing and insanely bright light sweeps from the dance floor straight onto you. You see no flame. It's coming from a hot and illuminating sphere.

Sorcery...?

You can't help it, and take your hand from your holy symbol to hold it over your eyes. Celegwen moves to rush in front of you, but Ofelia seems to hold her back for a moment.

A voice dripping with debauchery and gratification soaks into you. Neither male nor female, corporeal nor inside your head— it's everywhere— seeming to come from inside the very walls.

"Attention, attention! My myriad malefactors, my misguided miscreants, my marvelous malfeasants: the man of the hour has arrived! Our honored guest!!"

Dozens of demons are looking around for the source of the noise. All of them are jeering, screaming, and calling after you. Calling for you.

Your steps pick up speed with each passing word from the bodied voice. You do not hesitate, turn your back to the tension on the dance floor, and gesture for Ofelia and Celegwen to follow after you.

"You may know him as a murderer! He's certainly put away more than most of you lesser bastards, try as you might to tear each other apart! Well— go on! Shed a little fucking blood out there! Don't let the monologue fucking stop you!"

There's a tremendous cry of ecstasy behind you, as countless small demons tear into one another.

Ofelia has to run to keep up with your pace, with how quickly you're now striding forward. There's a cold sweat on you.

Your slick skin is grabbed at. A hand from one of the gaps in the walls alongside you pulls and drags. Not taking you in closer— but begging for attention.

The voice behind the cracks is obscene, cracked, and decayed. Its pungence cloys onto you, and sticks to the inside of your skull. "C'mere, Daddy. Show me a little bit of your blessing."

You tear the succubus off, back up, and nearly knock over Ofelia and Celegwen.

Within moments, there's more hands. So many more. It's like everyone in the hallway is reaching out to you.

Ofelia isn't holding the elf's hand any longer. They flank you, as you all continue to move ahead.

"You may know him as a home-breaker! A pyro, a vandal, a thief— my, I could just go on and on! But that's not why we're all here tonight, is it?!"

The screams behind and all around you are deafening. It's much louder than the music was.

"NO!!!"

You're all running as quickly as you're able.

"That's right! But I don't need to say anything, do I?! You know who he is, don't you all?! Go give our honored guest a little sugar, a little hospitality! Mama Idonea's asked us for our COURTESY! GO SHOW IT TO HIM!"

There is a rush of movement. Glasses shattering. Hundreds of feet are picked up as the music resumes. It's somehow louder than before.

Music

Though you've been running, the hallway before you seems to be getting longer. The end of it seems just as far away as when you first started, and a few of the demons near the end are trying to break through the walls. A quick glance over your shoulder at the commotion shows every single demon filing off of the dance floor, and into the narrow hallway behind you. They do not have weapons drawn.

They're dancing.

The sight takes you so aback, you slow your steps. There's no hostility here.

You completely come to a stop, put a hand to your chest, catch your breath— and look to your companions. Ofelia's screams over the music are scarcely audible, but you do catch something along the lines of "WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU STOPPING—?!"

Both women back up— pressing themselves against you— trying to take up as little space in the corridor as possible. Though you want to think that they're doing so to protect you, you don't miss the deep red streaked across Ofelia's face, or how firmly Celegwen's back is laying into you.

You'd almost be willing to enjoy the heat and pressure— but the pain in your head is almost unbearable, and you are here for a reason.

Idonea wouldn't permit her children to kill me. Not when she needs me.

You pull back from both of them, and walk fearlessly down the corridor ahead. Ofelia and Celegwen instantly are at your side, looking frantically behind you. Your steps are deliberate— nearly matching the beat around you— as the demons close in. They're unbearably close. The pulsing, throbbing music carries over their screams, but some of their voices are so shrill and sharp that you can unmistakably hear their jeers.

Yech wanted to help this demon. Remigius couldn't possibly have set me up for death. That was his voice, wasn't it? It didn't sound like any man or demon I've ever heard.

Your thoughts are cut short as demons close in on you and your friends. Ofelia and Celegwen seem torn between wanting to protect you, and wanting to run— but they both move in closer, holding themselves against your frame— as if they could shield you with their very skin from the incoming mass.

