Chapter 39 – Sacrifice of the Repentant

Sister Lilah clapped her hands together, and her expression abruptly changed. “Congratulations on passing the first test! There’s more of you than I expected.”

At her words, a murmur of relief flowed through the crowd of eleven people. I likewise sagged in relief. She couldn’t lie, so there was a good chance we actually passed the first part of the Overlap. As for how many more of these tests there were? I couldn’t quite tell yet.

”What’s going to happen to them?” The White Rabbit asked. His nose twitched erratically, and it looked like he might collapse from tension. His expression hardened a moment later.

“Oh, they’ll be sent back to your city, don’t you worry.” She smiled, and shifted the subject abruptly. “Your next test will begin shortly, friends! Rest! You’ve earned it.”

She disappeared in a surge of shadows, and took the heavy tension in the air with her. Sighs erupted from those of us left. Most of the people remaining split up and took seats on pews. A few, namely Bradson and Lizabeth, bowed their heads deeply in prayer with the time we were given.

The elderly woman who put down the golden pouch approached me with worry etched deep into her wrinkles. “Canary—“

“Please, call me Reyna.” I tried to smile at her. Even as she took most of my focus, my ears twitched up alertly to track other people’s conversations as well.

“I’m Grace Witherhorn… Reyna, did I make the right choice?” The elderly woman held a hand to her forehead and covered her eyes. “I have hungry grandchildren at home. That kind of gold could be life changing.”

”That kind of money isn’t worth your life.” I patted her shoulder lightly. “I’m sure your grandchildren would rather have you alive than a bit of gold.”

”Yeah… yeah, maybe you’re right.” Grace sighed heavily, and dropped her hand to her side. “Be honest, Canary, my chances aren’t good, are they? My old bones aren’t what they used to be.”

I tried to smile reassuringly. The words felt like acid as I prepared to say them. Back in the academy, it’d been drilled into me repeatedly what to say in emergency situations like this one. “You’ll be fine, Grace. Just follow the rules, and all will end well.”

”… yeah, okay.” She nodded her head resolutely and backed away. Once she was far enough away, I started to approach Officer Bradson.

“Operator, is gold particularly valuable?” Vigil asked me quietly.

I mutely dipped my chin. It was the only hard currency outside of credits, and went for a fortune. Gold was the preferred currency of the black market deals given its relative anonymity. ‘Course it was valuable.

“Canary.” The Peace Keeper nodded to me, though didn’t take his eyes away from the civilians scattered around the place. “Are things as bleak as they look?”

”Worse,” I said bluntly. Honestly, if she just wanted to kill us, she could. She showed the capability to warp space, which was more than enough to flatten all of us like pancakes. What was her game? Why try to get us to break the rules like this? What was her end goal?

Unless… maybe she was restricted? Maybe the rules weren’t just for us, but for her as well. Back at Checkpoint Alpha-Omega, that entity also faithfully followed the rules set out by the flaming script. It could be binding on both ends. Or maybe she had to follow even more rules than what we could see?

”I was afraid of that.” His hands tightened on his rifle.

I looked around to make sure no one was listening. The humans were mostly far enough away I didn’t have to worry, and both of the remaining White Rabbits were off to the side. Even still, I dropped my voice into a whisper. ”Hey, if it comes down to it, don’t use that.”

“What?” His voice sounded particularly loud in my fluffy ears. He flinched, and asked much quieter, “why?”

“You’ll only damn yourself.” I frowned and reread through the rules in my HUD. Enough time had passed that I doubted anyone remembered them exactly. Panic had a funny way of cutting through memory.

It’d been long enough I doubted anyone remembered them exactly. “Cause no harm.”

“… right. Thank you for the heads up.” He discreetly flicked on his safety. The rifle was nothing more than a paperweight given the current situation. We just had to hope we were the only ones to realize that.

The Peace Keeper and I stood watching over the other nine survivors until Sister Lilah came back. It wasn’t long before fire blazed to life on the raised platform once more, and the woman herself appeared. She picked at her habit lightly, and smiled at us. “Now, onto the next test! True repentance—true salvation requires sacrifice, doesn’t it? Nothing in the world is free.”

Darkness flashed over the tables once more, and blood-covered, rusty knives appeared above them one by one. The treasures from the previous trial entirely disappeared until it was just the hovering daggers. There were eleven of them, fitting the number of us left in the Overlap.

“A small sacrifice of blood or flesh will purchase your departure.” She waved to the knives. “Anything more will be rewarded handsomely.”

”What kind of rewards are we talking about?” the man with cybernetic arms asked. He’d been standoffish the entire time, so I hadn’t caught his name. “Money? Power?”

“What kind of power do you wish for?” She waved her hand, and a halo made of burning red fire appeared just behind her. It transformed into a monstrous claw a moment later. The next, it became an aura glowing around her similar to the only Radiant I’d seen. “It all depends on how much you sacrifice.”

”You can make me an Awoken?” The man hesitantly approached the table, and stopped just shy of grabbing a dagger.

