The Devil's Pact Pt. 26

I stood up and aimed, my heart pounding in my breast. I focused on the nun, ignoring the SWAT officer raising his weapon to kill me. The laser sights of the TASER glowed red on the nun's side falling on vulnerable gap between the front and back of the body armor. I exhaled and squeezed the TASER's trigger as the muzzle of the MP5 flash and--

* * *

Sister Theodora Mariam

The blonde cop rose from behind the squad car.

She was the one who killed Agnes. She pointed something at me, not a gun. It was too thick and boxy to be a gun, striped with yellow on the sides. I had to do something, willing my legs to jump to the side. Everything was happening too fast and my body refused to move. The blonde cop squeezed the trigger and something flew at me trailing wires.

Pain burst in my side.

Duncan fired his sub-machine gun. The blonde fell back in a spray of red. She landed heavily on her back, her body twitching as her blood poured down the front of her half-exposed breasts. Like the other women defending Mark, she was his slave.

His victim.

But the blood was on my hands. Maybe she would live. I prayed she would live.

I felt at my side and found a small, metal dart buried in my flesh. It was from a TASER. But only one of the prongs hit me, the other stuck harmlessly in my vest. I winced as I ripped it out and tossed it on the ground.

Shots whizzed past me. Duncan was struck in the back of the neck and collapsed. More of the bodyguards fired at us from behind. Some had their own machine guns. The entire attack was falling apart. Sirens screamed nearer. More cops were coming. Cops on Mark's side.

We had to wrap this up quickly.

I ducked behind the cop car as the woman with the rifle continued firing at us. Crouched at my feet was an auburn haired woman using the wheel of the cop car as cover. Her aura was red, the aura Warlock. Mark lay dead or dying on the ground, another Thrall working on him. I stood before Mary, Mark's lover and partner in his depraved crimes.

Another degenerate.

I glanced back at Dennis crouching behind me. My eyes caught the blonde woman who shot the TAZER at me, I almost vomited. Her black aura was gone. She was dead. Everything I had been afraid of happened. She was only a Thrall, a victim of Mark. Innocent. It had been so long since I looked at a person and not seen the aura.

And she wasn't the only Thrall dead because of my actions. It was my duty to save Thralls, not kill them.

"This is all for the Greater Good, Theodora," I whispered to myself. "All for the Greater Good."

Then why did I feel so dirty?

I turned to Mary, the female Warlock. I opened my mouth to Order Dennis, my last SWAT officer still standing, to execute her before we were overrun. The Warlock looked up at me. I froze before I could utter a word as I stared into her deep-green eyes and a freckled face. She was so familiar. An image swam up in my mind of a little girl laughing as I pushed her on the swing in the backyard of my old house, her auburn hair flowing behind her.

That was in another lifetime, when I was Tiffany Sullivan, loving wife and mother of three.

A look of shock appeared on the Warlock's face. "Mother?"

Oh my god, it was her. My Mary. How could my middle daughter be a Warlock? I didn't know what to say. And then I saw anger burning in her emerald eyes. My daughter hated me. My thoughts were scattered. Ramiel and Gabriel must have known who she was and they kept it from me.

My daughter hated me.

My daughter sold her soul to the devil.

I was sent to kill my own daughter by Heaven.

"Mother!" Mary snarled and leaped at me, her fingernails scratching at my face.

"Grab her," I ordered at Dennis, trying to wrestle my daughter off my face.

The SWAT officer grabbed Mary, easily pulling her off me. Dennis pulled her arms behind her back and snapped plastic cuffs about Mary's wrists, trapping her hands behind her back. Mary struggled like a wildcat, kicking and screaming at me.

"You fucking bitch! You killed him! You fucking nun! You did something to Alice, too! I'll kill you, Mother!"

"Back to the van," I ordered. Several of the Thralls circled around towards us, including the one with that big, ugly rifle that took out Duncan. Guilt shuddered through me--he was another one of my victims.

We ran back to the van. The Thralls held their fire. We had their Mistress. They shouted at us, rushing to catch us. My heart thudded. My daughter was a Warlock. I was sent to kill her. What should I do?

Dennis threw Mary into the back of the SWAT van before racing along the side to the driver seat. I jumped in after Mary. Something struck me in the back, and I fell to the floor of the van. I groaned, feeling like I had been punched.

"Go, Dennis!" I screamed hoarsely as the bodyguard raced towards us.

I slipped my hand between my back and the vest. I found where I was shot. No blood, only a painful bruise. The vest stopped the round. I sighed in relief.

