The Devil's Pact Pt. 38

And then he lashed out with the knife.

I followed its slicing arc, slid to the side, grabbed at his knife hand. He jerked back. I missed the grab, his dagger scraping harmlessly across my gold breastplate. His foot lashed out and caught me on the knee between the greaves and the metal skirt. The pain flashed through me.

I limped back and peered at him. He had a Black aura. He was a Thrall. "Stop!"

He ignored me.

That shocked me into rigid stupidity. How the hell did he do that? There was no red fringe around his black aura. He wasn't under the Zimmah ritual. So why didn't my power work on him?

Distracted by this revelation, I just barely noticed his knife thrusting at my face.

"Fuck," I cursed, my arm snapping up, the attack glancing off my vambrace.

He stabbed and slashed quickly as I recovered, remembering my training from Azrael in the dreams. He was good, practiced. But I was strong, fast, enhanced by the Gift, taught by the Angel of Death herself how to fight.

He made a mistake, thrusting hard. I grabbed his wrist, shutting off my flames--I wanted to capture the assassin, not burn him to death--and jerked him forward. We both grunted, growled, grappling as I threw him to the floor.

Are you okay, Mark? Mary's thought suddenly screamed through my mind as the assassin and I fell to the floor in a heap of grasping limbs.

Busy! I thought back.

Oh, god, Mark! Be careful!

The man bucked with his hip, rolling me off of him. Then he was on top of me, his dagger slamming down at my face, the point glinting as it rushed at my eye. Adrenaline surged through my body. I grabbed his wrist with my right hand, halting his blow. We strained against each other. I threw an awkward punch at his face with my left hand. He blocked it.

He growled, putting his weight into his arm, driving the dagger closer and closer to my face. My skin tensed. I struggled against him, grunting through clenched teeth as my death came nearer and nearer.

I. Would. Not. Die.

With a snarl, I bucked my hip and rolled him onto his back. He landed hard and I followed, still holding his wrist. I slammed the back of his hand into the floor. The knife skittered away as he grunted. Then I punched him as hard as I could in the face.

Too hard

My fist landed on his brow. I almost screamed in pain as I broke two of the knuckles on my right hand against his skull. The man blinked, looking stunned and trying to shake off the blow. Blood poured from a cut in his eyebrow. I grabbed the knife with my left hand and placed it at his throat.

"Who are you!" I demanded.

"A patriot," he spat back. "Kill me, Tyrant. You will learn nothing from me!"

"How are you ignoring my commands?"

He spat in my face, stinging my eyes. Anger flashed through me like a firestorm. For a moment I started to press the knife into his throat before I stopped myself. I want him alive, I reminded myself. Adrenaline pounded through me, making it hard to think straight. This man tried to kill me, and every instinct made me want to drive the dagger home in retribution.

I took in a deep breath, trying to ignore the pain in my wrenched knee and broken knuckles, and calmed myself down.

There was an explosion at the door, wooden splinters raining, followed by my shouting soldiers. They froze in surprise and snapped to attention.

"My Lord," the leading sergeant saluted, eyes burning with fervent light.

"Take him," I ordered, rolling off the man.

As the soldiers grabbed the assassin, I closed my eyes and concentrated on healing my broken knuckles and wrenched knee. The pain melted away as the bones re-knit and torn ligaments mended. I flexed them as I stood up, dismissing my armor. It fell off me in golden sparkles. The prisoner was bound with plastic cuffs and the soldiers were searching him roughly.

I'm safe, Mary, I sent.

What were you thinking? my wife demanded. I just watched you on the news flying like a comet at the man who tried to kill you! We have bodyguards and soldiers for shit like that! I about had a heart attack watching your idiocy!

I felt sheepish. Sorry, Mare. I thought it would be good PR. You know, Gods shouldn't run from danger.

Good PR? Good PR? I could feel an almost hysterical incredulity through the sending. You idiot! You're too important to risk on goddamn foolishness like that. Don't be a moron!

I let the insult slide. She was just scared. Watch out, Mare. This guy looked like a regular Thrall, but he ignored my orders.

Unease filled her, sending, Sam gets back tonight. I'm flying down to D.C. with her as soon as her plane lands.

What about the UN?

