Order of the Shattered Cross: Pt. 08

Nora saw the door again and tried to knock it down.

"I will die, before you learn," Ophelia said. Nora tried again, and the enchantment activated, killing Ophelia, and keeping their secrets intact.

--

"When I said we needed an army, I didn't expect you to become the general," Timothy said as the ritual chamber gradually filled with witches. Nora was taken into custody, her sentencing to be carried out after the crisis had ended.

"Desperate times," Indigo said, and greeted an arriving priestess. "Timothy, this is Annette, Priestess of the Sisters of the Province of Carolina."

Annette was slightly older than middle-aged, but not what most would consider to be elderly. Her once smooth face had become wrinkled. Her vibrant red hair had turned white and was now accented with streaks of red. Her eyes never aged; a dark amber, like a smoldering sun at dusk. Her thin body was concealed beneath a blue cloak she wore with the hood down. In full view on the top of her chest, above her cleavage if she revealed any, was a Spanish doubloon that had been altered into a necklace.

"18^th Century?" Timothy asked, and Annette looked at her necklace. "Family heirloom perhaps?" Annette looked at him, and grinned when she assumed he had some idea of its origins. "Timothy Augustine, Fractured for the Order of the Shattered Cross, and mortal vessel of Eterna, daughter of Lilith."

"Sister," Eterna said cordially, Timothy using magic to make her visible.

"It's an honor to speak with a first-generation witch, spirit or flesh," Annette replied, going as far as giving a slight bow.

"What's the plan?" Timothy asked Indigo who was distracted as she watched more witches arrive, and bounced between different orbs of light acting as a means of communications for witches who weren't present. She was coordinating and trying to get an idea of how many witches they had for this fight.

"Indigo?" Timothy asked, and she turned, finally having heard him. "What's the plan?"

"For now, I need an accounting of what we have. So far, around two-hundred all along the east coast, ready for the order. I'm about to create the doorways to where the Voids are being kept. I don't want to create those until we're going to open them, as it's a two-way road, and we need to walk through first to maintain the element of surprise."

"Gwendoline and Flauros know we're after them. They likely already know I escaped the abyss with the Sister. There is no surprising them anymore."

"We have one shot Timothy, we can't be reckless," Indigo pointed out.

"High Priestess, final numbers. Two-hundred-sixty-one," one witch said to her.

"Thank you. Pass these orders. The Sisters of the New World likely have many dark witches and cambions amongst their ranks. Our sisters will attack in groups of seven. Two are to maintain protective barriers, three will engage in any combat, and the last two will continuously generate white light. Rob them of their darkness."

"Yes High Priestess, it'll be done," the witch said, and began to issue orders.

"Sister Frost, I'm sending a group of witches with you to restrain Flauros, so you can exorcise him. Are you ready?" Indigo asked.

Sister Frost exhaled with a nod. "I'm ready."

"You know his name. Half of the job is already done," Timothy said, and she nodded again.

"Timothy, I'll need your assistance with Gwendoline. She is a supremely powerful witch. Us and five others, the most powerful witches we have, are going to face her," Indigo said.

"She's also immortal," Eterna said. "And I want to face her alone."

"You understand she's amongst the most powerful, if not the most powerful witch in the world. Hundreds of years of practice, and research, and dedication to witchcraft."

"I have thousands of years," Eterna declared with a smirk. "And I have someone I need to avenge."

"Who?" Indigo asked.

"Myself," Eterna said, and looked to Timothy. "I need you to follow my orders to the letter. I'm fighting her through an intermediary. Imagine if your every action had a delay."

"What if there wasn't a delay?" Timothy asked, and Eterna tilted her head. "Take full control of my body. No one assaulting the Void has seen one, they'll need someone to guide them."

"You want to astral project your soul to a place filled with monsters that eat souls?" Indigo asked.

"Eterna can handle Gwendoline. I want you to protect Sister Frost while she exorcises Flauros, so we'll need to separate them. I'll lead your witches against the Void. Make sure your witches know they require astral vision to see them, and myself."

Within the hour all the witches had been assigned into teams, given their orders, and were waiting for the final preparations to be made. Indigo entered the Compendium of Doors with Timothy to find a door that could lead them to the Void. The hallway began to bend into itself until it formed a loop. Indigo asked Timothy to remain still as she walked along it, so he could be used as a frame of reference as she counted.

