by S. M. Reine
Ann flipped open the straight razor and sliced it through the waist of his pants and down the legs. The cloth fell open as a snake shedding its skin.
A twinge of guilt clenched in Ann’s gut as she cut away his trousers, removing James’s last semblance of dignity. Although she had never been close to her high priest, or even that fond of him, she knew he and Elise were close. It was obvious they adored one another. She would be devastated.
The kopis is the enemy, Death’s Hand reminded Ann, brushing her mind. She will not share in our vision. She will not accept your offer to join us.
Ann didn’t reply. Betty wouldn’t share in her vision, either—or so vedae som matis insisted. Death’s Hand had deployed a fiend to kill Betty without asking Ann, and now one of her creatures was dead. She was still angry, but she sensed the demon’s jealousy—the worry that Ann would find she preferred human company. Ann tried not to feel too pleased with that. Vedae som matis ’s jealousy made her feel wanted, and it was hard not to preen a little.
Marisa has betrayed us. I must kill her.
“No,” Ann said. “I don’t want anyone else to die if they don’t have to. You know I’m still mad you sent one of our babies to attack Anthony and Betty.”
Her voice turned soothing. It was necessary. I knew they would get in the way, and if you could see what they are doing now, you would agree. They are coming to kill me.
“They can’t,” she said. “They wouldn’t.”
But the demon had already subsided from her mind, leaving her with a sense of the inevitable. Marisa wasn’t a big deal anyway. She had served her purpose. Vedae som matis wouldn’t kill anyone that didn’t need to die—right?
She resumed preparing James, trimming the thatch of pubic hair over his genitalia so she could properly access the skin beneath. She carefully tried not to look at his naked body. Ann wasn’t interested in the sexual sense, but it was so distracting trying to draw so close to a penis. She suppressed the insane urge to giggle.
He would be ready soon. She would only need the anointing oil, and perhaps a few herbs...
The clock chimed. Ten o’clock. Elise would be in the cemetery soon.
Ann smiled and continued to work.
“How’s it looking?”
Betty leaned on the Jeep’s roll cage to support her elbows, peering through a set of black binoculars. She hummed at Elise’s question, lips pursed.
They were positioned in the driveway of a sports complex across the street from Our Mother of Sorrows. Even though they had been parked at the edge of a busy road for twenty minutes, not a single car had passed.
The view from their side of the five lane road wasn’t good—the statue at the entrance of the cemetery was in the way, along with a few well-placed trees, and Elise could only barely see the illuminated angel statue in the back of the cemetery through the obstructions. “Hmm,” Betty said, fidgeting with the focus. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“It looks very black. Almost like it’s nighttime and I can’t see anything.”
Elise grabbed the strap. “Hand them over. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I’m not using them wrong and I can do reconnaissance all on my own, thank you very much!”
Anthony made an irritated noise and slouched in the driver’s seat, folding his arms. His feet sloshed in the half inch of water that had collected at the bottom of his Jeep.
It was hard to maintain a good mood outdoors in the middle of a rainy night, and Elise felt like she had been here, doing the exact same thing with James, just hours ago.
Elise took the binoculars from Betty’s eyes.
“Hey!” Betty protested.
“It’s almost ten. We don’t have time for this.” She gazed through the eyepieces, searching for the street lights around the cemetery. At first, all she saw were tombstones, and then she began making out moving shadows behind them. The shapes were faint, but she could guess what she was looking at.
She lowered the binoculars. “The possessed ones are already here,” she said, passing them to Anthony.
“What does that mean for us?” he asked.
“It bet it means Ann and James are there.”
“Does that change the plan at all?” Betty asked, dropping into her seat.
“She’s probably ordered her servants to take the artifact as soon as we show up. So no, this doesn’t change anything. We stick to Plan A.”
“I hate to be a party pooper, because you know I’m your girl whenever you want to be destructive, but don’t you think Plan A is a little noisy for an ordinary neighborhood?” Betty asked. “Somebody is bound to wake up and call the cops.”
“Ann lives nearby. I think she’s been casting a calming on her neighbors in the surrounding streets. It’s the only way I can figure she can get away with sending out her servants without drawing attention.”
“A calming?”
“It’s a kind of spell that compels people to go to sleep,” she said. “James can do it to one or two people at a time. With her soul bound to a demon, it wouldn’t be hard to do it on a broad scale.”
“So I get to break things?” Anthony asked.
Elise nodded. “You get to break things.”
“That’s almost cool enough for me to stop being completely petrified,” he said. “I do have to wonder, though—why did we bring that thing with us at all?”
“The demon is in it,” Elise said, patting her pocket. “Part of it, anyway. It’s watching. If we left it at Motion and Dance, we wouldn’t have demons or Ann to fight here at all—they would be at the studio. We’re not that important.”
“They tried to kill me,” Betty said, bracing herself against the additional bars they had welded to the roll cage. “I’m way important.”
Elise sighed. “Do it, Anthony.”
17
Just meters away, the possessed ones wandered through the cemetery. They moved aimlessly without acknowledging one another, vacant eye sockets glazed with mucus.
