At that moment, David stormed into the bathroom. In front of the scene, he turned pale. He had held on until now, but at the sight of Charles's body and his swollen face, his courage frayed. The young man ran into the next room and began to vomit in the toilet.
“I was putting Georgia to bed when they arrived," Lily hiccupped, her eyes dark, wounded and still full of tears.
"They? People with guns? The Maestro's soldiers?"
“Not only," moaned the frightened woman.
She looked at the room, short of breath, as if she feared she was still in danger.
"Who?" Ray insisted.
"The shadows, the ghosts... it was darkness."
The young man stood up, stunned by Lily's words. He frowned and began to examine every nook and cranny of the bathroom.
"They took Georgia," she continued. "Charles tried to push them back, but these things were much stronger. The ghosts came after him and took my little girl from my arms."
Lily stopped, her heart consumed with grief. She looked at her husband.
"She screamed my name," she whispered still about Georgia. "My God, I've never heard such screams before. They'll haunt me for the rest of my life. I can't lose her. Faïz has to find her."
"I'm sure he'll save her. You know how combative he is. The devil himself learns lessons when your son has something on his mind."
Charles's wife looked up at him, a spark of hope in her eyes. She nodded and her tremors gradually faded away. With the back of her hand, she pulled her hair away from her face.
David reappeared at that moment in the bathroom. After looking at Ray, he was relieved to know that Charles was still alive.
"Go to the car to make a call on the satellite phone. I need a medical team to get here as soon as possible."
"But they may not be able to move, the streets are blocked."
"Go, I'm telling you!" barked Ray. "I don't think the government wants to answer for this when Faïz holds them accountable."
David nodded before hurrying out of the room. Ray then helped Lily to install Charles in a better position by taking care to handle his body well.
"What's going on out there?" Lily asked calmly.
"A mutiny broke out between the police, the army, and the Maestro's rebel groups."
Lily's eyes suddenly darkened:
"Have you heard from Asarys?"
Ray felt his chest tighten painfully and shook his head vigorously.
"The networks are down. We can't reach anyone. In spite of all the considerable amount of money spent in the damn Dome, it only held out for a few hours in the face of the threat," said the angry young man.
He straightened up and so did Lily. She approached him and gently placed her hands on his cheeks.
"I'm sorry. Asarys is a fighter. Trust her. She's going to be OK."
The reassuring words of his heartfelt mother comforted him. He sighed as he thanked her with his eyes.
"Did you propose to her?"
Ray changed his expression and looked away, embarrassed. Lily was the only one who knew about it.
"Not yet. I've got a couple of things to take care of first, with Faïz."
She frowned as she tried to guess what it was all about. It had been years since these two friends, inseparable like two brothers, had spoken to each other. She was very upset by this situation. She had, on many occasions, sought explanations, but Ray categorically refused to speak about it. Once again, he shut himself up in his silence.
"Do you think you two will ever get along?"
"Everything depends on him. The ball's in his court."
"I could talk to him if..."
"No!" Ray cut her off in a rough voice.
A grave and pensive expression crossed his face. Lily looked at him for a moment before she abdicated once more.
"We should go downstairs," said the young man. "Help will certainly be here soon."
She moved her eyes to put them on her husband and said, “I'd rather stay close to him."
"I understand."
Ray hugged Lily before he left to join David.
The caregivers, with David's help, set up Charles's stretcher in the rescue vehicle. Lily watched this operation with great concern, and waited for the moment to be able to ride in the back with him.
Barthey, in front of the door of the villa beside Ray, passed his hand on his face covered with a fresh beard before declaring:
"He's pretty hurt, but he's gonna be OK."
"Still no news of Asarys and the others?" asked Ray, immersed in deep reflection.
"No. As soon as I can, I'll send a team to join them. Agents are setting up their satellite phones to contact them as soon as possible."
"Why isn't a group already on their way to help them?"
"We are at war! I need all my men in the field and I need the Leviathans. Faïz has scattered the teams. We need to think about the inhabitants of L.A."
The young man let out a small throat sound and a nasty grin appeared at the corner of his lips.
"I'll accompany the ambulance to the military hospital and then I'll go to Asarys and the others."
As David closed the doors of the van, he turned to face the two men, still standing on the villa's porch. He met Ray's dark eyes, and his body was suddenly covered with goose bumps. He was relieved that the care team was here with him. Indeed, David was reluctant to be alone with his friend, who had been watching him closely for some time, suspecting the worst. Ray was becoming more and more distant, always with this impression of a latent threat emanating from him.
"Let's go!" Karl said. "You'll follow us in the car. Let's hope nothing happens on the way."
Barthey's words were like a prayer. The detective walked away, leaving it up to Ray to close the door behind him.
An icy breeze brushed against the young man, who repressed a shiver. He suddenly turned around, but apart from the disturbing darkness in the villa, there was no one else inside. Yet a small, barely audible whisper seemed to come from a remote corner of the house. He shook his head to set his thoughts straight and slammed the door.
The avenue was completely deserted. The population was grouped together and confined behind the large buildings.
