White-Eyed Lacing

*************

Wyatt Graves

Virgil's body Flickers in and out of reality as he falls unconscious. Confused and with trembling hands, I crawl over to him with my body sore to the bone. Lily healed all my wounds, but the lost life sits deeply within my body. The side effects won't leave for a little while.

Before I reach the man, however, he vanishes completely. Not even a puff of smoke or mist is left behind as he disappears. I wouldn't be worried if it wasn't for the fact that he was sleeping. That, and I know Flicker is taxing, both on his mind and body. That other world he enters...

It's not normal. Not that anything extradimensional is.

I scan my surroundings for any sign of him, but there is not a trace of him but the ruined and destroyed hallway covered with slashes, dents, and torn pipes. He is simply gone.

"Virgil?"

I call out to him yet receive no reply, my voice echoing against the steel as Abraham slumps against the wall. The pale man immediately falls unconscious, but I still see his chains. He's alive, just drained.

A deep sinking feeling fills my chest, and my head hangs low. Silence, echoing silence, is my only company as Sequester's body lies limply beside me. The Nahullo is emaciated, drained, and lacks any sign of life.

Virgil. Is he dead? Is he coming back? What's happening to him? He's never entered that world for this long before. Usually, it's fractions of a second, but sometimes he vanished for several seconds at a time during this fight.

And the time is ticking. Close to ten seconds have passed since he left.

Is he coming back?

My mind rapidly spirals into a mishmash of thoughts.

Did he push himself too far? Did he Flicker into that world permanently? What is happening? Can I help?

I drift to Sequester's dead body, a hopeful thought blooming. But the idea is rapidly dashed. No way that the Bloody Palm manages to pull him from another dimension. Its Sigils have nothing to do with that.

But the thought still comes back, this time for another reason as I try to distract my meandering worry.

The Bloody Palm has been much more lenient, kind, and intelligent than before. I think the time as a 6th Sigil has given it some wisdom, allowing it to push past some of its carnal desires. It isn't like Lily, not quite genuinely sentient, but it's close.

And... I'd be dead without it. Can I trust it to be even further above me? Or isn't that the very type of trust it was asking for?

I gave it what it asked for, and it delivered. After running, the Bloody Palm diverted all of its Ether to heal instead of splitting it to fight as well. And in only half a minute, my lungs were regrown. The instant that I asked for ownership of my body, it was returned to me. No fight. No hassle. Just as the deal we made went.

Perhaps... it was asking for this precisely. A leap of faith, huh?

I shamble forward, knowing there is nothing I can do to help Virgil as it is, and stare at Sequester's body.

Two down, two to go, Lily.

A roiling hum is my reply as Lily speaks to me. Her voice seems to cross a thousand miles to reach me as I don't hold her by the grip.

"Yeah! Two more! Hopefully, a demon and a human!"

I twist my head almost instinctively as I ask her a question aloud. She can't speak unless there are many deaths nearby to give her sustenance. How is she doing this?

"How are you talking? I thought--"

"Six Angels have died in the past half-hour. Oh, and a Manipulator. They gave me plenty of energy! You guys sure gave a good hit to the Nahullo!"

Six? Six!? What? There was... what? What!?

I immediately shout into the hallway, seeking answers. The numbers don't add up, not at all.

"Who died!?"

Lily giggles softly as her voice fades in and out.

"Oh, I'm sorry. That was a bit confusing, huh? No humans died. Though... I had Lennon's soul for a second before Johnny ripped it back. Also, Johnny is hurt pretty darn bad. His life is flickering. You should probably give the Palm that Sigil. Maybe it'll be able to help others? I'm no good at that."

I breathe a sigh of relief that no one is dead, though the numbers still don't make sense. However, the news of Johnny puts some fervor in my veins. I ask another question, hoping she'll have the answer.

"What happened? Is Johnny going to be okay?"

Lily mentally shrugs and encourages me onward.

"Dunno. His life started phasing in and out when a big fish died up there. I think it was a Virtue. You really should give 'em the Sigil. It'll be at least a month until he rises, anyway. Surely you'll get up another Sigil by then, dummy."

More and more information confuses me, so I attempt to wade through it all. I start with the most important, as I can walk and talk for the others, heading to Abraham and picking up the feeble man.

"A month? How is that? Why is it going to be so long?"

Again, Lily giggles, and I can practically see her laughing at me from the roving lilies upon her dark steel. Another thing I see, however, is a forming bullet within a secondary cylinder, the one beside the chamber with the hammer primed against it. It's stunted and not quite filling the whole section that a standard bullet would, but it's progress. All these deaths are hurrying her formation of a round.

"You think us artifacts are like you humans? No way. The formation of a soul takes months in the womb! How else will a Sigil form its own soul without time and sufficiently dense Ether!? You truly know so little about us."

Artifacts have souls... well, Arca do, at least. That's what I'm getting from this. Biting my lip and setting Abraham beside me, I kneel down and endeavor to explain things as I understand them to Lily before she runs out of steam.

"So, souls can form within artifacts? Your soul was created in the same way? Time and dense Ether? What does this have to do with being an Angel?"

