Church of the Immaculate Conception, Lima
Stacy leapt at Mercedes with tears in her eyes, landing lightly then winding her arms and legs around her body. "Mercy!" she shrieked, holding tight and digging her pointy little chin in to the older girl's shoulder. Stevie was not far behind, wrapping his skinny arms as far around her waist as he could, burying his face in her side and clinging hard.
"We were so worried," he said, so softly she almost didn't hear him.
Mercy's heart constricted and she had to take a few deep breaths before answering the children.
"Hey guys – I'm sorry we scared you."
Stacy lifted a tear stained face and still trembling mouth. "It's ok Mercy, we know Sammy didn't have a choice. Mama told us about how the Ancients wanted to take you away."
"Yeah. We're glad Sam didn't let them have you," Stevie chimed in fiercely, scrubbing a hand across his face.
Stacy giggled. "He kicked their dumb assess."
Mercedes laughed with them, squeezing them against herself again and inhaling their little kid smell of shampoo, crushed grass and joy. She was still livid at Sam's stupid, heavy handed ordering around but she was very happy to be with the babies. She'd see them through this – whatever horror was coming she'd be watching over them.
Anna was setting Elias onto the couch and checking the man's temperature and vitals as she did so. He was vaguely awake now, obviously confused, but smiling happily and groggily at Karofsky who settled onto the couch beside him and curved his arms around the older man.
Satisfied that the two were settled Anna walked to Mercy and the children and beckoned them into her arms. She was kneeling and they both leaned into her, arms around her neck. She kissed their cheeks and murmured words that sounded a little like the crooning of doves at twilight. Her eyes were a wet with tears but she blinked those determinedly away and then reached a hand out for Mercy. Mercedes knelt without hesitation, her arms closing the circle that they formed.
"Will you say a prayer for us Mercedes?" asked Anna.
"I – well – yes," Mercedes said. She hadn't been expecting that and terror and worry had wiped eloquence right out of her brain and so she opened her mouth and recited the words she had prayed, every night, since she had been a very little girl.
"O' Angel of God, my Guardian Dear. To whom God's love commits me here. Ever this day be at my side to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen."
As she uttered the words a glow seemed to fill Anna and spill into the two children at her side. The three Guardians looked at her with matching expressions of awe and Stacy couldn't stifle a little sound of joy as the words Mercedes spoke sent a searing jolt of power through them all. The tears she had been holding back finally spilled down Anna's cheeks as she looked at Mercedes. Wings the colour of flame unfurled from her back, mantling with a kind of helpless bliss, while Stacy and Stevie were framed by pure white, downy and already daunting wings. Seeing them all in their true form like that – Mercedes took in a deep, shuddering breath – it felt like being granted the barest glimpse of heaven.
"I – I have not heard that incantation said in many many years," Anna whispered. "Thank you Mercedes for giving us, so wholeheartedly, your love and trust. We will not fail you." With that she rose, the human mantle falling completely away. "This church was built on hallowed ground. The demons cannot enter here unless they are invited in, so you will be safe until we come to release you."
A woman, short and round with silver hair scraped into a bun and thick glasses on her face, walked through the door then. She was carrying three rifles casually over her shoulder and was moving with a purpose and ease that a human woman her age could not achieve. Anna smiled at her and the two embraced briefly before she turned to introduce the Guardian.
"Mercedes, Stacy, Stevie, this is Joanna. She is an elder from Missispi who will be guarding you while we do battle."
"Children," Joanna said, nodding at the three. "I would have preferred to be meeting you all under different circumstances but there is nothing like adventure to bring people together," she drawled cheerily, Southern accent turning her voice to warm, sticky, sugared goodness. Mercedes liked her immediately – she reminded her of her own blunt, warm grandmother.
"A pleasure to meet you too ma'am," the babies said seriously, politely.
"A pleasure Joanna," smiled Mercedes. The old lady looked her over and nodded in a kind of silent approval.
"Can you shoot Mercedes?" she asked beginning to set the weapons down.
"Yes ma'am," the girl declared excitedly, reaching for the heavy firearm Joanna was handing to her.
"These are loaded with rock salt and blessed bullets – they'll tear through those mangy demon bastards like a hot knife through butter. The cowardly slime won't risk too many shots of these so if things get sticky these'll buy us some time."
Anna watched silently as Joanna begun to lay out an array of guns, knives, grenades. Mercedes blinked in astonishment at that and had to grab Stevie's hand as it went with a transfixed kind of glee for one of the grenades.
"Damn!" Mercedes finally laughed, awed by the vast array, and Anna joined her. Joanna peered up at them both from over her glasses, looking for all the world like your run of the mill grandma who knits scarves and embroiders doilies. She winked saucily at them then and said, while gleefully stroking the blade of a jewelled scimitar, "That demon spawn is going to wish it had never left hell."