"Like this, we could think Los Angeles is just asleep," David said looking out his window.
"The fights are further north. The army and the Leviathans have lured the rebels away from the city," Ray explained, driving.
The vehicle was following Barthey's vehicle and the ambulance at high speed.
"Did you try to reach the girls again with the satellite phone?" Ray asked anxiously.
"Yes, several times. Their lines are always out of order."
The accusing look he received forced him to answer in a harsh tone:
"I'm telling you, Ray. I'm as worried as you are. Asarys and Lexy are like family to me. I want to know they're safe t..."
The car braked violently before he could finish his sentence.
"What the hell?!" Ray grunted.
He hesitated for a moment to stay in the vehicle, but when he saw Barthey open his door, he did the same.
"Ray, wait!" David implored him. "You don't know what's going on out there."
"Stay here and lock the doors!"
Around a turn, a roadblock prevented the ambulance from passing. Barthey, leaning against his car, watched, annoyed, this heap of rubble and barriers, a little further on.
"Was that thing here earlier?"
Barthey, with tight lips, shook his head and put his hands on his big black belt.
"Not to my knowledge. The rebels must be close."
Ray then looked up and carefully scanned the surroundings. Despite the religious silence around them, the atmosphere was oppressive. The young man drew his weapon and began to move forward.
"Where are you going?" cried the inspector.
"To secure the perimeter. Charles must get to the military camp as soon as possible. We don't have time to lose. Stay here and cover me."
Before Karl could say anything else, Ray was long gone.
The young man hit the metal barriers with his semiautomatic to warn of his presence. Only the echo answered him. His eyes scanned the facades of the buildings when suddenly a muffled murmur seemed to reach him from behind. He suddenly turned around, but apart from the ambulance and the two vehicles, there was nothing and no one there. His heart panicked and the blood against his temples began to hit him hard.
Barthey was examining the scene with his eyes squinted. He found Ray's behavior increasingly strange, too. Although he was the complete opposite of Faïz, with a kind soul and an unfailing integrity, something had been eating away at him from the inside for some time. The inspector knew the reason, or rather, the name of his discomfort: her name was Asarys. Karl knew how love could wreak havoc. He had seen many colleagues or acquaintances sink into the endless abyss of despair because of this feeling of fabulous and chaotic faith, leading normal people to commit atrocious acts in the name of one person. Barthey began to look all around him, letting his anarchic stream of thoughts swallow up his intuition.
Ray crossed the roadblock after pushing the barriers. It was then that footsteps resounded. The young man seized again his weapon and pointed it in front of him, finger on the trigger. Three men and a woman, with imposing build, got out of one of the buildings. Although they wore uniforms imitating the military's, they were nothing like that. Machine guns in hand, the rebels approached Ray with a ferocious look in their eyes, without a trace of humanity.
"The ghosts said you would come," said the woman whose half of her hair was shaved.
Many piercings adorned her face, and her eyes, accentuated with a layer of black liner, gave her a terrifying look. Numerous cuts covered her arms. These were recent and suggested that she had been in a fight not long ago.
"Let the ambulance through or I'll blow your brains out," threatened Ray with uncompromising hardness, the gun still pointed at them.
The smile of the four protagonists widened, turning into a sinister and predatory grimace. One of the men looked up at the facades of the buildings.
"If I were you, I wouldn't do that," he murmured with a touch of irony and an artificial smile.
In the distance, Barthey had drawn his gun, too. The tension was at its height. The relentless wind was scratching his face. The inspector saw the back door of the ambulance open and Lily's worried face appear.
"Stay inside!" Karl summoned her with grand gestures.
The latter complied. Barthey rubbed his eyes before coming back to Ray who was in great discussion with what seemed to be the leader of this small group.
David had joined the inspector, also ready to intervene if necessary.
"Damn it! What the hell could they be talking about?" Karl mumbled, anxious.
"Why don't they attack us?" the young man asked aloud.
"I don't know. I have no idea. They seemed to be waiting for us."
Suddenly, the rebels moved away from Ray and he raised his arms towards the inspector to indicate that the path was free.
"Get back in the car," Barthey ordered David. "Apparently, by some miracle, they let us go."
The military camp, set up in Grand Park in Downtown and transformed into a makeshift hospital, was swarming with wounded and dying soldiers. This chaotic spectacle gave an idea of the terrible battle that was taking place even further north of the city.
Outside the immense tent, Ray walked in circles while David, located a little further, received the last information on the state of the advance of the container ships in the Arctic Ocean. Lily, eaten up by anxiety, prayed, hands together and eyes closed. After a long, interminable wait, Barthey left the tent accompanied by a doctor closer to retirement than to the beginning of his career. Lily and Ray threw themselves all at once on him.
"How is he?" he hastened to ask the young man.
The doctor looked at his charts above his large glasses that were falling on his nose and approached Lily to give her the latest news.
"Your husband's condition is stable, Mrs. Mattew."
"Thank God," she declared, on the verge of tears, relieved.
