The McCallister Curse Pt. 03

She opened her mouth to speak, knowing what she would do. No one would hurt Audrey.

Audrey was hers.

"Nooo, pleeease!" one of them cried, raising her hands in supplication.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god," the other started to babble, backing away from her in terror.

"Sara! Stop!"

Sara was struck dumb as Audrey spoke to her, the blonde crashing into her a second later. Arms wrapping themselves around Sara's body tightly, doing her best to stop Sara from doing something she knew her friend would regret.

"Stop Sara. Please.

"Enough killing. They don't need to die."

A storm of emotions crashed through Sara as Audrey embraced her. Anger giving way to fear, relief, hope and grief. A true flood of conflicting feelings flowing through her mind and underneath it all there was a single constant. Lust. A deep burning desire that never wavered.

She had forgotten her own lust, forgotten her curse during the madness that had overtaken the morning. But now it was rising, returning. Matching, synching, entwining with this new ember that was taking life in her mind.

Embracing her friend briefly in return and relishing the short contact far too much, she pushed Audrey away before she lost control.

"I'm ok Audrey, I'm ok."

"I'm not going to kill them," she told her friend.

Audrey studied her, turning Sara's head so she could look into her eyes and make sure that she was in control.

"You used your power," she said softly, "I didn't know you could do that to people."

Sara didn't need Audrey to explain what 'that' was. The man she had effectively killed lay still and silent on the floor and she was doing her best not to look at the results of her command.

"I didn't mean to," she softly confided, matching Audrey's whispered tone.

"All I saw was Constance, and you, you were in danger. I didn't even think about it. It just came out."

Audrey moved to comfort her, but Sara flinched away, not willing to trust herself with Audrey's touch again. A brief look of hurt and regret crossed her face but was gone so quickly Sara wasn't sure it had been real.

"You saved me Sara," she told the dark-haired girl.

"They wanted to take me away from you. Have me tell them how to get to you.

"I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't shown up."

"Well, we don't need you anymore," an imperious voice interrupted their small reunion.

"Sara McCallister, I am Elizabeth Grey, and you are going to come with me."

Sara and Audrey looked at the interloper. The twins Sara had so far ignored had evidently recovered from her shocking entrance.

Elizabeth stood facing them resolutely, her stun gun pointed in their direction, Katherine standing slightly off to the side and behind was doing the same but looked far less confident about it than her sister.

"I'll shoot you if I have to," Elizabeth declared, "But you are coming with me."

"No, you won't." Sara told her, the anger rising in her once again, "and no I am not."

She faced the Grey woman.

"I won't let you hurt Audrey. I won't let you take her."

"We don't want her. You come with us and she is free to go," Elizabeth countered angrily.

Sara scoffed at the fool.

"Elizabeth Grey huh? From one of those families, I was warned about I suppose.

"If I come with you, what would happen to Audrey? Left alone in here with a swarm of armed goons?"

Sara took a step towards Elizabeth, acting much more menacing than a woman of her height should have been able to manage.

Elizabeth straightened her arms, gun firming on Sara.

"Don't move," she threatened.

"I'm leaving this place and Audrey is coming with me. I don't want any part in your magic and your politics.

"I just want to be left alone. To be normal."

"I can't let you do that Sara," Elizabeth told her.

"You don't get a choice Grey," Sara said with calm finality.

Focusing within herself, Sara used 'Command' purposefully for the first time, putting her all into the words. This was their way out.

"PROTECT US."

The twins tried to fire, to stop Sara.

But it was too late. They were too slow.

Sara did the impossible.

She blasted through their auras as if they didn't exist, like a hot knife through butter, she cleaved her way through their vaunted anti-magic and into their minds.

"What did you do to me?" Katherine demanded.

Elizabeth was silent, futilely trying to redirect her weapon back at Sara to fire.

"I did what a McCallister is meant to do," Sara told her, "Command."

The twins just stood there. Nothing like this had been meant to happen. They were meant to capture the McCallister. Not the other way around.

Audrey risked a touch on Sara's elbow. She barely recognised the petite, raven haired girl before her. This was no party girl, no panicked victim of a curse and concerted attack. This was a woman with power. Audrey felt her need growing again but fought against it. Now was not the time.

