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saintsofwarding · 1 year

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WE SHALL BE MONSTERS

Header by @keltii-tea

Chapter 27: A Long, Dark Path

Rose fell through darkness.

On and on and on. Wind tore past her ears. She tumbled, raking out at the dark, but it slipped through her fingers, tatters of writhing shadow. Her scream was lost in the howl of phantom wind around her, the rumbling moan of the megamycete. The gullet of the Black God, plunging endlessly down into the chasm of her own mind.

Miranda's mind.

Both of us, as one.

Were they one and the same? Had she been resurrected as Miranda's clone, her perfect genetic copy, primed to download her consciousness after death? Was she a copy of Miranda's daughter, the fabled little lost Eva? An amalgam of them both, and Eveline, and Ethan and Mia's baby girl, and, and, and...

Her thoughts whirled like the darkness, like the howls and screams and scraps of voices that flew past her over the megamycete's eerie song. Was Donna okay? She remembered her mutation like a nightmare, the snap of her rearranging bones still echoing through her body. She'd busted out of the house, she'd crushed it all around her. Was Donna alive?

Am I still alive?

Frustration mounted, and terror, raw as a sob. She'd fall forever. She'd go mad in here if there wasn't some kind of ground, if there wasn't-

It came up fast.

Without warning, Rose collided with- something. The impact rattled her to the teeth, a crack of white and red through her whole body; she tumbled, wincing, to a halt. The ground writhed and pulsed beneath her, soft-hard, like a muscle. It gave slightly under her palm as she braced it against the...whatever it was she'd fallen onto. Stars burst in her eyes, and Rose slumped again, waiting for the pain and dizziness to fade.

It did. She pushed herself upright, wincing, eyes wide.

Around her was a sea of mold. Iridescent, lightless black, organic and in constant, fluid movement. Liquid and solid all at once. It writhed at her hands, nosing at her skin, webs of mycelium sprouting over her fingers. She pulled her hand away, and it retreated, a ripple like a distant tremor shaking the ground beneath her.

"Donna?" she called. "Angie? Are you in here?"

Her voice echoed on, and on, and on, strangely warped, until the entire space seemed alive with its eerie reply.

Nothing.

A pause. Rose licked her lips, shifting her weight. Her sword was gone from her back, she realized. Whatever waited for her here, she'd have to face it without weapons.

She took a short breath.

Then-

"Miranda?"

That got a reaction. Another, stronger tremor rippled through the mold, and on its trailing edge, sending a chill to Rose's core-

A cry.

A child's cry. A long wail of anguish in the dark.

"Is that supposed to be Eva?" Rose said.

There was no answer.

"You can't trap me here," Rose called. She pushed to her feet, swaying, staring into the dark. "That's not what you want, anyway, is it? What's the point of taking me if you don't get to make me into your Eva, huh?"

She plunged her hands into the mold in front of her. The cold latched on, spilling through her body as she dug her hands deeper into the wet, pulpy mass; fibrous tendrils scraped at her fingers, but Rose grit her teeth and pushed further, jamming her shoulders into the gap, forcing her way through. It pushed back, resistant, but Rose wasn't giving up that easily, and with a slick crackle, she stumbled in.

She lost her footing almost immediately. A tilting, swooping lurch; there was no up or down here. Her legs pedaled against the mold, then scraped- steps. They formed from the mold under her boots, and she settled down with a huff, her hands lifted in case anything leaped out at her.

Nothing did. The long flight of steps curved down and down, their limits lost in shadow. Points of pale light guttered to either side, picking out the shape of the steps. Candles in niches. Or the ghosts of candles.

She recognized this place, reflected and refracted through the lens of the Black God's catalogued memories. One of the passageways deep beneath the village, a holy place far below the mundane world, leading ever downward to the divine.

Would it now? Or was it simply to the unknown?

Either way, Rose pushed on. She hurried down the steps, picking up speed. Around her- rumbles, ripples, great unfurling blooms of iridescence that filled the mold with strange, entrancing patterns. Fractal-like, she might have watched them forever.

Scraps of voices tugged at her- voices she knew, her own, Heisenberg's, Sam's, Chris's, the Lords', on and on. Others she didn't know, in languages she could only guess at. The echoes of memories trapped in here with her.

Am I a memory, now?

Maybe she was. Maybe she'd always been. Memories locked in flesh. But then again, wasn't everyone?

A tremor pushed at her boots. She stumbled; with a gasp, she tripped. Her hands flew forward and slammed into a solid surface. She breathed hard, braced against wood. Its grain pushed at her fingertips. It felt real enough.

Rose pushed back, onto her feet. An arched doorway, illuminated by a torch in a sconce, set into the mold. Black tendrils wound over the wood, but when Rose pulled the handle, it opened without resistance.

Light poured over her boots.

Beyond was a laboratory. The vaulted ceiling was lost in shadow, the corners dripping with damp. Tables groaned under the weight of countless files, stacks of papers scrawled with notes, piles of ponderous-looking books towering higher than Rose's head. Everywhere: the glow of copper, amber light through antique glass, bottled chemicals and medical equipment and hanging diagrams of mutants and monsters.

In a sepia-toned photo that looked much older than the rest, Rose recognized Moreau, harshly illuminated like a clinical specimen. She recognized Dimitrescu's draconic form amidst photos of zombies and lycans, ghouls and bat-winged women that reminded her of the stolen girls from the long-ago town.

Spores danced in the light, illuminated like stars. The air smelled thickly of mold, but of incense, too, twining up from a burner in a corner, a heady, holy scent.

And somewhere, echoing through the vaults, someone was weeping.

A woman. Rose hesitated, then pushed onward, her step silent through the dust. On the far side of the tables, past the equipment, the chemicals, the specimens pinned out with inner workings on display, a woman huddled over a desk. She sobbed her heart out, her arm pressed over her face, the other hand gripping the material of her black robes.

The rest of her was clad in...ohhh, those weren't rags. They were feathers, multiple black wings furled over her, like a shield against the world. Her blonde hair was loose, and before her, on the desk, lay an old photograph.

Rose could make it out, even from a distance. A woman, and a child. She held the baby to her chest, and her face was serene with joy.

