Greed God chapter 220

April 11th 2016 Brightedge City, Old Wayne Mining Headquarters, 6:00 PM EDT

I  was...a bit  out of sorts. I was agitated, my head was throbbing, and I  KNEW I was walking into a trap, but I wasn't sure what the hell to do  about it. Sentiment aside, if she sacrificed my dad (which I didn't  want, I could admit to myself) Lilith would wake up, probably earlier  than expected, and she would probably recover more than was healthy for  me by the time that happened.

Granted, she might have  already done it, but I somehow doubted I'd have failed to notice  Lilith's resurrection, since Strega assured me the vortex of magical  energy needed to recreate her body would be visible from space.

So  despite the fact that rushing down there to prevent the sacrifice was  probably a stupid idea, NOT doing it would be even worse, but I had this  nagging feeling I should do something else despite having no idea what  that was. "Alright." I said turning to the others. "You all ready?"  Since I'd made the call I was pretty committed now. I wasn't going to  spend time I could be using stopping the ritual waffling.

Amy  stepped up next to me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "We're here with  you. Don't worry." Waylon, Sally, Zee, Barbie, Sindara, and Cherry had  been brought along.

Barbie, currently wearing the Suit of  Sorrows over her Batsuit (heat during training was one thing, but if she  was going into actual combat it made sense to be as protected as  possible) nodded, but she looked...uncertain. At my cocked eyebrow she  frowned. "I'm with you, of course. But...I can't shake the feeling we're  missing something. This whole thing doesn't make sense. Mary announcing  her intentions and then escaping, the notebooks being left behind, them  waiting for us instead of doing the sacrifice immediately. Like I get  your blood would work better but everything that's happened  seems...wrong. Like there's a piece of all this we aren't seeing."

I  wasn't stupid enough to ignore the master detective who was hopelessly  devoted to me, especially when I'd been feeling the same damn thing.  "What do you think is going on?" I asked. I'd had a terrible feeling  since we set out, but hearing it put into words just made it worse. I  was hoping maybe Barbie had some idea I hadn't thought of.

She  just shrugged. "Who knows? Supervillains are always trying to think in  complicated master plans that perfectly doom all their enemies. In  reality that works like one out of five times tops. Mostly something  goes wrong, but all the best ones can adapt on the fly. All we can  really do is keep our eyes peeled."

She was right, even my  dad tended to think himself in circles sometimes, though he did it less  than most. In their defense I think it was reactionary. When you were  up against people like Superman simple plans were pretty much doomed.  Complicated stuff might not always work, but it had a better shot at  least. Plus it was just fun. Coming up with complex schemes that worked  like a rube goldberg machine pretty much never got old.

Still,  I did my best to avoid falling into that trap. As entertaining as it  was, I preferred efficiency. Winning was its own kind of fun. That  didn't make me immune to getting caught up in the whirlpool of stupid  that plans like that could become, and I knew especially old things were  more likely to make convoluted plans like that because of their  relationship with time. When it seemed like no time was really passing  it was easier to consider long term plans almost immediate.

She  was right about keeping an eye out, so I stopped my ruminating and  nodded, gesturing everyone forward. Between the Suit of Sorrows, the  Soul Shredder and Amy and I, we had some serious power at our disposal,  and even if the Fear Host was here (which I suspected he wasn't since  boxing himself in seemed to not be his style) we should be able to  handle ourselves.

Zee had checked the map once we  identified where the cathedral was, and we'd been able to confirm that  there was an access door to the cavern it had ended up in at the bottom  of the oldest mine shaft here. I wasn't sure if this place had even been  effected by the merge, or if there had simply been no counterpart and  it had been transferred over in its entirety. We all loaded into the  metal freight elevator and hit the button to descend, with Cherry using  her ghost powers to muffle the sounds we made as we progressed.

When  we reached the bottom I didn't even bother looking around, I just  tossed a darbreak grenade out into the mine tunnel and closed my eyes. I  heard screams from the corridor, some cut off by what I assumed was  death, and some continuing as eyes were seared past the point of  usefulness as the mine shaft went from pitch black to the literal  brightness of the sun.

I stepped out and easily tore out  the throats of two nearby werewolves with my claws as Cherry decapitated  one with Soul Shredder. I'd have expected more than three guards, but  from the burned on shadows on the walls there had been about five times  that many vampires who were now dust in the wind.

Making  sure we were prepared for anything, I slowly started forward again,  following the path Zee laid out on her map. As we passed a puddle of  water, I saw my reflection looking...troubled. "This isn't a good idea."  Said the other me. "You need to leave. We can deal with Lilith later.  She might not even come for you. You shouldn't be here." My head was  still pounding, and I couldn't help but notice that the reflection  looked almost afraid.

I wasn't planning to die, and I was  sure I could escape if things got bad. The reflection was being an  annoying little bitch, which didn't really seem in character but hey, if  I died he died, so it was reasonable to be a little worried, but I  ignored it anyway. We used another five Daybreak Grenades as we made our  way down the tunnel, until we finally came to a crack in the wall and  exited out into a larger underground cavern.