"We need to go Sara," she told her friend.

Sara nodded.

"I know."

"You're Elizabeth and you are?" she addressed the twins.

"Katherine," was the prompt response.

"Elizabeth, Katherine," Sara practically purred at them, tasting the names on her lips.

"TAKE US SOMEWHERE SAFE," she unleashed her power on them once again.

Sara and Audrey could tell they tried to fight it, to refuse the order. But Sara's will was too strong, theirs too shaken from what they had experienced that morning. It wasn't even a contest.

Katherine hung her head in shame and Sara could see something break inside Elizabeth as her order took hold on their minds.

Looking back up, change sweeping through her as Sara's order took effect, Katherine took charge of the situation.

"If we are going to get you out of this place, we need to make it look good," she stated.

"Elizabeth will go first. Sara, you, and Audrey will go next. Put your hands on your heads and try to look defeated.

"I'll follow up the rear. That should make you look more like prisoners.

"If we encounter Father's troops, we will just have to bluff our way past them."

Audrey nodded along. It made sense.

"Ok," Sara agreed easily, "Let's do this."

With a last sorrowed look at the fallen abbess who had so bravely tried to help them, Sara and Audrey left the library with their 'escort'.

"I'm so sorry Constance. I didn't want this. I'm so sorry," Sara whispered to herself as they filed out.

There would be time for proper grief later. For now, she had to focus on getting out of the abbey. Focus on keeping Audrey safe.

The twins might be hers for now, but she wasn't sure how long her power would hold. They hadn't agreed to serve like Audrey had. Hopefully it would be enough.

Gabrielle grit her teeth as she blocked another bone-jarring blow. The mysterious mace that the demon Jasper called Harrowrift ricocheted away from her hastily positioned sword.

Since freeing the soldier demon from her holy fire to save herself from the succubus' tender clutches Jasper had been on a warpath. A madness descending upon the demon as he drove himself after the succubus and herself again and again.

He hadn't slowed, hadn't stopped.

A berserk fury raging through every fibre of his being, he had gone after the succubus first. His mace seeking Rose with dreadful and deadly intent. The succubus had taken to the air to avoid the worst of it, striking back at Jasper with snaps of her demonic whip as she dodged the mace.

Gabrielle hadn't interfered after Rose released her. She had no problem with the two demons destroying each other and she had needed to clear her head of Rose's seductive influence.

So, she had simply stood and waited, the golden flames of her divinity cloaking her body as demon fought demon upon the grounds of Saint Avacines.

Waited for her chance to end the victor.

It was the logical choice she had told herself. Why fight two demons when you can get away with only duelling one. The other part of her, the part that shouldn't exist kept urging her to help the succubus, to save Rose and be rewarded.

She'd ignored it and she was beginning to regret that decision.

Gabrielle speared towards her foe, the fury of the heavens at her back and the fires of creation on her blade. Flaming blade outstretched, she attacked, trying to find a way past the unholy mace's defence.

Her strike was blocked easily, heavenly steel meeting the black iron of hell before bouncing away. Gabrielle willed her fires to strike, holy fire sweeping along her blade towards Jasper, intent on purifying the demon and turning him to ash.

The mace reacted. It had learned.

Its light sapping form darkening, a void of perfect darkness wrapping around its spiked head, her fires disappeared. Eaten by the darkness.

"Not good enough seraph," Jasper snarled.

"You are no warrior angel, just a girl playing at one," he spat, "You are outmatched, you cannot defeat Harrowrift."

His grin was pure malevolence.

"Flee while you can little seraph."

"You will burn demon," Gabrielle retorted.

"I will not abandon Sara."

The mace struck again, Gabrielle leapt, taking flight to dodge the blow, knowing what would be coming next.

Jasper let momentum carry him in a circle, rotating on the spot before loosing Harrowrift at her, flinging the mace at her at the peak of his spin.

Gabrielle braced, forearm of her offhand behind the blade and crossing her arms to absorb the blow. She had learnt that dodging the throw did no good.

The impact was staggering, her angelic body struggling against the power of the blow, her blade glowing like the sun as she fed it power to hold the mace at bay.

The mace fell back to its master, its attack blunted, and Gabrielle took a quick moment to search for the succubus, but she was gone. The humans had done their job.