There's no fewer than five demons shoulder-to-shoulder at any given point in the hallway behind you. The entire corridor has turned into a thrumming hive of horns, leather, spikes, deadened flesh, blood, dripping viscera, and lust. The expletives and obscenities that the demons are calling you are so far beyond your scope of sin that you don't dare to try and internalize them.

You shout to Ofelia and Celegwen, "I know you are afraid— but we are here to show them Mercy! They aren't attacking—!"

You're nearly knocked over by a demon sliding in next to Ofelia and Celegwen, and grinding hard against you. The lesser female's blue skin and the gaping maw where her chest should be heaves with laughter. You shove her as firmly as you can, and she's pulled back into the throbbing crowd.

More demons quickly eclipse her form. Reds, blacks, sickly yellows and greens of monsters all blend together. Made in mockery of everything they once abused in life, they're eternally disgracing something altogether worse than death.

The ribbons on Ofelia's hat whips around as she looks to the bodies closing in. She screams, "are you sure?!"

Thick smoke is in the air. You hadn't noticed it at first, but the longer you walk towards the end of the corridor, the thicker it seems to get.

Something grabs at you during the increasing congested procession. You can't tell what, or where.

Trying to keep your pulse steady is a lost cause to the beat of the music, the proximity of so much threat, and the flesh leaning against your own on all sides. The demons that have filtered in are taking the brunt of the succubi. The monsters claw and rip at the walls, slipping into new openings everywhere that they can. Those who persist seem far more interesting in simply being next to you. The heat of the bodies around you was suffocating before, but it's getting harder by the second to breathe.

Is this some kind of sick thrill for them?

Despite how hot you are— the smoke, the thrum of the music, the sounds of sex and violence and everything else that a man of the cloth should not be experiencing— you silently thank Mercy. For the monsters keeping their hands at bay from you and your friends. For Celegwen's composure finally snapping, as she grabs firmly onto your shoulder, and leans right beside your ear. "—SIGN! There's a sign!"

"What?!"

"READ IT—!" She's furious, and points to the end of the corridor. It's suddenly and abruptly closer. No more than a stone's throw away at worst, but there's now a wall of demons between it and you.

Above a wall of quilted fabric— with absolutely no door in sight— is a single glowing sign. The final few words have been intentionally omitted. The demon is obviously not a poet, but you instantly get it.

Your road's been long. A grueling journey!

You've said it before, oh-so-perversely!

Now say it again! It won't hurt you, see?

FUCK _____​

"M-Mercy."

Celegwen screams at you again. "IT'S A—"

The shrieks and groans all around are deafening.

"A WHAT?!"

"A SPELL! IT HAS TO BE READ IN FULL!"

"NO!"

A succubus reaches out to you, but a demon tears the creature's arm clean off of its body with a single motion. It happens so quickly, you can't properly react. The offender attacks the female demon with its mouth, ripping and tearing at the exposed injury mere inches away from where you stand. A gap is left in the wall of flesh for only a moment, as what little remains of the succubus' body drops to the floor.

Ofelia glances to the corpse with blood smeared across her face, to you, to Celegwen, and finally to the sign. She tries shouting something, but her words can't be heard over the commotion.

The bodies around you pick up their rhythm.

A greater demon— vaguely resembling a moth— drags a pair of feelers along your shoulders before you shove her away.

A horned imp— short and thin— comes in on the other side. It tries to slide underneath your legs before being dragged away by a pair of hoofed appendages.

A major demon made entirely of veins leers at you from behind the imp. It's screaming something you can't hear, though its unholy voice registers throughout the music.

There's revelry, and heat, and so much red you can barely stand it.

Celegwen's lips move in the same fashion that Ofelia's did a second before. Absolutely nothing happens. She looks to you, screaming, "YOU MUST BE THE TRIGGER! THERE IS NO OTHER—"

"WHAT?!"

"YOU HAVE TO SAY IT!"

There's nothing this demon could do that would make me swear against Mercy.

The heat, music, the pulsing of the floor and walls, the constant grind of the two women being forced against you, demons closing in, their bodies moving, and the incessant dancing is all too much. Your heart is pounding, you're slick with sweat, and as a man of the cloth you're deeply concerned for everything else you're feeling as well.

