“It’s all about the Rez. Not only does it separate us from hollows, but us from each other. Control your reservoir and the autonomy it provides, or forever become a puppet to one that’s larger than your own.”
–Hades, “Some Philosophical Shit”. 4 Years After.
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How long had they kept her down here?
One day? Two? More? It was hard to say. After Santiago called his goons, Leah had been stuck in this cell, crucified against a cross on the wall with nails bolted through her limbs. There were no windows to catch daylight, nor sounds that leaked in from the outside world, though she could hear the crying and screams from others who’d been locked down here with her. It wasn’t long before she realized just how widespread this coup had gone. She could make out the voices of Luciá and a few more of her people from the convoy as they begged for help.
But none would come. Leah was the help.
Dwayne, Charon, and the rest of the Hunters were thousands of miles away. The Council would eventually send a crew if Leah never returned, and it’d be hard to sweep an entire convoy disappearing under the rug, but that Santiago was willing to go this far proved how little he’d thought this through.
No, it was worse than that. Abraham was pulling the strings. El Dorado and its people were just his puppets. Somehow, some way, he had turned them into his own. His fingers hadn’t just wormed their way inside Pandemonium’s walls.
They had spread all the way down here.
The door creaked open, with firelight spilling in. Leah closed her eyes to keep from being blinded. After so long in pure darkness, the rapid stimulation was disorienting.
Fingers wrenched an eyelid open though, and her brain short-circuited as it tried to process so much light.
“Still holding strong?” Santiago asked after a moment.
She grunted. “Remove the nails and see what happens, asshole.”
“Such foul language. Don’t you see that it is Satan who drives your hatred?”
“Pretty sure your name is ‘Santiago’.”
“I am Hermano Santiago now,” he corrected.
“Just like your friend, Mateo?”
“We are all Brothers and Sisters under God, sí.”
“If that’s the case, you’ll have no fucking problem getting me out of these restraints.”
“Not until you have been baptized in the light of our Lord.”
Leah grit her teeth. “Whatever you think you’re trying to do here, don’t. In spite of everything, I’m still open to letting you live. Just tell me what Abraham did to get you to flip, and we can have a conversation about how to undo the damage that’s been done. No one else has to die.”
He tsked. “You are thinking about this all wrong, senora Leah. The Hermanos have done nothing but give me the tools to save myself. I am now able to behold the Lord’s power like the rest of my family, and that is all that is needed. I will give you this same gift.”
The light of the torch crackled, and Leah blinked through it. Now that it had been in her face so long, she could see clearly again. Not just the cell, or Santiago’s token white mustache, but his eyes, along with that frenzy he’d adopted.
Exactly like Brother Uriel, Father Abraham, and every other Beholder she’d seen.
“You’re saying that I’ll become like you?” she asked.
“Only if you open your heart to God.”
“Then fuck off. I’m not about to become some mindless pawn.”
He recoiled an inch. “You will understand soon. You may be the Whore of Babylon, but you can still be saved.”
She groaned. “Enough with all the Whore shit, seriously… It doesn’t even make sense. We’re all incapable of sex, remember? Like, even if you count Lust, I haven’t touched the stuff in years.”
He shrugged. “Be that as it may, you will see His light as I have, just as God has commanded.”
Santiago spoke some words in Spanish, and more Beholders entered. Mateo towered behind, his stern face still defiant as always from inside his brown Friar cloak.
One by one, the nails were wrenched from her limbs, only to be replaced by a firm hand holding them in place. Not giving me an inch, huh? Unarmed and with bones still healing, most would write Leah off as harmless, but these guys weren’t messing around. As much as she wanted an opening, it was looking like they weren’t about to give her one.
With her crucifixion undone, the Beholders began to strip her down. First her sheepskin jacket and jeans, then the underwear and T-shirt beneath, and finally, her scarf. She hissed as Mateo snatched it from her face, but there was nothing more to be done. Not for the time being, anyway.
She flicked the hair from her face and met his fearless gaze with a fire of her own. “Don’t know how much of this you can understand, Hermano Mateo, but so fucking help me… I am going to take extreme pleasure when I carve your eyes from their sockets.” She gleamed, knowing just how horrifying she looked without her scarf.
He struck her. Leah spat out a glob of blood.
The troupe pulled her from the cell as her limp legs dragged against the stone floor. The light from the torch radiated out, and Leah caught sight of the rest of her people. Guards from the convoy, merchants who’d accompanied her on this trip, and even a couple of the fresh Spanish-speaking rezzers who came to El Dorado over the promise of a society where communication for them would be easier.
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Then she saw Luciá. Her silken brown hair had gone wiry and unkempt, and her red eyes were dulling in the fading light. She watched in horror as Leah was lugged by, black ichor dripping down her naked form.
That hurt more than anything else. Seeing the failure in action. Knowing just how much others would suffer because she hadn’t seen this coming. Luciá trusted her, but Leah let her down.
It isn’t over yet. Leah cleared her throat and held her head high.
