And the Third Brought Fire Pt. 02

"What the bloody hell is that?" The other redguard asked, voice muffled.

"She's some Colonial-"

"And lo! Sainted Bainbridge, the fifth Apostle, said to the Prophet Oppenheimer!" She stopped before the completely flummoxed guards. She drew in her breath, then belted out: "We are all sons of bitches!"

The Radwalker reached up, then cast aside her garments. They thumped to the ground with the speed of leaden cloth - and Nix almost dropped his revolver.

Sister Vengeance Zimmerman was pure muscle beneath her robes. Her shoulders where heavy slabs of meat, her back was defined by seams and scars, and a heavy cladding of fat added to her bulk and her mass. The robes had not belled around her - they had cloaked her. Beneath, she wore a cut down habit: Coif and veil worked into the hat and mask, but most of her skin was exposed. And what skin: Ruggedly scarred with knife and brand, she was implanted with small brass boxes that were fitted to her flesh like she was half a machine herself. Each one whirred and clacked, swinging open small panels to reveal hard, gray blue bars of metal - each maybe the size of a pinkie finger, each marked with Latin script. Nix was too distracted by the bizarre and terrible beauty of Sister Zimmerman to read the script - but he had a suspicion.

Gutta Et Vade

Drop.

And run.

"Stand back!" one of the redugards shouted, lifting his rifle and aiming. Zimmerman advanced, chuckling.

"The glorious ionization of her Lady burns through my every fiber of being! My nerves sing with her cancers! Blood wets my gums! My hair falls in sacred stigmata! Repent, mortal! The demon core is upon you!" Zimmerman sounded ecstatic, caught in some religious rapture. And as she spoke, the redguard's comrade dropped his cigarette and, rather than drawing his weapon up, shouted.

"Automatons! Shoot her!"

"Okie dokie!" one of the automatons said, chipper as ever.

"Wait!" Nix called out, reaching out with one hand. "I'm a Technician!"

The two automatons - just as he had expected - immediately pivoted towards him and started to stomp over. It was somewhat alarming to suddenly have two very naive spirits piloting walking suits of armor that were powered by tiny atomic turbines standing about you, but Nix kept his cool and placed his hands on their armored chests, chuckling nervously. "Ladies, ladies, please, keep your calm - I can check you both over at once."

A sharp rat-ta-tat-tat of gunfire snapped his head around.

Zimmerman had gotten close and brought her wrists together. Two of her implants struck and a brilliant flash of blue-white light slammed directly into the eyes of the first Redguard, sending his shots wild. He cried out and stumbled backwards, clutching at his face. The Radwalker then spun and drove her palm into the gas mask of the other - she had to be nearly fifteen stone, and every pound of it was put into sheer force. The gas mask compressed, the goggles shattered as the automatic rifle stuttered. Bullets slammed into the ground, kicking up debris and bits of pavement. Zimmerman laughed. "Chastened! Be chastened by her glory! Look upon her light unbidden, and like St. Paul, be struck blind by the light of heaven!"

The redguard she had hit with the flash was clutching at his face, gasping. "I can't see! I can't-" The Radwalker grabbed onto his head and brought his head down and her knee up. His gas mask wasn't even on to provide the scant protection it would. Bone and blood splattered as his teeth filled the air. The Radwalker sighed out, exulted.

"I am become Death!"

"Shoot her!"

Nix pushed the automatons back. "Wait here!" He shouted, then ran forward as Zimmerman stood in a rapturous stillness while the remaining redguards hurried to positions of cover, taking aim. His shoulder crashed into her back and the two of them flew to the side moments before bullets went whipping and whining past. Hitting Zimmerman had been like smashing into a brick wall - and Nix had no idea if his faith was sufficient to keep himself from sickening in the days to come. Just to be safe, he whispered. "Oh Lady Trinity, watch over your daughter in the shadows of the pedestrian-"

More gunshots - hideously fast as those automatic rifles ripped up the pavement. Zimmerna, though, was standing up, her hat knocked off, her mask canted. She reached up, adjusted it, then slid her hands down to her hips - where a pair of six shooters hung from her hips. She drew the heavy weapons, their silver gleaming, their sights glittering with tiny radium dots. She nodded, then called out. "My raiment! Fetch it, Sinner!"

Nix swore. The robes had been cast aside in the middle of the field of battle. He shook his head, then-

"Automatons! Shoot this way! Please! It'd be so helpful!"

"Okay!" one said, but the other grabbed onto her shoulder.

"W-Wait, aren't we not supposed to fire our guns at our redguards?"