You take a deep breath.

Almost imperceptibly, the music gets a little quieter as you take another.

Wincing, you murmur in the lowest voice you can muster, "f-fuck you..."

The world doesn't come to an end. You aren't stricken down by lightning. There is no divine retribution— though several demons around you are grinning so widely that their faces literally split open. You try and finish the spell.

"F-for forcing me, R-Remi...?"

The music is noticeably quieter now. Several of the demons near you have stopped dancing. Celegwen and Ofelia are both nearly on top of you— being pinned hard by multiple demons struggling with or subduing the succubi on the edges of the corridor— but nothing else happens.

You try again, this time a little louder. "F-fuck everybody— trying to kill me..."

Ofelia may be too drunk to restrain herself. It also may be out of sheer nervousness that she starts to laugh.

"You must say it with conviction, Father. Spells come from within." Celegwen's murmurs are now easily heard over the quieter music. " ...do be careful."

The succubi on the interior of the walls are largely dead, but most of them are still being made love to, dismembered, or both in some capacity. A few demons far in the back are leering over the crowd with eye stalks and lifting each other up to get a better look at what's going on at your end of the festivities. It seems like the entire corridor has otherwise stopped moving.

You look around at the mass of demons standing between you and the end of the hallway. At the mass of sin. A congregation of disgraced Flesh.

With absolute sincerity, you complete the spell.

Having never performed any sort of sorcery (and with little skill in poetry yourself), you have no idea what you're doing.

The mechanism rapidly gets taken away from you.

You're instantly aware that changing the verbiage is affecting the way that the spell operates, but the words that fall from you take on their own form:

"The road was both lethal AND devoid of all courtesy!

I know that your game is to instill in me heresy!

I'll insult you again, Rem's debauched army:

Fuck this entire party!"​

The music stops.

Every single head in the room is staring straight at you. You hear no fewer than ten knives being sharpened. A few demons hiss, laugh, and screech.

Ofelia looks at you with abject horror.

Celegwen stares at you as if you've just killed someone. "Father, that was not the correct incantation—"

A nightmarish tearing sound from the end of the corridor interjects her caution. A tear is forming in the fabric of the wall ahead. It's incredibly thin, but it's there.

It feels as if something deep, deep inside of you is tearing as well. You clutch onto your side. The pain is sharp and cutting, but the sensation is like nothing you've ever felt before. It's like a wound has opened somewhere in your body, and you can't pin where. Your face flushes — in a way that you're beginning to think may be permanent— and your body seizes for a moment in a blend of satisfaction and horror.

Simultaneously, every single demon in the corridor starts to move. You don't wish to try and make sense of the several dozen threats being made to every inch of you simultaneously.

"Father. Are you alright?" Celegwen is looking to you with the utmost concern.

Ofelia's finds her voice. "We need to move—" The blunt end of a dagger bludgeons the skull of an imp that tries to grab onto her. "—you guys stay close, okay?"

Your eyes are heavy and altogether unfocused as you try to right yourself. Once again, you're glad for the cane, and use it for support for a moment before gathering your strength.

Despite your size disparity, Ofelia practically drags you towards the exit. Pulling hard on the side of your jacket, she weaves ahead in between a slip in the demons that escaped your fevered attention. You're double her size, and jostle the monsters next to her that she so readily ducked between. You try and grab onto Celegwen's arm— pulling her with you— as she uses her staff like a wedge to drive apart and stave back the horde behind you all.

Picking through the wall of bodies ahead of you, Ofelia manages with relative ease to slip ahead, but you're struggling. The sensation of something being torn is making movement fairly difficult, and you're having a much harder time than usual picking through a mob. The waves of demons around you are rapidly going from merely jeering at you all to properly trying to attack.

It takes what feels like an eternity to make it through the few yards of demons, but you all approach the opening ahead. It's utterly dark within.

Ofelia fearlessly looks inside.

She's pulled in by something, and gives a small shout.

Celegwen screams as her hair is grabbed onto by a minor demon just behind you. She's still valiantly holding the line, but you know you only have seconds to react.

One of your allies has vanished into dangers unknown. Another is in imminent danger.