“Listen up, citizens of Pandemonium!” she screamed. “Don’t you dare let these fuckers break you!” one of the Beholders grabbed for her mouth, but she bit a finger off before he could get a good grip. “Here me now, everyone! I am Lady Leah, the Head fucking Huntress, and I am going to burn this whole parish down! So keep your head in the game until that happens. That’s a fucking order!”
Then Mateo grabbed her throat and squeezed. She gasped as her larynx crunched under his weight.
But it worked. Reddish tears rolled down Luciá’s cheeks, but she was smiling.
Hope had been restored. At least for now.
That much would have to do until Leah came up with a plan.
* * *
It took well over an hour before Santiago and a squad of his black-cloaked Inquisitor friends managed to bring Leah to their destination. Well outside El Dorado, down the hills, and into a grove. The sun was high above, casting long shadows through the emerald trees before landing on a pool of water, still and clear like a sheet of glass.
There was no denying the beauty of this place, but as Leah caught her reflection in the pond, she blinked through tears in her eyes. Her body was naked, and with the damage she’d sustained, her normally pale skin had grown blackened and bloated where the broken bones still healed. Peeled skin also formed without the daily additive of preservatives she’d gotten so used to.
And her Mark was out for all to see. During her own hollowing, Leah’s cheeks had been reduced to shredded meat down to the muscle, and her lips were missing entirely. Hideously twisted teeth bent out from her blackened gums where they’d been exposed from the injury, with ooze mixed with mucus that clung to the edges. It had been so long since she’d seen this in the open.
No longer was Leah the queen of the world. She was just another walking corpse. Thin, rotting, and so fucking weak. She closed her eyes to avoid the sight.
Santiago laid a hand on her shoulder. “It is okay, Leah. It is going to be okay. This is your true self, perverted by Sin.”
“Fuck off!” she squeaked, her larynx still raw.
“Let go of this hate. It will be easier if you do not fight His love.”
Leaves rustled behind, and Leah realized that there were plenty more than just them. An entire crowd had formed of Beholders, these ones clothed in white. There had to be thirty of them… No, fourty. All watching Leah standing there naked with the same glee in their eyes. The same zeal.
Santiago stroked her hair, his passion burning strong. “I brought many English-speaking friends to help with your baptism.”
All in unison, the crowd drew books. She recognized the binding at once. The Holy Word. That same book that she’d allowed to be circulated back home. That same fucking book.
Like robots, the Beholders flipped through the pages before landing in the same spot.
Santiago drew an invisible cross in front of Leah. “We ask you, Father, with your Son, to send thy Holy Spirit upon the water of this font. May all who are buried with thy Lord in the death of baptism rise also with him to the newness of life. We ask this through the power of our Lord.”
“Amen!” the Beholders roared.
“My dear Brothers and Sisters, let us ask our Lord to look lovingly on this child…” Santiago continued.
He droned on from there, with the mob responding when prompted, but Leah wasn’t listening. She watched the pool in front. The water seemed to have changed with so many bodies casting shadows, darkened like an endless pit forming to swallow her whole.
Santiago breathed deep, his fanaticism rising. “Leah, I hereby baptize you in the name of the Lord.”
They plunged her into the water.
For a moment, there was nothing but the dark, cold water. Leah twisted her head this way and that, expecting something else to come from the blackness of the pool, but the water was shallow, and the surface was barely a foot away.
Then a sound began to grow. A soft hum penetrated the stillness, created by many tones at once. Little by little, the sound grew in volume, and Leah watched as exposed legs paddled through the water besides, pure and clean, without the slightest signs of rot. The Beholders had her surrounded, their voices seeping through the water above.
Then the hum turned to words as they all spoke at once. “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and night.” A pause. “Amen!”
Leah tried to peer around, but there was nothing but a wall of shadows everywhere she looked.
“And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,” they continued, still in unison, “that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, even under Sin; and whatever he doeth shall prosper.” Another pause. “Amen!”
On and on, they uttered their cultist gibberish as Leah lay in place, interjected every so often with a sharpened “Amen!” The water grew calm again as they all remained in place.
Stay strong. You can get through this. Just a couple more minutes, and she’d be out. Leah could even play dumb to make the Beholders think they’d won. That was all that mattered. Making them think that they’d gotten her onto their side.
Then she’d kill them all. Every last one.
“But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful for thee. For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield from Sin… Amen!”
How much longer was this baptism going to take? This couldn’t last forever. HBRS-15.21 was a beast of an engine when it came to immortalizing the human body, but there were certain limitations to keeping the mind intact. Unlike hollows, rezzer brain cells would degrade after too much time without oxygen. Then rehollowing that otherwise occurred over weeks would accelerate to mere hours as the neurons quickly burnt out.
“O Lord my God, in thee do I put my I trust: save me from all that persecute me, and deliver me: Lest he tear my flesh and soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver… Amen!”
Then the dark truth became apparent. That was the point. The longer this process wore on, the more Leah would hollow, and the more weakened her reservoir would become. A drained Rez is a pliable one, she realized. It could be filled with anything!
Including their ideology...