by Keri Hudson
“An… an abortion? Sabrina… I’m Catholic!”
“So you’d do this instead?”
“It doesn’t matter! I’m poisoned, tainted, their juices are all inside me, in my blood…”
“Take it easy, Rachel—”
“I will, Sabrina, I… I will, because I’ve earned it.”
After a long, dubious pause, Sabrina said, “Okay, sure.”
“I’ve earned a rest, don’t you think, for shit’s sake?” Rachel broke out in a little chuckle.
Sabrina glanced at Marcus, then back at Rachel, and joined her in a little forced laughter. “Um, yes,” Sabrina said, “for shit’s sake!” Both women laughed a bit more.
Rachel looked to Marcus as if she was about to pull that trigger, and he didn’t want to wait to be sure. “Rachel, you… I think we all forgot about something!”
The gun yielding just a bit from the side of her head, Rachel asked, “W-w-what’s that?”
“The other girls, the other survivors, we have to look out for them, make sure they got through this all right.”
Sabrina clearly caught on immediately. “That’s right,” she said to Rachel. “I… there was one girl, Kathy, sister of a friend of mine. That’s what got me wound up in all this. But Rachel, I… I couldn’t save her, and it tears me apart. But… we have to move on with life, right? Right?” Rachel nodded, and Sabrina went on, “Right now, we can’t help Kathy, but we can help them. And we have to… don’t we?”
Rachel broke out in a sad little smile, tears streaming down her face. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
Sabrina went on, “We have to show them that we can get through this, that we can get through anything! And that means being strong, doing the right thing.”
Marcus watched in a pitched silence, eyes shifting from one young woman to the other.
“Right,” Rachel said. “The right thing.”
“Come back to town with us,” Marcus said. “We’ll make sure the other girls are okay.”
“And that we’re all okay,” Sabrina said.
Rachel repeated, “Okay.”
Sabrina asked, “Okay?” Marcus looked on, reading Rachel’s face, sensing her despair. Sabrina asked again, “Okay, Rachel?”
Rachel stood with a fragile smile, glancing from Sabrina to Marcus. “Okay?” Marcus nodded with a small, forced smile, and Rachel said again, “Okay,” and released a long, relieved sigh.
Bang!
“Rachel!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Sabrina rushed toward Rachel, but Marcus held her back, strong and comforting, holding her tight and near to him. Sabrina broke out in a heart-wrenching sob, turning her face into his chest and letting a week of outrageous pressure spill out.
Marcus gently stroked the back of her head, red curls hanging down over her robe.
“She… she didn’t do anything wrong,” Sabrina said between gasps for breath.
“No, Sabrina, no, she didn’t.”
“She… she was the bravest one, the first to go off the stairs… remember? Remember?”
Marcus pulled Sabrina a bit closer. “Yes, my love, I remember.”
They stood there, the sun going down over the plantation. Sabrina sniffled a bit, nuzzling into his chest. “So… what do we do now? The police will be here soon.”
“Yeah, maybe. But we can’t be here when they do.” Marcus turned to Sabrina, looking her dead in the eye. “It’d be best if we both just… disappear.”
Sabrina nodded, as if she’d already come to the same conclusion. She rested her hand in his. “As long as we disappear… together.”
Marcus glanced back at Rachel. “I think there’s only one fitting way to finish this.” He read her confused expression, the tilt of her head, and explained, “A Viking’s funeral.” Marcus stepped over to Rachel’s body and picked her up in a cradle carry, one arm hanging slack. “Take the gun and wait. Anything happens, shout.”
Sabrina nodded as Marcus carried Rachel toward the plantation house, passing one dead body after another. “Sorry you had to end it this way, Rachel, but… well, you put up one helluva fight. I sure wish you one helluva rest.”
He carried her inside and laid Rachel on the sofa in the living room, trashed after the massive battle. Folding her hands over her chest and brushing her bloodied blonde hair from her face, Marcus recited the one passage he recalled from the bible, Isaiah 41:10. “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
She lay there, as close to being at rest as she would ever be. And Marcus knew there was little time to spare. He looked around the ravaged and bloodied living room for anything he might be able to light a fire with. He found his blue robe and put it on, then crossed to the fireplace. There were matches and some lighter fluid, which he knew would be ideal.
He squeezed the metal canister and spread the nearly invisible stream onto the drapes, the floor, the walls. Heat would catch what a direct flame could not. Marcus double-checked the exit, then struck a match. Holding it up, Marcus took one final look around the bodies he’d left in his wake, trophies of a battle hard fought and well won.
Marcus dropped the match and tossed it at the drapes, and they caught fire quickly. He turned to hurry out of the plantation house, but a growly wail grabbed his attention from only a few feet away on his other side.
A last shifter was battered and bloodied, but it had the strength for one final attack. And Marcus was in his human form, with barely enough time to shift before the lupe pounced, ready to rip his head off.
The lupe jumped, and Marcus had just enough time to transform to his ursine form, big and strong enough to send the lupe flying with a single swipe of his mighty paw. The flames spread quickly, the gassy fumes carrying the fire to the walls and ceiling with little effort.
But the shifter didn’t care, jumping at Marcus in a murderous frenzy. Marcus grabbed the lupe and sent it flying past him and straight into the blazing drapes. He was instantly engulfed by the flames, falling and bringing the burning drapes down with him. The lupe struggled and shrieked, bound by that burning funeral shroud.