Ray wrapped his arm around her shoulders, happy too, to know that Charles was going to make it.
"We must continue to give him the care he needs for his recovery," the doctor continued with a comforting smile, "but Leviathans have a faster healing power than normal people."
Barthey, with a nod, made Ray understand that he had to follow him. The two men moved away, letting Lily enter the tent alone to go to Charles's bedside.
The lights of the huge spotlights illuminated the entire park. Military personnel, heavily armed, surrounded the place with armored war vehicles. The inspector suddenly stopped walking and began to ask the young man the questions that had been burning his mouth for quite some time now:
"What happened at the roadblock?"
Karl's look made it look like he was seeing through Ray.
"I was bluffing. I told them that a group of several men would be arriving soon."
"These people are missionaries. They're not afraid to die a martyr's death. They would never have feared our military."
"Believe me, they're afraid of something. Athanasius has a power over them that forces them to submit to his will. The Maestro's obsession is only the possession of everything on this earth. That's all he cares about. If the rebels feel that you, unlike him, are ready to offer them something else, then they will make you their new king. The government should consider that idea."
Perplexed by the young man's words, Karl opened his mouth, but David arrived at that moment in panic, interrupting the exchange between the two protagonists.
"We're getting to the end of the countdown. We must prepare for the atomic weapons attacks."
"Warn the tactical unit," Ray ordered his friend.
"We have to launch the 'Moon X mission,'" Barthey added, who was already running towards the security headquarters.
"Shit!" Ray shouted, kicking the void. "Faïz failed to stop Athanasius."
"Asarys managed to call on the satellite phone," David confided in a hesitant tone.
"What? Why didn't you let me know he called?" Ray roared.
"The connection was bad," he stammered. "It cut off after a few seconds. She's alive, Lexy's alive."
"Where are they? And Georgia?"
David shrugged, looking embarrassed.
"It was only the two of them at the time, the others were still inside. She didn't have time to tell me more."
"Don't forget to warn the tactical team!" Ray reminded his friend as he walked away.
"But where are you going?"
"To find Asarys."
Worried, David watched Ray wander away until he got lost in the distance in the crowd of caregivers and injured people.
FAÏZ
The young man was breathing heavily to silence the pain that was killing him in his shoulder. He got up again, but this time with more difficulty. Zoe, lying in the corner of the room, was slowly coming back to her senses. A small trail of blood ran down the side of her face continuously. Although the young man was in a terrible state, his only concern was to get her out of here, as quickly as possible. Too bad if he failed to get the Maestro to swallow the ruby, he at least had to save the woman he loved.
"Go!" cried Faïz on alert, fists raised in front of him.
His eyes watched Pavel's every movement who loved every moment of the scene.
"No, I refuse to leave you," replied the young woman, detaching every word.
Faced with her unwavering determination, Faïz clenched his jaw. His eyes were only two slits. It was then that the Maestro's diabolical laughter resounded.
"The lady wants to see more spectacles, we shouldn't disappoint her."
The monster threw himself on Faïz who hit this almost indestructible being as hard as possible. Zoe's eyes widened as she saw the cartilage of the young man's fists deteriorate a little more until his flesh was compl
etely open. The adrenaline then rushed through her veins and without thinking, she threw herself at Pavel. The man grabbed her by the throat, cutting off her breath before sending her rolling on the ground. Without wasting any time, she brought her knees back to her chest and jumped back up on her legs. The Maestro stepped decisively towards Faïz with a roar of fury. Stricken by panic, Zoe looked at the two men one after the other, desperately looking for a way to get Pavel's attention. Suddenly, a memory came back to her like a flash. She pulled on the hair tie in her hair, freeing her thick curly hair and then ripped off the little red jewel that was attached to it.
"Hey!" Zoe shouted at Pavel.
She brandished the object in front of her and added:
"The stone for his life."
A jubilant smile deformed the monster's lips. Hypnotized by what he thought was the ruby of Kushisake, the Maestro left Faïz dying on the ground.
Outside, the fresh air was tingling in Elijah's face. When his feet touched the ground, Lexy, Asarys and Masha ran towards him, their faces tensed with anxiety.
"How is she?" she hastened to ask Lexy, taking Georgia from the Anhel's arms.
"She's breathing," Elijah reassured them. "My princess is a fighter. As brave as her uncle!"
Cuddled in arms she knew well, the little girl opened her eyes gently, as if she were waking up from a long sleep. She looked all around her wondering what she was doing there.
"Where is Meemaw?" she asked in a sad little voice.
The girls and Elijah glanced at each other, uncomfortable with this question. The Anhel then approached Georgia and put his hand to her forehead, and then, with his most dazzling smile, he said:
"Do you remember the animals at the zoo? You liked to watch the lion having fun trying to scare you. There was also that black panther, with the dark eyes. It would chase you to pet it to make it less sad."
And so Elijah continued to tell the little girl the story. Asarys looked closely at the hand on her forehead and suddenly realized that the man was using his power to transform painful memories into new and happier ones.
DARK FAÏZ Book 3: Dawn never keeps its promises Page 19