The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two (59 page)

The glassed doors to the patio burst open,
and four Operatives ran in with assault rifles. They wore full body
armor, visors and the whole bit—but they were off their pace a
little.
Weren’t prepared for the hidden guns
!

Bloody stood in the middle of the room with
his .45. One shot cracked the lead Operative’s helmet, sent him
unconscious to the floor. The next man hit the ground firing. A
brutal spray of lead took Bloody in the chest and threw him against
the bar.

Driver tossed one gun aside, fired at the new
threat, and reached into his coat. The radio detonator looked like
a pocket watch. He thumbed the primer, felt the harsh stab of a
bullet in his thigh, and then pressed the button. A staggering
blast lit the room with white flame. A fireball rolled over
him.

84 – Run for Cover

“The Creature sees Conan with Mr. Jay,” the
Creature told Liz and the Quinlan boys. “And
others
with
him, many hundred.”
The magician had opened his eyes
.
Good
.

“Are they okay?” a Quinlan boy asked.

“You will take the others,” the Creature
said, struggling to control her emotions. She felt the little
fighter’s pain like it was her own and clenched her fists to keep
from crying out. “There will be room.”

“Listen,” Whistles’ said, she’d removed her
moustache so a grimy forever girl’s face peered out from under her
derby. “I’ve closed the bar, and it’s packed with as many of us as
we can fit. The buses are outside and ready. We’re loading food and
weapons. But people are getting curious.”

More forever children entered the basement
and Whistles cursed again, exasperated. “Creature, we got to do
something soon.”

“The Creature sees Mr. Jay approaching,” the
Creature whispered and smiled, but the pleasure caught in her
throat. “Conan is injured,” she said, “and they are followed.”

“Fuck!” barked Whistles, grabbing the plastic
whistle at her throat and chewing. It snapped and broke in her
mouth. She spat it out and started slapping her pockets. “Anybody
got a cigar?”

The Creature turned to the secret door.
Already she had sensed their approach. The Creature felt great pain
in little Conan; it overpowered her senses momentarily but she
rallied on the fact he was alive.

And then Mr. Jay crawled through the opening
with the little fighter cradled in his arms. The magician’s hair
was singed, and his features begrimed with blood and soot. His eyes
were dark and desperate.

The Quinlan boys were there, reaching out for
Conan. Whistles ran forward too, and helped them set the boy aside
on some blankets.

The Creature had opened her perceptions to
Conan. There was pain. His ankle was crushed. There was a deep gash
along his spine. He’d lost a lot of blood and his breathing was
coming in short gasps.

“Get this thing off him,” Whistles growled
and grabbed for the boy’s curious weapon—a many bladed glove. But
Conan’s hand pulled away and a low grumble came from inside the
boy’s helmet.

“Leave it,” Mr. Jay turned suddenly. Little
Dawn had appeared on the stairs. She ran down to embrace him.

The Creature knelt by Conan and was just
about to call for the Nightcare medics when something struck her
mind like a meteorite.

Great evil had been sent after them—darkness
in many shapes and bodies lusting, slavering hungry for the kill.
Not close, but coming fast.

“Creature,” Mr. Jay said, and turned to
Whistles. “You have buses?”

“Yes.” Whistles looked up from Conan.

“The Creature sees you must leave now,” she
said, touching Mr. Jay’s shoulder and then to Whistles. “Load the
buses and go! You must hurry!!”

Muttering curses, Whistles patted Conan’s
shoulder and then hurried upstairs grumbling something about
buses.

“What is it?” Mr. Jay asked and touched the
Creature’s arm.

“You were followed,” she said smiling. “As
we
—as I foresaw.”

“We’ve got time.” Mr. Jay was listening to
something far away, he gestured with his walking stick. “And I can
hold them.”

“It is not your time, it is
mine
,” the
Creature said and then walked across the basement. She climbed on
top of a large whiskey barrel, crossed her legs and arranged
herself facing the secret door.

“What are you doing?” Mr. Jay moved along the
line of forever children. In their nightshirts, they were a strange
sight. Nightcare fighters hurried them through the secret door and
up the stairs. Overhead, she heard Whistles shouting orders.

