The cellar door creaked open and Genesis looked up to find Charlotte, one of the musician tourists, leading a small, grim-faced procession inside.
Her eyes were wide, jaw clenched tight like she was choking back vomit.
"Father..." She paused, swallowed hard. "Something awful happened."
Genesis was on his feet in an instant, cassock swishing around his ankles as he moved to join them. "Show me."
They made their solemn way to the main hall in silence, the only sounds their footfalls and the occasional muffled sniffle. What awaited them made Genesis's breath catch in his throat.
Two men lay crumpled and broken amidst the opulent decor.
One was crushed beneath a heavy lamp, the other impaled by an antique sword mounted on the wall, thick dark blood slowly dripping to stain the Persian rug beneath him.
It was a grotesque, sadistic tableau.
The little group came to a stunned halt, a strangled whimper escaping one of the women clutching her companion's arm in a white-knuckle grip.
Genesis felt the weight of their fear and uncertainty like a physical burden, their silent pleading for answers and reassurance.
He turned to face them all, clearing his throat and clasping his hands together in a gesture of quiet authority.
What to tell them? That this horror show was the latest masterpiece of a self-proclaimed artist seeking to elevate death into an expression of pure chaos?
No, this didn't seem to fit the Joker's modus operandi.
That twisted son of a bitch got their rocks off dangling cryptic riddles and mind games whenever they carried out these grisly killings.
But this time, no macabre puzzle, no taunting scrawled riddles.
Just...slaughter.
Genesis felt a cold trickle of sweat trace its way down his spine as realization crept in.
This wasn't the Joker's work at all.
His gaze drifted back to the broken, mangled bodies.
The Calamity Curse, not the Joker's brushstrokes with death.
He understood now, the true depth of the abyssal forces lurking within the mansion's bones. After all, hadn't the Lady Ninkalammu warned of this very fate looming ever closer?
Swallowing hard, Genesis focused on the terrified group once more, met each pair of eyes steadily.
He couldn't tell them the truth, not now.
That this wasn't some game played by a deranged mind, but an ancient, unstoppable curse leeching the life from them all with each rattling breath.
Better they think this was just another grotesque installation in the Joker's twisted exhibition.
"My children..." Genesis's voice was soft but carried clearly in the heavy silence. "I'm afraid the perpetrator of these abhorrences has struck once more."
One of the men, an older gent with a ruddy complexion, made a choking sound. "That goddamn Joker? But Father, there's no riddle, no puzzle left behind like usual!"
This close, Genesis could see the sheen of cold sweat on the man's brow, the whites of his eyes showing too much.
One panicked mind was all it would take to send this little flock into a stampede.
Genesis held up a hand, projecting every ounce of the unshakable calm and authority his collar represented.
"You raise a fair point, my son.
And I wish I had answers to put your mind at ease." He paused, letting his gaze drift around the room in a slow, measured sweep.
"However, I'm afraid the artist in question may have decided to forgo their usual...embellishments, focusing purely on grander, more impactful expressions instead."
That seemed to settle them, the tension in the room loosening a degree, a few hesitant nods. Genesis capitalized without pause.
For how could he possibly explain to them that no amount of prayer or riddle-solving would stop the ancient calamity curse from reaping its bloody harvest?
That the only path forward was one stained with the impossible choices and sacrifices demanded by the unholy abyssal gifts each of them now carried?
No, better to let them cling to their illusions of logic and sanity just a while longer.
Soon enough, the scales would fall from their eyes regardless.
After that, survival, not blind faith, would guide their every breath within this forsaken place.
Until that inevitable reckoning, Genesis would play the role of the benevolent shepherd, stewarding his flock with lies born of grim necessity.
His own soul, he feared, was already long accounted for in this eternal chess match between darkness and light.
Genesis moved to the front of the ashen-faced group, hands clasped before him.
All eyes turned his way, silently pleading for answers, for some semblance of sense amidst the fresh horror laid at their feet.
"Let us take a moment for the departed." His voice was a deep, soothing timbre that cut through the heavy silence like a warm knife through butter.
Heads bowed in unison as Genesis murmured a final prayer over the broken bodies.
When he finished, he merely stood there a long beat, letting the weight of the words hang thick in the air before continuing.
"My children..." He met each gaze steadily, his own eyes gleaming with a conviction that burned bright despite the darkness encroaching all around them. "The one responsible for this ritual fancies himself quite the artist, you see."
A tremor seemed to pass through the little flock, nervous shifting from foot-to-foot.
Genesis held up a hand, a simple gesture that nonetheless demanded rapt attention.
"This Joker, this...purveyor of malice - he views us all as nothing more than materials for his canvas.
Live paints with which to convey his twisted admiration for the darkest of forces lurking in the unseen corners of existence."