"Indeed," smiled Anna and with a final kiss and hug to the children and Mercedes, and one last lingering look, she was gone.
"Right children," began Joanna, "let's set up a perimeter and get a real understanding of all entry and exit points of this church. We're going to seal all the windows and doors - Stacy, Stevie your mama says the two of you know how to do that?"
The two little Guardians nodded eagerly.
"Excellent, so that's going to be your first job. Get to it!"
They scrambled off excitedly to the front of the church and began to spell the large front entrance against the power of demons. Joanna watched for a moment to ensure they were getting it right, nodded her satisfaction, and then turned to Mercedes to start sharing out and discussing the rest of their arsenal.
Dave had been watching and listening with fear swelling in his chest and he was thankful that Elias was still so out of it. Something ugly was afoot and it was filling his belly with an icy kind of dread. Dave had spent a very long time running away from things that terrified him. He'd been running away from himself since the year he turned eight and suddenly realised that the hard knot of want in his shorts when he wrestled Scotty Masterson down beneath him was not normal – not right. He'd been running until he'd hit the wall of his ill fated, disastrous attraction to Kurt Hummel and finally stopped running when he ran into Elias. Running never got him anywhere but even more terrified and nearly dead. He was never going to run again. Swallowing down the paralysing fear he cleared his throat and spoke: "I can shoot," he told the backs of the two women.
They turned to him in surprise. He could tell they had sort of forgotten his presence there. "I want to help you put down whatever hurt Elias."
"Good man!" crowed Joanna. "Put a pillow under your boy's head – you can get one out of Father Emmanuel's office – and then get your ass over here. We're going to need all the help we can get."
Dave nodded, suddenly drenched with relief at having something to do, and then rose from Elias's already dozing side to join the bad ass grandma and Mercedes Jones.
Mercedes began loading bullets with black carvings etched into the dull bronze smoothly and efficiently. She looked dangerous and beautiful sitting in the wash of early morning light filtering through the myriad of colours of the stained glass windows. The last time he'd seen her had been as he ran out of prom. She'd been with Sam then too, the blonde holding her back as she glared fiercely at where her friend Kurt was being humiliated. His cheeks burnt with shame at the memory but he smiled tentatively at her anyway. He was different now – stronger than he had been. She beamed back, eyes that bright, beguiling brown that had always sent a twinge of regret through him when he'd slushied her in the school corridors.
"So you and Evans huh?"
She smiled, looking shyly at the gleaming ebony of the rifle. "Yeah."
"Since prom?"
"Sort of. It's been building since then and suddenly we were...whatever this is," she said, laughing softly. "And you and your guy?"
Dave looked back at Elias who was now snoring softly. He was well and truly out of it. He couldn't stop the tender smile that spread across his face as he looked at the man who had been instrumental in saving his life. "Elias. He and I – we've been seeing each other pretty much since I got out of hospital."
"Your dad?"
A sad little smile twisted Dave's lips. "He doesn't know. He's real supportive you know – more than I ever believed he would be. But Elias is – well my Dad wouldn't approve." Dave shrugged. "And I've hurt him enough. E and I – we do what we do just for us. Till I graduate anyway. Then we have plans."
He slid into the pew across from Mercedes, the wood smooth against his palms, cool through the seat of his pants. She calmly handed him a shotgun, hefting the weapon with only a little difficulty. As he reached for it and their eyes met they both laughed – the sound full of nerves and the sheer madness of the situation they found themselves in.
"Who the hell would have imagined that we would be here one day – getting ready to kill demons," said Dave, shaking his head a little as if that would right the world and set it back on its intended, mostly hum-drum course.
"Not me!" Mercedes said a little fiercely. "God has some interesting plans in place – Lord alone knows where we'll be a few hours from now." She finished loading the weapon and clicked the barrel back in place. The gun was ready to fire.
The children were talking excitedly to Joanna as she checked and rechecked their seals on the doors and windows before nodding in satisfaction. "Well done," she said, hugging both youngsters tight and they glowed with pleasure. "Now let's all get something to eat. It's going to be a very long day."
Steele and Jennings Construction, Lima
"Why didn't you finish the Bond Samael?"
Sam sighed. He'd known the question was coming but he'd rather hoped that Jericho and Bronson would leave it till after the fight – till after they beat the demons back. Sam turned his neck, letting the bone pop as he rolled the tension out. His wings had flared forth the moment Mercedes had disappeared with Anna, his body fighting the purely unnatural sensation of not having her in touching distance – and they hadn't returned since, the feathers bristling in a kind of agitation. He shook them out once more, trying to get them to settle, but it was useless. A fight was coming and his mate was not at his side. Every instinct he possessed was screaming at the wrongness of that.
