Fallen Angels
by
Ashlynn Monroe
Evernight Publishing
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2010 Ashlynn Monroe
ISBN: 978-0-9867225-0-9
Cover Artist: Dara England
Editor: Hannah Giersdorf
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
To all the wonderful people who have encouraged and supported me. Thank you for your love, and for being who you are. God bless you all, and also God bless everyone who reads my work. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Fallen Angels
Ashlynn Monroe
Copyright © 2010
Chapter One
Sisters of the Merciful Truth Convent-1861-Texas
“Run!” Mother Superior called to the nuns. “We need to get out of here! Hurry sisters, leave the altar vestments, we must go, now!”
This was the first time Mother Superior had ever felt fear standing within the church. Watching the young women under her charge flee into the street, realizing too late her mistake in allowing them to leave the building. She watched the men, holding their guns firmly as charges burst in the air, displaying no remorse over killing innocent young women and caught her sob, not allowing herself to give into the pain of what she saw—her sisters lying dead in the street. She had no idea what to do. Suddenly their place with the church, their devotion to the Lord offered no protection.
One of the girls, a novice who had yet to take her vows, whimpered, “Mother, shall I pray?”
The small question broke her heart. She remembered holding the young woman who had questioned her, rocking her to sleep as an infant. She took her cold hand as blood spilled into the dusty street and the bitter, metallic odor of gunpowder infused the air.
They had no weapons. It was time to pray.
****
Justice was washing luncheon dishes in the convent kitchen with her sisters. Grace sat with her feet propped up on a chair, eating an apple while Purity and Chastity tried to work around her. Purity scowled and knocked her sister’s feet out of the way. Growing up in the convent had made the daily chores second nature to all but Grace. The afternoon clean up ritual was their time to gossip and just be young women and sisters together, and while it could get tedious, they loved it.
A sudden rush of noise from the sanctuary rocked the kitchen, interrupting their work. The wooden bowl Justice was washing crashed to the floor.
“What on Earth was that noise?” Purity demanded.
Justice peeked through the small window. Men with guns stormed up the church steps, over the bodies of her beloved fellow nuns. Justice whirled back away from the window.
“What is it?” Grace sounded annoyed.
The nunnery was separated from the church by many out buildings and a courtyard of carefully tended trees, which must have insulated the sisters from the commotion of the initial attack. Justice felt the safety of her world shatter like glass, the shards cutting her soul. After the fearful days of being orphans, they had thought harm could never come to them here. But, Justice noted as she saw the red soaking into the white clothing of the novices, death obviously did not discriminate between the pure and impure. An hour earlier or later and it could have been her blood sisters laying discarded in the dirt.
Justice felt unable to answer Grace’s question. It was just too horrible. Tears clouded her vision but she found her voice.
“We’re under attack. We have to hide. Sisters are dead.”
“That can’t be true!” Grace protested, “No man would harm a sister, his soul would be damned to Hell for eternity. Why would anyone want to hurt any of us?”
Purity’s voice was bitter as she answered, “We might be brides of Christ, but we live in this house due to The Family’s generosity. How many times have we hidden their illegal activities, or cared for their wounded?”
“We have to hide, right now!” Justice hissed.
Purity leapt from her stool. “I will not let strangers kill our family. God will protect us. Hurry, we can help them.”
Justice watched, stunned, as her sister grabbed a large rolling pin and sprang from the relative safety of the kitchen. She glanced at her remaining siblings, Chastity clenching the broom from the kitchen, Grace shaking, terrified. Justice knew Grace was easily frightened by the world, and she felt a small measure of relief knowing that she was staying behind safely. Purity was far ahead of them and Chastity and Justice rushed to catch up to the wild woman. Purity had no fear and without intervention she would certainly be one of the many dead.
The sanctuary was eerily quiet as they entered, empty and wrong.
Violated.
The church was empty, but the sound of the rectory door slamming told Justice that the terror had moved through the sanctuary. Looking around, her heart compared the armed men with locusts. They had destroyed her hallowed place as pests destroyed a field, the destruction complete and terrible. Justice set her hand on the worn wood of the pew and felt something sickeningly warm. What she had thought was a wine stain on the white altar cloth was suddenly too red to be the sacrament wine. Looking around in disbelief, Justice realized that blood corrupted the sacred space. It dripped from a nearby statue of Saint John. Everywhere she looked blood of her sisters, sainted with untimely deaths, splattered the lovingly cared for church.
She heard a scream from the rectory and hurtled toward the sound, and suddenly tripped over something. Something soft. She caught herself against a pew and found herself looking down into the dead, sightless eyes of Sister Agnes. A scream wrenched from her throat. Justice fell back and Chastity caught her.
“Stay here,” Chastity murmured. “I’m going to get Purity and drag her back to the kitchen. Just stay here.”