The UN can go fuck itself, Mark! Her fear and concern poured through the sending. I need to see that you're all right. In person. I can always fly back to New York tomorrow in time.

Okay, Mare. Love you.

I love you too, even if you can be pigheadedly stupid sometimes. Good PR!

I couldn't help laughing. The soldiers gave me awed looks. The prisoner just snarled.

* * *

Sheila Robbins - New York City, NY

I couldn't believe it. They had magic that could stop bullets. This was a disaster.

"Pasaq!" I shouted and stabbed my bronze knife into the air and slowly drew open a portal into the Shadows.

I was in an apartment looking down at the Waldorf-Astoria entrance, the owner sleeping peacefully on his bed behind me. When I heard Noel's command, breaking radio silence to warn me, I had turned on the news. I sat there stunned for the last fifteen minutes watching Baxter being dragged out by the soldiers, captured by Mark.

"This is utter horsecrap," I cursed as I sawed open the portal.

The Tyrant was far more powerful than Noel had reckoned. How had he deflected the bullets? The news replayed the four shots over and over again, pointing out where you could see the bullet being deflected. Worse, that first shot caught the asshole by surprise. He hadn't seen it coming. It would have killed him.

It was something that triggered passively. Some sort of protection.

"Come on," I grunted, wanting to get back to base and regroup. I hoped our wishes would work. I hoped they couldn't get any information from Baxter.

The portal opened. Through the blazing circle in reality, the mist of the Shadows undulated. I took a deep breath, shouldering my case that held my sniper rifle. I glanced out the window. Down before the hotel I could see the fake goddess herself, preening for the cameras, showing the world she didn't fear assassins, blathering on about how amazing her husband was.

I wanted to be sick.

There had to be a way to stop her. If the sniper rifle didn't work, then I'd use a different method. I had my knife. She was giving an interview. I could hear it on the TV now. I had time to move through the Shadows, pop out, and put an end to the bitch.

I leaped through the portal into the Shadows, gripping my knife. The portal whisked closed behind me. I pictured where she was at, imagining it in my mind so I could move through the top layer of Hell. I could feel it pulsing nearby. My destination.

I pictured it in my mind how I would kill her, appearing out of the Shadows. My knife stabs past her ribs and finds her heart. My blade was thick. It would destroy her heart. She would be dead before a cardiothoracic surgeon could even have a chance to save her.

Ten years in the CIA had taught me a few things.

I was surprisingly calm as I moved through the Shadows. I was going to die. It was unavoidable. Once I stepped out, I would have a few seconds to plunge my knife into her back before all those soldiers and sluts they called bodyguards would react and gun me down. It would be worth it. I would have killed one of the Tyrants.

Sometimes the mission is so important, so vital, to your Country's freedom, that you have to give up your life. A lesson I learned at the Farm during my training. I had spent years in backwater hellholes to protect my Country, so there was no way I could stand back and watch the Tyrants destroy it.

I was prepared to die to keep it free.

Moving through the Shadows was different. Distances didn't measure directly. After taking a few steps, I could see Mary through the mists when I concentrated. I thrust my dagger into the veil that separated the mortal world and the afterlife, and started carving my portal. It was faster to create on this side, somehow easier to return to the mortal world than to enter the spiritual.

I was going to die with Mary's blood on my blade.

A cold hand grabbed me and yanked me backward. I spun around and came face-to-face with a blonde, naked woman. She stared fiercely into my eyes. Hers were blue and filled with an icy fury, an avenging Valkyrie.

"You will not touch our Mistress," she hissed. Anger filled her voice, a terrible, cold rage that I had never felt in the living.

Our? I glanced around as I struggled in her cold grip only to see more women. Maybe a dozen of them, surrounding me.

"Shit!"

I stabbed my bronze knife at the blonde's chest, aiming for her heart. I would have to kill her quickly if I had any chance against the rest. My thrust stabbed true. She didn't even try to block it and--

The blade bounced off her breast, the tip slightly bent. The blonde didn't even seem to notice the blow.

"You should not have come here, mortal," the blonde told me. She had Scandinavian cheekbones. She was a Valkyrie--beautiful, implacable, deadly.

