Ruined by Shadows

by Lola StVil

  The head nun turns and fixes her with a stare so cold I see the group member’s face pale.

  “I said it’s not important,” she repeats, in a tone that leaves no room for argument unless you’re willing to fight to the death.

  Even to me, it seems wrong coming from the mouth of a nun, and I can’t remember the last time I even went near a church. I wonder what these devout Catholics are making of the whole thing. Short of sharing a few looks and a few muttered comments, everyone is holding their peace right now, but for how long?

  I look to Saudia, who shrugs helplessly back at me. I catch Regal’s eye, and he shakes his head. What does that even mean? I take it to mean don’t act yet, and I keep walking, my head down, but my eyes glancing every which way and taking everything in.

  “Are you alright?” Langston asks the woman who spoke up, who still looks kind of dazed after the way the nun reacted to her comment.

  The woman nods and puts her hand on her child’s shoulder, drawing her closer to her.

  The nuns keep marching us onward. We turn several corners and pass by more rooms that it’s clear the people genuinely here for the tour expected to go in. The group continues to mutter to themselves and whisper to each other, sharing their surprise at the startling nature of the tour, but no one speaks out after last time.

  I think that’s a good thing, and I think maybe that’s what Regal’s headshake meant. Don’t cause a scene. Just let this thing play out, and the genuine tourists will be away from any danger. I hope he’s right. I hope I’m right thinking that’s what he meant. It would be too risky to discuss it here.

  Another three nuns swoop in seemingly out of nowhere and attach themselves to the tour.

  “Sister, can I ask how you knew this was the life for you?” a young woman asks one of the newcomer nuns, who walks beside her. “I think this life might be my calling, but what if I’m wrong?”

  I almost yell at the young woman, tell her to get down or move away, or something equally alarming, I’m not entirely sure what I want to say, but the nun just answers the question. Her smile doesn’t meet her eyes, but the young woman doesn’t seem to notice.

  “I was made to do this,” the nun replies.

  “And you just knew that in your heart?” the young woman goes on.

  “My heart beats for one purpose—to serve my master and to feel his pain.”

  To me, it seems obvious this is not what a nun would say, but the young woman looks genuinely happy with the response, and the tension the moment caused in me is relieved a little, although I’m still on high alert.

  “Thank you,” the young woman says in a quiet, almost reverent voice.

  If only you knew, I think to myself.

  Another four nuns join us, and I know we’re now surrounded by the Erinyes. I already knew it deep down, but having all twelve of them present confirms it. All I can do now is hope that none of the innocent people on the tour get hurt, but that’s looking less likely by the second.

  Another nun appears, walking in the opposite direction. She does a double take when she sees our group, surrounded by the black-clad nuns.

  “Sister Mary Rose, may I ask why so many of you are accompanying this tour group when there is much work to be done?” she asks.

  Sister Mary Rose turns to her without stopping or even slowing her pace and hisses in her direction. The nun shrinks back, clearly taken aback by the response.

  “Sister, are… are you alright?” she stutters, falling into place beside us.

  “Never better,” Sister Mary Rose replies. “You see, I am about to fulfill my destiny here today. I will destroy the Last Seeker and be rewarded for my efforts and welcomed into the new world that is destined to come.”

  “I don’t understand,” the nun replies.

  Her response goes unanswered, and the group looks more and more uncomfortable. The group’s confusion is beginning to turn to fear as we enter a wide, open courtyard. It is deserted except for us.

  I hear quick footsteps behind us, and I turn my head to see the real nun following behind us. My heart sinks.

  Just go, save yourself, dammit, I want to scream at her, but I keep my mouth closed when I meet Regal’s eye and he shakes his head again. What the fuck is he trying to tell me? Let the Erinyes kill innocents so we can get what we want? No, Regal would never condone that, so I decide to trust that he has some sort of plan and I bite my tongue as the nun catches up to the rear of our group.

  “Sisters, you can’t bring people to our sacred prayer garden. You know that. What’s going on here?” the nun demands.