Justice slid to the wooden floor of the church and knelt beside the frail woman’s body, tears choking her. Sister Agnes dead. Her younger sister taking care of her when Justice, as the oldest, should be looking out for her. Her world and home destroyed.
A gunshot rang in her ears and Justice forced herself to her feet just in time to see Chastity, her sweet sister, sliding down the wall of the rectory, a smear of blood painting red along the white wall behind her.
Without a thought for her own safety, Justice screamed. The man who had shot her sister turned, gun in hand, and grinned a rotten toothed grin that made her sick. His soft chuckle raised the hair on her arms. He aimed at Justice. The moment froze and she waited to die.
With a loud thump, the man suddenly fell forward, revealing Purity, rolling pin held high. The gun slid across the bloody floor toward Justice and without thought, Justice picked it up and aimed it at the killer. Her only desire was to protect her sisters and herself. She had never held a gun before.
“You have to turn the crank,” Purity whispered hoarsely.
Justice followed the instruction and the world slowed down around her. A line of red burst across the man’s white linen shirt and somewhere far away she heard the soft pings of the cartridges hitting the ground. For a timeless moment, Justice stood looking at what she had done and then guilt began to tear at her soul. She had committed the worst of sins. Purity was kneeling next to Chastity, shaking her, trying to revive her. Nothing. Multiple bullets had torn through her body and Chastity lay dead in a pool of her own
blood. Justice straightened her sister’s skewed habit, feeling the automatic weapon dangling heavily in her other hand.
Another scream rent the air. It was Grace. There was nothing Justice could do for Chastity except save her twin. Without thought, she flew out the rectory door, into the bright afternoon sun, fully exposed to danger. Several shots fired in her direction, but she kept running. Grace screamed again, and Justice forced herself to sprint faster. Purity had obviously chosen to take the safer but longer way, through the building.
When Justice burst through the kitchen door, what she saw was nightmarish. Three men held her sister on the kitchen table, the table at which they ate and prepared food. Her habit was gone, her simple frock ripped from her pale body, her white petticoat yanked up around her hips. Justice could see blood on her thighs. A big, mole covered man was brutally ramming his cock into her screaming sister. His greasy hair frantically flew around his face as he moved. To Justice, he looked like the devil. There was no decision, no thought. Justice raised the gun with two hands and began to crank the gears. It fired into the men. The man who was raping her sister fell onto her, dead. Grace screamed, breaking Justice’s trance. She leapt toward her sister and pulled the heavy dead man away. His body hit the wooden floor with a thump. Both of the men who had been holding Grace down, waiting for their turns, lay dead on the floor.
So much blood. Justice turned, fell to her knees, and began to vomit as Purity burst through the door. When she saw Grace, she swiftly hurried to her sister, tears streaming down her face. They wept together as Justice laid curled up in a ball on the floor, feeling the reality of the situation begin to sink in.
She had taken lives. She was a murderer. God would never forgive her. Chastity was dead. Justice wanted to die. She wanted the pain and fear to end.
The back door of the kitchen cracked against the wall and the women jumped. A man rushed in and Justice fumbled for the gun as Grace screamed.
“No, Justice, it’s The Family. We’re safe now,” Purity shouted.
Justice let the gun fall and just let her tears escape. Looking at them with embarrassment, the man mumbled an apology and rushed out, a rifle at his side. Justice knew that a rifle was no better than a bow and arrow compared to a hand held Gatling. Another man, also of The Family, and much more heavily armed, rushed in behind the first, not even sparing the sisters a look as he followed his associate. Justice was relieved to see the firepower. At least some of The Family had better firepower than the attackers had. Even a nun knew guns. With the mafia fighting for territory in Texas and a civil war raging, guns were more abundant than food.
Justice somehow found the strength to stand. She and Purity helped Grace back into the remains of her habit as a round of gunfire signaled the end of the attack. Silence burned her ears.
The quiet was more terrible to Justice than the loudest of shrieks. Screams would have meant survivors—silence was the sound of death. Slowly the realization that they were the only ones left overcame Justice and she wept. The three sisters held each other for support. Everywhere they looked people they cared about lay dead. Their habits stained with blood.
After the gangs had cleared the scene, leaving behind the broken windows and bloody dead, the townspeople came out to help the three remaining sisters bury their fellow nuns and their sister. With the priest also dead from the barrage of bullets, Justice was left to lead the service over the mass grave. Between her words she could hear the women weeping, her surviving sisters, but she managed to hold herself together.
She felt as if standing before God, committing the many buried saints to him, was blasphemy. She had killed a man. God could never forgive her for that. She had killed a helpless man for vengeance. Guilt and grief battled in her heart, each trying to hurt her more. Justice let her mind shut down and numbness settled in, finding comfort in familiar words.
After it was over, she wobbled to a chair and collapsed. A woman brought her a glass of water, but she pushed it away, mumbling a weak apology. She moved to stand, to go to her sisters, but as she looked up, the blackness began to envelope her. Bright blue sky and puffy white clouds were her last sight before her eyes closed and oblivion took her.
