Failure was not an option. It never had been in the first place, but now it was even less of an option.
Mark walked into his cabin, turned on the lights, and tossed his bag on the floor. He flopped on his bed and raised a hand to his forehead, sighing heavily.
Victoria Byrne was a stubborn mule, that's what she was. Of course, he was too, but Vicki was just as stubborn, if not more so.
After learning that Mark was not going to change his mind about his suicide mission (at least, that's what Vick called it) to infiltrate Nicolae Carpathia's facility, Vicki put her foot down and demanded to go along with him. At that point, everyone involved in the discussion – including Mark – tried to convince Vicki into leaving the group so he could perform the mission alone, but she held her position, saying that if Mark went on that mission, she was going as well. The conversation then turned to Mark, and even with Vick's life at stake, he refused to change his mind.
Which lead to Mark receiving an earful and having his substitute parents offer to take on this mission instead, but even so he had to hold his ground. After it had been firmly established that both Mark and Vicki were going, most of the adults left the room, grumbling to their spouses about "immature and irresponsible teenagers," to which Mark wanted to respond that he was no longer an adolescent. Before he had the chance to make a snarky comment, Zeke pulled him aside and told him, as plain as day, "If you let Vicki get so much as a scratch, you will regret it." Zeke stepped closer to Mark until his chest touched Mark's. Mark was uncomfortable at their closeness, so he looked for any stragglers left in the meeting room to pull the two apart. The only person in the room was little Ryan Victor. The sun was setting, and Zeke was blocking the little light left in the day.
Zeke breathed heavily, and his breath smelled stale. He put his mouth next to Mark's ear and said, "And if she dies, I swear I will kill you."
Mark, of course, didn't object. Now, the remark about her not getting hurt at all was a bit ridiculous, but he knew that if his honorary sister died in that mission – which was too great a possibility – Mark would become even more reckless and likely would be killed by the antichrist himself.
The young man huffed again, trying to come up with any situation in which Vicki would not feel obligated to come along with him, but he had no results. He groaned again as he kicked off his shoes, and then he got into the bed. He fell asleep praying with the light on.
Mark rapped the door to Vicki's cabin, and without waiting for her reply, he welcomed himself through the door.
It wasn't the smartest move he could've made. He wanted to run, laugh, cry, and smack Vicki upside the head.
"Vick…?" Mark's stunned voice matched his blushing cheeks.
"Yeah?" Vicki said casually, despite the scene laid before the two. She was calmly looking through her closet for the required black attire. Without clothes covering her undergarments. She stood in only a bra.
He blinked rapidly, trying to avoid seeing Vicki in the immodest state she was in. "Why aren't you dressed yet?"
Vicki looked up at the blushing man, grinning deviously. "Well, you told me to wear all black. Did you not expect me to shower, too?"
With the black bra, black slacks, black socks… She looked like a shadow of the night.
A beautiful, stunning, gorgeously pale shadow.
"I mean, I just – I didn't necessarily mean for you to wear all black, just dark outerwear, and…" The man trailed off, slowly scanning the beautiful girl's body. "Are you wearing black underwear, too?"
Vicki nodded her head twice, still smirking. "I don't know, what do you think?"
Oh, the things women do to men.
Mark sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I didn't intend to be taken that literally."
He could almost hear the laughter in her voice. "Oh, I know. What did you expect? Give a girl a color scheme, and she'll go all the way."
"Yeah, well, just – get dressed, please." Mark tried to divert his eyes from Vicki's almost-entirely unclothed body, particularly her upper body. He happened to notice she was more fit than he would have thought, as she had a noticeably muscular back and stomach. He could only imagine how those hips must feel against his hands… Whoa man, he thought. She's my sister, nothing like that. He couldn't help himself from one more comment.
"And, um, you look very pretty."
After an awkwardly long pause, Vicki couldn't control her laughter.
