“Eternal rest sound pretty damn good right about now,” he shot back, only to receive a smack on the head. “Owch!”
“Mind your language, especially when you’re in a church.”
“It’s not like this place is a real church.”
“That doesn’t matter. Real or not, it is still a church, and I won’t have you disrespecting God by swearing in a place meant to bind two people in holy matrimony.”
“Whatever,” Tristin grumbled. Cripes this woman was a fanatic. Even Christian wasn’t this bad. He believed in God, sure, but he didn’t blow his top and get violent when Tristin said something insulting.
Then again, he and Christian had known each other for years before they joined the Executioners. Samantha hadn’t.
He missed his best friend.
With a disheartened sigh, he followed Samantha as she led him out the back of the church. His butt was still sore―just walking hurt. Samantha had not been gentle when she used a pair of pliers she’d found inside of the church to pull the bullet from his bum, nor had she been tender when she cleaned it.
At least his butt wouldn’t be getting infected any time soon.
He still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
“Follow me and be sure to stay as silent as possible,” Samantha said.
Tristin nodded, even though the woman couldn’t see it. “Right.”
They crept along the alley, moving as cautiously as possible. There was a pile of trashcans near the entrance, which they hid behind. While Tristin huddled down, knees pressed against his chest and arms around his knees, Samantha peeked out into the street beyond the alley.
“I can’t see anything from here,” she determined after a few more seconds of staring. She crouched back down and began moving further into the alley again. “Come on. We need to find a higher vantage point.”
Tristin sighed, but he didn’t put up a fight and followed the woman as she moved. What else could he do? Go out on his own? Not unless he wanted to get ripped apart by demons.
They passed the church, climbed over a small wooden fence, and made it to another alley. Grayish walls with stains and cracks closed in around them. The buildings were tall enough to keep much of the red barrier concealed from their view, unless one were to look directly up. Pipes, shoots, and tiny metal boxes covered some of the walls on either side, casting strange shadows that morphed and shifted to create inorganic patterns that defied all sense of reason, or maybe it was just Tristin’s mind playing tricks on him. Demonic barriers had a way of messing with a person’s head if they weren’t careful.
Samantha led him to a ladder attached to the building on their left. She then turned to him and gestured to it. “You go up first.”
“What?” Tristin blinked. “Why?”
“Because you’re a lecher, and I don’t want you staring at my backside while I’m climbing up.”
Tristin felt like pouting, but he couldn’t deny that the woman had a point. That did sound like something he would do.
“Alright, fine. I’ll go first.”
Tristin grabbed the rungs, grimacing. The bars were cold and covered in rust. He could feel his hands getting grimy and disgusting just from touching them. Repulsed, he was almost tempted to let go.
“Hurry up, Tristin.”
Almost because Samantha was standing there, and he knew she would not let him get out of this. So he climbed up, putting one hand above the other, planting his feet on each rung as he climbed up, reminding himself that no matter how unpleasant it felt, the consequences of not climbing would be much worse.
When he arrived at the top, he scrambled onto the building, tempted to kiss the pavement. Samantha appeared on the roof several seconds later, having been following close behind. While Tristin was content to simply sit there on the roof, Samantha was not, and she walked over to the edge of the building, crouching down and peering over it to see if she could spot something that might be useful.
Tristin watched Samantha for a few seconds more, then turned his attention towards the sky. Red. He was really beginning to hate that color. It represented just about everything he didn’t like. It was the color of the first thing he could remember of his past, of waking up with no recollection of who he was or where he was or how he even got there, of blood splattered against the floors, walls, ceiling, and himself, of two corpses that he did not recognize, lying on the ground, ichor pooling around them to form thick, sticky puddles.
Unlike most members of the Executioners, Tristin had not joined because he enjoyed battle and bloodshed. Much like how Christian had joined because he felt he could help humanity, Tristin had joined because he felt he could help Christian.
Ever since the time when they were young, and Christian had stood up to several bullies who were picking on him because his genetics made most men hate him, he’d felt a sense of kinship with the young man. It was amusing. Christian was the only male he could really put up with. Even Leon grated on his nerves.
Unlike most men who often felt like he was encroaching on their territory, Christian didn’t even seem to realize he had a territory for Tristin to encroach on. He suspected that the reason for this lay in Christian’s genes. It was the very same genetic code that made him immune to Lilith’s allure.
Or maybe Tristin was just over thinking things. That was always a possibility.
Movement alerted him to Samantha crouching down next to him. The woman had her game face on as she unlatched the lock on her case and pulled out all the items therein.
“Alright.” She set her sword down and grabbed a folded-up sheet of paper. It was a map, Tristin soon realized as she unraveled the item and spread it across the rooftop between them. “This is where we are.” Samantha pointed to a building on the map. “Currently, there are sixteen marionettes patrolling the street in our general location here, here, here, and here. They seem to be moving in groups of four. I suspect each group farther out are also grouped in groups of four, though I can’t be certain.”