“I will hold what was sent,” she said and
looked into Mr. Jay’s eyes. “You are needed still.”

“So are you,” he insisted. “You can’t stay,
you’ll be doomed.”

“I was doomed long ago,” the Creature
whispered, reaching out, to caress the magician’s cheek, “when the
first fearful humans needed gods.” She smiled. “As were
you
.” Then she gestured to the terrified forever children as
they passed. “You must give them a chance.”

Mr. Jay hesitated, his eyes heavy with dread.
“I am sorry.”

“We are creatures of habit.” The Creature
grinned. “He who delivered us to this has the greater sin!”

And the magician laid a hand upon her
shoulder and then with words unspoken left to help the forever kids
prepare to run.

The Creature shut her eyes. She spent the
first normal minutes shifting inward, composing her thoughts and
drifting—back to times she’d never reclaim and forward to a life as
a woman she would never live. Then she moved into the other time of
her special perceptions. And while the unborn faces of children
cried and waved and she wept and waved, she found it in herself to
smile. It was an honor to lead the Nightcare. The children had
shown time again how adaptive humans were. They still might survive
what was to come. She drifted. Saw her mother’s face, and her
father’s. She sensed activity at hand, movement, little souls
arrested, clamoring for age, for lives to come: getting ready,
packing things, moving things, giggling and loading the quickly
filling buses. A pang of pain went through her as she felt others
return. They lifted little Conan and took him up to a waiting bus
and to others and to hope.

And at last she felt Mr. Jay’s hands upon her
cheeks and his lips press to hers. A warm stirring in her soul sent
a blush into her face and then laughter to her heart. So that would
be it? The man I kiss. Well, enough, she thought, remembering who
it was that kissed her. He said he loved her and was gone.

The Creature composed herself, straightened
her back, listening to the far off sounds of the buses receding.
There was a long way to go, and already the noises of war were
shaking the barrel under her.

But they were in good hands.
He
had
remembered.

A sound by the secret door told her it was
time. She opened her eyes, saw that Mr. Jay had shut and locked the
way. The Creature watched as the dark things outside thumped, and
banged and smashed the door aside. The false brickwork scattered
over the floor as lean-bodied, muscular forms spilled into the
room. They were human in shape but smaller. Their skulls were
conical and made their faces look larger—beastlike. Mucous trailed
from their eyes, and noses, trailed on the floor between their
legs.

“I know you all,” she said suddenly, and the
scabrous things leaned back whining like dogs, showing their
needlelike teeth. “And welcome you to the Bacchanal.” She shifted
and slid off the barrel, her shoulders square and resolute and her
mind a blaze of power. “Behold!” she said and waved her arms at the
wine racks. “Drink for all.” Lifting both arms her cloak fell into
a tangle on the floor. “And pleasure.”

As the Demons pounced the Creature thought
that it was but a moment in a long life. Unpleasant but no worse
than Conan’s sacrifice.

85 – Descent

“Stop resisting, Sister!” The Prime’s face
was a mask of strain. His heavy hands pulled at her arms. She was
heaved off her feet again. “There isn’t time for this!”

Sister Karen was beyond feeling. The
explosion still rang in her ears. The Prime had barely shut the
doors when the bomb went off. They were knocked down, but the Prime
rebounded quickly, fed by horrific energies.

His aura was black. She struggled with her
newfound vision. How could she love something like this? But she
had
to—her mission said she must. Her heart leapt for joy at
seeing Able again, but its childish optimism could not negate the
harsh reality. Stoneworthy was dead. And evil had taken over the
Tower.

Even as she saw her friend, she knew that he
would not survive intact, that the men involved in this dark
enterprise would find a way to destroy him utterly. The vicious and
sometimes lascivious handling she received from the Prime meant
nothing to her. She’d given her consent for worse in the past. To
accept it now on behalf of love was simple. But poor Able was
fragile despite his strength—he was not so acquainted with sin.

Felon had killed Sister Karen Cawood. He’d
taken her old life that day on the doorstep, the one she was
destroying and now she was being reborn in this.
Holy Mother
guide me
. She had scourged herself of the woman she was, had
washed her away in sin.

