Her eyeballs rolled back, revealing the whites, as the red light from the magic circle flashed faster and faster.
This malice attempted to forcibly cross dimensions, seeking to burrow into Annie's body.
A cold light flashed in Sephirot's hand as he swung his Greatsword directly at Annie's neck.
Thump.
Her head was severed, falling to the ground along with her body, knocking over the folding screen behind her.
Having lost its vessel, and with no other physical bodies nearby to possess, the malice scrambled wildly through the attic, desperate to escape.
Majestic magic erupted from Sephirot's body, condensing into a giant hand that snatched the mass of malice out of the air.
Magic and malice repelled one another, producing a boiling "hissing" sound.
But this malice was ultimately water without a source; it soon dissipated into nothingness.
Click!
In the attic, a piercing tongue-click sounded out of thin air.
Sephirot sheathed his Greatsword and looked behind the screen that had been knocked over by Annie's corpse.
Behind it stood a life-sized puppet made of wood.
In front of the puppet, two corpses knelt side-by-side in a posture of worship.
One was small in stature, appearing to be a young child.
The skin of the other had completely rotted away, and its body was still stained with soil.
With the Holy Flame of Exorcism in hand, Sephirot pressed the barrel against the puppet's face.
Bang!
The silver bullet, infused with magic, instantly reduced the puppet's head, along with the wooden wall behind it, which was covered in carved curses, to dust.
The resulting blast of air swept through the room, extinguishing the few remaining candles in the attic.
Scrape, scrape...
The sound of something climbing came from behind Sephirot.
The moment Steve's head popped up, the blood everywhere and the stench made him nearly vomit.
When he clearly saw the corpses littering the floor and his wife lying in a pool of blood, her head separated from her body, Steve's hands went limp, and he nearly tumbled back down.
"Annie..."
Steve's eyes were bloodshot. Enduring the agony, he crawled toward his wife on all fours.
In truth, he had noticed his wife's abnormal behavior long ago...
The sleepwalking in the middle of the night, the strange graffiti on the walls, and the frequent neurotic rambling...
But he had chosen to escape, deliberately avoiding these things, naively believing that as long as he played deaf and mute, everything would be fine.
Now, his wife and this collection of naked corpses had torn his fantasy to shreds.
Sephirot looked at the pitiful man: "Living under the same roof, did you really not discover anything at all?"
Steve shuddered. He pushed himself up, his voice raspy: "I... I knew..."
Like a soul-less walking dead, he crawled back downstairs in a daze, leading Sephirot to a locked, old bedroom on the first floor.
The room was filled with several dusty cardboard boxes. After Steve opened them, he stepped aside to let Sephirot inspect them.
The boxes contained several books. The symbols on the covers exuded a sense of wickedness; flipping them open revealed they were all about Black magic and ancient sacrificial rituals. Sephirot pushed the books aside. Beneath them lay a stack of envelopes and an old black-and-white photograph.
In the photo, a somber-faced old woman wearing a crown sat upon a high-backed chair.
At her feet knelt a group of naked men and women.
Sephirot picked up a notebook and scanned the handwritten notes. Scattered clues began to piece together in his mind.
Steve's mother-in-law was the leader of this cult.
The entity they had painstakingly tried to summon was no ordinary demon, but a King of Hell, Paimon.
He was the ninth of the 72 Pillars of Solomon, holding dominion over all the world's secret knowledge.
There was one discrepancy with Sephirot's initial guess: Annie hadn't lured him here for a living sacrifice. Instead, they viewed his body as a vessel to host the descent of the demon's consciousness.
Paimon favored male bodies.
While she was still alive, the mother-in-law had stuffed a fragment of Paimon's consciousness into her granddaughter, Charlie.
But that was merely a temporary stopgap.
Their true target had been Steve and Annie's biological son.
The ritual requirements to awaken Paimon were extremely demanding, requiring the heads of an elder, a youth, and a young adult as anchors, and all three had to share a bloodline.
Thus, the mother-in-law had used her own life to fulfill the "elder" sacrifice.
She had ordered the cult members to orchestrate the gruesome death of her granddaughter, Charlie, to fulfill the "youth" sacrifice.
At Annie's most broken moment, these cult members had approached her disguised as a support group.