"Thirty-two. Thirty-two doors?" Indigo asked. "How?"

"You asked it to take you to the Void?" Eterna asked, and Indigo nodded. "They're not in one location. She likely has them ready to be released all over the world."

"We barely have enough witches to send one team per door. We'll need reserves, healers. We'll have no way of knowing if a room fails. If we attack only a few at a time, she may just release them, regardless of if she has the exorcist's power."

"I agree. Gwendoline will burn the world if she knows her end is near. But she'll never trust that power in anyone else's hands, so she'll need to be defeated swiftly. It's all at once, or never," Eterna said.

They returned to the chamber site, and Indigo ordered the creation of doors for them to pass through. Indigo formed two from the stone alongside the walls. Covens across the east coast confirmed they had their doors on standby.

"Sisters," Indigo began, having the ear of every witch. "We are about to engage in the largest coordinated attack in the history of our kind. I know for a fact, not everyone is going to survive. But we must win. If we do not, there is no world. The dark witch Angelica has the ambition, and the ability, to destroy our world. We are the last line of defense. After us, there is no one. Not one of these creatures can survive. If one lives, thousands will die.

"My mother, Ophelia, would say to me, only speak of fear if you are afraid. I'm afraid sisters. My mother also said of fear, to let yourself feel it, but not call it to you. I feel that fear, but I am acting to shed myself of the reason to fear it. I don't fear my own death, I fear many of the faces I see before me, this will be the last moment I see them. Any witch who cannot face that fear, may leave. No repercussions, no shame, as I am asking more of you than you've ever been asked."

All the witches in the chamber remained silent. The orbs remained silent. Each witch, to a woman, stayed.

"Ready?" Timothy asked Eterna.

"Ready," she replied. Timothy closed his eyes and separated his soul from his body. It hovered in front of his flesh, and his eyes opened again, displaying the glowing violet of Eterna's who also grunted in pain and nearly fell over. "How the hell are you standing?"

Timothy had been masking his intense pain since his torture at the hands of Gwendoline so well, Eterna was truly shocked at how much it hurt to be in control of his body.

"You okay?" Timothy asked.

"If we survive this, you're going to a doctor, I'm not asking," Eterna replied, her girlish voice projecting from his body. The absurdity made Indigo stifle a laugh. "I'm ready."

"Sister?" Indigo asked Sister Frost who nodded. She no longer had her cross, as her grandmother had stolen it, but Timothy's words echoed in her heart.

Faith is your weapon.

"Remember, any team who finds a way to destroy them, communicate it," Indigo said and closed her eyes to focus. They burst open, shining the color of her namesake. The pentagrams on the doors began to glow, slowly filling every line with light. "When your door is ready, begin, do not wait for a signal."

Each pentagram was completed at the same second, and each team burst through their doors. The attack had commenced. All of the witches in the chamber exited with their doors closing behind them.

"Good luck," Timothy shouted as he floated through a doorway with his own team, the door shutting behind him. All that was left in the chamber were Eterna, Sister Frost, Indigo, and Annette who had volunteered to fight Flauros.

Eterna reached for her door which burst open from the inside and Timothy's body was blown backwards against the wall of the Chamber.

"Tim...Maiden!" Sister Frost shouted, before her own door opened, and she was dragged inside by an inhumanly massive, shadowed hand. Sister Front tried to grab the frame but was pulled in before she could scream.

"Sister!" Indigo shouted, but the door slammed shut before she could reach it. She went to pull it open, but it was blown to splinters, severing the connection between the doors. Indigo was thrown onto her back and leaned up to see smoldering where the door once stood. Her ears were ringing from the blast, but they gradually recovered enough to hear footsteps coming from Eterna's door.

"She needs some time to connect with her father without your meddlesome intervention," Gwendoline said as she stepped out of the door. "She's going to wish she had never escaped the abyss."

"She's mine," Eterna said, levitating herself upright and lowering her feet to the floor.

Black smoke began to flow from Gwendoline's fingertips, gradually filling the chamber in an impenetrable fog. Indigo and Annette both created great orbs of white light, but they were only partially effective, their light appearing nothing more than moons hidden behind dark storm clouds.