  She tries her best to hide her fear, standing up tall, but her shaky voice lets her down. As a woman of God, she must recognize the evil lurking here.

  “You picked the wrong god, sister,” one of the others says.

  “What?” the nun says, looking more confused than anything.

  “We will wreak vengeance on the world, starting with the Last Seeker. We will deliver her heart to Arken,” Sister Mary Rose shouts.

  The others whoop and cheer. The real nun begins to back away from them. They let her go, turning their attention to the tour group. One of the children starts to cry. The people move in tighter, giving each other sideways glances. No one knows what’s going on, but the danger lurks over everyone like a cloak. I can almost taste the fear over the coppery adrenaline on my tongue.

  “Let’s get out of here,” a woman whispers to her friend.

  She takes her by the hand and begins to move away from the group. Sister Mary Rose flicks her wrist in their direction, and a bright green laser flies from it. It hits one of the women, and she goes down, screaming in agony.

  Panic ensues. The entire tour group begins trying to leave the circle, while the team watches on warily. It’s tempting to start blasting, but we all know it’s too dangerous while there are innocent people here. It finally occurs to me that this was what Regal was trying to tell me. To hold back rather than risk causing the death of someone innocent. Okay, I get that, but I can’t just stand by and watch this.

  It will surely turn to carnage at any second now.

  I think for a moment, then I walk up to the woman the nun called Sister Mary Rose. I assume she’s in charge since the others all look to her for their cues even now that they’ve dropped the pretense of being normal nuns.

  “Enough,” I say loudly. “Call them off. Your fight is with me, not this group. Let them go.”

  She smiles. “So they can tell the whole world about us and have us cast aside? I don’t think so.”

  I laugh then. It’s forced, but I make it sound real.

  “Something funny?” Sister Mary Rose asks.

  “Hilarious,” I say. “You know you can’t beat me. Because if you thought for a second you could, you wouldn’t care what these people might say. Arken wouldn’t banish you, he’d thank you for bringing chaos to innocents, and you know it.”

  It works better than I’d hoped. Sister Mary Rose looks away from me and back to the others.

  “Let them leave. Everyone but her and her precious little team.”

  Regal grabs the arm of a man in the group, an older guy who looks to be more in control of his senses than anyone else.

  “Lead them back the way we came. Make sure no one gets left behind. And don’t come back here. Don’t tell anyone else what is happening here no matter what, okay?”

  The man nods. He’ll talk, but hopefully not until he’s out of the convent. Regal is making sure no one comes along to investigate and ends up caught up in this. I just have to trust that the group is too shocked to tell this story right away. And that if they do, no one will believe it until the battle is over and there’s no risk to them.

  The fake nuns step to one side, making a clear escape route for the group, and people begin running toward the door we entered the courtyard through. Once they sense that they’re really being allowed to leave, they begin to regain their senses, and they speed up.

  I feel a moment
’s anger at them. Not one of them turned back to look at us, to thank us, or to check we’re okay. I remind myself they aren’t like us, but it doesn’t do a lot to help because they are like me. I’m not some divine entity with a purpose. I’m a human being, the same as they are. And I’m still here.

  They don’t know the stakes, I tell myself. Who knows how many of them would risk everything if they did.

  “My friend. She can’t walk. I can’t just leave her here,” a voice says.

  The voice interrupts my self-indulgent thinking, which I decide is good. It’s one of the two women who attempted to leave earlier. The other one is down, unconscious, blood running from her leg. I nod to Regal. He moves towards the pair and bends down and puts his hand on her leg.

  The wound closes up and the woman’s eyes open. Her friend gets to her knees before Regal.

  “The son of God walks among us once more,” she says.

  Regal shifts from foot to foot, uncomfortable with the attention and aware that every Erinyes is watching this scene unfold.

  “I’m nothing special. You two need to leave. Now,” he says.

  The woman who was healed is also on her knees now as she puts the pieces together and works out that somehow, Regal saved her life.