Now with the end of the world coming, not
even the Mother of God could save her. Had all her belief, all her
years of denial and doubt come to nothing. Was it so simple? The
power of God was subjective to His will, and efforts contrary to
that would be met or rejected according to some Divine principle
that stood far and beyond mere human understanding. Who was she to
judge God’s plan? She had to submit.

Karen corrected herself. Not submission, but
love was what she needed now. She could not give in to despair or
abject obedience. She was a vessel for God’s love. She had to be
open so that it might flow through her. That had to be enough.

The Prime dragged her along a corridor and to
the waiting elevators.

“It won’t be so bad.” The Prime spun her
around, snarling.

“God loves you…” she started but a big angry
fist sent her sprawling. Stars sparkled across her vision. When her
eyes first set on the Prime, she had been horrified by his aura. It
was like Felon’s, in its potential for violence, but lacked the
orderly, logical overtones of the assassin. The Prime’s energies
were flailing about him like tentacles—a horrible chaos that struck
with blind ferocity. He flared hatred and envy at any he gazed
upon. He was past reason.

Did the beasts reason? Did they not listen to
Daniel?
With greatest love, I offer myself to You and pray that
You will accept my sacrifice of greatest love. I give myself to You
and unite in Your gift of Yourself to me. Come and possess my
soul
.

“
His
time is finished!” The Prime
loomed over her. He stabbed the button beside the elevator. The
doors slid apart. “We’ll make up a nice prayer to
me
.” He
launched an angry kick at her. She avoided the main strength of it
by rolling into the open elevator. The Prime stalked after her,
glared and jabbed one of the buttons just inside. Immediately the
doors closed and the elevator descended. “Do not provoke me,
Sister.”

Karen watched the Prime pull at his trousers.
Something snakelike writhed beneath the loose material.

“God loves you, and I love you! Do not hate!”
she rasped, and then flung a hand over her head as the Prime struck
at her, pulled her to her feet and tore at her clothing. She
struggled, and they fell against the wall by the door.
Help me
to love God more deeply in this act of my greatest love
.

“You love me? Good GOD!” he snarled, pulling
her shirt open. “I own this City! I own Westprime! They think they
can take it away from me. Fuck them. It’s mine to the end.” The
Prime fell silent. The big man’s hands pulled her skirt up, pawed
at her undergarments. “But you
are
beautiful.”

She did not try to cover her nudity. Her
breasts burned with scratches. But she could see the Prime was
lost. His evil was not entirely his own. Part of her wanted to
scream, but she prayed instead. “God loves you in his mercy! I love
you in your torment.”
To Thee we look for strength and
aid
.

“You’re a dirty girl.” The Prime’s eyes
burned like black fire as they roved over her naked chest and
belly. His fat lips opened with desire, a gray tongue flicked out.
“Fuck it. I’m going to
know
you
now
! ” He pressed
against her breasts—pushed her onto the floor while he opened his
belt with the free hand. Karen screamed when she saw his pants fall
away, when she first glimpsed the double set of organs, one purple
and human, the other enormous, scabrous and black. “So you’re God’s
wife?” The Prime grabbed her underwear, ripped them off. “I guess
you know a few tricks, then.” Karen turned away as he loomed.

The elevator, jerked to a stop. The Prime’s
head popped up. A hunted look crossed his features.

“Fuck!” He struck her in the face with the
back of his hand, and then pushed himself to his feet. The Prime
glared at the elevator buttons. He pulled his pants up, shoved his
monstrous genitalia away. The leader of Westprime shook his head
and slicked his hand over his hair. “Too early for this.” He
nodded. “
He
said we’re supposed to do it in front of him.”
He pointed a finger at Karen as a shudder ran through his fat
frame. “And you think
I’m
a sicko.” He turned toward the
doors as they slid open, his fists raised. “We’re not supposed to
stop here.” He glowered at her. “Unless you hit the button when
we…”

And a little girl of eight or nine pre-Change
years walked onto the elevator. She wore a white satin dress that
reminded Karen of countless communions. There were white stockings
on her thin legs and white patent leather shoes on her feet. A
heavy veil hung over her pale face.