I held onto my struggling daughter as the van peeled out. More shots pinged off the armored vehicle. There was a shuddering crash as the van clipped a cop car, then Mary and I slid on the floor as Dennis turned the van around. Out the back of the vehicle, the open doors flapping back and forth, I spotted my fellow nuns.

Agnes lay dead in a pool of blood, and Isabella slumped against the side of a car, eyes open, unstaring. Grief threatened to overwhelm me. Guilt threatened to drown me. More bodies littered the neighborhood. More of my victims.

"I'll kill you, Mother!" Mary shouted as she squirmed beneath me.

The sirens screamed closer. I needed to do one more thing. I closed my eyes, concentrating on the SWAT van. I drew a deep breath and uttered a single word. "Cathar." Energy rippled out of me and into the van. A prayer of invisibility. The final Prayer Ramiel taught me.

"Drive carefully," I ordered Dennis. "No one can see us."

Chapter Seven

Take care when bargaining with a demon. There words contain hidden barbs to pierce your soul. You may think the outcome is to your advantage, but it is truly to theirs.

--excerpt from the Magicks of the Witch of Endor

Chasity Sarah Vinter -- The Abyss

The muzzle flash of the MP5 burned across my vision and...I was standing in shadows.

I blinked, looking around in confusion. Everywhere I looked was a gray-black mist of nothingness. I frowned, peering at the swirls. Was there something over there? People? Huddled in a circle? They were mere forms in the shadowy haze. Seeing nothing else here, I walked towards them.

What was going on? Where was I?

As I drew nearer, the huddled forms resolved into 05 and 78. And just beyond them were 63 and 22. My heart churned. I last saw 63 lying dead next to Master, bleeding out from a wound on her back. And 22 was at the entrance when the SWAT poured in. Dread nibbled at my heart. Was I dead? The flash of the MP5 filled my memory.

No, I could not be dead. Master and Mistress need me. They were under attack.

I never told Noel I loved her.

"Where are we?" I asked. They all turned to look at me. "63, you were shot. You looked dead?"

"I protected Master," 63 whispered, pushing her auburn hair back behind her shoulders.

"This must be a dream. I can't be..."

"Dead?" an ancient voice whispered from behind. "I am afraid you all are dead."

I turned to see an old man, dressed in gray robes, almost invisible in the shadows. "I can't be dead. I have to save Mistress. She's under attack."

"You died trying to save your Mistress, Chastity Sarah Vinter." The man gave a tired smile.

"Who are you?" 05 asked.

"I am Virgil, Dove Tawny Atterberry," Virgil answered, speaking 05's name. He paused, as if he expected us to know who he was. Then he sighed and shook his head in disgust. "Americans. None of you study the classics. None of you even played that bastard video game? No, well, that's for the best. You are all dead, and this is Limbo, or the Shadows. The closest part of the Abyss to the Mortal World."

"The Abyss?" I asked, in confusion.

"Hell, Gehenna, Tartarus, Sheol. The Abyss has been called by many names, Chasity Sarah Vinter. You are here because Mark Glassner bound your souls to his with the Zimmah ritual. Here you shall await your Master's death to spend eternity with him." Virgil focused his eyes, like he was peering into the shadows and beyond. "I do not think you will have to wait long."

I frowned, it was almost like he was seeing Master. I concentrated, picturing Master and I could see through the shadows. I spotted Master lying still, dying on the ground. I thought of Mistress and the vision blurred and there she was, tied up in the back of a SWAT van snarling at the sandy-blonde nun.

I wanted to ask Virgil questions, but he was gone, faded back into the shadows. I took 63's and 05's hands, squeezed them, and sat down. "We will be reunited with Master," I said reassuringly to my women. "We just have to wait."

"Where are we?" a new voice asked in confusion.

I glanced over to see 34 appear. I let go of 63's hand and held out mine to 34. "I have some sad news," I told her as she squeezed between 63 and myself.

* * *

Mark Glassner

I was falling into darkness.

I was dying.

Alice shot me and I was dying.

I never thought that this was how it would end--getting shot by a jealous woman so she could have my fiancee. Mary would be joining me soon. Sadness seized me at that realization. Mary wished for youth and health for as long as I lived. When I died, so would she. Regret blossomed in my heart. I would never get to see my child that grew in Korina's belly. I would never get to make a child with Mary. And I wanted so very much to marry my sweet filly. To watch her walk radiant down the aisle towards me in her wedding dress. I pictured her, dressed in white, a veil obscuring her pretty face, flowers in her hand. Her auburn hair would have been a splash of color against the purity of her dress. She would have been so beautiful.

"You can still see her, Mark." A woman's voice floated out of the darkness. "You are not dead yet."

To be continued...