Devil May Cry - Volume 1 - Chapter 3.4

Phase 3.4

The sanatorium had been built beyond the city limits to prevent the madness inside its walls from leaking over to the outside world. 

Figures. Tony stood in front of a huge wrought iron gate, behind which lay a suitable gothic building that looked more like a fortress than a hospital. The hulking building was dark and still, a dead husk of a structure. 

Tony couldn't shake the feeling that something malevolent was going on. He hadn't seen any signs of life since leaving the city, and now the sanatorium was devoid of any bustle typical of such facilities. 

He sniffed the air and recognized the same stench he had smelled at the bank and his hundredth fight with Denvers before that. The unmistakable odor of decay and corruption. 

“I'll let myself in,” Tony quipped to no one in particular. 

He cleaved the heavy gate from its hinges with a single swing of his sword. The sound may as well have been a starter pistol. Shadows instantly kicked up through the soil and flew toward him, wailing their familiar refrain. 

“DAAANNNTEEE!” 

The creatures were neither corpses nor shadows. The demons had garnered enough strength to manifest as flesh and blood. They were sickening parodies of human forms. 

Tony had been expecting something like this. He flashed his teeth in a maniacal smile. “I've been wanting to see you, demons!” 

He arced his sword toward the nearest beast, severing its torso. 

“Come on! I dare you to lay a finger on me!” 

His sword whirled frantically, dicing a demon that had approached from behind. The remaining creatures quickly adapted to Tony's technique and attacked en masse. 

But Tony had anticipated this, too. 

He let his sword clatter to the ground and whipped out his guns. 

“Show me what you've got!” Tony unleashed a torrent of bullets into the throng of advancing demons, startled by the speed at which his clips emptied. Goldstein had modified the pistols to be faster than machine guns and impossibly accurate. Demon after demon fell to Tony's ceaseless barrage. Three seconds after he dropped his sword, the last of the creatures toppled to the ground. 

He holstered the smoking guns and leant down to pick up his sword. 

Instead, he stumbled to his knees. What is this? 

Tony's head began to spin, and he could feel the bile rising in his throat. A chill raced up his spine. He fell backward onto his haunches, assailed by an unearthly illness. The nausea was so overpowering he could scarcely think straight. 

He forced himself to focus, willing himself steady amidst the hurricane of adrenaline assaulting his nervous system. 

He recalled passing out shortly after defeating Denvers' animated corpse. And then at the Oz Club, slogging up the escalator as if wading through molasses. The air around the hospital was thick with a supernatural malevolence. The common thread was obvious. 

Each case occurred at a nexus between the normal world and the demon realm. An ordinary human would never have been able to survive the uncanny conditions created by the interjection of that cancerous reality. That was why the sanatorium seemed to hollow. 

The closer I get to the demon world, the weaker I become. Tony hauled himself up by the hilt of his sword. I'll always be at a disadvantage. 

The silver-haired mercenary concentrated, pushing the illness away. This wasn't going to be easy. 

Tony kicked the hospital door in and disappeared into the darkness. 
 
It had only taken ten minutes for Tony to find himself completely enveloped in the demon world. The creatures that had met him at the gate were clearly some kind of lesser demons, easily disposed of. But the beasts that attacked him now were completely different. They were stronger and cleverer, employing weapons and strategy that kept Tony battling for his life. 

The assaults constantly caught him off guard. Blade randomly ejected from the walls and floors. Flaming cyclones chased friend and foe alike. Even the demons themselves were armed, taking swipes with long scythes. 

Tony dodged and parried, yet still suffered a number of direct hits. But finally he annihilated his attackers and paused for breath. The dizziness and nausea dissipated, replaced by exhaustion. Tony found it difficult to lift his sword. His spent pistols were little more than dead weights. He realized with a start that if he sat down, he probably wouldn't have the energy to stand back up. 

Tony figured he was becoming more and more ensnared in the demons' encroaching reality. 