Dozens of demons are thrashing before you. Your life could end at any moment.

You're in your element.

The music kicks up tenfold.

Music

The throbbing, pulsing rhythm is unfit for a Gods-fearing man. You've never heard a melody accompanied by anything other than a hymn or chant, and the voice beating through the walls is far more than sinister.

It's unholy.

It's obviously directed at you.

There's no time to scrutinize its meaning. You leap forward.

Every ounce of your newfound strength is used to slam your cane into Celegwen's attackers. It's like your muscles are begging for the exertion. The devastating motion couldn't feel sweeter.

The sorceress lets out a cry as one of the minor demons lets go of her hair, though she's knocked to the ground by two imps that break through the mob. Thrashing with all of her might, she screams with each renewed attempt to free her arms, to keep hold of her staff, and to escape.

Swinging your cane up to deflect an incoming barrage of weapons(?) from her, you're reminded that you came here with peaceful intent. Your attackers are not striking with lethal force. Whips, flogs, paddles, and countless other blunt instruments are brought down on you.

They elicit something worse than death. Better than death. Blinding gold and heat threatens to make the world give way. Waves of pain sweep you into an undercurrent of pleasure that you have been trying to ignore. Hot, slick, and inescapable blood flows forth. It intermingles with your sweat, and an uproar of lascivious jeering as you rip yourself from the brink.

Righting yourself and looking wildly around reveals so many more demons trying to push through the wall of bodies all around. They're writhing so tightly together— screaming for your blood— that they can scarcely move.

A nearby greater demon digs its spiked nails into your shoulder. His grip tears into silk, and slices your skin wide open.

You can't help but gasp.

In complete revulsion, with a desire for revenge, you turn to punch the demon squarely in its face.

The demon's skin shifts before your fist makes contact.

You shred your knuckles in an instant on a wall of barbed wire.

A proper moan escapes from you. Something that can't be stifled— despite your best efforts. "Mercy—!"

Horror at the renewed frenzy all around draws your bleeding, wounded hands away.

Celegwen is screaming.

You whip your head away from the immediate imitations of your moan (though they're rapidly coming from all directions), to see that the sorceress is desperately trying to drive back the imps that are covering her. She's being dragged back down the hall. Her bodice is torn in multiple places, her legs are exposed, and her dress is hiked back.

Recklessly shoving to meet her, you don't even dignify the demons on her with a weapon. You channel frustration, agony, and ecstasy to backhand an imp clean off from her body. Your hand practically fuses to the creature as it's ripped into the air. The force of the brutally strong blow catches your breath in your throat. Blood and viscera from your own flesh arcs through the air as you and the imp separate.

It slams into the wall of demons beside you, and stuns several surrounding monsters into silence. The creature slumps to the floor, rendered unconscious— and no one in the crowd seems bothered. It's almost as if they were waiting for permission to continue.

Thrashing, writhing, shouting, and overwhelming sin seems to redouble. You're jostled hard as you smack down another imp, and beat it over the back with your cane for good measure. Each swing resonates throughout your entire body as you crush the urge to beat the creature to death for what it's done.

Celegwen has given up on preserving her decency to tear the demons off from her. She's fading from sight, and may be trying to cast a spell as she's dragged away, but it's almost impossible to discern her words through the screams all around.

Something long and sharp wraps around one of your arms. The tension is extreme. Building terror intermingles with the gasp it draws from you.

Struggling to fight against the effort to draw you back, your eyes dart between your friend and the source of the attack.

On the other end of the whip is a succubus— who literally clawed through the walls to get at you. She's clad head-to-toe in spikes. No fewer than three minor demons lay dead at her feet. Only her blackened and decaying indecency is exposed, and she lolls her tongue at you as your eyes meet.

None of the demons around the scene want to intervene on behalf of your attacker. They may be too terrified of the succubus to get between you two— or they may simply want to watch the spectacle.

"Mercy."

To take a succubus head-on is to face certain death. You're not the leader of the Church of Flesh.

You're the Father of the Church of Mercy, and you are here to show Her to these demons.

The whip around your arm is so taut that you can feel every rapid pulse of your heart. It matches the rhythm of the music and far surpasses each beat. The euphoria and indecency that these demons are pulling from you is something that should never be shared with anyone apart from your Goddess— yet you can't help but hope that this is a loophole.