Rose blinked, flinching back. Her boot scuffed on the grimy flagstones. The weeping woman's head snapped up. Black tears streaked down her face, her eyes bright mirror-gold, but Rose knew her. Of course she knew her. She'd never really seen her face before- just icons of it, just its impression through her imperfect memories- but now, as Rose stared at Miranda, something settled inside her. A realization, a confirmation, heavy and cold.

Miranda's face was a reflection of her own. Older, yes, and full of a calm cunning Rose had never seen in her own eyes, but there was no denying it.

"Eva?" Miranda said. Her lips trembled, her eyes shining. "It's...it's really you, isn't it? I found you. I told you I would."

A smile broke over her face, radiant with relief. "I promised you. Didn't I?"

"I'm not Eva," Rose spat. "Eva's dead. And so are you. Now let me the hell out of this place-"

"No." Miranda's voice lashed out, a hissing snarl that struck Rose to the core. Those eight wings rustled, feathers fluttering as they began to unfurl from around her. "Not this time, Eva. I don't care what the world beyond has told you all these years. There's no denying what you are. What you truly are. What I made you into."

Her voice deepened into an animal growl. "You're mine. And this time, there's no one to stop me."

She rose from the desk, wings snapping forth, the backdraft sweeping dust and papers aside. Her hair billowed around her face, pale strands dripping with her tears.

Rose scrambled back, toward the door; she grabbed for the handle, but it juddered, locked tight.

"This time," Miranda cried, "I'm never letting you go."

She launched herself toward Rose on a tide of mold; the lab walls shattered under the weight of vast, twining black roots, bursting forth to lift Miranda, to lash around Rose's legs and arms. With a cry, Rose tore free, but Miranda was on her. Gilded claws sank into the front of her shirt; Miranda yanked her off her feet, lifting her like a child-

"Never, Eva," Miranda said. "Never!"

"How many times?" Rose yelled, right in her face. "I'm. Not. Eva!"

She slammed her boot, hard, into Miranda's chest, right over her amulet of the Black God. It was like kicking a stone wall; Miranda barely flinched, but Rose's shirt- and skin- wasn't nearly so resilient. With her enhanced strength, the kick tore her from Miranda's grip and sent her tumbling backward.

She hit the wall of mold-roots hard, the stuff undulating under her weight. Instantly, tendrils snaked over her skin, burrowing deep into her flesh. Her front was a mess of blood and mold, twin sets of torn-up puncture wounds streaking red down her shirt. Miranda loomed over her, glorious, ghastly. An image from a pagan holy book made real.

No wonder the villagers had viewed her as a sacred being. Like this, backlit by the candlelight, eight wings spread, she looked like nothing more than the Black God's true emissary itself.

But if she was so sure of herself-

If she was truly so glorious-

Why was she weeping?

Rose scrambled backward as Miranda advanced, her clawed hands spread, her hair dancing around her face. She hazarded a look back, through the shattered walls of the lab and into the seething megamycete beyond, then flipped onto her hands and knees and made a wild lunge.

"Eva!" Miranda screamed. "No! No-"

Rose flung herself into the darkness. Claws sang through the air, catching her back; her shirt shredded like paper, but she was free, and plummeting, head-over-heels-

Out of control.

***

Heisenberg dropped as the monster thundered overhead. Its talons scythed past, inches from plucking him from the ground like a rat. He twisted to his feet, watching the vast, dark form ascend in a flurry of wingbeats, its long tentacles trailing behind it. They flared like a splayed hand as those gigantic wings dipped, as the beast hit the apex of the sky and wheeled back round for another pass.

This time, he was ready.

"Come on," he snarled, between his teeth. "Mommy."

As jaws opened, as claws unfurled again, he stayed down, stayed on one knee, hammer lowered. Come on. The monster roared closer; its bellow shook the village foundations. Come on. A little closer. Come and get me.

Come and-

Close enough.

Heisenberg shoved to one side, bringing up his hammer in the same movement. It hit moldy flesh with an impact that would have torn the arms off any lesser man; even so, bolts of white-hot pain stabbed into his shoulder joints, his Cadou keening in anguish, the sound a high whine in the backs of his teeth.

A wave of mold splattered him as the combined forces of his hammer in its flesh and the monster's speed ripped a massive furrow down its neck and side. It peeled away, shaking its great, sharp head as it gained altitude again, underlit by the coming day.

Mold rained from its wound, and judging by the labored way one of its eight wings beat, Heisenberg had got it good, right in the joint. He twirled his hammer, lifting it again for another blow, as the monster's wingbeats faltered, as it wheeled round again, as its claws extended.

Ah, shit. It was gonna land.

Time to get real personal.

The monster settled to earth with the boom of displaced pressure and a roll of wind that ripped the snow from the ground, the needles from the nearby trees. An entire two-story house crunched into a mangled mess under its weight, flattened under one of its vast hind paws. Heisenberg kept hold of his hat, but even with his strength it was all he could do to stay on his feet as the creature reared above him, rising higher, higher, on clawed limbs, triple jaws on display, wings spread, huge enough to blot out the sky.

Magnificent. Foreclaws flexed, great curved talons singing against the wind. Tentacles trailed from its back and flanks, radiating around its head like a dark, glistening mane. Its eyeless head was all sharp juts and beak-like snout, its lower jaw split, each mandible lined with a chaotic snarl of glass-shard teeth.

Those eight wings shadowed Heisenberg, stirring the air, keeping the beast's enormous weight upright; he felt their pressure against the air each time the monster moved.

"Not bad, kid!" Heisenberg called up to it. "Not bad! You make for an excellent mutant!"

A snarl rumbled from the monster's depths. It lifted a foreclaw; mold snaked over its fingers, twining them together, slicing forth into a blade of hardened crystal.

A sword. So this thing really was part Rose.

"I know, I know," Heisenberg called, gesturing to himself. "I'm not mutating, but, uh- I wanted to make this fair, see!"

The monster's next roar filled his head; it struck, faster than he would have thought possible. Heisenberg ducked as its blade sliced overhead, taking off his hat and a few strands of gray hair- shit, that thing was fucking gigantic, if it hit him in earnest it would do more than cut him in half. It would annihilate him. The blade sheared past, demolishing a row of houses, the monster's momentum pulling its whole body round. Dust billowed; a snarl rippled from the beast as it rose again, swinging back toward Heisenberg.

