XXXVIII. Up Helly Aa (Halt & Catch Fire)

12

Marcella

Chicago, Illinois

Glen Woods (c. Route 94)

October 31st, 2014

Time: 6:50 AM

_____________________________

Ingibiorgʼs Fine Arts Society was a large Victorian house on the side of the Twelfth Night, and when Marcella ran towards the back entrance, her ribcage d*mn near snapped open. The wind pulverized her lungs, the pavement attacked her with dented edges, and as she ran, the grit of the street around her came at her with full force. Fire shrieking as it slapped the ground. The adrenaline thundered through her veins, pushing her limbs into full gear, and as it did, she burned.

Her pelvis was crunching underneath her, scathing with pain, and in the haze, smoke billowed above her. Swallowing the edge of Ferris Street with a desperate need. Whipping through the black wind and rounding the corner, Marcella panted and ran to Ciro with heavy pants and desperate sighs.

"You hot-wired my car!" Marcella blurted.

Ciro slammed the door of the Toyota open, jeering it to the right. With the distinct aroma of the fish market, and several bottles of that vintage merchantʼs sangria floating around the truck, Marcella ran towards the open passenger seat with bated breath.

"I hot-wired the car you hot-wired, muñequita," Ciro told her. "You need to start talking, Marcella, because I have priors and the boss is up my *ss, and I hot-wired the car you hot-wired!"

A beat.

"Do you have it?" she asked.

She stared at the moon with sore eyes and a Dahmer-esque fear of mortality, and as she squirmed under its grip, prayers rolled off her mouth: pleading prayers, prayers of sacrifice, prayers of relentlessness, prayers of no mercy, of no compassion. There was a fever that raked through her skin, a fever that was blotched with numb tears and alcoholic need, and as she ghosted around the edge of the Twelfth Nightʼs tenements, the apartment that connected Shakespeareʼs bar with Ingibiorgʼs Fine Arts Society, she let out a choked cry.

She was going to die here.

"Do you have it?"

"Yes, Marcella, yes."

The moon stared right back at her. Winking with the promise of a thousand needles being etched deeply inside her abdomen, overshadowing the complex of cookie cutter apartments and stringy cocaine dens that dotted the Chicagoan skyline. Blood stained her pants, thick as it oozed out of her, and with the scars and eloquently inscribed among her flesh, she felt like she was suffocating. Her body wasnʼt healing.

It was fighting against her.

She was going to die here.

Slapping her hands against her sides, Marcella pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows together, impatient. Her body was sweaty, her skin was all mangy, her mind was fuzzy, and her friend Ciro...

…was being a royal pain in the *ss.

Ciro frowned at her.

"Well?" Marcella asked, impatient.

"Oh," Ciro muttered. "Right."

He fiddled a vial of a fuchsia liquid. Pink, like a budding roseʼs petals. It was a vial of fae blood, a rare Panamanian black market item that glowed against his dirty palms, one from the short supply her mother managed to smuggle from Havana to Natchez, and as he twirled the liquid in his palm, Marcella reached for it –

– and Ciro ripped it from her grasp.

"Are you serious?"

"Crotchless p*nties," Ciro said simply.

Marcella huffed.

"I am bleeding to death, Ciro. You get that, right? A demon from Hell tortured me for what felt like hours, shoved a fireplace stoker up my *ss, violated me and cut me with his d*mn nails, and you want to talk about crotchless p*nties?"

"Well, if you wanna go and talk about violation, this is probably the second time I almost died for you today, muñequita, the first being when you made me plant witchfyre all over Chicago. Crotchless p*nties. I want the video, or the pics, or w-whatever you have!" he stuttered, each word a staccato.

Marcellaʼs throat grew parched, dry as a desert.

She was going to die here.

Cursing, Marcella lunged for the fairy concoction, her hind legs shrieking in pain.

"Theyʼre just p*nties!" she groaned, jumping. Ciro, having at least a foot on her, dangled the fae blood in the air and watched her try to tip-toe to get it.