He abandoned his guns and used his sword as a crutch, hobbling toward a flight of stairs. He had already carved his way through the upper floors, but Jessica was nowhere to be found. That left the basement, but Tony had been butting that off until last. The lower levels seemed thick with death, exerting a silent gravity. 

This must be the nexus. The stairs descended into an inky void. Tony was shocked to find himself nearly turning back. But familiar chestnut curls spilled across his mind and he remembered Jessica's innocent laughter. 

I could really go for some of that lousy doria Jessica makes right about now. 

Tony hefted his sword and stumbled down the stairs. A hot wind shot out the darkness. Yet Tony felt stronger with each step. Adrenaline coursed through his system as his body rejuvenated. By the time two status came alive and attacked him, he was nearly his old self again. 

“Stop bugging me!” Tony easily shattered one of the animated stone giants with a roundhouse kick. It exploded into a hail of rocks. 

The second statue proved a bit more nimble. 

Tony's sword was useless. 

The statue easily dodged Tony's kicks, vomiting a shower of sharp pebbles. Tony felt his newfound strength begin to ebb under the assault. He batted aside an incoming volley with his sword, but the action was too much and his arms finally gave out. 

The animated statue attacked with increased ferocity. Tony was too tired to dodge the stone missiles. 

The barrage forced him to the ground, his ribs cracking, squeezing the air from his lungs. 

Tony rolled into a hole in the floor made by the statues when they had broken free of their pedestals. His chest was on fire, rising and falling with quick jabs of breath. Tony knelt, gathering energy like a coiled spring. 

Suddenly, he rocketed out of the hole and ran toward the golem at full strength. The statue renewed its deadly hail, but Tony willed himself to dodge the rocks until he was almost upon it. He vaulted over the giant and planted two sharp kicks to the back of its head. 

The effort cost too much. Tony botched his landing and crumpled into a heap on the floor. But his face broke out into a huge grin. “Didn't see that one coming, did you?” 

The statue fell to its knees before crumbling away altogether. 

“Bye-bye, big guy.” 

Tony paused to recover his breath. Te lack of an audience afforded him a rare moment of honesty. His ironic smile and theatrical red coat were mere props, protective masks, to put his enemies on the defensive and himself at ease. Ordinarily he would boast about recovering quickly, but Tony discovered he was actually regaining his energy faster than usual. His breathing returned to normal and the flashes of pain in his chest subsided. 

“I can't keep the princess waiting,” he muttered. 

Tony hauled himself to his feet and stepped toward the darkness. His nerves reacted wildly with each step, as if urging him to pull back. It was the same presence he had felt before, the suffocating otherness that manifested at the Oz Club. But the intensity was a higher level of magnitude altogether. The atmosphere took on an oppressive, almost physical quality. The molasses-like sluggishness of the escalator returned. 

“DAAANNNTEEE!” 

Tony reacted instinctively to the call, launching himself toward the darkness with his sword outstretched. A fraction of a second later, something slammed with lethal force into the spot where he had stood. 

Tony spun around to take in his new opponent. “A mask? Are you kidding me?” 

It was literally a mask, wooden and primitive. The elongated faceplate was as long as Tony's sword. It sliced through the rugged basement walls with ease and boomeranged back toward the silver-haired mercenary. 

Tony leapt aside as the painted mask flew past. He pursued it into the darkness, which eventually unfolded into an enormous hall. 

“The last level, huh? A bit excessive if you ask me.” 

The hall was bare, save for a giant knotted tree. Its thick trunk punched through the stone ceiling in a desperate scrabble for the sky. A screeching monkey ran along the length of one branch, clutching the wooden mask. 

Tony narrowed his eyes. Not a real monkey. The unholy creature radiated despair. 

But even more shocking was the tree itself. A thick lower branch had been carved into an exquisite statue, its face twisted with pain. 

Tony recognized the likeness at once. Jessica. 