They used lies to deeply brainwash Annie, claiming that by completing a certain ritual, she could communicate with her daughter and bring her back to life. Step by step, they induced her into setting up the ritual for the demon's arrival.
And Annie herself was the final "young adult" sacrifice in the ritual.
This explained the scene in the attic where Annie had decapitated herself with piano wire.
The cult's plan was to have her commit suicide in front of her own son.
They intended to use that high-impact, bloody image to shatter the son's will.
That way, Paimon could take over the young vessel without any resistance.
This perfect plan had run into a problem just as it reached the finish line.
The vessel they had chosen happened to play a prank in a girls' restroom and was killed outright by a rampaging Carrie.
Seeing years of meticulous preparation go down the drain, the cult members were livid.
Upon discovering Carrie's unique nature, they immediately changed tactics, attempting to capture the witch to use her as a transitional vessel for the demon's consciousness.
As it turned out, by a stroke of luck, he, the proxy, had delivered himself to their doorstep, causing them to change their minds once again.
Sephirot tossed the notebook back into the box.
In the eyes of the cultists, this even younger male body was clearly more to the liking of the demon Paimon.
That was why, when Annie saw him at the cafe, she changed her tune about compensation and only asked that he and Carrie attend the funeral to apologize.
Having pieced it all together, Sephirot gave a slight flick of his mind, casting these relics into Silent Hill to be destroyed. Such malevolent things were better off annihilated sooner rather than later. He turned and left the villa.
Outside, the sky was dim.
The cult members who had been standing guard around the perimeter of the house had long since vanished without a trace.
Even those who had been stationed beneath the library earlier were now nowhere to be seen.
Sephirot pulled out his phone and dialed Detective McClane's number.
"It's me. The blackmail issue has been handled."
Sephirot's voice was calm. "Come take care of the rest. Bring plenty of body bags; the scene is a bit messy."
From the other end of the line came the sound of a chair sliding back and a string of indistinct curses.
In the early morning, Sephirot returned to the Agency.
The first rays of light spilled into the main hall. Patty was curled up on the sofa, covered with a thin blanket.
Hearing the movement, she rubbed her eyes groogily and sat up.
"You're finally back. Not missing any limbs, I hope?"
Patty looked Sephirot over. Only after seeing that his clothes were intact did she breathe a sigh of relief.
"That absolute nightmare of a family... is it settled?"
"Yeah, it's dealt with."
Sephirot nodded. "Those people won't be coming around to cause trouble anymore."
Hearing this, Patty's tense nerves relaxed slightly.
Sephirot changed the subject: "However, the commotion you two caused was quite large. Someone might already have their eye on Carrie."
At these words, the heart Patty had just let settle began to race again.
She bit her lip and thought for a moment before suggesting, "Maybe... let Carrie stay at the Agency for a while to let things blow over?"
There was a hint of heartache in her eyes. "Her mother passed away back when she was in high school."
"Now that this has happened, there's no way she can return to school..."
Sephirot inwardly gave her proposal a thumbs-up; it happened to coincide perfectly with his own thoughts.
Having Carrie work for him at the Agency would save him a lot of effort given her abilities.
Even if he didn't need her help later on, she would have the power to protect herself, and protect Patty in the process.
"She can stay."
Sephirot set down his glass and added, feigning reluctance, "But I don't keep idle people around here..."
Having known Sephirot for so many years, Patty naturally knew what he was thinking and nodded. "Let her handle the daily cleaning of the Agency. It'll give me a break, too."
"Leave it to me, I'll go talk to her!"
Offering charity out of pure pity would only make the sensitive Carrie feel uneasy.
Giving her a reason to work would allow her to stay with a clear conscience.
Just then, Carrie walked down from the second floor, looking sleepy and wearing a pair of Patty's pajamas.
Patty went over and took her hand, explaining that the matter had been resolved and telling her about the decision for her to stay at the Agency.
"You just stay here and relax until things settle down in a few days."
She affectionately put an arm around Carrie's shoulder, glancing toward Sephirot as she pointedly added, "Besides, staying at school would just lead to people whispering and pointing fingers."
"Sephirot is always running off anyway. When the time comes, he can take you out for a change of pace to clear your head."
Sephirot massaged his temples. "You make it sound like I'm out sightseeing every day. I'm taking commissions to earn a living, alright?"
"And where's the money then?"
"..."