Just before he could do something stupid, I grabbed his metal arm. “She didn’t say that. She just showed us a symbol.”

Sister Lilah sighed, and shook her head. ”I can make you anything you want to be, my dear friend.”

”Can or will?” I glared at the false sister. She kept talking around the matters at hand. Since she could only tell the truth, it was a telltale sign that she was trying to misdirect us.

“Get off me!” The servos in the man’s arm whirled, and he shook me off. His metal arms had a surprising amount of strength in them. “Sister?”

She waved her hand, and a flaming halo appeared above his head. “It all depends on how much you sacrifice, just as I said.”

“You better keep your promise.” The man hesitated a moment, and then unbuckled his metal arm. He held it out toward Sister Lilah.

I reached out a hand to stop him, but I had a feeling it was already too late. Rule three was not to bargain. I had no idea if just bargaining itself was a violation, or if the rule was there to warn of the dangers of trying to win over her. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

”I lost my arms in defense of Silverport.” The man shook his head, and anger flashed in his eyes. “You wouldn’t know that kind of pain, Canary. Too busy sitting in your gilded cage with Harbor.”

”The sacrifice must be of flesh and blood, not metal and oil.” She shook her head. “I can not accept.”

The man frowned, and grabbed a dagger. He ripped it across the stub of his arm. Blood flowed and dripped down. Before it could even hit the ground, dark-red flames swallowed it. “Then that.”

”Acceptable.” For a moment, hunger cracked through the sister’s gentle expression. The motion was just quick enough it might’ve been an illusion. “You are free to go… though a larger sacrifice is required for what you wish.”

“I…” He looked up at her, then back to the halo burning right above him. Escape was no longer enough for the man.

A murmur passed through the crowd, and someone else approached the table. I lifted my voice up to the crowd. “Think this through! Don’t be idiots!”

One of the other men paused a few steps away from the tables. “The first and second tests may follow entirely different rules, Canary. Isn’t sacrifice cost enough?”

A woman shakily picked up a knife, and lifted it up in front of her. The blade trembled in the dim red light of the cathedral. “I have to get out of here. My mom—she can’t live without me.”

“It’s not too late.” I winced as I heard my own voice. Heh… funny that those stupid words were coming from me of all people now. “Put the dagger down.”

“I… I’m sorry, Canary.” She dragged the dagger across her hand, and a trial of red dripped down. Red fire erupted to life to match it. “Let me go.”

“Be free, friend.” Sister Lilah waved her hand, and shadows surged up to devour the woman. Her expression relaxed, and she cradled her injured hand. The shadows crushed inward, and she disappeared.

With an example shown, the other two civilians rushed to the table for daggers. “Stop!”

It was already too late, though. With a flash of their daggers, crimson pilled across the cathedral. It was devoured by the flames all the same. In a surge of shadows, the other two were sent off by Sister Lilah.

Silence settled across the cathedral, and the rest of us looked at each other. Lizabeth edged toward the daggers, and looked back toward me. “Is this really the way out?”

“It could be just like the trial with the items.” My tail swished in aggravation. Not a single one of them listened to me… the chances of it being that simple were few and far between. I eyed the nun standing on the raised platform.

Grace moved behind me. “I’ll trust you, Canary. Besides, using the daggers may very well count as accepting a gift.”

At the elderly woman’s words, the hopeful expressions of those who hoped to get out through sacrifice collapsed. “That’s a good point.”

Aside from me, her, and Bradson, there were just four others left. I wasn’t sure what Lizabeth would do. She was panicking so badly I couldn’t get a read on her. The chrome-armed man stared at the dagger in his hands. The last two were Bojang and the other White Rabbit.

”Bojang, what are we thinking?” The White Rabbit immediately moved over to the table, but stopped just short of grabbing something. “Sacrifice? I have a knife. We don’t have to use hers.”

”I’m with the Canary, Francis… for now. We shouldn’t engage with the sister.” Bojang glared at me, and shifted his gaze around the cathedral. “I was thinking we might be able to bust out one of those windows and—“

”You will die if you try that.” For the first time, Sister Lilah gave a straightforward answer. She said it just like everything else, and yet it cut across the entire cathedral with chilling intent.

”Or not.” Bojang shrugged, and moved over to the rest of us. “Maybe there’s some other way out?”

”Still, good thinking.” Francis stared down at the table full of knives with a deeply contemplative look on his face.

“Just a sacrifice will let us leave unharmed and go back to Silverport?” Bradson asked. His eyes tracked to me, and he shifted from foot to foot.

”There will be the damage you yourself inflict.” She waved her hands to the daggers, and once more didn’t answer the question fully. “I will personally return you to Silverport.”

”Operator.” Vigil’s voice echoed in the back of my head. “Preliminary analysis indicates the sacrifice may violate ‘Cause no harm’.”

”Thanks, pal,” I whispered back to him. I was thinking along the same lines. Even if it didn’t, sacrificing to an evil entity definitely violated ‘Commit no evil’. “It’s a trap, just like the last one.”