She had noticed them while she was recovering. The troops that had accompanied Jasper had remained well back from the fight since it began. Watching. Waiting.

They'd begun to move, communicating amongst themselves with gestures and nods. She'd ignored them. Humans were no threat to her and the battle between Jasper and Rose had become even more vicious. The fight escalating rapidly as hatred and rage drove them both on, to unleash more of their power onto the other.

Rose summoned hellfire, black flames raining from her hands; cast illusions, creating copies of herself that fanned out to taunt, distract, and attack the other demon from all angles. All the while she flew out of Jaspers reach and away from his horrific weapon, cackling madly as she did.

The soldier demon had responded in his own way. Wielding the mace, he had simply destroyed or blocked everything thrown at him and if something made it through the whirling steel, he ignored it, his exaggerated healing rendering every wound nothing more than a nuisance.

"Why won't you die you worm!" Rose had screeched as another illusion was vanquished and another crack of her infernal whip was brushed aside as if it were little more than a fly.

"You first you damned harpy!" Jasper had yelled back.

While the succubus was frustrated and distracted, the humans had acted.

One man had struck out alone, weapon raised and firing on the succubus as he advanced.

"You dare!" she had bellowed in outrage.

Rose, dodging the gunfire, had swept her arm in a wide curve, hellfire launching in a burning sulphuric wave at the interrupting soldier.

It fell toward him in a fiery storm and faded into nothing before it got close, evaporating like mist before the dawn.

"A Grey," Rose had scowled, scorn filling her voice.

The man didn't reply, simply continuing to close the distance between them.

"Come and die then," Rose had stated, swooping down to meet him, hands spread wide, her whip fading away as well, illusions dissipating as the Grey family aura shredded her magic.

It had been a trap of course.

The Grey acting as irresistible bait.

Her magic gone; Rose had had no defences when the others acted. Globes of holy water were lobbed in her direction, tranquilizers filled with the same zeroing in. She hadn't been able to dodge them all, darts lodging themselves in her wings and chest. She had ignored them, still charging to meet the Grey as her body began smouldering, the holy water eating at her very being.

Then that damned mace had finished the job. Jasper flinging it once more with uncanny accuracy, it had struck Rose squarely, knocking her to the ground at the Greys feet.

Snarling, burning and beaten, she had looked up at the man with those devastating purple eyes and there had been no surrender, no concession in her gaze. Only a promise.

"The end of your house is coming Grey. I have seen her. She is your apocalypse, and she will burn you all to nothing."

The man had regarded her silently for a moment. Then he had brutally kicked the fallen succubus in the head, her sinful form going limp and silent from the blow.

Gabrielle had launched herself at Jasper at it happened, a new fury filling her as the succubus was felled before her eyes.

The other humans moving in, looking to secure Rose immediately.

It was wrong but she had wanted to strike them down more. The ancient enemy in front of her with weapons bared and her animosity was for mortal men.

Her fires had dimmed.

Jasper had hit her like a truck. Harrowrift smashing into her like a wrecking ball.

She'd been on the backfoot ever since.

Every attack neutered; every use of her fires extinguished. Jasper was toying with her now. The demon knew it, she knew it.

He was right, the damned demon was right. She was no warrior. But she would protect Sara. The thought of her charge, of the poor cursed young woman kept her in the fight, kept her fires lit. She would not falter while Sara needed her.

"I tire of this game angel," Jasper said as he regathered his weapon.

"Come. Harrowrift hungers."

The demon attacked again. No holding back, no cruel games or ploys. Just pure, simple destruction. Gabrielle could feel the menace in the air. Jasper meant to kill her, erase her from this world and leave Sara alone. Her end was approaching.

"You should have run," he said, the mace winging its way towards her again in the sky.

Again, desperately she blocked it, the weapon driving her back as she repelled it with great effort.

Jasper leapt to recover his mace this time, meeting it mid-air and flinging it back at Gabrielle once more.

She couldn't do it this time. She tried to block the dreadful mace. Her sword shattered, the flames dying. The wicked spikes of Harrowrift burying themselves in her pure flesh as her blade gave way.

The void opened and Gabrielle could feel the weapon begin its feast. Harvesting her divinity, eating away at her soul.

