Title: Bait and switch
Fandom: Warrior Nun
Characters/relationships: Camila & Lilith. Yasmine Amunet, Mother Superion, Jillian Salvius, father Vincent.
Rating: M for some descriptions of gore.
Notes: Post-s2, references something Simon Barry said in an interview about Lilith and her mother which did not happen on-screen.
Length: 4156 words
Summary: Scarce as it is, all evidence points to the same culprit... Camila is sure she is the only one who can uncover the truth.

 

It could have been her instead.

It could have been her, Camila, Mother Superion or any of the others to be found lying motionless upon that floor, wide empty eyes staring at the ceiling, a throat savagely slit, crimson murder soaking their customary blue habit.

Yasmine tried, but failed to look elsewhere.

She did not feel her legs, yet she stood very still to the side as her disobedient eyes insisted on trailing the cold corpse again and again, inspecting that horrid gash and all the blood that had escaped it to stain floor, fabric and now unfeeling flesh. She wished she could not tell just how quickly that sister’s life had been pumped out of her through that severed artery, yet Yasmine knew; she wished she could not so easily imagine her young colleague trying to apply pressure to the great wound, hopeless but still trying to scream out for help despite her destroyed trachea.

Yet no one would have been able to hear her or reach her before the moment she had actually been found, extinguished. No one had been able to help her—no one would be, not when she sustained as grievous an injury as that.

Perhaps the sword might have been salvaged… As it was, however, one of their sisters had been slain and the glass display which housed the Cruciform Sword had been emptied of its prize.

Death. Blood. Nothing. No sword and no footprints, no sounds, not a single mark of anyone having been there to cause it all.

Still, the theft was as noticeable to Yasmine as the kind touch to her arm, which she all but ignored.

She perceived only death.

The friendly squeeze Camila gave her with doctor Salvius’ arrival also went unregistered as Camila dared to leave Yasmine and move to stand beside a sombre Mother Superion and greet the scientist.

“Thank you for coming, doctor,” Superion said, masking whatever feelings the occurrence evoked in a low, professional voice which still betrayed grief. “We don’t mean to impose, but we needed a second opinion.”

“There’s no one else we can trust,” Camila added bitterly as she shot a dirty glance towards a priest’s silhouette, loitering uneasy across from them on the patio, hovering behind a column.

Jillian noticed the look as well as what it suggested. Keeping her eyes on the older nun and her much more sober reaction, staring right back at her, Jillian allowed Superion to noticed her dry, reddened eyes as well as the words that so contrasted with her sullen appearance. She was resolute and she meant to show as much.

“There’s no imposition. I’ll be glad to help if I can—it’s certainly better than sitting around feeling sorry for myself all day.”

She crouched next to the cadaver after exchanging a knowing look with Mother Superion, setting to work immediately. Gloves kept her curious fingers from contact with pale skin as she examined the dead woman to the best of her abilities and in those circumstances. An investigation into the disappearance of the sword would follow, an attempt to collect prints with a small forensic kit she managed to improvise, but now Jillian only frowned at the dreadful sight of what had nearly been a beheading.

“You mentioned wanting a second opinion,” Jillian said, looking up at the nuns again. “So I assume you have your suspicions already.”

Camila once more turned in the direction of a crestfallen father Vincent.

Mother Superion did not mimic her, focusing solely on doctor Salvius when proffering a plain “yes”. Its bluntness was one of agreement as it predicted both women’s thinking of a common culprit to the crime regardless of Camila’s own, clear ideas. And both women regretted and feared that their hunch should converge in the image of that one same person.

“I don’t think I need to tell you this cut doesn’t seem to have been made by a blade,” Jillian spoke tentatively, rising and moving to inspect the glass display that held the trademark OCS weapon no more.

“Not a regular one, but what if it was given to the killer by someone from the other side? We can’t rule that out—”

“Camila,” Mother Superion scolded her sister as gently as she could while still using every bit of her natural as well as acquired authority.

