Emi and Di ran to her, laughing as their mother scooped them up in her arms. “Ohh, you two are growing up so fast,” Lilith praised, then kissed them both on their foreheads. “And so beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you, Mother,” Di politely said.
“No,” Lilith answered with a vain smile. “But then no-one is.” Lilith set her daughters down. “You two will be fully grown by tomorrow, right?”
“Yes, Mother,” Emi nodded. “By Sunday night.”
Lilith smiled broadly. “Good.” Lilith conjured the images of Brandon Fitzsimmons and Mark Glassner. Well, I thought it was Brandon she conjured. He looked younger and slimmer than he appeared on TV, with a full head of hair. Perhaps he cast a spell? Or did he make a deal with some demon? “Sunday night, when you are fully grown, you are to go south to Tacoma and kill these two men,” Lilith instructed her daughters.
Di and Emi both smiled. I suppressed a shudder. They were hungry, disturbing smiles. “Of course, Mother.”
Lilith spread out some maps and we began to plan the twins’ infiltration.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mark Glassner – Tacoma, WA
“No, no!” Mary shrieked. “Mark, please! Help me!”
I strained against the chains, struggling to break the iron links, ignoring the pain in my bruised muscles and the bite of the manacles into the skin of my wrists. I screamed wordlessly in fear and rage. My tongue was gone; cut out on Brandon’s orders. And with my tongue gone, so went all my power. I couldn’t command people, I couldn’t cast any spells.
My tongue was my power.
Brandon ripped Mary’s dress, exposing her freckled breasts. A look of hunger crossed the fat man’s face. Mary had come to rescue me, and had failed. She turned to run and Brandon caught her by her long, auburn ponytail and yanked her back.
“No, no!” she cried out. “Mark, please! You have to save me! Please, please!”
Brandon hauled her back, throwing her to the ground. He was on her faster than I thought the fat man could move, pinning her beneath his monstrous bulk. Mary’s cries and whimpers tore my heart apart as I wrenched at the chains, heaving with all my might. I had to save my wife. I poured every bit of strength I possessed, ignoring all the hurts and pain I felt. None of that mattered. If I had to rip my arm off to save my Mary, then so be it!
“Bease,” I cried, without a tongue the word sounding like mush, as I heaved at the chain.
I pulled and pulled, my body screaming in pain. But it wasn’t the chain that gave out first, it was my body. I slumped, panting loudly. I failed her. Tears rolled down my cheek as the fat man pumped away atop my wife. Mary’s screams were daggers in my soul.
I failed her!
“Mark,” the chiming, ethereal voice whispered. “Awaken.”
Everything seemed to dissolve and then blow away as the melodic voice rang out. Brandon, Mary, the chains holding me down; all swept away. Even the pain was gone. My awareness returned to me and I exhaled in relief. This was a nightmare. I was asleep on the hard cot back in the jail.
I remembered thinking of Azrael as I fell asleep. I wanted to summon the Angel of Death to my dreams. She was the only one who could teach me how to harness the power of the Gift Tiffany gave me.
I turned to see Azrael standing behind me. Her hair was red as blood, floating about her fierce face; her skin gleamed as bright as burnished bronze, and she was clad in a robe of the purest white. Concern painted her face; her scarlet eyes strangely soft.
“Hello, Mark,” she greeted tenderly.
“I am ready to learn.”
She nodded. “The Gift manifests differently between men and women. For you, it gives peak physical strength, endurance, and reflexes for a man of your size. You can take more injuries and still function. A man without the Gift surely would have died from the beating you sustained. Your powers are geared to fighting the supernatural. Your primary ability is the Chereb prayer.”
“Chereb,” I whispered and jumped in surprise, dropping the gold blade that appeared in my hand. The moment I released it, the blade vanished into a thousand tiny, golden motes.
“Chereb, as you have noticed, conjures a blade of Celestial Gold, the weapon of an Angel. Sharp as a razor, but only capable of harming spiritual bodies,” Azrael explained. “Angels, demons, spirits, monsters, homunculi.”
“And how will that help free me?” I demanded, angrily. “Hell, the son of a bitch ripped my tongue out. I can’t even summon the sword if I wanted to.”
“It won’t,” Azrael answered, a hint of steel chiming in her voice. “But, once you are free, you may need this. The second basic prayer is Choshen. This will gird you in Angelic Armor, which is proof against most spiritual attacks. But it is not invulnerable. It also serves well against mundane attacks.”
I was growing more and more impatient. “Teach me something useful, dammit!”