"I didn't mean it like that! Black looks really…good on you? I guess? It makes your eyes stand out more…" When he realized defending himself was impossible and that he was just digging a deeper hole for himself, she waved him out of her room, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
The purpose of this mission was to find Carpathia's plans against the Christians and – if possible – redirect the plans for Carpathia's mark. Vicki was great with computers, and if they could get near one and if Carpathia was sloppier than they thought, they could save thousands of Christians and Jews.
It was still a very dangerous operation. They were breaking and entering into the world's leader's home, and even though Mark had a pistol for protection, it would do very little against Carpathia's supernatural abilities.
Mark stopped the 4Runner about two miles from the outskirts of Carpathia's property. He had told Vicki to wear all black, and of course, she had taken him a bit too literally by wearing a black bra. Their socks and shoes were so dark, dark to the extent that you could only sense them passing by the sound of their feet, for the two blended into the night sky. Mark turned off the car, and he nodded to Vicki, telling her without words to pull on her ski mask and gloves. Vicki tied her red hair into a ponytail and yanked the itchy black fabric over her face, and the two then put their equally dark gloves onto each of their hands. Vicki waited for Mark to hide his gun in the pocket of his jacket before moving.
Before they left the vehicle, Mark established the ground rules for their assignment: Vicki, under no circumstances, was allowed to try and protect him. She was not to worry about him. If Mark was killed, Vicki was to run as fast and as far away as she could. If she escaped, she had to evade the Global Community police as much as physically possible. If she ended up in the hands of the Global Community, she was to do whatever was needed to keep herself alive.
Vicki held up a hand before Mark could continue with his rules. "Mark," she said, "these are all really grim possibilities. Put it into this light: Nicolae may not even be there. If he isn't, we have a great shot at getting through this."
Mark tried to interrupt her, but Vicki held up her index finger to emphasize that she was not finished speaking.
"Your main objective is not to save Christians, but to prove yourself. Is that right? You want to prove yourself braver than Judd, who died by Nicolae's hand. You want to prove yourself braver than the rest of us, Mark, but why? None of us need you to prove yourself."
"That," Mark said, slowly and shaking his head, "is actually really true, but that's not the reason for this mission." Vicki raised her eyebrows, and he felt the need to defend himself. "Okay, it's part of it, but it's not the main intent of this operation. I –" Mark hung his head, "– I feel as though I have to get revenge on Carpathia for killing Judd."
Vicki put one of her hands on his shoulder. "And that's understandable and admirable. But, Mark, we're fighting a war against an enemy who has more power over the world than any other except Christ Himself. All we can do is trust God. You know that. He is the only chance we have."
Mark nodded and said, "Okay. Let's go."
The two young adults left the stolen vehicle and set off for Carpathia's property. They darted between the sparse trees, and eventually reached Carpathia's property.
Both knew immediately that they had not correctly predicted the company they would have in this operation.
Carpathia stood eight feet away from Vicki's face, talking to one of his chiefs of police. Vicki strained her ears, and was able to overhear that Carpathia was planning to promote Commander Fulcire to head of the United North American States – third in command of the continent, after Carpathia himself and Leonardo Fortunato, who was Carpathia's right hand man. In the middle of the discussion, Carpathia turned his head in Vicki's direction, and it took every ounce of willpower within her not to make a sudden movement. With a mission like this, a normally subtle flinch could cost her not just her own life, but her friend's as well.
Carpathia was wearing a full suit, which seemed to fit him. Vicki could hear each of his steps as he came nearer.
"Lord Carpathia," Fulcire said, "what is the matter, your majesty?"
Carpathia lifted his chin, as if trying to survey beyond the far trees for intruders. "There seems to be a couple of trespassers."
It was all Vicki could do to not scream and run. She shut her eyes as tightly as possible and bit her tongue until she tasted the blood swirling around in her mouth. Even with the revolting taste, she refused to make any kind of motion.
Carpathia lowered his head and studied the ground in front of him. Vicki and Mark were as frozen as statues.
Carpathia chuckled and waved the commander away. The two men turned, and Carpathia slung an arm across Fulcire's shoulders, talking amiably with him.