Sister Camila bit the inside of her cheek, chewing on all the words and hypotheses she had wanted to present. She fidgeted where she stood, just behind a patient, immobile Mother Superion. Farther off, doctor Salvius saw the few remaining OCS members busy with gathering objects for a ritual of some sort, perhaps the first preparations for their fallen operative’s burial. A couple of nuns walked by with a coffin.

She wondered, given the particular nature of their vocation, whether they were kept ready beforehand…

Jillian blinked away the sudden image of both commanding Superion and lively Camila lying with arms crossed over their chests within any such wooden receptacle built just for them, waiting, morbidly lining up the walls of some godforsaken dark room within this convent of theirs.

“On principle alone, no, we would not rule out the possibility of some exotic weapon from the other side now that there has been a significant amount of contact with it,” she said, acknowledging Camila’s concerns with as much justice as she was capable of, “but all the artefacts we have been able to find and study to this day give no indication that something as different as that is a worthy possibility to consider. Knowing the metal’s properties, I’d say it was made of divinium… But certainly not a divinium sword or dagger.”

“Claws,” Mother Superion provided.

Jillian confirmed with a sad nod. Camila gave out a rebellious sigh.

A feeble, frightened voice rose at last from shadow and all three women could but turn to its owner as her torpor faded in favour of lucidity.

“Lilith,” Yasmine concluded shakily.


.


The drive was silent for the most part.

Yasmine had never really met Lilith, knowing her only through the testimony of her sisters and conversations she had accidentally listened in to. For that very reason, the mosaic she had had to create of the would-be halo bearer turned hellish rogue, made of bits and pieces of varying hues which hardly seemed to fit together at all, collected from mouths as disparate as Ava, Beatrice, Camila, Mother Superion, Jillian Salvius and even father Vincent’s, they united to paint her a fearsome portrait of the woman indeed. In truth, Yasmine would much rather continue to be deprived of Lilith’s acquaintance.

But she could not allow Camila to go alone.

“It wasn’t her,” Camila had tried to argue, “but if it was then I’ll talk to her and get the sword back. Lilith knows me. She’ll be willing to listen to me, at least.”

“If that is the parameter, Lilith has known me longest and I should go,” Superion retorted, immediately inspiring cries of disagreement from all those present.

“We’ve lost too many of our own already. If anything happened to you, the OCS would be done for and buried, Mother.”

“We need you here.”

Mother Superion straightened her back at the show of loyalty and lowered her head, forced to accept her girls’ diagnosis. An approving glance of doctor Salvius’ ratified the decision that she would not go nor insist upon any such ideas.

Even so, Camila’s own insistence in going alone did not move the chief nun. Yasmine volunteering to accompany her hadn’t settled the matter either. Only Ava knew what had become of Lilith in greater detail, how much she had changed, but they were deprived of Ava still, as of Beatrice, and there was no telling what dangers might await any of them in going to Lilith now, whether alone or in numbers.

It was a male voice, both meek and determined, that spoke above the others.

“I’ll go,” father Vincent proposed, coming near. “I can provide backup. If things go sour I will not be missed but I will do everything to guarantee that the girls return safely.”

Only Camila tried to protest. Whatever everyone else’s feelings on the wayward priest, his was sound strategy if this madness was to go forth, loath as they were to admit it.

“Their lives are worth ten times your own,” had been Mother Superion’s blessing to him.

He lowered his gaze in humble agreement.

So did a displeased Camila find herself beside a fearful yet brave Yasmine within a vehicle Vincent was made to drive.

Ava had mentioned something about fighting Lilith at the latter’s family estate and that was their best bet as to where they might find their estranged companion; that was where they were headed.

“I also believe she is innocent. Coming without a whole squad was a good idea, it shows good faith,” Vincent said, testing the waters. “Perhaps she might help us find the real person behind this.”

“Don’t talk to me. That’s not what you’re here for,” Camila warned him.

He gulped, glanced at both of his passengers and tried again.

“Yasmine, then. You should know Lilith is changing. I didn’t see her much when—”

“When you were helping Adriel kill us off.”