Genesis began a slow, measured pace before them, his voice taking on the cadence of a skilled storyteller weaving an ancient, solemn tale.
"There are five primordial demons, you see - beings that precede even the dawn of our creation, given hideous form by the first destructions to scar the universe's face." He ticked them off on long, slender fingers as he named them one by one.
"Calamity. Terror. Desolation. Fury. And lastly...a perverse mimicry of Joy that is anything but." A humorless slash of a smile, there and gone again.
"These entities are forces of sheer, unadulterated ruination given corporeal shapes by those foolish enough to pay them awed reverence."
A few nervous titters bubbled up from the crowd at that, quickly stifled.
Genesis paused, made eye contact with each person in turn, letting the weight of his words sink in slowly but surely.
"And make no mistake - our friend the Joker is precisely one such fool who's fallen sway to their seductive whispers echoing from the outer abysses of existence."
Turning on his heel, Genesis gestured to the macabre scene with one sweeping arm.
"These poor souls here were nothing more than fresh sacrifices upon his repugnant altar, slaughtered to feed his pathetic delusions of creative grandeur through depravity."
Pivoting back, he fixed them all with that piercing stare once more, hands steepled below his chin.
"I don't mean to instill panic, my children. But nor will I insult your courage and fortitude with empty platitudes or reassurances.
The beast we find ourselves pitted against is old as the night itself, with a fervent desire to plunge all we cherish into the same swallowing void from whence it first drew rank, pestilent breath.
A worshipper of demons and havoc he is."
A tremor definitely rippled through the assembled group then, fear pulsing palpable and thick enough to choke on.
Just when Genesis seemed about to lose them to rising hysteria, a new voice broke through, reedy but insistent.
"Father...if...if what you say is true, then how? How can we mere mortals hope to stand against something that ancient and unholy?" It was the older gentleman from before, his bushy brows pinched with dread.
Genesis's expression softened a fraction and he moved towards the man, taking his veined hand gently between his own palms.
"Through faith, my son.
In ourselves, in each other, and in the eternal light that shall never be extinguished so long as one brave soul remains to let it shine forth, unwavering.
Remember my brothers and sisters, that even the greatest foes of creation have fallen against Divine Intervention.
Take, for instance, The Leviathans.
They are creatures that have lived way long before any other creation.
Yes, even before Archangels and Satan himself.
When The Almighty willed their demise, so it happened.
So, I ask you to pray for Divine Intervention, and if we pray hard enough, and if it is a genuine prayer, then our Father will swiftly aid us.
After all, our Lord is all-aware, all-knowing, all-perceiving, and omnipotent."
The priest's gaze lifted once more to encompass them all, his expression hardening anew to a forge-heated determination.
"I will not lie - the path ahead grows only steeper and more fraught from here.
That which watches from the outermost night will test our collective mettle in unimaginable ways before this is over."
One side of his mouth quirked up in a wry, knowing smile that looked almost feral in the gloom.
"But we shall face each new tribulation head on, together, and with a full embrace of the immutable truth: that no matter the depravity thrown our way, we, The Children of The Lord will always emerge triumphant over darkness in the end."
Genesis released the man's hand and straightened, squaring his shoulders beneath the cassock.
"So let this atrocity strengthen our resolve rather than weaken our spirits.
Evil only retains its foothold when good people lose their courage to stand against it."
As their grim-eyed stares bored back into him, Genesis felt an unshakable certainty bloom within his chest.
These people were ready.
And with him as their shepherd, he would ensure they all emerged from the valley of the shadow into the light again.
No matter how many wolves they had to put down first to get there.
After a long pause thick enough to drown in, one figure detached themselves from the crowd – Pierre, Genesis noted.
The formerly cynical young man approached with shoulders squared and an unflinching resolve glinting in his eyes. When he reached Genesis, he extended a hand.
"You'll need all the help you can get, Father." His voice was steady, accent clipping his words with a harsh edge. "Count me in from here on out."
Genesis regarded Pierre a moment, giving a slight nod of solemn acknowledgment.
Then he grasped the young man's hand firmly, sealing the unspoken pact between them.
"Oh and by the way...
While I was... indisposed, who took charge here?
Tried to bring order amidst the chaos?"
Pierre's throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. "It was Hosea.
One of the tourists, but..." His brow furrowed, as if still puzzling over the memory.
"She had a way about her, you know?
Calm, reassuring - people listened when she spoke up."
Leaning in, Pierre's voice dropped to a conspiratorial murmur. "To be honest, Father, there was something about her... An underlying strength there.
Not just anyone could've settled that panicked crowd so quickly after..." He trailed off, giving a subtle nod toward the bodies.
Genesis held the younger man's stare a beat longer than felt comfortable. "I see...
Hosea..."