Both Vicki and Mark breathed a very silent sigh of relief and carefully got up and stole away to the closest door.
Once inside, they took off their masks. Mark instantly was able to sense that something was wrong. No one was in the building, and Mark understood that that in itself was a warning. He attempted to shake the feeling of impending doom and nodded to Vicki to find a computer.
Three stories up and four doors to the right, Vicki found one. She hacked into it rather easily, and though she thought nothing of it, a red flag went up in Mark's mind. He looked over his shoulder, and everything in him screamed danger, but he found no one in the hallway. He stayed at the door as Vicki searched files.
"Mark!" she hissed, almost desperately. "They're planning an attack on our camp."
"Ignore it, Vick," he said, eyes not moving from the hallway.
Vicki was about to slap him upside his head, but he interrupted her before she could do that.
"There's something wrong."
Vicki walked beside him. "Mark, nothing's wrong. Carpathia's just sloppier than we thought."
Mark shook his head, still watching the hallway. "It's been too easy. Getting in here without resistance. Finding a computer and hacking into it. Finding the plans. Vick, Carpathia is not this sloppy. He will never let this building have fewer than twenty guards at a time. The door we came through was completely unguarded. His computer would be more difficult to find, let alone hack into. And those plans – that man is not stupid enough to put something so delicate as that onto a computer, where literally anyone can find it."
Vicki rolled her eyes and went back to the computer. "We should warn them."
"Carpathia is simply guessing where we are located. He has no knowledge of it."
"You can't know that."
Mark turned to face her. "If he knew, we would be dead already."
At this, Vicki began to piece together the puzzle Mark had explained to her. Finally, her sea green eyes widened with understanding and fear. Mark raised his eyebrows in an older-brother way, as if to say, "I told you so." Vicki exited the computer and erased all evidence of their being there. When she finished, Mark swiftly took hold of Vicki's wrist and dragged her out of the room.
Once they were out of the room, Mark's mind started flashing sirens. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was even remotely similar the about the building they entered just minutes ago. Shit, Mark thought. Now the devil can change the layout of a building.
He took a wild, desperate guess and made a sharp left, pulling Vicki along all the while. The building had become a maze. The two hit a dead end, turned, and found yet another dead-end. Mark looked around, feeling the dark wall for maybe a hatch or lever, like they do in the movies, and found a wall opening, so he lead Vicki and himself through the crack. The game continued with Mark trying to guess Carpathia's thoughts.
Finally, the walls stopped shifting. Mark couldn't even breathe a sigh of relief when the maze halted. Carpathia stood at the end of the hallway, smirking. Carpathia looked straight at Vicki, lifted his left arm, and it took mere seconds for Vicki to collapse on the ground. Nicolae smiled even more so, and continued with his foul, satanic rituals.
Time slowed and sped at once, for the boy. Mark dropped to his knees, holding Vicki's hand as she gasped for final breaths. She cried, but the tears were of blood rather than water. She let out a strangled gag, attempting to vomit. Two minutes later, she stopped struggling and fell back, with her eyes glazed over.
Mark, of course, knew what had happened, but in his desperation, he felt for a pulse. Nothing. He put his ear to her chest, listening for a breath or a heartbeat. Quiet. All was still and he could hardly make out any noises with shock ringing in his ears. He looked up at Carpathia, anger and rage spilling over his eyes, his body, his mind.
Carpathia stopped smiling, and if just for a moment, Mark registered fear in his eyes. Mark rose from the spot he filled with agony and walked towards the monster with hatred and fire.
Carpathia didn't let Mark get three steps in his direction before he snapped his fingers and vanished.
Mark stood at the end of the hallway, and let loose a rage-induced, terror-filled, angry, guttural scream that could make a demon clench its ears. He would hunt down Nicolae Carpathia and kill him himself if it was the last thing he ever did.
When he stepped outside, he found no one. He clenched his fists and fire spit from his eyes.
Demons run when a good man goes to war.