“It looks like they have us mostly surrounded,” Tristin said, his manner neither joking nor complaining anymore. Now just wasn’t the time for that. “They’ve blocked off the four crossroads for this block. If we’re to base the movement of these four groups with what the others have done, then they are likely doing the same with every city block.”
“Those were my thoughts as well,” Samantha said. She seemed pleased for some reason, or at least satisfied. Tristin wondered why. “We won’t be able to get out of this without fighting, and I suspect that they have four to each group for a reason.”
“Three to send after us as a distraction. One to alert the others to our location.”
Samantha nodded.
“Right.”
“So then, what should we do?” Tristin scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t think I need to tell you this, but I suck at fighting. And while I’m awesome at gathering intelligence and analyzing it, I suck at formulating plans.”
“Do not worry about that.” Samantha waved off his concerns. “I’ve taken your lack of fighting prowess into account. The key to getting out of this will be in my ability to kill all four marionettes in each group before they can get off a warning. Surprise will be our best ally here.”
“And what comes next?”
“We’ll make our way back to the News Station. That’s likely where Mephisto is. He’ll be immobile as long as he’s maintaining the barrier. Dealing with him will be easy, provided he doesn’t have any nasty surprises waiting for us.”
“Gotcha. Guess this means my job is to simply stay out of your way while you do your stuff.”
“Glad to see you understand.” Samantha grabbed Zaphkiel as she stood to her feet. She left the case on the ground. “Let’s go. I would like to escape this barrier before the hour is up.”
Their plan in place and a destination set, the two ran over to the roof of the building. There, Samantha leapt onto the next building several feet over. She landed, her knees bend
ing, and then turned around and gestured for Tristin to follow her. He did so, grimacing as he leapt across the small chasm. When he landed on the roof of the other building, he winced, feeling a jolt of pain travel up his legs and into his brain.
How Samantha and Christian could do this so easily was beyond him.
Continuing to travel along the roofs, the pair eventually reached the end of the city block. They crouched down behind a small cement wall that hid them from the view of anyone who looked up. Samantha was peering over the edge, carefully looking down.
“Four marionettes,” she murmured to herself, eyes narrowed. “This is going to be more difficult than I thought.”
Wanting to know what she meant, Tristin also peeked onto the street below. All four marionettes were spread out several yards apart. That was too far for someone to take them out in a single blow. If Samantha wanted to kill them, it would have to be one on one, and that would give one if not all three of the others time to escape. If Samantha wanted to have any hope of killing them, then they would need to find some way to make them all clump together.
His mind turned the problem over, but he couldn’t see a solution. Fortunately for him, Samantha did.
Putting her fingers to her lips, her cheeks puffed up and a shrill whistle was released. Oddly enough, the whistle did not sound like it came from her lips, but somewhere down below. Ventriloquism. She was throwing her voice.
“I didn’t know you knew how to do that,” Tristin said.
“There are probably a lot of things I can do that you don’t know about.”
“Touché.”
The four marionettes swiveled about and moved toward where the whistle appeared to have come from, directly beneath the building they were on. Tristin almost shook his head. Marionettes might make great cannon fodder, but they were pretty stupid.
From the corner of his eye, Tristin saw Samantha ready herself. Her left hand had a tight grip of Zaphkiel’s sheath, while her right rested against the lip of the rising wall. She released steady, even breaths, causing her shoulder to move up, hold, then go down as she exhaled. She did this exactly three times, and then jumped, throwing herself over the side of the building.
Tristin leapt up as well, but not to jump off the building. He leaned over and looked down, watching Samantha. The woman descended quickly. Her midnight hair whipped around behind her, right hand moving to rest on Zaphkiel’s hilt. He imagined she must have looked like some kind of avenging angel from the marionettes’ position.
She removed her sword from its sheath. Tristin could barely see it. To him, it looked like a mere flash of light.
She landed on the ground and threw herself into a forward roll. As she came to her feet, Tristin noticed that she was already sheathing her blade. There was a click, soft, like whispering wind, and it yet somehow resonated throughout the street. A second later, all four marionettes fell apart, their bodies sliced into exactly four segments.
Tristin whistled.
“Tristin,” Samantha called up to him. “Hurry up and find a way down here. We need to move before we’re spotted.”
“Right.”
Tristin searched for a ladder or something he could use to climb down. When he realized there were no ladders he swore, and then began to search for something else that could help him down.
He eventually found that something in a metal pipe that connected the roof to the ground. It was hardly the ideal way of descending from his position, but he had little choice in the matter. He swallowed his fear, ignored the queasiness inside of his stomach, and began climbing down via the pipe. At least, that was his plan. Sadly, bad plans had a way of going awry when you least expected them to.
In the red light of the barrier, it was hard to notice that the pipe was covered in grime and thus slippery. Rather than climbing down, Tristin ended up sliding down. Without being able to stop himself, he moved quickly to the bottom, a shriek of fear proceeding his descent. He then crashed into the ground. His legs and knees gave out quickly as he fell to the floor in a heap of twitching limbs.