"Don't trust your eyes," Annette instructed. "Focus on her magic."

Indigo closed her eyes, forcing a sixth sense to the front of her mind. Witches could sense magic, and she needed to feel Gwendoline's before she struck. Left! Indigo instantly formed a barrier to her left and felt Gwendoline slam against it. Her nails left gashes across it, as if a bear had attacked. It cracked like glass, the damage displaying itself as a spiderweb.

"Lilith, she's strong," Indigo thought to herself. Right! She redirected the barrier, which miraculously didn't shatter on impact. "It won't survive another hit. Three hits and my barrier is destroyed? I don't have the time to wear her down."

Front!...no, back!" Indigo thought, sensing Gwendoline moving impossibly fast, and ducked to avoid the attack. She spun and tried to counter, a torrent of fire only hitting smoke.

Gwendoline laughed, one with the shadowed darkness. Her voice was the wind itself.

"Almost got me," Gwendoline taunted. "Half a pound of tup penny rice. Half a pound treacle," she sang, Indigo and Annette tensing in anticipation. "That's the way the money goes..." Gwendoline sang but was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a hand grabbing her throat. The smoke was violently blown away. Indigo and Annette protected their faces from the gust, and when the smoke was clear they could see Eterna was gripping Gwendoline by the neck.

Gwendoline clawed at Timothy's wrist to no avail. She looked up at Timothy's face and saw Eterna's violet eyes. She now knew who was in the driver's seat.

"Pop goes the weasel," Eterna sang. She ripped the door open with her mind and delivered a magically enhanced punch that rocketed Gwendoline through the door with such force, Annette lost her balance and fell backwards to the ground.

"Like I said, she's mine," Eterna said and followed her through the door which slammed shut behind her.

--

Timothy floated the air into the room with seven witches and turned around to ensure the door closed behind them. They found themselves in a dark room two of the witches immediately illuminated with orbs of white light. The orbs floated into the air, up and up, Timothy watching as they finally reached a ceiling at least a hundred feet above them. Pillars of glass were now visible in front of them, the light refracting like sparkles at their feet.

Timothy glided to the first glass pillar to examine it more closely. It was eight feet tall, and he circled around it to see was five feet wide and perfectly rectangular. He saw faint lines, which he believes were edges. This wasn't one piece of glass, but six, four forming the walls, and two creating the base and lid. Each one was about four paces apart and perfectly aligned. He saw carved etching on all sides. There were pentagrams used for containment, confinement, and healing, but also words in Latin, English, and French.

"By this holy water and by Your Precious Blood, wash away all my sins, O Lord. Amen," Timothy read aloud. "These are blessings for Holy Water."

Timothy noticed bubbles in the glass and reached out to touch it. He wasn't surprised when his hand made physical contact. The glass itself was enchanted to contain spirits, and that worked both ways. They couldn't get out, but he couldn't get in. He knocked and confirmed his suspicions. They compartment in the center of the panes of glass were filled with holy water. The blessings were etched into the glass to preserve its power.

Timothy asked for some light, and a witch created an orb and brought it closer to the glass. The reflection of light caught the attention of the creature contained within it, and it shrieked and tried to break out. Timothy lurched backwards, accidently passing through the witch who shivered from the feeling of his spirit crossing through her. The creature was as pale as a corpse. A naked woman with hair flowing like she was underwater. It was the Void. At least, one of them.

Timothy slowly drifted back to the box, trying to his best to ignore the beast that hungrily scratched at him. He placed his palm to the glass and closed his eyes.

"I compel you to reveal yourself," Timothy said, and opened his eyes. He was now staring back into the eyes of a woman, whose face was perfectly aligned between him and the Void, as if the Void was wearing a transparent mask of her lost life. "Who are you?"

"Fiona," the spirit replied.

"What happened to you?" Timothy asked.

"I don't fully recall. I remember being trapped. I was naked, and pounding on the glass as others watched the water pour in and slowly drown me. Now I'm speaking to you," Fiona replied.

Timothy floated to the next pillar of glass and compelled someone else to speak. She also only recalled drowning before she was in the glass. As did the third and fourth.