  “Thank you, thank you,” she says. “You healed me, and now you will cast aside the demons who have taken over these nuns. In God’s name, I thank you.”

  “There is only one god, Arken,” Sister Mary Rose shouts.

  Only now, she isn’t Sister Mary Rose anymore. She and the others revert to their true forms in the blink of an eye. The robes disappear, replaced by dresses of purple rags. Their long black hair hangs down their backs in waves. A snake is wrapped around the waist of each of them. And tears of blood run down their faces, leaving red streaks that look like war paint. It’s appropriate because if they want a war, then that’s what they’ll get. I didn’t come here to make nice, and I’m not leaving without that venom.

  I raise my palm, but I’m already too late. The head Erinyes begins to scream. The noise screeches in my ears and brain, and my hands fly to my ears. I feel as though my head is going to explode and I can feel tears of pain running down my face, matching their tears of blood.

  I fall to the ground as the searing pain in my head consumes me. I force my head up to look around me. The rest of the team is in similar positions to me. Carla, on the other hand, is on her feet, the scream having no effect on her. She has one of the Erinyes by the shoulders, holding her gaze. Luckily for her, the others haven’t noticed yet; they are too busy unleashing their terrible keening sounds, their heads thrown back and their eyes closed.

  The two women who incited the Erinyes are both dead. It’s clear from the pools of blood around both of their heads. A drop of blood hangs from the ear of one of them, already partially congealed.

  “We have to get them while they’re distracted,” I hiss to Langston, who lies beside me.

  She doesn’t hear me over the screeching sound and her own hands over her ears. The Erinyes Carla is dealing with drops to the ground, and Carla wastes no time moving on to the next one. We can’t just lie here and let her do all this alone. If I can just get to the Erinyes that’s already down and get some snake venom, then we can get out of here.

  I move my hands from my ears and begin dragging myself along the ground by my elbows, trying and failing to ignore the pain that lights up my whole body. I can feel the warmth in my ears as they bleed profusely.

  When I can’t stand the pain any longer, I stop and put my hands over my ears again. And that’s when something in me just snaps. These bitches are standing between Kane and me. I won’t let them stop me.

  I move my hands again and push myself to my feet. Every part of me hurts, but now that I’ve found my focus, a surge of adrenaline pulsates through my body. The physical pain doesn’t hurt as much as the mental pain of losing Kane. I focus on that pain and blot out the rest. With a scream to match one of the Erinyes’ screams, I point my palms in the direction of the nearest one, and I fire with everything I’ve got into her.

  As one, the Erinyes’ eyes snap open, the screaming stops, and they all turn to look at me, their own palms coming up. Every snake hisses. The team is on their feet as soon as the screaming stops, firing their powers at the Erinyes. Some spin away from me to concentrate on the others, and I find myself focusing on the two that still face me.

  One of them gives a low growl in the back of her throat, which thankfully doesn’t have the effect on me that the screaming did. She steps closer to me and fires. I dodge to one side, the laser missing me easily. I fire back. She makes no attempt to dodge my attack, and it lands square in her chest. She doesn’t even notice.

  The two of them are advancing on me, their arms outstretched, groping for me. I move back and keep firing. The lasers don’t hurt them, but they are knocking chunks of flesh and skin off their bodies. The lumps of flesh that rip free come from all over their bodies and suddenly their eyes aren’t the only things crying tears of blood. Blood pours freely down their bodies.

  I fire again, taking one of them in the eye. Her eyeball explodes in a shower of goo, and I see brain matter fly from the back of her skull when my shot exits her head. She goes down, her knees buckling. She slams down on her face, and I hear wet smacking sounds as her face hits the concrete floor.

  I don’t have long to look at the dead Erinyes as the other one is very much alive and still coming towards me, and I keep moving backward and firing into her. But then I see movement from the dead Erinyes, and suddenly, I can’t take my eyes off the one on the ground. Esther warned us they could regenerate, but her words didn’t prepare me for this.