Vincent winced. Had Camila stabbed him, the sting would not have been half as strong as the truth of her provocation. But what he needed to say could not be kept from them on the grounds of his shame so he agreed with a resigned motion of the head before he resumed his message.

“I saw enough to know the change is deep. She is more than just human.”

“Ava already told us that, as did doctor Salvius.”

“I don’t know what they told you, but I have faith that there is still something of Lilith inside of her. Maybe she did do those things, as coveting wouldn’t be new to her… Even if she did, engaging the darkness in her instead of the friend you knew would be a mistake. I would know… As little as it’s worth to you—as little as it’s worth to myself—I believe in you, Camila. You’re doing the right thing in the right way.”

He did not know how his words were received for the young nun had turned her head away to watch their surroundings rush by. That there was no biting remark gave him hope that he had been heard.

Yasmine, too, held her tongue. If Lilith had not been responsible, as unlikely as that seemed, then what good was there in engaging her at all? What were they doing here?

Villaumbrosia fame was too great amongst the religious of the OCS for any of them not to know where the clan’s manor was located. The journey was quick and easy.

Yasmine wished she could stay in the car when it pulled up outside of the building. This was somehow much worse than Adriel’s cathedral, but she came for Camila and by Camila’s side she would stand, even if the prospect of doing so with all of them wholly unarmed as Camila instructed only scared her more.

“I’ll enter first. That way you’ll have a chance to run if anything happens to me,” Vincent said.

Camila still refused to speak to him but her directing Yasmine to guard the rear suggested she was not against his plan—or against the possibility of something happening to him. They would flank her, the both of them; Camila’s speech was their only treasure regardless of Lilith’s involvement with the offence.

The front entrance was open. Father Vincent pushed the door carefully so it wouldn’t creak.

They did not mean to sneak their way through the entire place as that would only sow distrust and further endanger them by potentially enraging the very woman they had come to meet. Shouting out her name as Camila did, barging into the dining room after a revolting stench of putrefaction reached their senses, was likewise not their planned course of action. The concern that anything might have happened to Lilith spoke louder than reason as they stormed the area.

The three of them were greeted by a corpse sitting at the head of the table, presiding over the meeting. It was a woman of a certain age, well-dressed, who sat with her throat torn open; her surroundings, clothes, and the old, rancid food on her plate were coloured brown in her now dried blood as her mouth hung open for flies to enter and her eyes still seemed to watch those who watched her, keen and evil.

Yasmine could not contain a gasp at the scene, although she was the one farthest from the body; her memory was far too good for her not to be throttled by the similarity if not the identical nature of this execution compared to the one she had discovered within the convent.

Vincent approached meaning to check what was left of the corpse’s face as it lay in decomposition. He glanced this way and that in search of any sort of trap, tiptoeing as he advanced. Camila and Yasmine waited; the former juggled her rising suspicion, her disappointment, and also her fear that anything similar had befallen her friend, her leader had things turned out differently—there were First Born Children on the loose still and who could tell what powers or objects or trickery Adriel could have put into their hands—?

“It’s her mother,” father Vincent muttered in horror, making a nervous gesture with his hand. “Camila, Yasmine, we need to leave. Now. Go!”

Yasmine did not wait for any more orders. She had spent enough time in that place to notice and memorise all the decorative swords scattered around the house and how none of them were the blade they wanted; she had spent enough time in there never to forget the vision of that dead body, Lilith’s own mother, hosting that meal of slaughter while smiling morbidly at them all through that large gash more than with her teeth.

She reached for Camila, ready to pull her along should she refuse to go.

There was no time.

Father Vincent opened his mouth to urge them again when a ripple in reality formed beside him and a figure that stepped out of it in the blink of an eye bashed his head down against the table with all its force.

A loud crack echoed along the room as the priest fell unconscious and bleeding at the feet of Lilith’s dead mother. Before the thud of his body hitting the floor could be heard, their adversary had already disappeared again, only to materialise in front of a panicked Yasmine who barely attempted to run back to the entrance.

“Lilith, no!”

Camila’s cry came too late.

Her friend was roughly handled, tossed against a wall as if she were nothing. Yasmine, too, hit her head and collapsed.