“It’s not a trap.” The man with cybernetic arms lifted his still bleeding nub up to his sides. “Look, I’m totally fine.”

”You don’t look like it.” I eyed the man. I’d have to watch him carefully. If he was already doomed like I suspected, then there was no telling what he might do.

”Does hurting yourself count as causing harm?” Bradson asked.

“According to my sister.” It’d been a while since I let her catch me in the act, but she was always livid back then.

Bradson frowned, and shook his head. “Is there really no other way out of here? What about the door? Is it still locked?”

I expected her to say no. What she really said was much, much worse than that. Her voice still held its angelic quality, though the words that leaked through were anything but. Her expression dipped into a sad one, as if the words physically pained her to say. “The death of another will set you free.”

The cathedral went dead silent. A new avenue opened up, though it was just as damning as every other avenue. The veteran with metal arms slowly picked up his cybernetic and reattached it. He backed away toward the rest of us with his knife in hand. “Sister, what else would I need to sacrifice—"

Shnk!

”Argh!” Without any hesitation, he drove his dagger back toward Francis. The White Rabbit reacted quickly and threw up his arm, catching the blade. A spectral blue glow lit up his frame, and he pushed the man backward. A strength aspect, maybe? Without any hesitation, Francis pulled the dagger out and plunged it into the man’s chest.

“What are you doing?!” I rushed over to the scuffle, and pulled Francis away before he could stab the man again. He let himself be forced away, but the damage was already done. His attacker’s heart had been pierced.

“You… you…” He lifted his cybernetic arm up weakly, only for it to flop lifelessly to the ground a moment later.

“Stay back! If anyone else approaches the knives, I won’t hesitate to put you down! And you! Keep your hands where I can see them.” The Peace Keeper moved to my side and lifted his assault rifle to point at Francis. Although it was on safety, the others didn’t know that. “Maybe he can still be saved?”

“It’s too late.” A dull gray filled the man’s chest. Even without anything else, I could see he was dead. At the very least, his heart was torn apart by the knife. CPR could keep him clinically alive, but I didn’t even know how to get out of here, let alone get the man medical treatment. “He’s dead.”

“Fuck!” Officer Bradson shouted. The calm from earlier was entirely gone. And why wouldn’t it be?

“You all saw that! He attacked me first!” Francis dropped the knife-holding hand to his side, and wiped blood off his face with his sleeve. His long white ears swayed as he backed away. “I-I was just defending myself. Cousin, you saw that didn’t you?”

“‘Course I saw that.” Bojang Whitley immediately jumped to his support, and moved in between us and the other White Rabbit. “This isn’t his fault. You all see that, don’t you?”

”Does blame even really matter?” The bigger question was if that counted for ‘Cause no harm’. Technically speaking, the man attacking was what caused Francis to defend himself.

”W-what about him?” Lizabeth pointed toward the dead man at our feet. “What do we do with that?”

“My friend, am I to take this as a sacrifice?” Sister Lilah asked, and waved her hand. Fire erupted around the body of the man, though it didn't descend.

“Will you let me go if I say yes?” Francis’s head shot up, and the remorse he’d been expressing vanished. I could see the same thought going through everyone’s head—so this works too?

”Of course, friend. I’ll set you free.” The fire churned like the ravenous maw of a horrific beast. Throughout it all, Sister Lilah kept that same harmless smile on her face. “The sacrifice is sufficient. What power do you wish to have?”

”… the strength to crush my opponents.” The moment he answered, the flames descended upon the corpse. I backed up a step as intense heat radiated toward me. A thin strand of flames arced out, and danced toward Francis.

”Argh!” Francis’s arms tensed, and his sleeve exploded into fragments. His face instantly flushed red, and his muscles swelled with strength. “What is this?!”

He slammed his arm into a pew, and it toppled over. The section he hit directly broke into a spray of splinters from the sheer power Sister Lilah granted him. I grabbed the Peace Keeper and pulled him back just as a chunk of wood slammed into the ground where he’d just been standing.

Bojang reached out a hand toward him, though didn’t approach. “Francis, are you okay?”

“Okay? Okay? I feel better than ever!” He let out a crazed laugh, and stood up straight. His entire body was flushed an ugly shade of red. Bloodshot eyes locked onto the rest of us, though his question wasn’t directed to us. “Sister! If… if I provide more sacrifices, will you grant me even greater power?”

At his words, everyone took a step back. Sister Lilah just kept her kind smile on her face. “Of course. You will get what you deserve, the same as everyone else.”

The air in the cathedral stilled, and the room went dead silent. Bradson’s grip tightened on his rifle, and he slowly shifted it toward Francis. The White Rabbit wasn’t the only concern, though. The other survivors looked like they were starting to get ugly thoughts in their heads too.

No one spoke. The silence stretched into a new form of tension. The other survivors started to eye the distance between each of us, almost as if weighing just what, or who, might purchase their freedom.