Marcus turned to exit, but the house was burning around him. The beleaguered second floor cracked and caved in just ahead of him, crippled by the battle damage and the fire. The front exit was blocked, heavy beams of fire making the way impassable.
Marcus turned to the back exit, but the fire had already consumed that wall and was closing in fast. The heat was rising, hairs on his thick hide suddenly beginning to singe. Marcus let out a great roar as he found himself surrounded by a hellish fire from which there seemed to be no escape.
The flames grew and spread so fast, it was as if Marcus was in a prison of fire, smoke burning his eyes, the heat unbearable even for him.
Wait, he recalled, the hole, the passage out through the ground!
Marcus searched for the hole he’d created, sniffing blind, feeling around with his great paws and barely able to recall where he’d come up.
Near the bathroom!
Marcus turned, instincts guiding him even through that searing heat, tongue hot in his mouth. But his claws found the hole in the floorboards and Marcus pushed himself through. Even for a creature of his size and weight, Marcus moved fast through the tunnel he’d custom dug for himself on the way in.
Crash! Heat poured into the tunnel behind Marcus, chunks of burning wood and ash pushing smoke into the narrow underground passage. Marcus pushed himself blind through that tunnel, recalling that it only led back to the basement, and to a cage that would hold him until he was burned alive.
Marcus climbed faster, body squeezing through the vaguely familiar contours of the cavern. He retraced his course, downward where he had been digging upward before. No, he told himself, burrow into the dirt again, away from the house and up… up and out!
Marcus dug again into the solid earth, tire
d paws clawing into the flesh of the true mother, tearing into her in order to free her, a primitive surgeon from the year unknown. Marcus followed the magnetic lines which traced the planet, ley lines which guided migrating birds in flight, the signposts of every beast running every course since before forever.
Marcus could feel the dirt receding in front of him, the house passing overhead, the yard approaching above. His superior senses could already smell the earthworms nearer to the surface, could almost taste the night as it draped over Louisiana like a funeral shroud.
Marcus burst through the dirt, the light of the torched plantation house burning just above his head. The wood creaked as the great skeleton frame gave way, collapsing directly upon Marcus in a heap of burning wood and terrible retribution.
Marcus knew that if he ran either back and down or up and out, he’d be incinerated.
After a lifetime of back and down, Marcus Reilly chose up and out. The failed structure fell upon him, a pile of fiery debris that came wave after wave. But Marcus stayed one step ahead of that hellish ocean of history’s pains and penances. He outran the hellfire behind him, Sabrina coming into view in front of him. She reached out as he charged toward her. She grabbed his thick hide as he ran past, stooping to make it easier, nudging her up onto his back.
Marcus ran them both clear of the collapsing house and then further still, the heat throbbing out from the flaming remnants of the house bringing the distant sirens which got steadily louder as they approached.
They turned, Sabrina astride Marcus like he was some ursine swamp steed. But together they looked on at the end of the old regime. Marcus looked up at Sabrina and she looked down at him. He huffed a growl and she offered him a little half-smile. They slid away, into the darkness of the bayou; the god and his goddess, to rein over the lupes and the gators, to rebuild an order of justice and purity.
There would be other battles, the so-called Shifter Apocalypse between the shifters and the apex predators of the world, other conflicts in every corner of the world. But Marcus knew it would be a war won each battle at a time. This battle had gone to Le dieu des marais, the god of the swamps. The god was in his heaven, and all around either served his needs or wanted what was his.
None would dare to challenge him. The lupes would retreat in fear and a new era of peace would ease Louisiana into the rest of the twenty-first century. What time and progress would not do, Marcus and Sabrina Parks-Reilly would assist, guides from the murky shadows of the bayous outside Houma.
So do not fear, the words seemed to echo in the thick, humid haze over the swamps, carried into the heart of every local, far and wide, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your god. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Sabrina sat on the supports of the roof of the new house, on a prime piece of swamp that nobody was going to worry about or infiltrate. It was accessible by a single land bridge. And the gators had learned to fear Marcus as the ruler of the area, and they only obstructed when strangers came too close.
Still, the looming threat of the oncoming Shifter Apocalypse was everywhere, a buzzing tension around what would become known as the swamp god’s heaven.
“Push it up, Marcus!”
Marcus was in his ursine form, pushing up a support beam for the second floor of their new home, already taking shape.
“I really was right,” Sabrina said, nailing the pegs that would hold the lateral beams in place. “This place did need a woman’s touch.”
Marcus huffed as he shuffled off to pull another thousand-pound support beam into place. “Don’t be grouchy,” she said from the framework of the second floor. “You’ll be glad when we’re done. Not to mention… tonight.”
Marcus chuckled in the bottom of his deep, ursine throat. The chore didn’t seem so cumbersome after that, and it hadn’t been that cumbersome to begin with. Their house would rise quickly, as would their progeny, and their empire. Houma would know a new peace, and all knew who reigned, Le dieu des marais, the god of the swamps, and his redheaded goddess; beyond all, above all.
But a lone wolf howled in the distance, a nearby gator hissing and splashing into the inky night’s waters, on the hunt once again.
The End
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