"Crotchless, p*nties," he repeated.

Marcella panted, trying to reach for it again while simultaneously cursing her stagnant Latina height.

"Crotchless, p*nties –"

"I made it up!" Marcella blurted, and when he was distracted, she lurched forward and guzzled down the fae blood when it was in her hands. She drank like a thirsty woman, dehydration rewiring every bone in her body, and as she drank, she saw a faint little light crest around her hands. Pink as that roseʼs petals. Sighing, she felt the pain subside, dulling into silence.

She was going to die here.

"W-what?" Ciro choked.

Marcella sighed.

"Youʼre...a bunch of the girls we get high with at the Ritz are preppy senatorʼs daughters that have cross-dressing f*tishes. I figured...you would have done it to get laid, Ciro."

Marcella smiled widely, trying to laugh her nervousness away, and to that, Ciro stared blankly, lips forming the Ciro patented I-am-done-with-you-muñequita look in all its queer glory.

"Why are you lying to me?"

"Um..."

Marcella grabbed one of her several, thrift shop sewn, red leather jackets and black leather gloves from a cheap duffel and ignored Ciro. Watching the cul de sacs line up the other opposing end of the street. All destroyed by Macbethʼs flames. An apocalyptic waste. The Windy City reduced to nothing more than a page out of a Hollywood zombie flick.

"Marcella," Ciro said through gritted teeth.

Marcella clenched her fists, sighing, before she scratched the back of her head.

"Youʼre an effeminate...p-person, Ciro," Marcella stammered.

"Not all of us are going to college, Marcella. Maybe cut down on the big girl words a bit?" Ciro ground out.

He was in denial.

Great, Marcella thought, huffing. Just great.

"Femenino, Ciro," Marcella gritted out. "Youʼre feminine. I figured you put the crotchless panties on because youʼre a feminine man, Ciro. You like them! Babe, the only reason you keep that dumb *ss goatee is because you think it makes you more masculine, but Ciro, your masculinity is fragile."

"Hey!" Ciro snapped.

"You sneak into drag shows when Lacey or Stefani or whatever girl takes you there not because you want a cheap lay and a fun night, but because you like cross-dressing. Crotchless p*nties make you feel sexy and confident. Feminine, Ciro, youʼre an effeminate man. Like, twinkie feminine."

Ciro was fuming.

"I am a man, what the hell do you mean? Soy un hombre masculino y–"

"-and you like pain and angst and darkness and Axe cologne and guns and voting Republican and other manly man things. Blah blah, blah blah. You like feminine things. Youʼre, well, queer...as folk, cabrón. You know it, I know it, and thereʼs nothing wrong with that! Your gender expression has nothing to do with your sexuality. Iʼm talking from experience, one asexual to another."

Ciro was silent, fuming with anger. Marcella rolled her eyes.

"Now, scoot over. We need to get the hell out of this city."

"This conversation is not over," Ciro seethed, shoving her duffel to the floor of the passenger seat childishly.

"Oh, I think it is," Marcella whispered.

She was going to die here.

There was an unsettling noise that moved buoyantly with the wind. Loud, deafening; like teeth that were grating. Needly tree branches scattered along the ground at an alarmingly rapid pace, stirring gently in the wind with a thunderous crack against the floor. The street and the car were damp and crooked against the tarmac, and yet, heat kissed the air. Fleeting, like woven strands of gold. As she inched closer to the truck, she heard a hiss entangle itself in the wind, and watched as they staggered forward. Commanding the woodsy little patch of Chicagoʼs outskirt to scream with fiery fervor, to howl with the distant hoots of owls and mournful cries of wolves, to surrender to the darkness.

When she heard the crack of body parts, she knew.

She was going to die here.

The Sidhe made no sound.

And neither did Marcella.