Oho, that look of sheer, dripping loathing was all Miranda. This monster might not have eyes, but he could still tell it was pissed the fuck off.

A grim smile spread over his face.

Keep fighting, kid.

You can do this.

'Cause if you can't, I really, really don't want to have to kill you, after all.

And as the monster rounded on him, as it let out a shriek that echoed off the mountains, as its wings drove down to launch it into a lunge, Heisenberg lifted his hammer and leapt to meet it.

***

Mold roots whipped at Rose's face; her hip struck something hard, and she bounced to the side with a shriek.

She hit the ground with a wet splack. For a moment she thought she'd gone splat, but as her heartbeat hammered and she eased herself to her hands and knees, she realized it was water.

She'd fallen into dark, murky water, shallow and silty. Blinking, she lifted her head. The mold smoothed out around her, settling into forms. Distinct, this time, the echo of voices distant, nearly lost under the thin keen of wind.

Around Rose spread trees. Dark, wreathed in fog, their branches interlaced above her, a fathomless black sky just visible beyond. The trees grew straight from the water, brackish pools reflecting the canopy, reflecting the ropes of viney mold that swung from limb to limb and cascaded in mossy beards to nearly touch the water's surface.

Rose had seen trees like them before. Mangroves.

And the smell in the air...

Do you think you can run from me, Eva?

Miranda's voice twined from the swamp, from the sky. From the depths of her own mind. Rose jerked to her feet, pulse pounding, and staggered forward a step. Another. Got to find a way out of here, she urged herself.

But Miranda was there. Miranda was always there. This is a gift, she whispered. Don't you understand?

A shape loomed from the fog. A house. It grew straight from the water, too, mangrove roots twining up to its walls. The drone of insects hummed from grass scrub and the rusty remnants of old cars.

Objects hung from the trees. Baby dolls, Rose saw. Some missing limbs, some missing eyes. All of them scabbed in mold.

Things crawled in the edges of her vision as she sloshed through the calf-deep water and climbed a set of rotting steps, up toward the scrubby lawn in front of the house.

Piles of trash and yet more pieces of machinery lay scattered around the lawn, the base of the grass not dirt, but yet more mold. The smell rolled from the abandoned house- mold and heat, something rotting in water, the muggy warmth of the bayou, as endemic to Rose as the blood in her veins. Her breathing was overloud in the hush. Nothing but bayou in all directions. Nowhere else to go but forward.

"This isn't a trap, Miranda," she muttered. "I will find you again."

Nothing replied but the wind, the edge of a laugh fading in the breeze.

She limped ahead, up the steps and onto the porch. Without hesitation, Rose pushed through the battered screen door, into the house beyond.

Grimy darkness enfolded her. The mold was worse in here, vast growths and spills of it bursting from walls and between floorboards. The crooked pictures hung on the walls were all blackened, family portraits ruined with water damage or antiques-shop cross-stitch samplers. Homey things, the decor of a quiet bunch of backwoods folk who'd fallen into a nightmare they never awoke from.

Rose had never been to Dulvey; Heisenberg had never even taken her to Louisiana during all their years of moving house, though Rose, in a particularly-strong preteen vampire phase, had begged him to let her visit New Orleans. But she knew what had transpired here. What had been done here. And the people whose lives had been destroyed here. These weren't Miranda's memories; they weren't even Rose's. These were Eveline's, the part of her that made up Rose, that had begun all of this the moment the Annabelle had crashed in the bayou.

"Rose-mary."

The voice was sing-song, drawing out the two syllables of her name. A child's voice. Eveline? But there was no sign of the other girl, nothing but the murk and the endless hallways of the dilapidated house as Rose picked up speed, grinding her teeth at the ache in her bruised hip.

"Rosemary."

Up ahead, down the hallway-

Was that a glimmer of sunlight?

"Come and play."

The wall exploded. Rose screamed, flinging herself back as a chainsaw chewed planks to splinters, sent plaster erupting outward in a choking white haze- the woman with the chainsaw, her face twisted in monstrous, maniacal glee under a matted spill of dark hair-

That was Mia, oh, fuck, that was her mom-

Her eyes flared gold as she rounded on Rose, her breathing raw and glutinous.

"There you are!" Mia's howl chilled Rose to the bone. She backed up, and up, as Mia advanced. "C'mere, you little bitch, and give your mommy a kiss!"

She lunged with a raw howl, chainsaw revving. Rose flung herself to the side. The chainsaw gashed the wall open where her head had been. Rose scrambled on her hands and knees over the pile of destroyed wall, toward the glimpse of sunlight.

It was gone. The hallway stretched ahead, endless in the gloom.

Where is it?

Where the hell-

"Come back here," Mia screamed. Another roar of the chainsaw echoed behind her; footsteps pounded the floorboards, heavy and stumbling, the air thick with the burn of gasoline. "Don't you fucking run away from me."

"You're not my mother," Rose gasped. She clawed herself to her feet again. "You're...you're not fooling me with that face, Miranda, you're not fooling me with any of this-"

A door handle scraped her hand. She tugged at it. Locked tight. With a half-choked sob, Rose pushed herself onward. Her hands were slick with mold, with her own blood; her claw marks had begun to bleed again, turning her shirt front black. Another door. This one came open, but inside was nothing but a truly disgusting bathroom, toilet vomiting mold-tentacles everywhere.

Shit. Shit. The chainsaw revved; it sounded like it was right behind her. When it caught her, what would happen? When this puppet-version of her possessed mother got to her, when the chainsaw bit into her flesh, would she be Miranda's forever?

Don't think. Only do. That's what Heisenberg would have said. Just keep going, kid. There's always a way out.

Improvise, like me.

Another rev, so close she nearly felt the bite of its teeth in her back. "Got you," Mia crowed, as Rose whirled, as Mia's face split in a feral grin-

Rose dropped. She shoved forward, hard, against Mia's legs. The weight of the chainsaw, her lunge, her own unsteady posture- all of it proved too much. She toppled over Rose, over the threshold to the bathroom and to the ground.

Rose didn't hesitate. She slammed the door shut and took off as Mia's screams filled the air, chasing her down the hallway.

