I swapped magazines and fired at another woman with sandy-blonde hair, but she ducked behind her vehicle. I adjusted my aim and emptied the rest of my clip at a SWAT officer, he staggered as my rounds caught him in his armor but he got back up. I ducked down, ejected the clip and pulled out my next clip. No, my last clip. I glanced over at Master and saw Thamina holding the IV in one hand and covering Master’s body with her own. Next to them, 63 was slumped on the ground. I scanned the neighborhood and more of the bodyguard were down, slumped behind bushes, on porches, or behind their cars.
I could hear approaching sirens as backup was nearing. We just had to hold out a little longer. On the police radio, I could hear all the units that were responding to our location. A TAC alert had just been issued, and all the units in the County were descending on us. We just had to hold out a little longer.
The gunfire was dwindling. I wasn’t the only one running out of ammo. I looked up to see three of the SWAT officers advancing and one nun. The lead two officers were holding riot shields and then the blonde nun and the other officer were huddled behind them. I unloaded my last clip at them, bullets ricocheting off the riot shields, trying to hit the unprotected side of the nun. Instead I hit one of the shield bearer in the knee. He screamed in pain and collapsed on the ground, exposing the nun.
The others returned fire at me and I ducked back down behind the cop car. I could hear the metallic tink of their bullets slamming into cop car around me. They were only a few feet away. I looked around. I was the only bodyguard still up in front of the house. I was the only one left to protect Master and Mistress.
And all I had was my TASER and my nightstick.
If I stunned the nun, maybe her control of the SWAT officers will be interrupted long enough. It was a long shot. And I couldn’t hit her in the vest. I drew my TASER, released the safety. I would have to aim carefully to hit the gap between the front and back of her vest. I would be a sitting target. My bulletproof vest was in the house. At this range, there was no chance that they’d miss me.
I glanced at Mistress curled up on the ground. As a cop I swore an oath to serve and protect the innocent. I stood up and aimed, my heart pounding in my breast. I focused on the nun, ignoring the SWAT officer raising up his weapon. The laser sights of the TASER glowed red on the nun’s side, at the vulnerable gap on her left side. I exhaled and squeezed the TASER’s trigger as the muzzle of the MP5 flash and…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The blonde cop rose up from behind the squad car.
She was the one that killed Agnes, I realized. She was pointing something at me, not a gun. It was two thick and boxy to be a gun, and striped with yellow. You need to do something, Theodora, I thought, willing my legs to jump to the side. Everything was happening to fast, my body just refused to move. The blonde cop squeezed her finger and something flew at me trailing wires and I felt pain as it struck me in the side. Duncan fired his sub-machine gun and the blonde cop was cut down, falling back in a spray of red. I pulled a small, metal dart out of my side. A TASER I realized. But only one of the prongs hit me, the other stuck harmlessly in my vest.
Shots whizzed past me and Duncan was struck in the back of the neck, collapsing. More of those bodyguards were firing at us from behind. Some of them had their own machine guns. This entire attack was falling apart. I could hear the sirens approaching. More cops. 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 me 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 was working on him, so this must be his lover.
I glanced back at Dennis and saw the blonde woman who shot the TAZER at me and I almost vomited. This was everything I feared would happen. She was a Thrall and clearly was dead, her black aura was gone. 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. All for the Greater Good, I kept telling myself.
Then why did I feel so dirty?
I was about to order Dennis, my last SWAT officer, to shoot the female Warlock before we got overrun, when the Warlock looked up at me. She had 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?” she asked, hesitantly.
Oh my god, it was her. My Mary. How could she be a Warlock? I didn’t know what to say and then I saw anger burning in her emerald eyes. My daughter hated me, I realized. My thoughts were scattered. Ramiel and Gabriel must have known 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.
“Mother!” she snarled and leapt 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. Deinnis pulled her arms behind her back and quickly snapped plastic wrist ties 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 were circling the around towards us, including the one with that big, ugly rifle that killed Duncan. Guilt shuddered through me, he was another one of my victims. We ran back to the van. Dennis threw Mary in the back and then raced up the side of the van for the driver seat. I jumped in after Mary. Something struck me in the back and I fell to the floor of the van. I felt like something punched me in the back. “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 got shot but there was no blood, just a large bruise. The vest stopped the round. I sighed in relief, and sat up as the Dennis put the van into gear.
The van peeled out, clipping a cop car as Dennis took the turn around the cul-de-sac and then we were racing down the block. I saw Agnes lying dead in a pool of blood and Isabella slumped against the side of a car. Grief was threatening to overwhelm me. Guilt threatening to drown me. More bodies littered the neighborhood. More of my victims.
“I’ll kill you, Mother!” Mary shouted from behind me.
The sirens were coming 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, into the van. A prayer of invisibility, the final Prayer Ramiel taught me.
“Drive carefully,” I ordered Dennis. “No one can see us.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I saw the muzzle of the MP5 flash and…I was standing in shadows. I blinked, looking around in confusion. Everywhere I looked was a gray-black mist of nothingness. I frowned, no there was something over there. People? Huddled in a circle, maybe. They were mere forms in the shadowy haze. Seeing nothing else here, I walked towards them.
What was going on? Where am 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, her face ruined by the bullet that struck her. 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.
“Where are we?” I asked. They all turned to look at me. “63, you were shot. You looked dead?”
63 nodded sadly. “I protected Master,” she whispered, pushing her auburn hair back behind her shoulders.
“This must be a dream,” I protested. “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 protested. “I have to save Mistress. She’s under attack.”
“You died trying to save your Mistress, Chasity 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 whom he was. Then he sighed. “Americans, none of you study the classics.” Virgil shook his head in disgust. “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 Shadow. The closet part of the Abyss to the Mortal World.”
“The Abyss?” I asked, in confusion.
“Hell, Gehenna, Tartarus, Sheol,” Virgil answered. “The Abyss has been called by many names. You are here because Mark Glassner bound your souls to his. Here you shall await your Master’s death, to spend eternity with him.” Virgil focused his eyes, like he was peering into the shadows.” 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 shadows and there was Master still dying on the ground. I thought of Mistress and the vision blurred and there was Mistress, 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 and 05’s hands, squeezing 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.
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