Lily hums in approval through my first few statements but opens up to answer the last. That is the one I'm most confused about.

"Angels fused their souls with their Sigils. That's why they obtain Powers. That's the manifestation of the soul's strength. A Virtue is a manifestation of the soul's will and endurance. A Dominion is a manifestation of the soul's innate need for dominance. Along the way, the fusion deepens until it completes at the 9th Sigil. That's why such a gap exists amongst the Dominions. Some, like the Creator, can demolish 8ths but get ruined by the Prime. Though, everyone gets destroyed by the eldest man."

I can't help but ask another thing as she completes her thoughts.

"Even Killian?"

Lily hesitates for a moment before answering unconfidently. But that insecurity rapidly blooms to naive surety.

"Killian gave himself a one-tenth chance of winning. But that was over a decade ago. And he was still growing. I'm sure it's higher by now!" 

I nod as I understand quite a bit more about Sigils, but I'm also cursing myself for not asking her before. She IS a Sigil! How could I not think about asking her such things! Indeed Killian would have told her about herself!

Not that what she knows matters all that much right now, despite the fact that the Bloody Palm will need time to become an Arca. But how long?

"Is a month the normal timeframe? How long did it take you to become an Arca? And we should really get moving, right? How is Johnny doing?"

Lily's voice begins to flicker rapidly as she speaks, signaling that she's running out of time to communicate without more deaths.

"It typically takes around a month! Mine was about forty days or so! He'll be hibernating during that month, so we'll have to come up with a good name for him when he comes back! I always wanted a little brother! Oh... Johnny's getting rough! You better go!"

Fuck. Lily and I are awful together. We get so easily distracted.

Leaning down, I search for Sequester's Sigil and quickly find it. A radiant, boiling vortex of swirling winds, blades, and life sits deeply within his lungs. Merely looking at it stings my eyes, but as I squint, I find hints of what I was hoping and expected were present.

Based on how he fought, I figured he either had a Comanche or Abbot. Occultist was entirely off the table, but those two seemed relatively likely based on his style and how he had seven total Sigils. And within, Sequester, there is indeed a lone flickering Abbot beside two Metamorphoized Sigils within his core.

I reach forward and thrust the Bloody Palm into the emaciated and fragile lungs of the dead Angel, allowing my artifact to feast. And immediately, it takes hold of my hand, closing the fist around the Sigils and devouring the Abbot. A second passes and nothing happens.

Unlike last time it advanced, we don't enter the Cathedral. Instead, the wanted Sigil is devoured, and the rest quickly flutter away into the air as their cohesion is broken, dispersing into flickering lights.

I suppose I now have an answer why Angels can't be revived, not effortlessly, at least even for a God. Their very souls contain their Sigils. However, the connection must not be deep enough for them to excel in the Underworld without a body.

The fact that the Bloody Palm just devoured a portion of Sequester's soul comes to me, but I brush it aside. I can't bring myself to care. So, I stand, glancing at my hand.

Nothing has ostensibly changed, but I can feel a difference. Typically, I feel the passenger in my hand passively, as if it, or he, is merely observing. But now, even that secondary sense is gone. The Palm is no longer watching. No longer listening. No longer present.

Unlike humans who must leap, it is making a steady climb upward.

Is this what it would be like if the Mother Below wasn't smothering us? Virgil mentioned that from the Prime, he heard that the God keeps us weak by lowering our connections to Sigils. Do artifacts not have that problem? I suppose not.

Shaking my head, I walk back through the hallway with Abraham on my shoulder, heading toward where I entered from, but Virgil manifests in front of us as I take a step. He falls to the ground with smoky fog billowing off him. Reactively, I catch him and grunt in pain when he breaks off a hanging piece of Earl's prosthetic. The metal arm still hurts when it gets damaged enough. And at this point, it's only working due to the fact Earl expected this kind of catastrophic breakage. I nearly fall myself as the strain of carrying two bodies exceeds what I can handle. Clenching my hand, I only have my thumb and index left on my prosthetic.

He's gonna be soooo mad at me. But I don't have room in my head to worry about that.

Holding an unconscious Virgil and Abraham, I hobble toward the exit with the desire of a sprint.

"Virgil! What the hell is happening!?"

The man mutters something inaudible under his breath as I notice something incredible. He's 6th Sigil now. Dark blue fetters line his whole body, focusing around the shadows like his elbows, armpits, and knees. What the fuck!?

Tempering my hearing, I listen closely as he murmurs again, and I pick it up this time. Half the words are incomprehensible, from some unknown language, but the other half are Chero.

"Tsuhkwat numunu tohkati sahmipu. Midday shadows fall silent."

Okay. That... that is not normal.

Kicking forward, I quickly reach the entrance of the laboratory that Sequester ripped open to follow us. It takes me only a moment to climb out and into the ruined library as I find Earl shouting at a kneeling Johnny with Bonfire beside him as well. I traverse over rubble and fallen bookshelves to reach them, and I'm noticed almost immediately by Kwakiteh. Her head stays on a swivel as it follows me to Johnny.