It branched; she took the left-hand turn. Another branch. This place was endless, unnaturally-huge, a real house cut-up and copied and pasted back together ad infinitum. Rose pelted up staircases, down narrow basement halls, through pools of dirty water and mold and rust. Mia was somewhere- she wouldn't have stayed long in the bathroom- and Rose heard her screams and howls echoing to her from off in the distance.

"Come on," Rose muttered. "Come on. Where are you?" She searched the dark, turned another corner, searched again.

Something crashed. The chainsaw screeched through wood. She's coming.

"Please," Rose said. Her vision blurred, her throat tight as she ran. "Please, help me."

Another corner.

There it was. A glimmer of sunlight. A child's voice. "This way, Rosemary!"

Rose sprinted for it as Mia's laughter filled the hall, lunging through as the laughs became sobs, became Miranda's voice again, calling Eva's name.

She burst from the darkness of the Baker guest house and into sunlight.

It fell across her in a heavy swathe, dense and golden; the sky arched overhead, the rich, cloudless blue of a perfect summer afternoon. Mountains ringed the field around her, a rustling sea of tall grass. From the far distance Rose heard the peal of church bells, smelled the smoke from a cookfire.

Her heartbeat slowed. She looked back, but the doorway of mold was crumpling like a discarded photograph. It dissolved into nothingness.

"Hello, Rosemary."

She whirled round. A little girl stood before her. She wore a pinafore dress, blue embroidered with birds. Her blonde hair was in two mussed braids, and she held a clump of wildflowers in one hand as she squinted up at Rose through the sunlight.

"What..." Rose panted. She looked back again. "Where...is this? Am I still in the megamycete?"

"Yep."

"Then-"

"Lemme show you." The little girl lifted her free hand. "C'mon. Follow me."

Rose hesitated, then took the girl's hand. She tugged her, off with such speed Rose stumbled. They waded through the deep grass, insects rising before them in a glimmering cloud. The air was so pure Rose thought she could drink it, live off it forever. She glimpsed roofs past a copse of trees below, the high spires of a castle.

"Is that the village?" she said.

"Yup! That's home." Another tug, up a rise in the meadow; they ascended it, and stood at its pinnacle, overlooking the valley, the village, Castle Dimitrescu, even a trace of a lake that must have been the reservoir, far away.

This place, it looked...different. Cleaner, brighter. This was the village as it must have once been. Before Miranda, before the Four Lords, before everything.

"Is this the past?" Rose murmured.

The little girl nodded. "A long, long time ago."

"It's...it's beautiful."

"Mm-hm. Look," the girl said, pointing down the hill.

Bathed in that melting butter light, three figures sat together on a blanket spread over the grass.

It took Rose a moment to recognize Miranda. She was...she was human. Her blonde hair was a darker, dishwater shade, her face rounder, less severe.

And she looked happy. Not the agonizing relief Rose had seen back in the lab, not a narrow smirk of cruel satisfaction, but truly happy. She burst out with a snorting laugh, her blouse sleeves rolled up, her skirt rucked to her knees, so she might better sun her bare legs. They were tucked up against the side of a young man with curly dark hair and spectacles, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his face earnest as he spoke.

Rose couldn't hear what he was saying, and mourned it. She wouldn't have minded hearing Salvatore Moreau's original voice.

Listening to him, her small face shining and rapt, was a little girl. The same girl now at Rose's side, watching the trio like she watched them.

Rose let out her breath.

"You're Eva," she said. "Aren't you?"

The girl nodded.

"This was it," she said. "The last time we were all happy. It's the memory my mama holds onto hardest of all. She's held on for so long. It does things to you, being alive for so many years. You think every thought a person can have, and they go around and around and get all muddled inside. And you get so, so tired."

Rose watched the three people below. She thought of the glimpses of memory she'd seen in the Beneviento house. Miranda's weeping in her lab.

She doesn't deserve this, she told herself. This memory. The things she did to the people you love...to so many others...

But when she spoke, her voice was soft.

"Is she tired now?" she asked.

"Yes. But she's not gonna stop. She's so close. The closest she's been for a long time." Eva's expression sombered. "It'll never be real. But that doesn't matter to her."

"If Miranda succeeds, you'll be with her again. Isn't that enough for you? Why are you helping me?"

Eva looked up.

"Because she'll never rest," she said. "She'll never be able to, not like this. Not really." A quiet breath; her hands curled into fists at her sides. "She's my mother. She loved me so much. I can't let her keep doing this. I can't let her keep hurting people. I can't let her keep hurting."

"You know what I'm here to do."

"Yes."

A cold wind rippled the grass. The sky darkened, as if a cloud had passed before the sun. On the horizon, the edges of this beautiful dream, darkness twined in.

Eva's eyes traced it.

"She's coming," she said. "She's looking for you. She's so sad, and she's so dangerous. Don't forget that."

"I won't." Rose knelt before her. "Thank you." She took the little girl's hands and gave them a squeeze. "Thank you, Eva. When this is done...I'll save you, too."

"No." Eva shook her head. "I'm a part of you, now. It's your turn to live, Rosemary. I'm sorry you had to take this gift."

Rose smiled at her. "Don't be sorry. I do understand, now. It is a gift."

She straightened and stood back. Eva didn't move. She stood with her arms at her sides, watching Rose as she lifted her hand, as she brought it slashing down. Darkness trailed behind it, as if her hand was a knife slitting the matter of reality. The darkness widened, edges shimmering, peeling back. A cleft into the dark, just wide enough for Rose.

And with a last look at Eva, she stepped through.

***

The monster's backhanded blow caught Heisenberg full in the chest. He spun off his feet and crashed through wood, shattering it, collapsing at last into a dark, dingy space so hard he blacked out. He came to in seconds, mouth full of blood.

Still in one piece? He thought so.

The beast loomed above, its great neck curving down, its tentacle-mane coiling and uncoiling against the sky. It pawed through the destroyed houses, searching for him; each rake of its claws sent rumbles through the ground. Heisenberg kicked his way free. Something was bleeding. He ignored it. Business as usual.

"Miranda!" he yelled as he emerged through the remains of the broken house, back into the dawn. Snow swirled down, catching in his hair. The monster's answering roar shook the blizzard, set it to dancing. "Mir...Miranda!"