Occasionally, one of the servants would pass by the grave in which his body had lain, and he would pause, the faintest hint of recognition lighting up his face. Then the light would fade, and he would shuffle off once more.
The old grave markers were soaked and dark, and water puddled in the eroded faces of the more recent headstones. A breeze rustled through the trees, and fell again moments later. Our Mother of Sorrows was silent.
And then, distantly... “Woo hoo!”
Crash.
The fence smashed open and Anthony’s Jeep exploded into the graveyard.
Elise’s recorded voice roared out of the speakers bound to the front. The large crucifix forming the hood ornament blazed in the darkness. A length of fence stuck to the crude cowcatcher, and it clipped a shambling old woman, sending her flying.
“Crux sacra sit mihi lux, non draco sit mihi dux!”
Pain roared from the throats of the possessed ones. They twitched and flailed as though taken by a massive seizure, clawing at their own faces. Blood spilled underneath their nails, unable to feel anything but the pain of St. Benedict’s prayer.
Anthony peeled through the paths of the cemetery at twenty miles an hour, skidding around tight corners intended for pedestrians.
“Vade retro, Satana, nunquam suade mihi vana!”
A shaking body—a teenager, only a boy—clawed at the side of the Jeep. His hand caught, and he was dragged alongside them, fighting to climb on board even as his entire body shuddered with pain.
Elise drew her sword from underneath her hair in a single smooth motion. Her chain of charms was entwined between her fingers and the hilt.
The engraved symbols on the blade flashed as she swung. The blade sliced into the boy’s wrist. He fell to the earth missing a hand.
“Oh, man!” Betty exclaimed, leaning back to kick at his still-twitching fingers. “Gross!”
Elise swept to her feet, bracing her legs against one of the seats. “There!” she called,
pointing to a cluster of possessed ones near the center of the graveyard. “At your nine o’clock!”
Then her hand faltered, fell, as she realized what she was seeing.
“What?” Betty asked. She got to her feet, barely keeping her balance, and followed Elise’s gaze. Her jaw dropped open. “Holy...”
There were so many possessed ones the ground seemed to seethe. Elise had grossly miscalculated how many servants Ann could have had—she’d clearly had several years to work up a collection. One dozen, three dozen. Maybe more.
The vessel of vedae som matis hung heavy in her pocket, growing so hot that it nearly burned her leg through her jeans. It snapped her out of her shocked reverie. “Be careful, Anthony,” she said, climbing into the front seat. “Ann and James might be in there somewhere. Take out the edges first.”
His response was to slide into line with the crowd and shift the old Jeep into a higher gear. He was grinning. Elise could only hope he would still be so thrilled when he was cleaning the blood off his car later.
Elise’s voice continued to roar from the speakers. “Ipse venena bibas! Crux sacra sit mihi lux, non draco sit mihi dux! ” The verse echoed amongst the tombstones and rattled the branches on the trees. They passed the ragged woman in the half-torn sundress, and as soon as the voice hit her ears, her spine went rigid. She fell to the ground, shaking, and Elise watched her pass with a critical eye.
“They’re not getting exorcised,” she said. “Damn.”
“What?” Betty asked, leaning up on Anthony’s seat.
She gestured to the servants. “The exorcism phrase isn’t enough. It’s hurting them, maybe even paralyzing a few, but on its own it can’t actually free them.”
“Hang on!” Anthony cried.
The Jeep shuddered as though it had struck a cement wall. Elise was flung forward onto the roll cage, and a body hit the windshield.
The glass cracked, splintered. Betty screamed.
The body that struck their windshield slid off, but more rose out of the darkness, falling under the wheels and being flung to the sides. They were helpless to run. All they could do was get chewed by the wheels of the Jeep as Anthony fought to keep control and Elise searched for James.
The speakers crackled. “Crux sacra—lux, non draco sit mihi—retro, Satana—”
One of the possessed ones leaped at the car, clawing for Elise’s jacket and the burning weight in her pocket. She threw herself out of its grasp, straddling the seat to keep her balance.
Her blade flashed. Blood sprayed.
The speakers made a static noise once more, and then died. “Ipse venena... ”
Silence.
“The cable under the dashboard must have come loose!” Betty said.
A servant slammed into the hood of the Jeep, and it shuddered. This time, the man didn’t slide away. He found grip near the windshield wipers, hauled himself higher, and pulled back his arm.
His fist punched through the glass.
Anthony cried out, falling to the side in his seat to avoid the groping hand. The car swerved, but Elise kept her balance. She brought her sword down, slicing into the possessed one’s already-bleeding arm.
“We need the speakers!”
Betty crawled between the two front seats underneath Elise’s legs. “I can reconnect it. I just need a second to find the break!”
The servant groped blindly and found the steering wheel. He wrenched it to the side as Anthony slammed on the brakes.
Betty squealed again. The three fell into one another, a jumble of legs and arms and confused bodies.
The Jeep lurched to a halt, and a man climbed over the side. His fist struck Elise in the face. Her injured cheekbone exploded in pain. Her vision blurred and darkened. She swung blindly and felt her sword connect.
Something warm splattered on her. It wasn’t the rain.