The gunslinger is kneeling on the floor, blood nowhere to be seen. It doesn't even look like he's hurt at all. But it also doesn't look like Lily was wrong, as he isn't moving.

"Earl? Blake? What's wrong with Johnny?"

Earl replies first with a breath of relief, finding Virgil, Abraham, and I safe. Behind him, Lennon dozes off on probably the only non-broken chair in the whole building while Kwakiteh doesn't move her gaze, covered by the blindfold from me. It's disconcerting, but I don't call her out on it right now.

"One of the Viceroy's Phantoms hit him before Clarence Love put the final hit in. Kwakiteh said it is internal only. Somehow they skipped past his flesh and got his innards. So I have to take him to the train immediately. Same with Bonfire. Did you kill Sequester?"

I nod quickly as I move on to Virgil. These are a whole lot of injuries to deal with.

"Yeah, I can get them, but Virgil is hurt, too. Not by Sequester, though. We killed him. He's phasing in and out randomly and muttering odd words. I think it's something to do with his Flicker. And Abraham is catatonic. He's breathing but not responsive."

Earl bites a nail as his eyes go between Johnny and Virgil, then out toward the forest. He only takes a moment to think before making a decision.

"Wyatt, leave Virgil here. I'll just have to make do. I need you to go into the forest. There is something in there that I only trust you with. Lennon? Can you guard us? I'm worried more may show up. If you do, I'll provide you with a new weapon. A 6th Sigiled Flamme. Should be beneath inside the hallway to the lab."

Lennon sits up at the offer of a new weapon as it seems he is bladeless. Meanwhile, I agree wordlessly, but Earl holds a hand for me not to leave yet.

"Sounds like a helluva deal, kid. Be back soon."

The Bladed Monster then stands precariously as if he's awakening from a terrible hangover. But after his very first step, he recovers. Etherless, he wades through the books and debris, with Blake following him after a nod from Earl. I think Earl just wanted to get rid of him.

And furthering my thoughts, Earl turns to the blindfolded lady beside me, striking a deal with her.

"And finally, Kwakiteh. Can you go to our train and get a lady named Prix and another called Primrose? Need them both to treat these people."

But the woman disagrees. She puts her hands on her hips, the left beside her blade, and counters.

"And what's in it for me? I won't just be a courier for you people."

Earl pauses, unsure momentarily, before retrieving a vial of eyes from his pocket.

"You're blind, right? I notice that you don't look at people's faces, only their bodies when you talk. This is a vial of two Ails made by Eli. They give a weakened version of Powers, according to his logs. They siphon Vigor upon use, but if you can handle that, these two would be massive boons."

I raise my eyebrow in confusion as Earl continues, pointing at the top eye in the vial and then the bottom one. As he talks, he quickly reads a section of paper on the back of the vial.

"This first eye... it allows for one to conjure earth where one's eyes land. Apparently, it can create enough to block a whole cascade of cannons. The second allows one to gather lightning that jumps to each place one shifts their gaze. I'd go into more detail, but I'm in a hurry. I need to cut open Johnny and see how bad the injury is within the minute. Then, I have to move on to the others."

Kwakiteh tilts her head to the side as she thinks for a moment. Meanwhile, I'm stunned by the abilities. How is that even possible? How did Eli do that? And while I'm shocked, the swordswoman questions Earl.

"Are there any other negatives? Are these artifacts?"

Earl vehemently shakes his head. He continues speaking as he pulls out a notebook, speedreading and speaking simultaneously.

"These are not artifacts and do not give any mental feedback from using them. They simply lose eyesight with every use, eventually dissipating the remaining Ether inside. The more Ether you use of your own, taking small amounts for its essence, the slower you'll go blind. However, Eli did find that only sufficiently powerful humans can withstand these eyes as they devour Vigor to sustain themselves. Though, if you don't need it to see, I imagine you could block off the Ether. Now, please, make your choice."

Kwakiteh nods, pointing to the top eye.

"The earth one. I don't like lightning."

Earl then takes out the eye and hands it to her carefully. I squint my gaze as simply seeing a rolling eyeball is uncomfortable. As he does, he imparts some wisdom and an offer of help.

"I can put it in after all this if you would like. There is a guide in the logbook, but thank you. Please, hurry; I don't want anyone to die."

The woman then nods, shifting around and putting the eye in a small bag before departing with great speed. She laughs softly and speaks to herself as she runs away. The only reason I even hear her is because Temper is still active in my ears.

"See? Told you it was worth it. Ah, you're just pissed that you have competition, now."

Who is she talking to? Herself? Oh, right, she is artificed, too. It must be her artifact. I should ask her questions later. Hopefully, she doesn't leave too quickly.

"Now, Wyatt. One final thing remains that I need you to handle."

Earl calls for me as he clears out an area for Johnny. The wounded Angel is set softly on the ground and removes his shirt so Earl can access his flesh. While he procures a scalpel and a variety of concoctions, including his blood-replacer, he tells me of a Manniequin. Of a Vessel containing the soul of Eli's daughter.

And the way to gain control over it.