"It's okay, I'm a Technician," Nix said. Then, to salve his stinging conscience, he added. "S-Shoot over their heads, that's okay!"

"True..." The spirit on the left said, while the spirit on the right giggled, swung her Lewis gun around, and opened fire. Bullets hammered into and above the redguard's cover - splintering crates, pinging off metal. Nix dove into the fire, grabbing onto the Radwalker's raiment, and lugged it back. It was heavy. She needed every bit of that muscle to carry it, it seemed - and when he got back to cover, the redguards were shouting.

"Cease fire! Cease fire, automatons!"

The automatons paused.

And the Radwalker stepped out. She had not cast her robes on - but rather, she had folded them, over and over, so that only her chest and belly were covered by a thick swath of heavy leaded material. Nix had felt catches and lumps of metal. Now, he wondered if the raiment was designed to be wadded like that. Then he had no time but to watch as the Radwalker stepped forward, her arms lifted, her muscles flexing - so bicep and forearm touched and blue flashes strobes the redguards, blazing like small stars. They cried out and hesitated.

"Like Hiroshima!" Zimmerman roared - and her revolver belched flame. "Like Nagasaki! Like New York! Like Cincinnati! Like Chattanooga! Like Paris and Taiping and Tokyo and-" She roared out city after city as her revolvers spoke again and again, flashing repeatedly. Then silence, and gunsmoke and blood. That was all. Nix peeked out and saw that the redguard were sprawled, and Zimmerman stood, wreathed in smoke, her revolvers held to her sides. She twitched them and spent shell casings clinked and clattered around her feet.

"...s-should we shoot her?" one of the automatons asked, nervously.

"No, no. Keep your guns down," Nix whispered, holding up his hand.

"Like this?" The automaton asked as Nix stepped forward - and then spotted one redguard, missed by the Sister.

"Zimmerman!" He cried out.

The redguard spun, bringing his rifle to bear.

Nix drew, fired.

Something ripped past his arm and he jerked and fell - and then as he collapsed, he heard a groan. He lifted his head - and saw that his shot had taken the redguard in the chest, but the bullet had been turned by his armor. But then Zimmerman was upon him, grabbing onto his head, smashing it repeatedly against the nearby cargo crate. "Repent! Repent!" she bellowed. "Sinner! You will be baptized in her light!" She bore him down, smashing his head into the ground - thumbs shifting, pressing. She shoved as Nix sat up, wincing. His hand went to his arm - and he hissed. Blood coated his palm.

"Thus to tyrants," Zimmerman hissed, shoving once more - shadows and her bulk hiding the horror. She pulled her hands back and they were caked in red. Nix gulped and clapped his hand to his arm, wincing as he did so. He looked back at the automatons, then, nervously, called to them.

"Go on! Run! Get back to your machines. Everything is fine."

The automatons paused, but then one of them said, hesitantly: "O-Okay. Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. Go!"

They started to thump away. In the distance, a jangling bell was ringing - someone had heard the gunfire and was bringing out the alarm. Nix walked past her, to the train itself, where he saw that a skittish, terrified looking train spirit was hiding and crouched behind a crate. She was a coal burner, but more modern than the old fetish-trains, and squeaked as she saw Nix. Nix smiled, gently, kneeling down across from her. "Hey, hey, it's okay," he said, quietly. "Is your crew okay? Are they keeping their heads down?"

"T-They are," the train said, nervously. "A-Are you going to hurt them. If you are...I can...I can-"

"No, no, we're not here to hurt anyone," Nix said, trying to forget Zimmerman for the moment. "We just need the crate."

"Oh," the train said. She looked torn. Her loyalties were first to her crew...but nearby, she had her concerns for her cargo. Trains loved their cargo - be they passengers or industrial goods. They tended to fawn over them. Nix smiled warmly.

"We're going to take good care of it," he said, nodding. "We have a big warehouse, and stevedores and the cargo is going to help people. It's going to help a girl named Jessie - if she doesn't get this spirit, she's going to be in big trouble." As he spoke, he smiled at the train. She looked more and more attentive as he spoke, and once he was done, the train nodded firmly.

"Okay!" she said. "You can take it. Just...just don't hurt my crew."

Nix smiled. "I won't. Promise."

The cargo was just as Mr. Jeremiah had described it - but it was built into a complex carrying device that actually had its own wheels and a small atomic turbine attached to it and a control mechanism. It was less of a cargo, more of its own transport - and when Nix worked out the controls, he was able to lever it off the train, down the ramp, and before Sister Zimmerman, who had straightened out her robes and cast them around her shoulders. She looked once more like a moving shadow, her beak mask covering her face. She lifted her beak's nose up as she peered at the cargo.

