Sisters of Sorrow

by Axel Blackwell

  Anna wheeled around and sprinted.

  Then, the plain man screamed.

  Anna heard splintering wood and steel on stone. The giant cried out, first in terror, then in righteous indignation.

  Anna stopped and turned. What she saw made no sense, not at first.

  Plain Man was flying.

  He was parallel with the floor, four feet above it and coming straight at her. She threw herself out of the way, colliding with the wall. He slammed into the railing, fell to the balcony floor and remained motionless, his club still in his grip.

  Anna looked for the giant. What she saw instead was a writhing mass of gray-green tentacles – with several human legs and arms, mottled and livid, and at least two huge wolf heads – flailing in a fury to match the storm’s.

  The giant’s sword flashed. It severed a tentacle and a forearm. Then it was sailing, end over end, through the open rotunda. A second later, the giant was also end over end, rolling down the staircase. McCain’s goons who had been advancing on Anna dove out of his way as he tumbled past.

  It’s Joseph! a voice screamed in Anna’s head. She stood, mesmerized by the horror of it, of him. His misbegotten construction of human and animal limbs defied reason. It hurt Anna’s brain to look at it, to attempt to understand what it was.

  The voice persisted, It’s Joseph! It’s Joseph! This is what you’ve been waiting for!

  “Dolores,” Anna said out loud. She exhaled the breath she didn’t know she had been holding, and dragged her eyes away from the Joseph-Monster.

  Below, Joseph’s appearance had affected the others as it had Anna. Most stood agape, or fumbled with their weapons. Elizabeth and McCain stood exactly where Anna had last seen them. Each held a glowing torch, each held their mouths open and eyes wide.

  Move now! The voice screamed in her head. This is your chance. Move! Move!

  Anna could almost see those exact same thoughts blooming in McCain’s eyes. The head witch-hunter reached over and shook Elizabeth by the shoulder, yelling into her face. Another wave slammed into the front entrance. Salt water sprayed through the seams and cracks around the door.

  “Victory is within our grasp!” McCain’s voice carried above the chaos. “Now, we have them all. Do them to their death!”

  Gunfire erupted, less ferociously than when they had fired at Anna. That first volley had depleted their ammunition. Now, after the first few rounds, the goon’s guns ran dry. Men and women with axes, harpoons and swords charged forward while those with guns reloaded.

  “We are not afraid of you, Joseph,” McCain shouted, her torch raised high. “We know who you are. Do you remember the last time you saw me, you little crybaby? You wailed until your face was nothing but tears and snot. You peed in your little britches, Joseph. Do you remember?”

  Anna swept the balcony with her eyes. Joseph was halfway down the stairs. McCain’s goons surrounded him, shooting, stabbing, hacking. None of them looked her way. They probably didn’t even remember she existed.

  The door to the kitchen hung wide and unguarded. Between her and it lay Plain Man, unconscious but breathing. His hand rested on the club. The remainder of the balcony and the other staircase were deserted.

  Anna looked at the door leading to the kitchen. It called to her. Her right arm and armpit were wet. Bright red blood dripped from the fingers of her right hand. She was suddenly overcome by a vivid memory, almost a waking dream, of lying in the cool, comforting quiet under a fir tree, the night she and Donny finally broke free from the underground. The roar of the storm and of the raging battle faded out. She lay on the soft bed of fir needles and loam. She was free from Saint Frances. The air was sweet. The moon was full. The hush of the ocean lulled her to sleep.

  She squeezed Donny’s hand. Joseph’s hand crunched in her grip, then squeezed back. Anna gasped, opened her eyes. The cataclysmic, thunderous roar crashed back into her ears. There was pain, now. It felt as if someone had hammered nails into her back and right shoulder. She was slouched against the wall staring at her escape.

  Go, her voices told her. You’ve done what you can. Your friends need you. They’re waiting for you. Go. Anna staggered to her feet. She stepped toward the door, then looked down.

  McCain ranted on while her minions battled Joseph, “You little pants-wetting crybaby. No one is afraid of you! Now, you will watch me burn your sister. And when we’re done cutting you to pieces, we’ll burn you, too!”