It wasn't a statue at all, he realized. It was Jessica, ensnared by eldritch forces and reshaped into a mockery of life. Tony erupted into a blind rage. 

The monkey sensed the change in him. It donned the wooden mask and flung itself at Tony with blinding speed.

It never stood a chance. 

Tony slaughtered the creature within moments, its black blood spraying over his red coat. Tony didn't care. He raced back to the living statue, frantic. 

“Princess!” 

The thing that had once been Jessica twitched, regarding Tony with wooden eyes that somehow sprouted tears. A familiar voice wheezed strange sounds for a moment, unable to form words through the pain. The tree grew larger with each anguished movement, its black aura radiating farther. Jessica's suffering had become the plant's uncanny heartbeat. 

Tony knew the tree was the root of the demon sickness he had felt at the Oz Club and in the alley with Denvers. No, it's more than that. It's a bridgehead.

“That's right. The tree is growing a path between our worlds.” 

Tony spun around at the sound of the voice, which seemed to have read his mind. He found himself face to face with the monkey creature. It waddled before him unharmed. 

“Your scratches do not bother me,” the demon said, as if lecturing a slow child. Its visage was hidden behind the wooden mask. “The tree grows by feeding on human despair. A single child was all it took to enter this world.” 

“Shut up!” Tony shook with fury. “You did this...” 

“It doesn't end here. We will do this to everyone you know.” The demon fired off a staccato laugh. “You always hurt the ones you love. What could drive someone to despair more than their own family?” 

Tony sliced through the monkey with his blade. Black juices sprayed on him and Jessica. She screamed out in pain. The demon cackled. 

“My blood is poisonous to your kind.” It sneered. “No human has ever endured the anguish she is experiencing now.” 
Tony watched with horror as the demon's wound closed up. The monkey bellowed a series of sinister laughs, swelling his body with each breath. Within moments it was the size of the statues Tony had faced earlier. 

The creature smashed its fists into the ground. Tony fought to steady himself from the shock. “Maybe your despair will feed the tree instead,” the monkey hissed. 

“Maybe.” Tony regarded the beast coolly. “Or maybe I'll cut you down and put an end to Jessica's suffering. 

“Your weapons are useless against m–” 

The demon choked into stunned silence as it noticed its arms sail across the hall. Tony had effortlessly severed the limbs with a single stroke. The cut was so clean that blood had yet to spill forth. Tony flicked his wrist and brought the sword straight down the beast's center.
 
The mask clattered to the floor in halves. A moment later, the monkey split in two. Blood and organs erupted from the wound. 

“Impossible! You were on the verge of death!” The demon's black poison began eating away at its body. 

“You were less effort than a fart.” Tony casually decapitated the monkey. Its head rolled along the floor, eyeing its own crippled body. 

“Remember our proud name. We are – ” 

“I don't give a shit.” Tony stomped on the animated head, smashing it like a melon. His cold sneer was more demonic than anything else in this hellish dimension. But his face quickly melted as he turned toward Jessica, sympathy and fear driving away the rage. 

“Does it hurt, Jessica?” 

There was no reply. 

The tiny hands that once made doria were no gnarled roots. Her flesh had solidified into wood. The bell-like clarity of her voice had been replaced by faltering whimpers. But her unchanging eyes remained fixed on Tony. He couldn't stand her tears. 

The tree pulsed with life, its black aura pushing out farther with each breath. It would only be a day or two until the demons' reality overwrote the city. No normal human would survive the palpable atmosphere. 

Tony gripped his sword tightly. “I'm going to end the pain, okay, Princess?” 

The statement had none of his characteristic sarcasm. 

Tony shut his eyes and swung his sword. 
 
Several hours later, the sanatorium bustled with life, Hundreds of people from the city had noticed the old building raging with fire, and they made the trip outside the city walls to watch firefighters struggle with the blaze. 

Tony stood among the onlookers, a stony expression on his face.