His hammer stuck from a heap of garbage. He grabbed it; white heat sliced through his side as he hefted its weight. Don't look. It's not so bad if you don't look. The monster's head swung, sunlight glimmering through its thicket of teeth. Its wings fanned wide as it turned its entire body, ponderous-slow, its long tail tentacles sweeping aside the rubble from the crushed village.

Its jaws parted. It lifted its head to the sky and let out a shriek.

Heisenberg breathed hard. It felt like breathing through liquid. Had he punctured a lung? Ah, fuck it.

"Miranda," he ground out.

He lifted his hammer in front of him. His blood dripped onto the street as he advanced, leaving a streak of crimson and black behind him.

"I...I know now," he said. "Better, anyway. What you did to me. What you did to all of us. We were children, you monster bitch. We...we trusted you. Like Eva did."

Heisenberg let out a snarl of laughter.

"And you failed her, too," he said. "You failed her by...by fuckin' destroying your world. You could've been...everything to us. A kind god. A benevolent god. We believed in you. These poor schmucks in the village believed in you."

He considered. "...Well, 'cause you screwed with their heads, but...you didn't have to."

One great clawed foot slammed down, dragging the entire great bulk of the monster after it. Another footfall. Dust and snow swirled before it, driven ahead by its sheer mass. Its blade lifted. The sunlight glimmered down its length.

"'Cause I did," Heisenberg pressed on. "Love you. At first. After you slaughtered my real mother and my entire family and scrubbed those memories out of my skull, of course. After that, I couldn't help but love you. My body wasn't mine anymore; not even my own mind belonged to me. I didn't have anything else to love but you. What you did to me...you destroyed me. You remade me. You turned me into this. And, heh, I can't hate you for that. Not all the way." He flourished his hand toward himself. "I mean, how could I? Look at me."

A bitter laugh rasped from him. "Guess that makes us alike, huh? A taste of power, and then we can't help but cling onto it, desperate for more. And yeah, Miranda. You gave me power."

He let out his breath as the monster's shadow fell over him, as the wind off its feathers raked past him, fanning his coat around him, ruffling his hair back from his face. Mold, and clean air, and something else. Another sunrise in this place. Another new day.

Good. However this ended, it would be his last day in the village. His last sunrise here. An ending, a beginning.

"And now that power's gone," Heisenberg said. He stopped, staring up at the monster looming over him. He spread his arms. "And all you get is me, Miranda. Your favorite child. Now, don't say you didn't miss me."

He side-stepped the first blow, a raking swipe of those massive claws. The next, too, the monster rising to whirl in a mass of whipping tentacles, sending its tail lashing toward him whip-crack fast. Heisenberg swung his hammer as the thing's head dipped, jaws agape, mouthparts glistening in the back of its throat.

Vast teeth clashed together, shockwave aching in his bones. The hammer sparked off the plate of hardened mold covering the front of its head; a crack spanned from the impact point. The monster reared with a shriek, whipping its head back and forth as black liquid spurted from its wound. It crashed back down on all fours, head lowered, hiding the wound behind the sweep of one wing. Heisenberg searched its body for another weak point- yeah, get it while it's distracted- if he could weaken it enough, annoy it enough, maybe Rose would be able to rise up inside and take over.

Come on, kid. You gotta help me out, now.

There. That bundle of tentacles. Behind it glistened the thing's arm joint, a fold of smooth membrane unprotected by keratin or cartilage. Through the translucent membrane, he made out the pulsation of the thing's inner workings, a mesmerizing ripple of muscle and organ.

Perfect.

Before the monster could turn, he shoved off a chunk of broken brick wall, launching himself in a desperate leap toward the soft spot.

The monster snarled; had it noticed him? Oh, yeah, it had noticed him, it was turning, whirling, wings lifting, but he had time, he could get it, he could do this, he could end it-

Cold rammed through him, sudden as a blow.

An instant of silence, of realization. Heisenberg blinked. Why wasn't he holding his hammer anymore? Why were his hands not working? They hung off him like the arms of a deactivated soldat, useless lumps of flesh and bone. Why was the ground red?

The monster's sharp, bladed tentacle impaled him through the chest. Through the Cadou. He felt it writhing in agony, but the pain hadn't reached him quite yet. All he felt was the pressure, the cold.

You're in shock, dumbass.

He had to get it out, get the Cadou's healing factor jump-started...if he could get to his workshop in the factory, get some accelerant...

Factory's gone, idiot.

Oh, yeah.

Well, shit.

The monster- Miranda- rammed the tentacle deeper. He felt it crackle through him, breaking his ribs one by one. He choked. Blood spattered the snow at his feet.

"You..." he managed. "You...think that's...enough, Mother? Let me show you...let me show you what I can really...what I can..."

A low, undulating snarl. Like a laugh.

Bitch, Heisenberg thought.

Miranda ripped the blade out. Heisenberg fell to his knees, all at once. One of Donna's puppets with its strings cut. Shadow swathed him again. He squinted up as Miranda's enormous beaked head swung to his level, as it seemed to stare at him down the length of its sharp, eyeless snout.

Her voice echoed from the monster, from the air, carried on a hissing snarl that surrounded him in its hum and tremor.

"I never loved you, little Karl," she told him, softly, the way she used to sing him to sleep when he was just a child.

"Hm." Heisenberg nodded. His vision began to spider on the edges, dark creeping in. Something crackled; his skin chilled, sudden as a fall into an icy river. He glanced down as crystal began to vein its way from the puncture wound, eating up his living skin inch by inch.

His Cadou was failing. He didn't have long.

"Guess not," he managed, to Miranda. "But you gotta give it to me, just now- I sure was distracting."

She didn't have the chance to respond. An explosion went off along her flank- a blast of artillery fire.

Mia. So she'd gotten to the big gun after all. Nice one, buttercup. Heisenberg tried to hold her face in his head, tried to hold onto hope as a second blast of flames filled the sky, but it slipped away. Even Rose's face slipped from him, gone into the dark.

The crystal spread. He couldn't hold on anymore.

Sorry, kid.

The cold overtook him, and the dark, and when it reached his heart-

He let go.

***

Rose drifted.

There was no ground, and yet she walked, her boots meeting a slight resistance with each step. She was deep in the megamycete, now. The rippling mold was gone, and all that surrounded her was a gusting dark, the faint outlines of trees visible, like a forest in a pitch-black night.