Unlike the  spot the castle had been at, this place was all dirt and barely enough  to fit the Cathedral as a whole. I saw about a dozen vampires and  werewolves, but they didn't come after us this time, just watched. I  realized none of the 'guards' had attacked us, we'd attacked first and  killed them all, which made this whole thing seem like even more of a  fucking trap.

As we approached the door I started going  over this whole mess from every angle. Knowing I wouldn't find any sense  in things as I had been looking at them, I tried it from another  direction. I'd come to the conclusion early on that this was a big  concerted conspiracy, and that seemed right, but I might have been  premature in including the Fear Host. If he was a rogue agent or someone  hired for this, or had just taken an opportunity that narrowed this  from a big ludicrous web of nonsense to a big possible web of nonsense  plus some asshole I still needed to kill.

The Fear Host  had been the one thing that didn't fit with all the cults and bullshit,  but without him I was missing something vital. Motive. I didn't know  WHY. Was it just the prophecy? That felt wrong, but it was the only  thing I could think of. Sadly I ran out of time as we reached the  entrance to the cathedral and I flung both doors open violently, the  wood smashing into the walls with a bang as the room inside was  revealed.

The room was, frankly,  a little creepy. The pews were all rotted and decaying and an eerie  green light bubbled up from the freaky little pool where the altar was  supposed to be, the dancing shadows showing fleeting images of darting  vampires and werewolves.

Mary  was waiting, and sure enough, she had my dad tied up with a knife to  his throat in a big dramatic pose like she was about to sacrifice him.  Except she had to have been holding him like that for a while, waiting  for me to get here, which was yet another bullshit piece in this  bullshit puzzle. My dad was gagged, but looked much calmer than most,  his eyes icy and locked on me, curious to see what I would do, but not  panicked. I ignored him for now and focused on Mary. "Hello again!" Said  the redhead bombshell with a seductive smile. "Good to see you. Bet you  didn't expect we'd be in this position after our last meeting."

I  raised an eyebrow. "No. But you did. You obviously wanted me here. You  put on this big production to make sure I ended up in this exact spot.  So I assume you have some grand reveal planned, some kind of monologue  for me or demand to make." If she did she was shit out of luck. I liked  my dad a lot, probably more than anyone else in the world, except of  course, ME. Since I was me, I was disinclined to trade me for another  person even him. If she was expecting me to play the dutiful son and  throw myself on her sword (so to speak, it was actually more of a  dagger) she was delusional.

Surprisingly,  she just smiled and shook her head. "No, no offers, no trades, no  demands. I think I'll let you plead your case. I think I have an idea  which tactic you'll use, but I'm always willing to be surprised."

I  shrugged, more in my element. The throbbing in my head had receded a  bit. Still didn't know what that was, but being in control of the  situation seemed to help. I knew negotiations, and I was good at them. I  started with the stick, of course. "Well, first up I should let you  know that I could absolutely level this whole cavern. Like you want  Lilith back, and while I'm not sure exactly why you need my blood, or  his I guess-" The only thing I could think of was something related to  the Greed System maybe, but that didn't matter right now. "But you could  try that down the line, you're vampires. You have the time, unless you  die or this place gets completely buried here."

She  nodded. "Alright, appeal to logic mixed with some threats. I can  respect it. Keep it going for me. You have me teed up, now bring it  home." She sounded amused, which I did NOT like. Why the fuck was she  acting this way? What did they want from me? This wasn't a good faith  negotiation, it was a game, and I didn't know the rules.

Still,  I pushed on. I could get through this. I had other cards. "I could help  you get Lilith back. I'm not willing to open a vein for her, but if you  can wait for a few years I have ways of making sure she comes back at  full power." Conveniently I'd also but much stronger than I was now, and  could deal with her myself if need be.

She  hummed contemplatively. "Ok, offering to work together to achieve my  goals. I could see that one. Not bad, but still nothing groundbreaking."  She shrugged. "Oh well. I gave you a shot, but I think I'm done  listening. Say buh-bye now." Then she jerked her hand to the side and  ripped my fathers throat wide open, blood spurting everywhere as she  kicked his dying body into the pool in front of them.

As  the green bubbling liquid began to glow red, I stood there. Staring.  The pain in my head was increasing, my skull was pounding, everything  was spinning. What the fuck had just happened? What had she done? WHY  had she done that? What was going on? The pain got worse and worse for a  second until suddenly everything, the light, the sound, everything  just...stopped.

Off  to one side, a familiar face appeared standing in front of me.  Specifically the one I saw in the mirror every day. My reflection had  somehow stopped time? Or maybe just sped up my perception of it, I had  no clue. Whatever the case it looked frazzled. "Nick!" It barked. "You  need to calm down. You don't know what you're doing." It was right, I  didn't. But based on the spiderweb of cracks across the surface of the  other me, I could make a guess about part of it. Too bad I didn't give a  shit.