  “No,” Anna heard herself say. The throbbing in her pinky knuckle outweighed the nails in her back. Her hand was on the doorframe. Plain Man’s club was at her feet. She picked it up and raised it above her head, fixing her eyes on McCain. Anna’s daddy once won a doll at the carnival, testing his strength with a sledgehammer. Anna swung her club in the same manner, starting from the small of her back, up over her head, then down so hard that her feet actually left the floor. Halfway through its downward arc, she released it, flinging it at McCain.

  The club pin-wheeled through the air, Anna’s aim perfect. It would have clobbered McCain square on the head, except – as Anna realized only after releasing the club – McCain had been staring straight at her through her entire wind up. As soon as Anna released the club, McCain dove out of its path. Elizabeth, alerted by McCain’s reaction, dodged as well, but not as effectively.

  The club caught Elizabeth on the hip, a glancing blow. She stumbled sideways, tripped over her own feet in the rising water, and collided with the kerosene barrels. Elizabeth, her torch, and the barrels toppled. Kerosene gushed, spreading like a yellow tide across the top of the swirling seawater. Then ignited.

  Elizabeth ignited as well. Her lips pealed open in a scream. Butter-colored flames spread away from her torch in a relentless wave, a medieval army marching across undefended lands. Elizabeth tried to stand, but could find no traction in the oil and water slurry. She thrashed and screamed and rolled. The water around her and under the burning kerosene boiled, hissing and spitting, sending up thick steam to mix with the wafting black smoke.

  By the time she managed to get her feet under her and stand, blazing kerosene coated her. She flailed and staggered. Her shrieking rivaled the howling of the wind, but only for a few minutes. As her screams died away, she crumpled into the spreading lake of fire.

  Chapter 22

  In her haste to avoid Anna’s club, McCain had not fallen, but she had lost her torch. The abbess turned in a rough circle, stumbled backward in the deepening water, astonished at Elizabeth’s hideous demise. She began shifting her gaze back to Anna when a small woman, the female third of the chanting group, crashed into the water near her feet. McCain turned wild eyes to Joseph.

  The Joseph-Monster rampaged through his attackers. The sight of him was as bewildering, as horrifying, as watching Elizabeth burn. From above, he resembled an octopus of human arms – or maybe a centipede – he had way more than eight arms. And tentacles, and bony, spear-like appendages that Anna had not seen on any natural animal.

  His skin, in its various piebald and mottled hues, rippled with the impacts of bullets. He bristled with harpoons, which had no effect on him whatsoever. He ripped one of these harpoons out of his neck and drove it, handle first, into the gut of an attacker. The unlucky witch-hunter doubled over in a fetal curl and collapsed into the murky water, disabled but alive.

  They can’t kill him! Anna wondered. They can’t kill him unless he kills. They’re wasting their strength against already-dead flesh.

  Bodies littered the stairs and floor around Joseph – broken legs, crushed or severed arms, shattered jaws, but all were still breathing. Some writhed or groped, others panted. The lucky ones had been rendered unconscious.

  Anna looked down at Plain Man. He groaned, then rolled his head up to meet her eyes. The terror on his face hurt some tender part deep inside Anna. Then he reached for her ankle.

  Anna screamed and kicked him in the nose. She had no thought of doing so, and had no chance to stop, or even slow her foot. The scream came out of he
r with every ounce of her strength, as did the kick. His body jolted with the impact. Blood sprayed up her shin. He would not reach for her again.

  Another monstrous wave thundered against the entrance, drawing Anna’s attention back to the room below. The floodwater now stood deep enough for waves to travel across its surface. Untold gallons of kerosene rode the waves in oily rainbows. The lake of fire spread slowly, like a blooming yellow poppy, away from Elizabeth’s scorched corpse. The wind played with the flames, here driving them back upon their origin, there pushing them onward across more of the shallow sea. It was only a matter of time before the flames reached Dolores.

  Anna sprinted toward McCain’s office and the stairs that lay just beyond it. The other stairs lay closer but were cluttered with broken bodies, and Joseph raged on near their base. The farther stairs offered a surer route to Dolores.