If the hand suddenly closing at her throat did not smash it at once, it was only because Camila had called out that name at all.

Familiar eyes stared at her, darkened by unfamiliar tones, surrounded by blueish scales rather than skin. The creature, for it was more creature than woman, waited, as if wanting to hear the name aloud again.

“L-Lilith…” Camila breathed out through the grip.

It loosened, only enough for her to speak when prompted.

“What are you doing here?” Lilith demanded. Even her voice seemed otherworldly now, metallic.

“Please…”

“Why shouldn’t I crush you right now?”

To see the friend, not the demon… Camila had both hands atop Lilith’s in trying to yank herself free, but she dared to detach one of them and raise it towards her foe, to her face, aiming to stroke her cheek.

Lilith released her at once. She retreated a few steps as Camila fell to her knees, coughing in search of air. The nun looked upon her and the horror that softened the monstrous visage. From the floor, vulnerable as she was, Camila could almost believe how the very possibility of her touch terrified she whom she had once known as the boldest, most brilliant of sister warriors.

“Why are you here?” Lilith spat out while large bat-like wings sprang from her back, stretching out in much the same spirit of a cat stretching itself to appear fierce and intimidating.

She had not wanted to admit it, but the cadaver at the table was too damning a piece of evidence. Claws, like what she saw of Lilith now, the ends of which had just scratched at her own neck in keeping her in place… Camila felt the fire red lines of grated skin ache and itch.

Of course she had been afraid even while acting as Lilith’s sole advocate back at the Cradle, before volunteering to come retrieve the sword. Now, however, the facts had broken her heart.

“Why did you do it, Lilith? Do you really hate us that much now?”

“I’m the one asking questions, nun.”

“I almost understand taking the sword, but why kill? She was a rookie, she couldn’t hurt anyone.”

Lilith furrowed her brow. She glanced to the side, to a wooden support where a variety of swords were kept, and she glanced at Yasmine, from whose mouth a little pained groan had just escaped even though she remained passed out.

“I didn’t kill anyone. Your friend is still alive.” Lilith also shot Vincent a disgusted look. “As is the traitor. For now, anyway, but if you don’t state what business you think you have here I might just change my mind. You do remember he killed Shannon, right? And Mary, by extension.”

Her nostrils flared, as if she could sense poison coming from the priest. She wriggled her fingers, practising how she would stick those dark talons of hers into his flesh and rip him apart.

“He did it while serving Adriel, like you—”

“I never served him. He’s the one who served me.”

Camila studied her, rising back to her feet, keeping her arms out and her hands open in a sign of peace. Lilith only took another step backwards to further remove herself from the radius of those same hands.

“Alright. I believe you,” Camila said, keeping her voice as even as she could. “I’m not here for Adriel and I’m not here for Vincent. I just want to know where the sword is.”

It was no use asking about the murdered nun to someone who quite clearly had murdered her own mother.

“What sword, what are you talking about?”

“I think you know.”

“I don’t and you’re wasting my time.”

Lilith threatened from afar, exhibiting those very claws, tensing up.

“You killed one of our sisters and you took the Cruciform Sword. I don’t know why, even if I can guess, but we need it back, Lilith, please. We don’t need to be enemies.”

A few seconds transpired until the information was absorbed. Lilith blinked and then scoffed.

“I didn’t take the stupid sword. Why would I want that now?” She hit a nearby stone wall using those dark, long nails, shattering a portion of it like butter. “I don’t need it.”

“You always took me for a fool and you were right. I even defended you despite doctor Salvius—”

“Is she here too?” Lilith grinned. “Her I’ll kill, gladly. Tear her limb from limb just as I was torn when she made me play her puppet.”

“She’s not…” Camila faltered. She had never heard of what had happened when Lilith turned to Jillian for help and she had never imagined Lilith could hate doctor Salvius this much. “What do you mean, playing her puppet?”

She even took a step in Lilith’s direction, curiosity and concern overriding her self-preservation. Lilith took one more step back, shaking her head—a wild, wounded animal that had been trapped would not so easily relinquish its pride.