Dizzy, hurt, and trying to figure out why everything looked so blurry, Tristin didn’t see Samantha come up to him until she was grabbing his arm, dragging him to his feet.
“Hurry up, Tristin!” She snapped, angry for some reason. “Thanks to that racket you made, I’m sure that every marionette within ten miles of us now knows where we are.”
Tristin would have retorted, regardless of how true her statement was, but he was still dizzy. Of course, Samantha wouldn’t have given a chance to dispute her claim anyway. She was already dragging him out of the alley he landed in, her feet pounding against pavement and forcing him to run along behind her with a stumbling gate as he nearly tripped over his own two feet.
True to Samantha’s prediction, it seemed his horrified yell had indeed caused a good portion of the marionettes scouring the barrier covered city to home in on their location. They were forced to fight a running battle, or rather, Samantha was forced to fight a running battle and protect him while they tried to make it out alive.
The woman was like a swift and powerful wind blowing through the trees. Her black hair flowed behind her as she wove across the streets. Her blade flashed out of its sheath, slicing apart marionettes like they weren’t even there, like they were made of paper. It would then move back into its sheath seconds later, only to flash out again when she reached her next target.
Yet even with Samantha doing everything in her power to kill off their pursuers, it was not long before they found themselves overwhelmed. Left with no other options, the two of them were forced into another alley. This one, situated between several towering buildings, was cleaner than most, with only a small series of trash cans set against their left. It also had a locked gate that lead to some kind of courtyard connected to what appeared to be a casino.
Samantha sliced apart the chains that locked the gate, kicked it open, and ran inside.
“Come on!”
Tristin followed her advice. He ran in swiftly, leaving the gates wide open. It wouldn’t do any good to close it now that the chains locking it were in pieces.
They ran over to the nearest door, Samantha kicking it open and hurrying inside. Tristin proceeded in after her, his heart hammering in his chest, fear and adrenaline mixing together in his veins.
The room they entered was a casino. Slot machines were lined up in neat little rows. Tables where people played poker, roulette, and many other games of chance dotted the areas that were clear of machines. There was also a bar near the center, large and made of wood, with around three dozen cushioned stools arrayed around it. Near the father corner to their left sat a small stage with several instruments set out around it.
Wisps of red energy wafted around the room. Their forms shifting in and out of focus. Humans. This place was inhabited by many humans, their physical bodies incapable of reaching the separate world he and Samantha found themselves in, but still existing alongside of them like two sides of the same coin.
As Tristin continued running, the first few marionettes burst into the room. Samantha spun, Zaphkiel hissing out of its sheath. Light flashed, a bright red that blinded the eyes. Then it faded with the sibilant sound of it being resheathed.
The marionettes fell apart. Samantha ran to catch up to Tristin, and together, the two rushed out of the main casino and into the main lobby.
Looking more like the entrance hall to a grand mansion of the sixteenth century, the lobby was open and spacious. Gleaming marble tiles created intricate designs along the floor, patterns made to appear organic and cost a fortunate to have made. Large columns made of granite climbed up to the roof. Their intricately carved designs crafted at the top let everyone know they were there for decoration and not actual support. A sweeping staircase led to the second floor, with enough red carpet to make anyone walking on it feel like a star. A counter lay on the opposite side, built into the wall, where people could get their card keys to access their rooms. The room w
as very beautiful and extravagant.
It was also filled with several dozen marionettes.
Samantha and Tristin were forced into an abrupt halt. The path they had used to enter became blocked off as more marionettes streamed in. They were surrounded by a dozen puppets, their almost human looking faces staring down at them with emotionless glass eyes, wooden joints clacking and snapping with each movement.
As Tristin found himself staring down the barrel of several dozen guns, he gulped, and found himself leaning into Samantha so he could whisper, “I really, really, really hope you have some kind of plan for getting us out of this.”
The look of defeat on Samantha’s face did not bode well for him.
“I wish I did, but against this many marionettes...” She trailed off and shook her head. “I can’t protect you and escape at the same time.”
Well that just sucked.
“So you’re going to leave me here.” Tristin felt strange. The fear left him. In fact, everything left him. An unusual emotional numbness spread from the center of his chest, engulfing him. He wondered if this was his way of accepting his death. A smirk appeared on his face. “Heh. Hehehehe. I guess I should have expected this to happen. It makes sense. I would only slow you down.”
“Tristin, do me a favor and shut up.” Tristin blinked. His mind came to and his heart jumped. Samantha was scowling at him. “I have no intention of leaving you. You may be a jerk, a lecherous, filthy, disgusting little―”
“You are so nice, you know that?”
“―monster, but you are still my subordinate. And in case you have forgotten, I never leave those under me to fend for themselves, especially when they aren’t capable of it.”
“You really know how to make a guy feel special,” he said, his voice dripping with cynicism. “Truly. I practically feel my heart bursting with all of the lovely things you have to say about me.” A small, soft smile, so unlike Tristin that he actually scared himself when he felt it appear, crossed his face. “Samantha, thank you.”
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