  Anna ran. Her head spun, slowly. Her scalp and neck prickled, her fingertips tingled. Even her missing pinky tingled. Tiny white and black specks obscured her vision. Her legs seemed a little too long, too gangly. She slowed to a jog, panting.

  A chunk of the rail just ahead of her exploded to splinters. The bullet that had torn it ricocheted straight up in a screaming whine. Anna staggered to a stop and looked over the rail. McCain stood below. She still hugged her wounded right arm to her body. With her left hand, she struggled to cock the lever action rifle.

  Beyond her, Joseph battled on. He had fewer appendages than the last time Anna had seen him. Arms and tentacles bobbed in the murky water around him, most of them still squirming. One of his wolf heads lolled to the side, only half attached to his torso. Several of the witch-hunters he had wounded fought on, driven either by fear or fanaticism. The giant had risen and was back in the battle, though he now wielded an oak beam rather than his sword.

  Joseph kept them at bay, snapping his canine fangs, lashing out with his boney spears. Anna now recognized the spears for what they were, sharpened whale ribs. Burning kerosene clung to one of his tentacles, a flaming whip which he used to great effect.

  Burning kerosene washed onto the lower fringe of Dolores’s pyre. The straw lit, but was immediately extinguished by an unoiled wave. Seconds later, another patch of straw lit.

  I have to go, now! Anna thought.

  You’ll pass out if you run any more. McCain will shoot you if you get close.

  She looked to McCain. McCain had seen her looking at Dolores, had read her thoughts. The abbess gave up trying to cock her rifle. Instead, she sloshed over to the burning kerosene, thrust the butt of her rifle into the fire and drew it out, an impromptu torch. She challenged Anna with a sneer, then slowly turned toward Dolores and the pile of kindling beneath her.

  Anna desperately searched the balcony around her, but found nothing to throw. I’ll never reach her in time.

  She screamed “Joseph!”

  He squeezed her hand.

  Anna saw that his hand still clung to hers. A thought entered her mind, cruel and dark. She screamed Joseph’s name again, but this time directed her voice at McCain.

  McCain turned to her with a wicked grin. As she did, Anna flung Joseph’s hand at her. McCain sidestepped the hand and it splashed down beside her shin. She looked at it for a moment, confused. It was just a wrinkly brown mass floating in the greenish bilge.

  Then the hand grabbed the fringe of McCain’s habit, and she recognized what it was. McCain screamed and thrashed at the hand with her burning rifle.

  Anna wanted to see what would happen next, but there was no time. She started moving again, toward the stairs, pulling herself along the rail with her left hand. The stairway seemed farther away than it had been the last time she looked.

  Something had changed below. The sounds were different. She couldn’t place it at first, and it didn’t matter, anyway. Right now, the only important thing was to get Dolores off that heap before fire fully engulfed it.

  Anna reached the stairs at a slow jog. Her head was light, but manageably so. As she headed down the stairs, she saw what had changed. Joseph was winning. Less than ten of McCain’s finest still stood against him.

  Two steps down the stairs she saw why. Joseph thrust one of those whalebone spears through the giant’s chest, impaling him. Then he drove another spear into the giant’s temple. The huge German twitched, still standing, until Joseph yanked the spears out, dropping him into the swill.

  Joseph is killing. Anna put it together as she ran down the last of the stairs, what she had already known on some level the instant she decided to throw his hand to McCain. Anna had undone him, pushed Joseph past the point of reason. It was almost exactly as Dolores had planned – whip up an unearthly storm to agitate all the flora and fauna connected to Joseph, then appear as McCain, withholding his hand from him.

  Dolores said the magic would begin to unravel if Joseph killed, and when it had unraveled, he would die. How long will that take? Anna didn’t know. Hopefully a really long time, but I’m not taking any chances. She hurried off the last step, plunging almost up to her knees in the filthy, oily water.

  Fire licked at the straw and broken furniture. Billows of flame rode the waves half way across the room before flapping out in a hiss of steam. Flames caught along one side of the heap, climbing out of the reach of the lapping water. Anna scanned the room for McCain, then started toward the pyre.