Over vine, under branch, into the forest deep...

Miranda was here. She felt her, felt the essential nature of her, as familiar as the feeling of her own skin, that sting of meeting her own eyes in a mirror.

"I'm here," Rose called. "You ready to talk about this?"

"You were so small."

Miranda stepped from the dark trees, radiant in her black and gold regalia. Crows encircled her, clattering toward the skies. Her wings enfolded her like a penitent's cloak; a glimmer of golden eyes shone from beneath its feathery cowl, the only color in the world.

"Just a little thing," she went on. "Asleep in my arms. Do you know what I thought, the first time I looked into your face?"

Rose shook her head.

"Miraculous," Miranda breathed. "I thought...all this had been worth it. So many years of pain, so many years of destruction. My own body, resurrected, remade. Even my mind, given to divine service, no longer my own. None of it mattered, because I had found you again. And there you were. A precious thing. My special child. My Eva."

"I'm not Eva," Rose told her. "I'm Rosemary Winters. I'm the girl you stole from my parents. Nothing you do, no matter how you change me, can ever make that any different."

"That doesn't matter, either. Eva...understand what it is I'm offering you." She lifted her face to the canopy overhead. "What it is to be one. The world beyond...there's nothing in it but hatred, and pain. Long, weary life."

She lifted a fine blonde brow. "You will live one, darling girl. Years, and years, and years of loneliness. One day, all that you know will be gone. All that you love will be dust, whether by your hand or another's. All your dreams will become...thin. Paper and shadows. Except one."

She faced Rose, a dark Madonna swathed in shifting feathers.

"To be together again," she said. "To be one with the Black God again. To be one with me. Your true mother. I will never abandon you, Eva. I never did. All I have done, all I have hurt...and I never abandoned you. What is the world in comparison?"

Rose stood and listened. Her throat was tight. The forest groaned and creaked around her. She imagined she could smell snow, and gusting night.

The wolves are here, child.

How many times had she yearned for place, for purpose? For something beyond herself, for some phantom something bigger than her, bigger than anything, a longing so great it threatened to consume her?

It could, here and now. It could, with Miranda. On, and on, and on forever, in her endless dream.

"I have family-" Rose began.

Miranda laughed. "That machinating mechanic, Heisenberg? My other false children? Darling. They've lied to you. Hurt you. Stolen your memories. I have never done that."

"Bullshit. You stole me."

Her face twisted- a flash of a snarl. Not rage at Rose, she understood. Rage at herself, at being unable to make her understand. Her wings burst forth; in a racket of beats, she was gone.

Rose gasped, flinching back as feathers brushed her face, leaving behind smears of mold like ash.

"You are mine, Eva!" Miranda's voice echoed from the dark. "Nothing you do, no arguments you make, will change that." "And nothing can change who you are," Rose called.

Rushing darkness swept past her; she twisted out of the way as claws lashed the air. The rush was gone again, gone into the trees; heart pounding, Rose backed off, her step unsteady, the pain in her hip like fire.

"Can it?" Rose searched the darkness. "You could never move on, could you? All the things you did, all the incredible secrets you found, and none of them meant anything because...because there was nothing for you but the past. The Lords and their devotion. The villagers and their fear. None of it mattered to you. You could have been anything, Miranda, and you chose to be-"

Another rush. Rose jerked away. Too slow. Claws raked over her shoulder, snagging her face. She cried out, pitching over as blood burst in her mouth.

"They will always fail you," Miranda's voice echoed. "They will always disappoint you."

Another slash of pain. This one bit deep, bit into muscle and sinew. Rose's scream burst from her. The forest whirled, trees creaking, shadows rising like the monsters in a fairy tale, claws and teeth and gnashing jaws.

"And in the end," Miranda said, "you will end them, or they will end you. Is that what you want? Is that what you long for? To see all things become ash? To see yourself become ash along with them?"

"That's not the way it is," Rose murmured, thick through bloody lips. "And that's definitely not the way it has to be."

And when Miranda rushed for her next, she was ready.

A whirl of darkness, of feathers. Rose was rising; she sprang upward, boot bracing forward, her fingers closing into a fist- just the way Heisenberg had taught her, just the way she knew would get the job done. She glimpsed Miranda's eyes widen the instant before she flung her fist forward and cracked it, with all her strength, with all her will, into Miranda's face.

Bone crackled under her hand. Miranda snapped backward; the darkness was blasted aside as her wings spread, as she flung out her arms, black mold gushing from her broken nose. Rose let out a shriek as the ground rippled, as she tipped forward, after Miranda, into the yawning abyss at their feet.

Wings beat at the air. Rose grabbed out, her fingers snagging Miranda's wrist. Claws slashed at her, but Rose dug her fingers in, holding on, even as Miranda's ragged wingbeats carried them higher, higher.

Branches whipped and tore at them, tattering Miranda's regalia even further, tearing at Rose's hair and ruined shirt. Another hiss of claws through wind; they sank into her flesh again, digging so deep into Rose's torso she no longer felt them, just the pressure and the hammer of adrenaline through her system.

"I saw your memories, Miranda," she yelled, over the scream of wind, the rumble of the megamycete. The Black God's hymn. "All of them. All the way to the beginning. I saw your life, every last moment of it. I saw what happened to your mother, what happened to Eva, what you did to Sal. Your friend. He loved you, and you murdered him-"

"He failed me!" Her voice rose to a raw shriek. "He killed my Eva-"

"The sickness killed her, not Moreau. You can't blame him for everything. You can't blame your own creations for what you did to them."

She wound her fists deep into the robes around Miranda's waist. This wind would tear her off; it was all she could do to keep hanging on.

"Eva's gone," Rose cried. "You loved her, and she died, and I'm sorry. But she's gone."

"It's-" For an instant, Rose thought Miranda would make another excuse, another play at grandeur. Her mask, unshakable.

But it cracked, just a little, on the edge. "It's not fair."

"I know. None of this is fair. But it's time for it to be over, Miranda. It's time for you to be done."

"Let go," Miranda growled.

"Never," Rose spat back at her.

It was excruciating, agonizing, like moving against an impossible weight, but Rose managed to bring up her hand. It slipped between them, slick with blood, shaking. In a monumental heave of effort, she pressed it, hard, to Miranda's cheek.