  As I watch, the exit wound on the back of her head closes up with a disgusting sucking sound, and within seconds, she’s back on her feet, grinning and coming towards me like she paused to touch up her lipstick rather than die and come back to life.

  Even as I stare at her, I’m ducking and twisting, avoiding the lasers they fire and backing up.

  My back hits something solid, and I know I hit the wall. I’m screwed. I’m not ready to give up though. I keep firing and firing. The other one goes down, and I keep firing into the first one. Now she’s regenerated, I see what Esther meant about wearing them down. My shots are digging deeper than normal, and her flesh is flying from her bones quicker.

  She goes down, but as I go to step over their fallen bodies and get out of the corner, the other one is back on her feet. She reaches out towards me again, and I’m too slow to move aside. Her fingers grab my arm and where they touch, they burn. I can hear the sizzling sound as my arm cooks beneath her grasp. I can smell it; it’s like the smell of a barbecue. My vision swims in and out as pain encompasses me, but somehow, I hold onto consciousness. I fire again and again into her midriff until she goes down as the other one jumps back up.

  I am already exhausted from the battle, and my burnt arm is refusing to cooperate with me, sending some of my shots wide. I start to feel an idea forming. I don’t know if it will work, but I know I have to try it. I feel like it’s my only hope of getting away from these two alive.

  I wait for the one that’s down to get back up again, and with an angry roar, I place one palm flat on each of their chests. My roar turns to a scream of agony as my palms burn, but I hold them in place, firing and firing. The two Erinyes both go down at once, and I jump over the prone bodies.

  I spin around, checking to see if any more are advancing on me. They aren’t right now. I turn back to the fallen ones. I kneel beside them, trying to work out how to get the venom from the snakes. I can’t work it out, but I see something that worries me.

  I jump back up and yell at the team.

  “When they die, the snakes die too. We can only get the venom from a live one.”

  How we’re going to do that is beyond me at first. But then, I got an idea, and I make my way to Carla, who has her eyes fixed on another Erinyes.

  “Carla, can you use your
powers to make her hand over some venom?” I ask.

  “No. They don’t respond to my commands. All I can do is hold their consciousness until they burn themselves out and pass out,” she says without breaking eye contact with her target.

  Dammit.

  I feel a burning hand slam onto my shoulder, and although I try to turn around, the pain distracts me, and I end up falling to my knees instead. The hand goes away when I fall, and I force myself to get back up. The Erinyes and I circle each other, both waiting for an opening.

  She sees hers as I look away for a second at the sound of a scream from one of the team. I see my mistake almost instantly and turn back, expecting to have to dive away from a laser. It’s not a laser though; it’s her snake. It’s extended itself from her waist, and it’s less than an inch from my face, its mouth open wide, fangs exposed. Clear liquid drips from the fangs.

  I throw myself backward, missing being bitten by the thickness of a dollar bill. I reach for the snake, not sure what I’m going to do except stop it from coming for me again. I wait for the searing burn, but it doesn’t come, although my palms are still screaming from the last burn.

  As I grab the striking snake, it changes. It goes limp in my hands, its jaws closing. Its tongue flicks in and out, and it makes a gentle hissing sound, but it’s no longer trying to attack me. On a whim, I pull on it, and it unwinds itself from the Erinyes’ waist. She drops to the ground. I stand holding the snake, with no idea what else to do with it as I wait for her to spring back up.

  “The snakes respond to whoever is holding them,” I shout. “If you can pull them free of their hosts, they’re tame.”

  I don’t know if anyone hears or understands me, as they are all still encased in their own battles. The snake wraps itself around my arm, ready to attack anyone who comes near me.

  If we can just get out of here now while I have the placid snake with me, then we’ve done what we set out to do. The Erinyes on the ground isn’t getting back up, and I know I’ve discovered the secret to killing them. It seems their powers of regeneration lie in their snakes, and without them, their injuries return to kill them.