“It’s not important anymore. What is is that you leave. I didn’t do what you’re accusing me of, there’s no reason why we should keep on talking.”

“The injury was just the same, Lilith. Claws, a throat slit so badly that the head could have just fallen over. There’s… There’s no one else like you, we both know it.”

The accusation sounded strange, vicious as well as ashamed—reminiscent of Lilith’s own tone of voice when she would slither into a confessional and unburden her heavy heart to that undeserving man lying wounded on her floor just a few metres away from where she now stood.

She eyed Camila, unsure of what meaning that conclusion truly held. No, there was no one more. Hadn’t Adriel told her she was something else, unique, something new? Didn’t that same distinction which should ennoble her only set her so far apart from the rest of life that she barely left the premises, observing herself in the mirror to keep track of the new scales that still continued to grow everywhere along her limbs or of the two lumps on her head from which bone threatened to emerge, cutting skin to make space for what could only be horns? There was no one else like her, no.

Camila almost made it seem like it was a good thing…

The nun took another step, seeing the shadow of someone she loved beneath the hellish mask.

A startled beast only ever becomes more violent.

A wing extended itself at once, quickly conquering the distance between them. A long, thick sort of finger stabbed Camila in the shoulder, demonic bone perforating warm, soft flesh, and Lilith held hurt and her there, far from her, prepared to pierce her deeper should she try to come near again.

“You and your friends would do well to remember that,” Lilith said, taking her wing back, spilling Camila’s blood on the floor. “Not stop testing my patience. Pick up your garbage and leave me alone.”

“There’s no one else who could’ve—”

“It wasn’t me.” A glint of malevolence Camila could swear had permanently lodged itself into Lilith’s eyes all but turned into melancholy. “There’s nothing I can do to prove it to you but I swear I did not do it. You’ll have to live with that.”

“… Do you know if anyone—”

“No and I don’t care. Leave, Camila.”

And before Camila could take one more defiant step, set her path one inch closer to the lost woman rather than the demon who had swallowed her, Lilith vanished in a strange cloud of faded light, as unexpected as she had first appeared.

All was stillness in the Villaumbrosia property.

Looking back at Yasmine and Vincent, still knocked out, Camila whimpered at her failure.

A call came in.

“Camila?” It was Mother.

“Copy.”

“I’ve identified the few fingerprints I gathered,” doctor Salvius’ voice said.

“We have a problem,” Superion continued.

Camila trembled as she listened under the steady gaze of that corpse that seemed to mock her and her empty hands.


.

 

She moved her fingers, opening and closing her hand, fascinated by it, by how it worked. The talons could emerge at will, as those of a cat. There was no getting used to that, that power, that strangeness—not really.

Her whole body was a weapon.

It already had been trained into one before, moulded, but now it simply was, her own desires notwithstanding. There could hardly be any argument with God, after all, so what Reya wanted was what she would do. Her way was the only way.

What was she to do with that sword, then? It didn’t serve a purpose, not when she could summon blades just as sharp from within her own flesh. Her entire being had been modified, perfected—her blood, her bones, her marrow. She was a weapon, as Michael had been, as Lilith had accidentally become.

Perhaps she was the reason for the sword. It would serve well to strike her down should she refuse to come to heel, sickly tree in need of felling as she was, a failed experiment in everything inferior to what she now was. Besides, it did feel good in her hands. It belonged to her after all, regardless of what Reya had done to her or wanted for her, regardless of the new research and testing that currently took place within her own cells, strengthening her muscles, sharpening her sight, quickening her reflexes even more than the halo ever could.

Ava unsheathed the Cruciform Sword, watching it glow blue like her claws underneath that blood she could not seem to wash off from them.

Reya hadn’t ordered that theft or that death and something in Ava somewhere revolted against it. A voice, a conscience, a pesky memory of a previous life which insisted on bringing Beatrice to mind when Beatrice, too, had no importance, irrelevant to her mistress’ needs and interests.

But so was the sword that fit so nicely in her grip again…