"This is the worldly possession?" she asked.

"Yeah, but...how the hell are we going to hide this?" Nix hissed.

"You are striken," she said, looking at his arm.

"Later," Nix said, then rubbed his chin. "Okay, we ditch the container."

"If you know how to open that lock-"

Nix knelt before the lock. Softly, he whispered the quiet words. The secret words. The words of Daedalus and the Labyrinth, the words Daniel spoke to escape the Lions. Words his father, and his father's father, and his father's father, back to Adam and Antiquity, had passed down, one to the next, to the next, to the next, even as names changed and languages shifted. The words spoke to the spirit of the lock. Too simple to be charmed, too quiet to be heard, but there. Always there.

The lock clicked and then the container swung open with a creak.

The spirit inside...had been chained. Thick fetters of steel and iron wrapped around her arms and her shoulders and her legs - but they didn't touch her skin directly. Instead, she had been covered in a thick wrapping of leather and cloth straps, and bedecked in gears. No. Not gears. Each symbol was, in fact, a broken gear, kept together by being rebuilt with blobby solder, making the shattering clear for all to see. A hood and a cinch around it cut off air, preventing the spirit from speaking. She writhed and jerked on the chains, drawing them taut again and again - thrashing and letting out hissing, grinding, creaking noises.

Nix stepped back. "Christ," he whispered, hand going to his mouth.

"What...demon is this?" Sister Zimmerman whispered, softly. "What foul invention?"

"I don't know," Nix said. "Whatever she is, she's buoyant, though."

He loosed the chain with a whisper, then grabbed onto it. He hauled the spirit out, speaking to her softly. "Honored one, chained one, don't fear, we're rescuing you. You must remain calm, we will unbind you, I swear it."

It didn't help. She kept thrashing.

The two stole into the night, the spirit floating after like a storm cloud - drawing the chains taut, then loose, then taut again.

***

The second apartment of the evening was, if anything, even worse than the first. Here, Zimmerman's costume and her American accent were boon, rather than bane, and she was able to get them a cheap room with peeling walls and no questions asked - despite the fact they were dragging along a chained and bound spirit. Fortunately by then, the spirit had at least stopped thrashing. Nix wasn't sure if it was because she had simply run out of energy, or if some of his whispered words had finally meant something to her.

Either way, he closed the door as Zimmerman sighed in exhalation. "The Lord's work was well done today. Now, your wounds. We must tend to them."

"It's fine, it's not even bleeding that much," Nix said, hurriedly.

Zimmerman, though, turned to face him. She advanced forward, and before Nix could stop her, she had grabbed onto his shirt, tugging it. Nix flailed, yelped, and found that Zimmerman was quite a bit stronger than she looked - and she already looked like a walking mountain. Nix struggled, clapping an arm over his chest, but it was too late: Zimmerman hesitated, then stepped backwards. Her head cocked to the side, her broad hat brim crumpling slightly against one of her shoulders as she held his shirt in her other hand.

"What in the name of-" she dropped the shirt...and then gasped. "Saint preserve me. A woman."

Nix glared at her. "You're a real maniac, you know that? I was skimmed in the arm! Why are you taking my shirt off?"

"To see if you had other wounds- and, it seems, to reveal deviltry at work," Zimmerman said, chuckling quietly. Her hand reached up and she tugged her own glove off. Leather slid against flesh, revealing long, surprisingly delicate fingers. The only thing marring them was the knuckles. They were the knuckles that had met face and wall just a bit too many times. She reached out, and Nix slapped at the hand, pushing it away as she flushed.

"What are you doing?"

"Tending to you, my sister in sin," Zimmerman said, her voice husky. "We women are born of Eve's sin - tainted by her tasting of the apple, in the Garden. Only through the Ladies are we purified by works...oh, and we have done a great work today..."

Nix blushed, hard. The intense look that she was getting from Zimmerman was unnerving her - almost as much as the post adrenaline high was making her feel dizzy and lightheaded. Or maybe that was the blood loss. She snapped. "We killed some redguards and stole a spirit. Which I still need to tend too!" She stepped back - and Zimmerman planted that blazing hot hand of hers on Nix, then pushed back. Nix grunted as her back hit the thin wall, the impact driving some of the air from her lungs. Those goggled-covered eyes glinted as Zimmerman cocked her head. Like a bird.

"We need to tend to your wounds first, oh sinner," she whispered.