  An iron hand clamped over her right shoulder. Her wound there, nearly forgotten, flared to new life, sending a series of flashes across her vision, lightning inside her head. Her knees buckled and she fell forward, would have gone face first into the water if not for the hand on her shoulder.

  So intense was the pain, Anna almost did not notice the pistol barrel pressed against the side of her head. Then, the hammer clicked back. Anna tried to turn, but the cold steel dug into her temple. A raspy male voice barked in her ear. “Oh, no you don’t! Don’t you look at me, don’t speak a word.”

  Chapter 23

  The man hauled Anna up out of the water by her shoulder. She wailed, an involuntary cry of pain that dwindled to a sob.

  “You’re my ticket out of here,” he rasped into her ear. “I didn’t bargain for any of this. You people are deeply cracked.” He dragged her backward into a recess below the staircase.

  “We’re just gonna sit here and watch the show. Both sides seem to want you. God only knows why. Don’t look like there’s much left of you.” He coughed a harsh laugh, the stubble around his lips scratching her ear. “But, no matter. We’ll sit back an’ see who wins. I’ll trade you for a ride off this god forsaken rock.”

  Anna’s vision blurred, her legs wobbled. I must stay awake. I must not faint. Breathe, breathe, think, breathe and think…

  The chaos outside continued to intensify. Rumbling detonations chased each other across the storm swept sky. The column of rain falling from the bell tower scintillated with the reflected lightning, making it look like a solid pillar of light. The wailing bell and the screaming wind fought to be heard over the thunderclaps.

  Fire now had a firm grasp on Dolores’s pyre. Reddish flames licked at the damp straw. Thick black smoke rolled upward as flames contended with the mix of kerosene and seawater. Moisture slowed its progress for now, but the higher the flames climbed, the farther from the water, the faster they would move. Dolores, herself, still held that awful rigid pose, fingers curled to claws, back arched against the chair, eyes rolled into her head.

  I have to reach her. I have to get away from this man. But the mercenary clamped down on her shoulder the second she twitched. Anna whimpered. Her knees failed and she slouched against her captor. He wrapped his other arm around her waist and hoisted her up.

  “Where you going? Huh?” he asked. “Go out there and you’ll be dead in four steps. I’m a trained killer an’ I sure as hell ain’t goin’ out there. Best you just stay here with me a while.” He tugged at the collar of her dress, then yanked it down on the right side. The coarse fabric across her back ripped. “Damn,” he chuckled, “lo
oks like you already got a back full of buckshot. Bet that smarts like hell, huh? I’m surprised you’re still on your feet.”

  Anna was surprised as well. Her breath came in quick little gasps. Her heart throbbed in her temples, behind her eyes, in her shoulder. She decided that, for the moment, maybe she didn’t really need to be on her feet. She slouched against the mercenary, letting him support her full weight.

  He didn’t seem to notice at all. He poked at her shoulder. An agonizing zing burst from the spot, pain welling up in her shoulder and radiating outward, white hot wires running down her arm, down her legs, all the way to her toes.

  She screamed and lurched into the mercenary. He was a solid stack of muscle and withstood her lunge as easily as if he had been a stone pillar. The strength drained out of Anna. She wrapped her arms around his waist for support.

  “Whoa, take it easy,” he said. “You lucked out, girly. Have a look.” He extended his hand in front of her face. Her blood covered his outstretched index finger. On the pad of that finger rested a flat silver disk. It looked like a bloody button.

  “Just a ricochet, if that had hit you square, it wouldn’t have flattened out,” he said. “And it woulda sunk a lot deeper. You got five or six more. Want me to dig ‘em out for you?”

  “No,” Anna whimpered. “Please, no.”

  Fresh flurries of pain washed across her back and shoulder, radiating from the wound. She clung to his heavy belt. One of his hands was wrapped around her waist, the other still held the bit of buckshot before her face.

  “Well, okay then,” he chuckled. “Stop wriggling. Let’s just see how this plays out. I’ve always wanted to see a witch burn.” He paused, then added, “Stand up.”

  Anna tried to pull herself up, clinging to his belt. A thought was forming in her mind…

  Something about the belt.

  Something about his hands.

  And the throbbing in her temple.

  Her temple, where he had pressed the gun.