"You're coming with me," she whispered.

And with a single stab of will, a sword thrust to the heart, she drove her mind into Miranda's, and then they were both falling.

Dizzying. A spiral forever, a spiral through darkness. Through memory. Miranda's, again. Her rule over the village. Her life. Photographs in the rain. Their colors bled away, shadow and dust, images projected on a distant wall. Mold twined through them, veins of darkness, eating them away. And then they were nothing, and they had reached the bottom, and, together, they crashed into a heap of broken feathers, and tangled limbs, and blood.

By the time Rose opened her eyes, her hands were empty, and she lay curled alone.

The floor reflected her hollow-eyed face. A mirror, she thought, running her palm over its frictionless surface.

Light glinted in the distance. She lifted her head.

She wasn't alone.

A little girl sat in a small wooden bed, knees to chest, facing away. A window silhouetted her head. Through it, Rose made out stars.

She climbed to her feet and approached, step silent on the dark mirror below.

The girl couldn't be older than eleven or twelve. She wore a nightgown embroidered with flowers, woolen slippers. Her hair fell in braids down her shoulders. She clutched a carved wooden goat to her heart as she hummed under her breath.

"Hello," Rose said. "Miranda."

The girl's gaze was distant, set on the starry sky. Her humming faded, and the hush crept in. "Don't you hear them?" she whispered. "The wolves?"

"No."

"I do." She paused. "Have they come for me?"

"Yes."

Miranda tilted her head, her eyes bright in the starlight.

"You brought them back together," she said. "The others. I felt them...every single one, alive again. When I made them, each time, I hoped I'd get it right. I didn't. All four of them were never enough. But you would have been."

Rose sat by her side on the narrow bed. Miranda's thin shoulder shivered as she set her hand to it.

"I know," she said. "But don't you see now, Miranda? It doesn't matter anymore. We survived beyond all you touched."

"No..." the little girl said.

"We are alive despite all the ways you hurt us. We're together, despite all the ways you split us apart."

"No." She shook her head, burying her face in her arms with her wooden goat, tears shining on her cheeks. "No-"

Rose took her hands. Miranda's face lifted, her eyes wide.

"Do you have a story?" Rose asked. She couldn't help but speak gently. "One that helps you sleep at night?"

"You were my story," Miranda said, just as gently.

"All stories end."

"Not you," Miranda told her. "You never will."

Rose smiled, just a little. "And isn't that what children are supposed to do? To grow beyond their parents?"

"I'm frightened." Her hands trembled in Rose's. "It's...it's been such a long, long time."

"It's all right. I'm here."

Miranda's eyes became brighter, reflections of the stars. Blue-gray, like Rose's own. "Don't leave me, Eva," she whispered.

"You lost, Miranda," Rose told her, as she pulled her into her arms, as they held each other in the dark. "Mother. Sweet girl. It's all right. You can rest now."

The starlight glimmered. It faded.

And when it was gone, so was Miranda.

Rose's breathing echoed in her head. She slumped to the ground, weightless, numb. She didn't fight when the darkness flowed to claim her. She let it close over her, cold and familiar, and bear her down.

***

A flutter of ice wind.

The sunlight, breaking over a mountain peak.

Rose opened her eyes.

The mountain pass spread before her. Dawn had just broken, and the world filled with its reaching light, pale gold and clear, herding all shadow to the edges of the world, all the darker for its density.

Each inhale hurt, but it was thanks to the pure, freezing air, not Rose's wounds. She no longer felt them as she lay there, curled on her side, as she watched the sun rise, as she watched the silhouette, standing against it, approach.

He stood over her, then knelt. His face was kind, worn, rusted with old blood. A stranger's face, and yet she knew it. She knew it like a warm glow, a last whisper, a kiss pressed to her infant cheek. He smoothed his bandaged, three-fingered hand over her hair, slow, soft, and lulling.

"Rosemary," he murmured, to her. "I'm so proud of you."

She made herself speak. "Dad?"

Ethan smiled. "It's all right, Rose. It's all going to be okay now."

"I...I don't know, dad, I..." She blinked. Tears pushed at her eyes, hot against her skin. "I think she got me..."

"No, Rose."

"I can't..." She was so tired. She just wanted to close her eyes, to stay with him forever. To be held under his gentle regard.

But that was Miranda, wasn't it? And that would be a shadow, a dream.

Her dad kept stroking her hair.

"I don't want you to go," Rose whispered.

He laughed softly. "I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm not really...Rose. I'm not..." Her throat tightened. She took a hitching breath. "I'm not really your daughter. I'm...her, I'm..."

She stopped, unable to go on. Ethan didn't release her, didn't pull away.

"Let me go," she whispered. "You didn't save Rose."

"I saved you. Isn't that enough?" She sensed his smile. "Don't say I did all that for nothing."

"Never."

"Day's coming," he told her. "Time to go back."

"I don't know if I'm strong enough."

But he was there, slipping his maimed hands under her arms, pulling her to her knees, against him. He held her there for a moment, his cheek pressed to the crown of her head.

"You have to go back," he told her. He gave her a little shake. "You have to live. Will you do that for me?"

Rose nodded. She couldn't speak.

"Good. Then you'd better get to it."

She found her voice. "I love you, dad."

"I love you too. Always." He kissed the crown of her head. "Goodbye, Rosemary."

***

That wasn't the dawn breaking over the mountains. It was the dawn breaking through dissolving mold.

Rose gasped for air as the megamycete crumbled around her, sluicing down over her shoulders, cascading away from her with a rumble. She lay curled, fetal, in a bath of liquid mold; it soaked her to the skin, plastered her hair to her cheeks.

She'd emerged from a kind of cocoon, reconstituted from her mutant form's heart. Its remnants disintegrated as she pushed herself onto one elbow to see what the hell was going on.

Around her was a landscape of complete and total devastation. Vast, broken wings sprawled from collapsing shoulder-joints, decomposing back into slimy mold as Rose watched; the whole creature lay like a beached whale, half-dissolved already. Great ribs jutted toward the sky. Tentacles as thick as telephone poles and tipped with calcified blades snaked away, crushing houses under their weight.