"My name is-"

"You claimed to be Mr. Nixon, but we both know that is falsehood. Speak no more." The other glove was coming off and then...her robes slipped around her shoulders. Zimmerman cast them down, standing in her preposterous getup. The smell of her sweat and her...her presence was almost intoxicating. Nix found her nose flaring, drawing in her scent. She gasped as Zimmerman pushed her so her uninjured shoulder was pressed to the wall, then she began to wrap a cloth bandage around her arm. Her voice was soft. "In my abbey, little things like you always needed the most guidance..."

Nix flushed and muttered. "Oh, you felt up all the schoolgirls, huh?"

Zimmerman paused, then chuckled. "Truth from the mouth of babes." Her finger brushed along Nix's cheek, tucking one strand of her dark hair behind her ear. "I was...asked to wander, to seek penance-"

"You-" Nix turned, gobsmacked. "How many girls did you fondle!?"

"Girls? None!" Zimmerman sounded shocked. "I am no pederast, no Grecian philosopher. It was only women of age that...tempted me to sin, and sin again. But I purify myself in deeds, little one." Her hands slid along Nix's sides. Her hands were soft, her fingertips rough. She was so strong too. Nix was fairly sure if she fought back, she'd lose. She lifted her arms, trying to get them out of the Sister's grasp, her cheeks heated. "Oh and you tempt me mightly, oh, you are a new test...put in my way, as God tested Job..."

"You are insane..." Nix whispered, then gasped as those strong hands took hold of her breast wrapping, tugging them down and to the side. The loss of pressure, the freedom, was why her nipples were hard. And the adrenaline. It wasn't the thick scent of the American woman - it wasn't her broad shoulders, it wasn't her utter confidence. It wasn't the fact she was a priest. It wasn't. Her head swam and she tried to think of some words that would stop her.

This would be easier if she was a spirit.

Zimmerman's hand slid down along her belly, to her pants. Nix shook her head, then gasped as those fingers pressed between her sex, teasing the folds of her sex through her underclothes. She was infuriated at how wet she was getting. She flushed, then grabbed onto Zimmerman's hand, shoving her wrist away, gasping and whimpering quietly. "F-Fuck!" She gasped. "Don't touch me, you maniac!" She said, then stumbled along the wall, her back thumping against the door and then the far wall. She shook her head frantically, trying to clear it.

Zimmerman chuckled. "You have the dew of sin-"

"Yeah, and I'd have to be half insane from polonium poisoning before I touched you!" Nix snapped. Even if part of her did wonder...how would it feel to lick those broad shoulders? She wondered if exposure to radiation killed brain cells, even with the Lady Trinity's blessings. She shook her head, then snapped. "G-Go! Get me some...sage and votive candles. I need them to calm the spirit."

Zimmerman lifted her head, beak tilted back. "Truly?"

"Yes," Nix lied, panting, her knees trembling.

"Very well, Sinner. But I will lead you to the Light of perdition - the glory of Christ and Trinity and-"

"Get!" Nix pointed at the door.

Zimmerman walked forward, the door opening, then shutting behind her. She had snatched up her vestments too. As she left, Nix slid down the wall, panting. She let her head rest back against the wall. "Fuck," she whimpered. She had seen too much violence, been touched by too much...insanity. Was this what all Americans were like, if you scratched their surface? She tried to picture what kind of world had sculpted someone who implanted radioactives into their body and praised the Demon Core. Even in her scriptures, the Demon Core was...

It was the Demon Core for God's sake!

"By the ladies," Nix whispered. She looked over at the cowled and covered spirit - and paused. She knew precisely how it would go if she unwrapped that girl now. And the thought was so...tempting. Nix closed her eyes. No. She was not Sister Vengeance Zimmerman. She put her palm down, between her thighs. Her knees pressed together, trapping her palm against herself as she pressed her fingers down, rubbing them up and down. A frustrated whimper escaped her lips and she squirmed, then slid her hand up, then down again. Her pants tented as she pressed her fingers against her own needy slit, feeling her juices, her heat. She pressed her fingers in, then crooked and thrust. She hadn't done this since she was a teenager, when her needs had far outstripped her abilities to fill them. Shame burned in her cheeks.

But that didn't stop her.

Her thumb rubbed her own clit, circling it as her breath caught and she thrust those two fingers into herself again and again. In her mind, Zimmerman had her by her neck and whispered her religious insanity into her ear - and she used the strap. Oh God. Nix bit her lip hard to keep herself quiet as she shuddered and quivered, her fingers driving in deep...and then drawing out again. She breathed out a long, slow sigh, looking at her fingertips - glistening. She flicked her tongue along her lips, then hastily started to wipe them away, her cheeks burning.