She screamed, a raw cry of pure terror that broke the morning air.

She had been right. It was what she had suspected.

This weapon should not be. It was alive. Sentient. It was an abomination.

Gabrielle's fired dimmed once more.

"I'm so sorry Sara," she wept softly.

"I'll find you again, I promise."

With the last of her will, Gabrielle changed. Her human like form discarded as she returned to her purest state. Pure fire and light. Harrowrift fell from her now non-existent form and with one last golden flash, the angel fled the field.

"Hmph," Jasper snorted as the angel disappeared.

Jasper casually caught Harrowrift as it returned to him before willing it away. He would pay the price for using it so much later, but he would pay it willingly. Harrowrift had shown both the succubus and the angel that he was no mere soldier demon. He regretted that the Greys had witnessed it, but it had been necessary to win the field.

Turning back to the abbey and the Grey troops, it was time to find out if the others had done their part.

The journey out of the abbey was going smoothly; the Grey twins under Sara's influence had escorted her and Audrey from the library with brisk efficiency.

Pretending to be the twins' prisoners was no challenge, hands on heads and with a very real fear in their chests, Sara had followed Elizabeth through the stone hallways she had been creeping along just shortly before with Audrey and Katherine following along behind.

They were moving quickly, trusting to speed and their ruse to get them through the abbey, the soldier she had killed swiftly left behind along with Constance. Sara had to hold back tears and bury her grief as she thought of the kindly abbess again, she had grown to like the woman in their brief encounters and a terrible regret gnawed at her being from being the cause of her demise.

Finding the stairs back to the ground floor, they descended past a fallen nun, Sara noticing that Elizabeth steadfastly refused to look at the body, she turned to see that Katherine was the same, a sickly pallor creeping its way across her tanned skin, and she couldn't help but consider that perhaps the twins weren't as ruthless as the rest of Grey family agents she had encountered so far.

She smiled briefly at Audrey before turning back forward.

Elizabeth seemed to know where she was going, not stopping to consider direction at the base of the stairs, immediately moving off down the next passageway.

Sara followed cautiously, she wasn't sure what would happen if they ran into another of the Grey families' soldiers, she had to trust her power would hold the twins enough, that they would get them through any encounter with enemy troops.

She hadn't really accepted that part of what Constance and Gabrielle had told her.

The curse part was easy enough to believe; its constant presence coiled inside her mind, the unending lust calling to her even now in this dire time.

But the ability to control others, to 'Command' their actions, she hadn't been so certain.

But now, now she couldn't deny it.

An image of the soldier turning his weapon upon himself at her command returned to her.

She shuddered.

Audrey seemed to sense her distress, reaching forward to clasp her shoulder in a gesture of comfort. As before her lust seemed to grow tenfold at Audrey's touch, filling her with that impossible need, with it came a sense of warmth and safety, a stark contrast to the fire running in her veins.

"Put your hands back on your head," Katherine hissed at her, "don't blow the cover you idiot."

Audrey's hand retreated as if scalded and Sara heard her mutter a half-hearted apology.

"We're almost at the big hall," Elizabeth called back to them softly.

Sara was surprised. They had gotten back so quickly, but then, sneaking, and running for your life probably made things feel a lot more drawn out.

Stopping easily behind Elizabeth, Sara and the others waited while the lead twin peaked her head around the corner and peered into the hall beyond.

Elizabeth counted quickly, not wanting to expose herself longer than she had to. She might be compelled to protect the woman at her back but that didn't mean throwing her life away doing something stupid.

She grimaced as she ducked back into the hallway, unable to bring herself to shout at the guards, instead she turned and leant forward, whispering to the others.

"There is four of them in there now. I don't recognise any of them either.

"I'm not sure we can bluff that many," she admitted.

Elizabeth glanced at her sister, trying to fight the compulsion in her mind, hating that she thought this was the best way to fulfill Sara's commands and thus be compelled to share her sister's secret.

Katherine could see the defiance in her twins' eyes. The same struggle happening within those soft brown orbs, that she was certain would be reflected in her own.

They hadn't expected the McCallister girl; Sara, to be so strong. They had been so certain of their own power, that it was impossible for someone to overpower the aura they created. Now the impossible had happened and they would pay the price.