Her scarlet eyes narrowed in annoyance. “The third basic prayer is all internal. Just imagine your body as healthy and whole as it should be and you shall be healed. No words need to be spoken. But it takes time, a few minutes, and it will leave you vulnerable.”
“And restrained,” I muttered.
“So, bide your time, wait for the opportunity, and seize it,” Azrael hissed in anger, her face a thunderstorm of fury.
I flinched, taking a step back. “But, how can I create that opportunity?”
“There is one prayer, gifted only to Shamans,” Azrael answered, calming down. “Because I am the Angel of Death, you may pull back the veil and summon help. It is very dangerous, the dead will draw on your life-force. I do not know how long you could maintain the summons. A few minutes, a few seconds, but it may give you the opportunity.”
“How?” I asked, frowning.
“Tsalmaveth.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Violet Matheson – Tacoma, WA
“Violet,” Loreena said, shaking me awake. “Something is happening.” She spoke with a slurred, stiff speech.
Yesterday, Loreena had saved me. She took me into her house and we spent the night huddled on her bed watching TV. Watching Brandon Fitzsimmons declare himself God. It was totally surreal. Master was getting beaten so viciously, and then the President of the United States himself arrived and surrendered the country to that horrible Brandon.
“This can’t be happening,” Loreena had said as she read the subtitles. She was deaf and Brandon’s powers did not seem to affect her. “How can the President just surrender?”
“Brandon’s evil,” I answered, facing her so she could read my lips. “He sold his soul for dark powers.”
We fell asleep on her bed – her bedroom TV muted – drawing comfort from each other as the world descended into madness. The night was full of unnatural sounds. Helicopters were constantly flying overhead and gunshots would ring violently out through the night. Every time I woke up, I would clutch Loreena and she would hug me just as tight.
Now it was Sunday morning and Loreena motioned me to come to the window, the rising sun filling her room with a soft light. I walked over and glanced outside and saw soldiers marching a woman to a truck. She was naked and I could see other women in the back of the truck. At the next house, soldiers were kicking in the front door. I could hear faint shouts and then I jumped from the crack of gunshots. A minute later, the soldiers dragged a sobbing teenage-girl out, then ripped her clothes off. God, it looked like they were laughing at the poor girl.
Depositing the naked girl in the truck, the soldiers headed for the next houses on the street. My heart froze in terror. They were searching house to house, dragging out the women they found. And they were working their way to this house.
“We have to hide!” I shouted. Loreena ignored me as she stared out of the window in shock. I forgot she was deaf, so I grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face me. “We need a place to hide.”
Loreena gaped at me, her eyes full of disbelieving horror. Yesterday, US Soldiers didn’t break down your door and drag you off. But that was before the world changed. Loreena glanced out the window, then took a deep breath and nodded. She grabbed my hand and led me out of the bedroom and down the stairs. She pushed on some paneling on the wall below the stairs and it moved, revealing a crawlspace beneath the stairs.
I nodded to her and mouthed, “This would work.”
We both squeezed in, pulling the panel closed. It smelled musty, and cobwebs clung to my hair. I was too scared to care about that, too scared to wonder where the spiders were that made all these webs. We sat down, and leaned against unfinished wood and waited. My heart was thundering in my chest as I strained to hear what was going on. I wished I had a watch or something, to tell how long we had been in here. It felt like an eternity as we waited in the dark, straining to hear anything.
What was taking the soldiers so long? I was starting to feel sick in my stomach as I waited. The stress was too much. Please, just let them search the house and move on. I wasn’t sure how much more of this interminable waiting I could take. I tried to count my breaths, my heartbeats, anything to try and give me an idea of how much time was passing by.
Maybe the soldiers weren’t coming? How long could I wait in here? Had it been minutes or hours? I swallowed, wondering if maybe we should slip out and check. We could be real quick—pop out, peer out the window, and pop back into our hiding spot. The soldiers would never know. I was reaching for the panel, preparing to push it open.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
I jumped in surprise, someone was pounding hard on the front door. The soldier hammered again, paused, then hammered a third time. “Open up!” a man shouted. “Open up in the name of your God! All Citizens are required to submit to searches!” He banged again. “Last chance, then we’re breaking the door down and executing whomever we find!”
There was a splintering crash, then booted feet pounded through the house. Dust fell down into my face as they raced upstairs, tickling at my nose. Oh no. I clasped my hand over my nose, trying to ignore the growing, tickling sensation. One of the soldiers was searching the first floor, the other the second. More dust trickled down and I could feel the sneeze building. Please no! Not now! The sensation was growing unbearable. Any second I would sneeze and they would find us and kill us. I fought it, suppressed the ticklish urge.
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