"What do you make of this Mr. Augustine?" a witch asked. Timothy only briefly heard her name during their short introduction. Nica, daughter of Mona.

"Do you know what creates a Fractured?" Timothy asked, and Nica waited to listen. "When we die, our souls explode from our bodies. Our essence attaches itself to the world around it. If we come back, our spirit comes back, but never whole. Not all objects are equal. Most metals repel spirits. Wood can hold it, but it also lets it go easily. Glass is powerful. Glass can hold onto a spirit indefinitely, and even when the body comes back to life, a spirit can't escape. Our spirit wants to be whole, so it'll grab any energy it can find to complete itself. Most times, it'll grab the energy of another soul occupying the same space. When it grabs a strong enough spirit, two unique spiritual identities can occupy the same body. That's how a Fractured is made.

"What if, you die, surrounded by nothing but glass? Not even your own clothes. What if you're drowned in Holy Water, surrounded by that glass? Then your body is brought back, but there is no way for your spirit to come back, not even the smallest piece of it. What does that create? A body, brought back from the dead, without its soul to accompany it. The soul wants to be complete, but the body is empty, so it just consumes spirits, hoping to repair itself, but it can't. It just eats, and eats, and eats, to satisfy a need it doesn't know it can't satiate."

"That's horrific," Nica replied after a silence filled only with their shallow breathing.

"That's how you create the Void," Timothy said, and flew upwards to get an idea of how many he was dealing with.

Timothy saw row, after row, after row, after row of glass pillars. He saw they were twenty across, and tried to do math by counting how long a column was, but he couldn't positively see the end before he counted fifty. There were at least two thousand in this room alone, a conservative estimate, and there were thirty-one other rooms just like this one. And a single Void was more than he could handle.

Timothy was ready to float back down before he heard drowned gargling behind him. He swiftly turned around and was driven back to the floor with by a Void. He was drilled onto the top of a glass coffin. He punched upwards to fight the creature off. He tried to pry its hand away, and in the process, noticed it was missing half its arm. This was the same Void from Sunland Asylum, who lost its limb to Sister Frost's touch.

"Hello again," Timothy said while he struggled.

Nica sent a burst of wind at the beast, creating enough separation for Timothy to place his feet to its chest and kick it away. He quickly flew back to the relative protection of the witches.

"It wants me," Timothy said. "The souls are trapped in the glass. Dispel the enchantments and shatter the glass."

"Will that work?" Nica asked.

"No idea," Timothy said. "But we need to start somewhere."

"Understood," a witch. The Void screeched and shot at Timothy so fast the air cracked. Timothy dodged upwards, and then flew toward the ceiling with the Void at his heels.

--

Sister Frost was painfully thrown into the dirty house she had only recently escaped from. Her body bounced twice on the ground before she collided with the chair and slid to a stop in front of the fireplace. The impact knocked the wind out of her, but as always, injury didn't persist.

"How did you escape!?" Flauros screamed as he blasted the door to pieces to prevent anyone from assisting her.

"Am I making you angry?" Sister Frost said as she used the chair to regain her feet. "Kids always do disappoint their parents."

"You petulant child!" Flauros screamed and instantly appeared, back handing her across the face, the force throwing her like a toy against the wall. The blow would have killed anyone else, but Sister Frost used the wall to stand again. "Your mother was the same. I learned from her, even the strongest will could be broken. Perhaps I'll break you the way I broke her."

Flauros stepped across the room in a split second and reappeared with the fabric of her habit in his fist. He pulled back, tearing it from her body, revealing her nude body before him. He grabbed her shoulder and forced her face against the wall, prepared to take her by force from behind. He grabbed her hair and pulled her ear closer to his lips.

"I took my time. She begged me to stop. By the time I was done, she'd spread her legs at the snap of my fingers. I could call her to my side with a whistle like she was dog. Surrender your power to me, or I will take it. You will beg for me to take your power."

"I will never beg. I will never bend. I will never break," Sister Frost said and pushed back. Flauros shoved her forward but could feel her resistance was gaining strength. He was shocked when he needed to exert effort to hold her. "God did not abandon me in the darkness. He will certainly not abandon me now."

"You are alone child. You have no magic to aid you. No Fractured to guide you. You are weak."