The village was entirely leveled, as if a tornado had swept through, nothing left but shattered wood, remnants of scaffolding and chunks of calcified mold-roots, solitary chimneys sticking resolutely from the ruin. Rose blinked, brows raised. Shit, had she done that? She and Miranda, she supposed, but...this monster, this body...she'd mutated into it. Now she was shedding the excess biomass, sloughing it off like a snakeskin.

She lifted her hands, slick with mold. Could she do it again, if she wanted to?

Holy shit.

Movement caught her eye: a flutter of gray, gleaming in the dawn light.

All thoughts froze in her head.

No.

Please, no.

Heisenberg lay slumped against one of her fallen tentacles. His hat was gone, his head tipped forward at a sharp angle. A massive, crystallized hole gaped in his chest. The calcification spread from it, over his dirty clothes, his trench coat, his arms, creeping up the side of his face.

"H...Heisenberg?" Rose managed. Was he-

No. His hand curled at the sound of her voice. He winced, lifting his head to meet her gaze. One eye was a sphere of cloudy crystal, but the other was still all right, green-gray, focused on her. With a grinding crackle, one of his arms lifted. He dragged himself the last few inches to the side of her cocoon, slumping again over its lip, facing her.

"Hey, kid," he said.

Rose's face crumpled. She scrambled from the bath of mold, reaching for his face, turning it toward hers. "You..." she managed. A sob choked her words. "You came after me?"

"Told you I'd fight for you no matter what." He gave a little shiver as the crystal crept further over his face; a faint haze of glittering dust rose from him. "Heh. You got her."

"Shut up. Just stop talking for once." She couldn't stop her tears; they were warm on her face, quivering in her voice. "She's gone."

"Good." A contented smile touched the side of his mouth unaffected by the crystal. "You did it, kid."

The look in his eye brightened. "Rose. I..."

"Hush." She brushed her palm over the back of his head, over his face, over the wound in his chest. In his heart. In its depths, she made out the faint, dying wriggle of his Cadou. "I know."

She pressed her hand to the wound.

Warmth pulsed from her. From the depths of her power. Around her, the remains of her sloughed-off mutant form writhed; mold-roots twined from the earth, into her, slicking over her skin, filling her sclerae with black. Rose closed her eyes, her brow furrowed. A connection. To all things, to this place, to all people the Black God had touched. I can do this.

The warmth strengthened; it flowed through the roots, through the endless, fractal connections of the mycelium link. A rush, a chorus of voices, a flare of feathers, drifting in the breeze. And when she opened her eyes, it was done.

The skin under her palm, on Heisenberg's chest, was unbroken. The crystal retracted as he stared with a look of shock. He lifted his hands and turned them over, watching the last of the glimmer fade from his skin.

He looked up at Rose.

"You saved me," he said.

Her face split in a grin. "I think we saved each other."

And then it was inevitable- her arms around his neck, his gathering her to him, gently holding the back of her head, like a fine and precious thing. Rose buried her face in the crook of his neck. It was all right. She let it enfold her, miraculous: he was alive. They were, both of them, alive.

Footsteps scuffled through the ruin around them. Rose made herself look up as someone called her name across distance.

Donna. She and Angie picked their way through the destruction, Donna's eyes wide as she took in the destroyed village, the monster corpse sprawled atop it.

"Over here!" Rose waved her arms. Dimitrescu approached, too, striding with considerably more ease from the direction of the castle. Moreau, too, shambling behind Donna, gnawing on a long bone that looked a bit too much like a human femur.

He dropped it as he caught sight of Rose and Heisenberg, picking up speed into a kind of limping jog.

"You're alive!" he gasped as he and the others joined them, as the three Lords stood like a gallery audience before the decaying monster. "Ohhh, Rosemary, Karl...I thought you'd gotten eaten...I thought Mother had murdered you..."

"We could only be so lucky," Dimitrescu muttered, hand on her hip. But the corner of her mouth quirked up into an indulgent smile. "Very nice, child. You're far stronger than I gave you credit for."

"Uh," Rose said. "Thanks?"

Donna took her hand, and Heisenberg's, drawing them both to their feet. Wordless, she touched Heisenberg's scarred cheek. He winked at her.

"Is she..." Donna whispered, to Rose.

"Yeah. Laid to rest." She squeezed Donna's hand. "You don't have to be afraid of her anymore."

"Dear, dear," Dimitrescu drawled, staring out toward the town square below. "We have a visitor."

Rose shook mold from her hands, joining Dimitrescu on the overlook. The echo of horses' hooves rang through the dawn. Its pale light filled the town square, illuminating the remains of the Ouroboros camp, the Maiden of War with her blade resolutely aloft, the single figure on horseback charging through the destruction toward them.

Chris.

He reined his horse around in a slew of grit; in the same movement, he unslung the rifle from his shoulder and vaulted from the horse's back, landing with rifle cocked and leveled.

Not for Dimitrescu, standing like a marble statue of a destroying goddess in the dawn's glow, crimson smile poised on her face.

Not for Moreau, lips drawn back from snaggleteeth, Cadou tendrils twining free from his tumorous hunchback to whip and snap at the wind.

Not for Donna, her pale face set like a mask, a wild light burning in her single dark eye, a grind of sinister laughter hissing from Angie in her arms.

And not for Heisenberg, who limped to Rose's side, who splayed his hand and, with a guffaw, summoned his hammer and a cloud of shrapnel to swirl around him in a glittering halo.

No. Chris Redfield's next bullet, his next anti-mutant round, was aimed straight for Rose.

She lifted her chin. The wind stirred her hair, brushed her skin, veined with dark mold. She didn't send it down to claim him. She met his eyes, his fervent gaze, bright and steady and set on her. His finger was tense on the trigger. One shot would do. Straight to the heart.

A moment of silence, of wind, of Chris's hesitation.

Then-

He lowered the rifle.

It fell to his side as he straightened and stood back, still holding her gaze. Rose lifted her arms. The ground rumbled- something massive rushing to the surface. It shook the rubble, the Maiden of War on her plinth. Mold erupted from the ground in a seething wave. It twisted toward the sky, twining over Rose and the Four Lords at her side.

The wall of mold closed between her and Chris Redfield, and he was gone from Rose's sight as the first true light of day filled the valley.

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