Her other hand lashed out, grabbing my throat, and squeezed. I struggled in vain as cold fingers choked off my air. No, I couldn't die! Not without stabbing that Mary in the fucking heart! I could not fail and let that bitch live!

I tried to saw through the fingers about my throat with the bronze blade while my booted feet lashed at her legs. My toe cracked against her shin, and my knife didn't even irritate her skin. My vision fuzzed, everything going black around me as my lungs burned for oxygen.

No! No! No! I will not be defeated by some naked, blonde bimbo!

The knife clattered from my hand. The strength fled my body. It was getting too hard to think. My vision reduced to a narrow tunnel filled with her fierce, blue eyes. No, I weakly protested as the tunnel shrank, narrowed, vanished.

I was falling, falling, falling.

Into darkness. Into fire.

"Welcome, welcome," a familiar voice roared as the flames began to consume me, cracking my skin.

Lucifer appeared before me, shining like the sun. A red chain, molten and burning, bound about my neck and led to him. It was one of thousands. Tens of thousands. Everywhere I looked there were burning men and women roasting in the bronze oven. All the foolish idiots that sold their souls to him.

Oh, God, I made a mistake.

I tried to scream, but the flames burned down my throat when I opened my mouth, filling every fiber of my soul with pain. Nothing was worth this torment. No Country, no Flag, no person.

Oh, God, nothing was worth this torment!

Chapter Six

Even our Living Gods' greatest critics saw the beauty of His words. Conversion blossomed in their hearts, and they did bend knee to the Theocracy.

--The Gospel of April 41:01

Mark Glassner - Washington D.C.

The Honorable Senator from the Great State of Texas was speaking when I walked into the Senate fresh from the assassination attempt. I was invigorated. Nothing could stop me. Not even an assassin somehow immune to my mind control powers.

The Senator from Texas fixed flinty eyes on me as a great uproar went through the room. All the senators who were not under my power pulled earplugs out of their pockets and stuffed them into their ears.

Irritation flashed through me. People were getting wise to the limitations of our powers.

But it didn't matter. My soldiers had already surrounded the Capital Building, trapping most of the Senators and Congressmen inside. I kept marching down the center, my hand clenching, wanting to summon the flames again.

The Senator from Texas, Ronald Bybee, put in his own earplugs and kept orating, "The Great State of Texas can no longer stand by and watch as our once proud Nation kowtows to this monster!" He jabbed at me with such violence like he wanted to reach across the room and plunge his finger deep into my heart. "Governor Holt has asked me to convey his decisions. As of today, October 7th, 2013, the Great State of Texas secedes from the Union and will once again be the Republic of Texas!"

I surveyed the other senators. Half looked worshipfully at me, kneeling down to prostrate before their god, while their colleagues with their earplugs either scowled defiantly or stared fearfully at me. Up in the gallery, the C-SPAN cameras rolled.

I walked proudly.

The Legion streamed around me, fanning about the room, their boots echoing loudly. They had guns, wore their fatigues. It was an unmistakable show of force. It was the opposite of everything that the Senate stood for. I was overthrowing democracy. I felt a pang of guilt. I was betraying everything my Country stood for: Freedom, Liberty, Democracy. Our forefathers had rejected the tyranny of Kings, and here I was imposing the harsher tyranny of a God upon them.

It was all for the greater good, I told myself. I was replacing it with something better. Once we had every man, woman, and child enthralled to us, under our domination, there would be an end to violence--to the suffering that men callously inflicted on each other. Everyone would be happy and live peacefully with their neighbors. Everyone would be happy in a way no other society could create.

Mary hinted that something bad was coming. We needed to prepare the world to save it.

That was worth a little tyranny, right?

"Do not kill anyone," I ordered. "Remove their earplugs so they can hear my words."

I watched as my soldiers surged into the Senators. I kept hardening myself as they shouted, pleading, crying out for the soldiers to remember their oaths to the constitution, to the Republic. But they were all mine.

Thirty-three governors and eleven lieutenant governors arrived for the meeting. Six states didn't send anyone, Mary sent as I waited for the senators to be liberated from their earplugs. She was at a meeting of state governors. We needed to get the state governments under our thumbs just as much as the Federal Government. How is it going at Congress?

I take it Texas is one of the six that didn't send a representative?

How did you know? Surprise pulsed in her thought.