"You know why Bronson," he gritted, not in the mood to talk about his decision.
"You're a fool," the old man growled and Sam snarled back, eyes aglitter. "What are you afraid of? That little girl loves you so damn much already! If you die she won't want to live."
"You're wrong –"
"No, you're wrong. You've sold yourself this cock and bull about how she's young and she's a mortal and you're her Guardian and she can't possibly know what she's doing – that her feelings can't possibly be as powerful, as true as yours are for her."
"Bronson I cannot bind her essence to mine! She has scarcely lived. This fight we are going into – we have no guarantee of our survival. If I had finished the Bond my death would mean that she would die too. I could not bear that – I cannot bear the thought of a world without her in it."
"So instead you'll ensure that she lives in a world without you in it?"
The last came from Anna as she walked out of the shadows of the building and to Sam's side. The woman reached a hand out to Sam's face, cradling his cheek in her hand. Her eyes flared blue with a ring of red that matched the awesome span of her wings. "Mercedes will not survive long without you. I have seen this. If you die she will linger but a year and find a way to join you on the other side. You know this Sam. You've felt it and tasted the truth of it on her lips and skin. You have marked her so utterly that the completion of your Bond is at this stage a mere formality. If we live to see the end of this battle – and we will – you must return to her arms and complete the Bond."
Sam swallowed, his heart beating a terrified tattoo in his chest. He didn't want this life for his Mercy. Immortality was hard and human beings were not built for eternity. A Bond with him would tie her lifespan and youth and well being to his but she would still be a human being. He could feel his family around him – Jericho, Bronson, Anna, all lending implacable certainty to the action he had to take if – when – this was all over.
"I will complete the Bond with Mercedes when we have survived this mess and driven the last of the Kin back beyond the veil," he gritted, determined – the beginnings of relief flooding through him as he took the decision every instinct he had had been screaming at him to take.
The mocking laughter and sound of slow, scornful applause jarred Sam and had the Guardians spinning around to face the Ancients who had materialised at their backs. All four of them stood there, gleaming with power, seeming to absorb the grey, cloudy light into their glossy skin and glittering wings, darkness seeming to spread from their shadows. Pulane stood at the fore – shatteringly beautiful and unspeakably powerful. Her wings were the deep blue of the sky at midnight and iridescent scales spilt in a fall of obsidian and red across the long, naked lines of her lean body. She was watching them, silently, her gaze supremely still as it always was. The mocking applause was from Mikhail whose eyes burnt into Sam's with a fierce hatred that the Guardian returned. Mwennin and Sateya flanked Mikhail and Pulane, also eerily still, the only sign of life the taunting sneers curling their lips. Sam's heart sank then because suddenly, with icy certainty, he knew.
"Where are the other Guardians?" asked Jericho, clearly bewildered. "They should have all been here the moment that veil tore. And now it has been an hour and you four are the only ones to arrive."
"The others aren't coming Jericho," said Sam, his eyes leaving Mikhail's and meeting Pulane's depthless stare. He stepped forward, eyes narrowed.
Pulane moved then, with almost unbearable grace, and smiled chillingly at Sam. "No. They are not."
Bronson's shocked exhalation made Sam's skin crawl. The old man had not suspected this kind of treachery – none of them had. It was too immense – too devastating – to contemplate.
"You – You've been," stammered Anna, tears of disbelieving horror falling from her eyes.
"Yes child," said Pulane, her voice falling like honeyed poison. "We are the ones who have been wearing at the veil. We are the ones who have been working with the Kin. We are the ones who have unleashed hell on earth."
Silently, with no warning, Bronson flew at the evil quartet. Mwennin saw him coming and dashed in front of Pulane, unsheathing his weapon but Bronson's momentum drove him into the Ancient, his sword flashed and then descended in a hard arch and down through Mwennin's shoulder, severing his carotid artery in a heavy splatter of blood and separating his head from his shoulders. Sateya screamed, high and piercing and long, the sound tearing at the eardrums, beating at the Guardians around her even as they too dove for the Ancients, swords unsheathed. Pulane grabbed Bronson's shoulder, brutally tackling the older man down to his knees. She remained terrifyingly quiet even as her taloned hand dug into Bronson's right wing and wrenched upwards. Sam, Jericho and Anna watched in speechless horror as she tore the gleaming appendage right from his shoulder blade and threw it to land, with a meaty, unnatural thud, at their feet. The entire, horrifying tableau had taken seconds. Bronson was screaming, had been screaming, but amidst the agonised sounds of pain he roared: "Sam – go to Mercedes! Go!"
Sam's swinging sword froze at the words and with a deep gulp at the blood scented air he allowed his wings to tug him away from the carnage, away from his family, and towards where Mercedes waited.