Her vision cleared, and she saw her sword had sunk into the side of his neck. She pulled free and kicked, sending him over the side.
“Holy crap!” Betty exclaimed, untangling herself from Anthony.
“Fix the speakers,” Elise said. She reached over the windshield and swung at the possessed one reaching through the cracks. Her sword connected with his back, but didn’t cut. She took a deep breath, and began to shout. “Crux sacra sit mihi lux, non draco sit mihi dux. Vade retro, Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana. Sunt mala quae libas, ipse venena bibas! ”
The crucifix engraved in her sword blazed to life. The possessed one shrieked, jerking its arm out of the windshield and falling off the hood of the car.
More servants took his place, swarming the Jeep. Elise would kick one off, only for another to take its place climbing over the side. There were dozens. No matter how fast she swung, she couldn’t keep up with them.
Anthony slammed the car into gear, but the wheels spun out in the mud.
“Betty...” Elise urged.
“I think I found it!” Betty announced from under the dashboard.
The Jeep’s wheels found traction, and the car leapt forward, mowing down a pair of servants who had been coming up on their makeshift cow-catcher.
The speakers crackled, buzzed, and Elise’s voice roared out of them once more.
“—dux. Vade retro, Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana!”
Screams rose from the graveyard, as inhuman as the sounds that came from a slaughterhouse. “Success!” Betty cried, pumping her fist.
“Take this,” Elise said, shoving the stone vessel into Betty’s hands as she emerged from under the dashboard. “Ann can’t perform the sacrifice without it, so it’s safest with you. I trust you. Don’t go far. I might need help transporting James.”
Her friend nodded, cheeks flushed. “They won’t get it without a fight!” Betty declared.
“Wait,” Anthony said, power-sliding around the stone angel to a stop, “where are you going?”
“Ann’s not here, so James isn’t here,” Elise said. “Ann lives across the street. I’m sure they’re in there.”
“You can’t go alone.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Elise prepared to leap down into the cemetery, but Anthony caught her hand. “Wait,” he said, and he pulled her to him and kissed her. He was forceful, desperate, as though afraid it would be his last chance.
And then she jumped over the door before he could catch her again, disappearing into the night. She caught a glance of his face before she went—an expression of admiration, adoration, and fear.
Now that she no longer had the vessel, the servants ignored Elise. They followed the Jeep, and Anthony gave them a good chase—he weaved in and out of the path, and the bigger spots in between the graves, driving over several of the shorter headstones as he made a line for the exit. The possessed ones couldn’t keep up.
The storm overhead broke with slaps of thunder and lighting. Elise flipped her braid over her shoulder so she could sheathe the sword, and she ran toward Ann’s house...and James.
The night grew darker.
One by one, the street lamps flickered and went out. A line of shadow crept up the street. The few people still struggling to stay awake began turning off their lights and going to their bedrooms, oblivious to the world around them. The heavy rain clouds that had briefly parted to reveal the moon’s crescent covered it once more, and the shadow’s hand gripped the Earth.
A single oil lamp illuminated Ann’s room as the neighborhood’s electricity turned off. Her outline was thrown against the wall in stark relief, a huge monster of a woman with massive shoulders and tiny legs.
The shadows beside her twisted and writhed. Ann’s fiends covered every square foot of her house, silent and hungry. She passed the trap door, carrying the oil lamp to the altar, and peered down the ladder. The demons covered the floor below, and the floor beneath that as well. Elise wouldn’t be able to get in without getting ripped apart.
Ann set the lamp beside James’s leg and faced her altar, standing with her back to the open window.
&nbs
p; The fiends touched her legs and stroked her arms and rested their heads on her feet. Some touched James, too, but he didn’t stir. The high priest was unconscious.
She spread her arms wide. “Listen up, guys,” Ann said. “Every beginning is the end of another. Tonight we leave behind the world we have come to know together for the past several years. Tonight we march to the ruins and transform everything. Tonight, you become the children of the new world.”
Their lips quivered. They drooled.
“The city will be ours, and soon, this whole world will too. Why return to Hell under the law of another when we can have this Eden? You all deserve freedom. You deserve flesh. You deserve Earth.”
Something clattered downstairs.
Ann cut off, frowning. She perked her ears, listening to the reports the fiends whispered into her mind when something happened. But there were no comforting voices from her demons—only a complete mental silence.
Elise.
“Take care of her, please,” she said.
The fiends piled down the ladder, leaving the attic empty except for a handful of fiends and the two humans.
Ann rested her hand on his forehead. His pulse throbbed in his temples, rising and falling like the heart of the ocean. He was beautiful with symbols of transference and death painted upon his body. He was so lucky.
She took a step away from the table and began walking a slow circle, speaking quietly as she went. Ann drew runes in her mind and called upon spirits at the north, the west, the south, and the east—spirits few humans called in fear of their power. Her dominant hand pointed to the floor, and she felt rather than saw the energy burn an invisible path on the wood.
Ann clapped, and the circle of power erupted around them. James’s eyes almost fluttering open.
“Did they get her?” Ann asked one of the fiends.
But before she could make out any reply, a dark shape darted out of the corner. She spun to see curtains flapping in the open window.