Texas just seceded from the Union.

There was a pause. Then she asked telepathically, Does the Governor of Texas know you have his National Guard under your control?

He's about to find out the hard way. I paused, considering Mary's news. I think we should arrest those governors who just sent their lieutenants. Let's place their lieutenants in charge of those states in their place.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Bitter regret filled her reply. Are we doing the right thing?

Hopefully, Mare.

The commotion had died down; the resistant senators had been cowed and were under guard, their earplugs removed. Only a few of them had to be roughly handled. Geraldine Medley, one of Washington State's two senators, walked up to the podium. "Senators, I'm proud to welcome our Lord and Protector, the Divine Mark Glassner!"

The loyal senators clapped and a few of the more bold, captured senators booed as I strode up to the Podium. I took my place, projecting regal power. Authority. I was the government now. Mary and I were the ultimate power. So I had to look it.

I gazed out them and spoke the speech April had written for me: "I am here today to have the Senate confirm that I am your loving god, here to protect you from the coming Darkness."

As I spoke, my enemies became my most fervent allies. Their auras went from silver to black. Dominated.

The Senate passed a constitutional amendment declaring us the gods of America and our worship as the official state religion. Then they ratified the treaty the president had signed with me placing America beneath the auspices of our Theocracy--the first sovereign country to be brought beneath our world government.

They passed other laws, stripping all other religions of their tax exemption and further imposing a tax on all churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, shrines, and any other place of worship that didn't follow us.

With the Senate in hand, I walked over to the House of Representatives to deal with the Congressmen and -women. My soldiers had already secured them and, after I had finished speaking, they unanimously voted for the laws and amendments that the Senate had passed. I felt dirty as I left Congress.

But it was all for the greater good.

Next, I visited the British, French, and German embassies, placing their ambassadors under our control. The situation with Europe was tense. All the world leaders not under our power were avoiding our phone calls, making it difficult to get them under domination. The ones that were under our power were facing considerable political turmoil. The Prime Minister of Britain, loyal to us, had been forced to resign by a motion of no confidence. Various parties were now vying for power in their Parliament.

Worse happened to the unfortunate President of Pakistan: He had been beheaded by fundamentalists rallying behind the Taliban.

* * *

Mary Glassner

I was bursting with anticipatory excitement when I arrived at Mark's hotel in Washington, D.C. The very spot where someone had tried to kill him. If it wasn't for the amulets Sam created, we would have all died. She was with me in the limousine, having flown down with me from New York after she and Candy had landed from completing their mission to France.

"Mark!" I cried when I spotted him in the lobby, out of the reach of prying cameras. I rushed to him and threw my arms around his neck. I kissed him hard on the lips. My hands ran all over his body, making sure he was fine. "You're not hurt, are you? You didn't leave anything out when you were fighting with the assassin?"

"No, no, I'm fine, Mare!" he said with such boyish laughter, like it wasn't such a big deal.

So I poked him hard in the chest. "You need to be more careful! Good PR! Really, Mark?"

"Sorry."

Then I kissed him again and clung to him. He was safe. Our powers had protected him. We had to get the world under our control. I wasn't losing our family. We would find a way to cheat death. We would never die and burn in Hell. Lucifer could rot in there for eternity.

Then Mark broke the kiss and asked past me, "You have it?"

"Yes, sir," Sam answered. "Though we did run into some trouble."

I nodded, explaining, "I had to heal Candy. She had a badly broken leg, and Sam had some cuts too."

"What happened?" Mark blinked. I had been shocked, too, to learn they had been attacked. I thought it was a relatively safe mission.

"Lilith," Candy spat, such anger in her tone. "One of her children followed us and attacked us."

"An Alukah," Sam explained. "A type of vampire. It killed two police officers and almost drained me dry of my blood." Sam glanced fondly at Candy. "But she saved my life."

Candy flushed. "It was nothing, Sam. You would have done the same for me."

"She was amazing," Sam continued. "She broke her leg jumping out of a second-story window and then dragged herself back into the Motherhouse to save me." Sam gave her a brief kiss on the lips. "Anyway, I can start constructing the Matmown right away."

"Good," I smiled, then glanced at Mark. "So, you captured a man immune to your powers?"