Each blow from the demons behind you elicits something worse.

Something better.

You're not frightened.

You're elated to know that to hesitate is to die.

Your breath is hitching in anticipation and devotion to the pain.

You don't even take in a proper breath before ripping your arm free of its restraint.

The swift motion shreds ornate fabric. The black and gold gives way to so much red. Dozens of pieces of gold drop to the floor as your skin is laid bare. The clatter of each button is entirely lost to your sin— the gasp of revulsion, the surge of delight— that weaves through the searing agony of your flayed limb and raw nerves.

The succubi matches your outcry. She can't match your blasphemy, but she tries to be bolder. Drawing the whip to her gaping maw, she drags her tongue along every last drop of crimson. It buys you a precious moment. Not to regain your composure— but to make things infinitely worse.

The assault on your frame from all sides is unrelenting. They seem fixed on not knocking you over, but on prolonging your suffering. Each surge of thriving, pulsing, celebrating heathens throws themselves against you. They consume the last of your friend from sight, and heightens your senses to an impossible degree.

Not even a prayer to Spirit has ever granted you so much clarity. Not over another— not over yourself— and never over the way that these demons are working themselves over you. You tense your flayed arm, your ravaged hands, and dare to kneel down to sweep up the imp you bludgeoned. Your other makeshift weapon— its black diamonds and gold now slick with blood— goes to the other.

The pandemonium seems to impossibly escalate. From the moment you bend down, you're battered with more heat. More pain. Several demons see fit to simply strike at you, as others grind against your form.

The green in your eyes catches on the heat and frenzy. With renewed energy, you grasp the imp as a shield of unwilling flesh and cleave into the wall of demons before you.

You are not concerned with the mob, and you certainly are not concerned for yourself.

You focus everything you have on saving Celegwen.

No amount of pain can stop you.

They're only encouraging me.

Cane-first, you swing and rip your weapon into the shoulder of a demon made entirely of congealed worms.

Sickly sweet earth flings across multiple demons behind you. They scream in ecstasy, rush forward, and push you deeper into the crowd. Throwing the side of your shoulder into your defense, you ride out the impact, and push hard against the writhing mass of monsters before you.

Barbs from three all-too-familiar minor demons grazes your lacerated arm. You can't stop moving, even to double-take at the guards from outside of Ostedholm's stairs. It's so good that you push yourself harder. Leaning into their proximity. Wanting more.

A blow near the side of your head almost robs you of your elation. At the last moment, you bring up the imp's body, and watch in abject horror as its skull is crushed by calcified flesh. Three of the demon's kin are trying to stop you at once.

You watch with no small measure of jealousy as your shield is almost split in two by a pair of horns.

Pushing onward, you eat the force of another blow with the imp's destroyed form.

The weapon embedded into its torso is thrust towards your attacker. The congregation of sin aids your momentum, and skewers the enemy straight through.

Each swing of your weapon cuts deeply as you carve a path through the masses.

Each motion courses through your arms, shoulders, and back— ravaged as they are by building sensation.

You dig deeper.

Letting yourself enjoy it.

Throwing yourself against the mob.

The corpse in your hands.

Using your battered and abused form.

The screams of the succubus fighting to get back to you are nearly as disturbing as the noises that have fallen from your lips for oh-so-many minutes. Gemstones and gold lay waste to the last barrier between you and your purchase. You stagger, break through a broad gap in the mob, and can't help but endure the demonic abuse on all sides.

To permit them to give you what you want, while gazing upon something you never wished to see.

Celegwen is standing in the center of a glyph. The sorceress has drawn the circle on the floor around her in her own blood. Eyes wider than you've ever seen them, she's pointing her spell focus intently at the ground beneath her. Any questions you had left in the abyss have been answered. Her breath is nearly as ragged as her clothes, and the chunks of wood torn clean from her staff. The gash marks along her legs, hips, and chest are fresh. Though you've never seen a single scar on the elf, you know that the severity of her wounds must be beyond her current skill.

She's not screaming. She's muttering an incantation endlessly, with her eyes glazed over in concentration and horror.