Chapter Two
February 1865-Texas
Justice calmly chewed her tobacco and watched a burly bearded man pick up his fellow card player and throw him across the bar in her favorite place to get a drink in Galveston. Sid, the bartender, yelled at the angry man to take it outside and, with a cascade of curses, the man hauled the cheat off the bar and carried him out.
Justice stood and spit her chewing tobacco in a spittoon near a tall man wearing a confederate uniform who shot her a dirty look through his scraggly hair. She glared right back at him. Despite the uniform, she doubted he was actually enlisted. The rebels had taken over Galveston on New Year’s Eve in 1863. Uniforms were meaningless.
She moved toward the bar and Sid immediately poured her a double whiskey. He was a damn fine bartender. Justice turned toward the stage as a round of applause started, trying to sip her drink dispassionately. The person she had come to see was about to perform.
As hard as it was for her, Justice refused to show any emotion or to turn away. Guilt was a two way street and she could dish it out as well as she had been taking it for such an insufferably long time.
As Purity stepped out onto the stage, Justice noticed many of the men seemed exceedingly more eager for her sister’s performance than for those of the other dancers. Several men whistled and shouted.
Justice hated what her sister did. What the girl had become had made Justice cry herself to sleep on more than one occasion. She couldn’t blame Purity, not after what had happened, but it was a knife in her heart to know the path her quiet, studious, and devout sister had taken was because Justice had failed to protect her. Before she could focus on the ugly thoughts, she turned her attention back to her sister.
The piano player began a lusty tune and Purity shook her pasty covered nipples. Her little skirt and pasties matched perfectly. Justice remembered the crooked seams of Purity’s habit and wondered if her sister’s abysmal sewing skills had improved. Purity spun in time with the piano music. The men hooted loudly as she slowly pulled her skirt down over her hips, exposing her pale buttocks, covered only by a hot pink g-string. It still amazed Justice, even after all the dreadfulness she had experienced, that Purity had the courage to strip.
It was clear that part of the courage was liquid. Purity weaved as she danced. Without her skirt, Purity staggered over to the pole planted in the center of the stage and began to twirl artfully. Her experience with the maneuver was obvious. Even drunk the woman knew how to move.
Justice watched sadly as her sister titillated the crowd. She thumbed the rosary in her pocket in an unconscious nervous gesture. Purity stopped spinning and strutted to the side of the stage, where she bent over, and whispered to a whiskered old timer at the stage’s edge. He happily pulled one of her pasties free, she stood and removed the other, all the men cheered, and as she bent down again he slipped a Confederate bill in her g-string. She put his face between her ample breasts and squeezed. His expression made Justice worry that his old heart would stop if her sister didn’t stop first.
When the music ended Purity left the stage with a falsely cheerful wave and Justice took her whiskey and the glass of gin that Sid had handed her to the backroom, where Purity was sitting on the floor weeping. No matter how bad things had gotten between them, her sister’s pain broke her heart. Justice handed her the gin and sat down with her. Purity downed the whole glass and issued a sorry little excuse for a hiccup, then looked at Justice for a moment before she burst into tears again.
Sighing, Justice put her arm around her sister, but Purity angrily shoved her away.
“I told you not to come here while I’m working! Some people make an honest living, you know. I hate you wearing those goddamn guns in here! Why do they always let you keep them on? They take everyone else’s at the door.
”
“Sid wants to keep his balls attached. He knows better than to try to take my little friends away,” Justice answered her sister lightly before delving into the real issue. “I came here because I have to talk to you. I knew I’d have to wait until you were working to catch you. I never get a response when I instant telegraph you.”
“That’s because I don’t have the computing box any more. I traded it.”
Justice had purchased the computing box from the general store in Dallas. It was a beautiful machine. The large screen was framed with glided scrollwork and the keys sat on nice tray with golden legs. The machine’s parts were worth what most people made in a year. What could have possessed her deranged, drunken sister to part with it?
“What did you need so badly, Purity?” Justice demanded, hiding her hurt with anger. “You could have just asked me for it!”
“I don’t want your damn blood money! You’d never have given me money for Jimmy anyway.”
Purity’s boyfriend, Jimmy, was really her pimp. He ran Martha’s and when the stage show was over, for the right price, a man could enjoy private entertainment upstairs. Jimmy made Justice’s skin crawl.
“What in the hell did Jimmy need money for? He makes enough in one night to make the take from my last bank robbery look like pin money.”
Purity leaned forward and whispered drunkenly, “Don’t tell anyone this, but he’s been threatened. The Family has moved into the area and they want a cut of Martha’s. He could buy their protection in a lump sum or give them a cut off the top. He wanted to just buy them off.”
“Then he’s more of an idiot than I thought. If they get a large sum, they’ll just know they have a fresh fish. When they want your money, you pay or you get fitted for your pine box. What do you see in that fool?”
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