Fleshed out from the earthen mound of Helle, a kind of middle earth where the Realm of Fire hid from human view and where the undead were forged by Hephaestus and the other fire gods in various underworlds, the undead soldiers rose. Corrupted by their duty, tainted by their revenge. Marcellaʼs nannies and her brother Romeoʼs wet nurses often told her the stories about these undead creatures from the: Prophecy of Bérchan, Holinshedʼs Chronicles, the Annals of Ulster, and other classic literature that was kept in the Order of the Dragonʼs abbeys. Her childhood was spent in those coffered wings, devouring books in the libraries funded and commission by the Order and run by its Scholars, listening to the stories of the Sidhe and the Sullied born from Macbethʼs kingdom with curious ears and fearful eyes. Literature was currency in the Orderʼs realm, for its dark knowledge and its acquisitive history was what gave the Order its power, and Marcella...well, she knew its history like the back of her hand.

The Sidhe – the army of the undead – they made no sound.

Instead, they approached her.

With browning garments, the dead bannermen – Helleʼs Knights – circled her, knives jutting out of their meaty skins. Wherever they walked, blood flowed with their tracks, and fire flowed from their breath. Peddling nearby were footmen in rags of the poor with rotten bones displayed for all the world to see – footmen known as the Last Sired – lead by a Gentlewoman who spoke in desperate snarls, in stagnant tears and Catalan curses and the Rʼs she rolled off her tongue, sounds that were unrecognizable.

They fed off of warm blood, off the fire that Chicago emanated, born from Chaosʼ womb with their skin woven together by sizzling black cinders. Spearheading the gathering was the Scotsman – a bastard executioner atop an undead horse. Tall, dark, and imposing with eyes that glowed a Molochian black (unlike the rest of the Sidhe, whose eyes were Arabian red), holding a longsword that had the Scottish coat-of-arms emblazoned on the hilt, and a battle-hewned Clan Macbethad insigia branded on his chainmail; the enameled scales coated in black chasings and clasps. Horrifically destructive creatures they were, ones that responded to the simplest of movements, and had the keen senses of any warm-blooded predator; thatʼs how Marcella was reminded of the fiery Scottish demons.

And with that, Marcella flashed the Sidhe her best b*tch-face.

Macbeth. Everything dark and apocalyptic that happened in this goddamn city was all because of Mac-f*cking-Beth and his pretentious white where-is-mʼ-dark-flower *ss.

She should have known she couldnʼt have escaped the Scottish king by herself, but frankly, Marcella was about to be eaten by fire-breathing zombies and with all the Glenn Rhees in the world more-or-less about to become barbecue like she was, Marcella was pretty much done with everybodyʼs crap and Master Shakespeareʼs crappy writing for today.

Turning towards Ciro and his panicked, prayer-sobbing self, Marcella sighed.

"Well, Macbeth," she muttered to herself, retreating towards the car. "It seems like Iʼm beginning to understand why your wife left you, buddy. Letʼs rock-nʼ-roll."

The Sidhe let out a chilling war cry.

She was going to die here.

Marcella side-stepped into the passenger seat slowly, gulping as she listened to the Sidhe tread closer.

"Marcella, what the hell?" Ciro spluttered. "What the hell–"

"Donʼt move; if you move, youʼll be cooked into some chicano sirloin," Marcella interrupted. "If we want even the slightest hope of making out of this alive, I need you to not move, and I need you to wait for my cue."

"Cue for what?"

"To drive the d*mn car!"

Ciro fiddled with his hands guiltily, and Marcella clenched her jaw, hands cupping her face.

"Please tell me you know how to drive, Ciro," Marcella deadpanned.

The Sidhe snarled, sliding forward on silent feet. The car shook, once, twice, the nails of the Sidhe plunging into the car from both sides.

"I donʼt know how to drive, okay?" he blurted.

"Seriously?" she asked. "Seriously? How does a drug dealer from Chicago not know how to drive?"

"Because Iʼm a satyr. Why the hell would I drive when I can outrun any of these motherf*ckinʼ cars any day of the week, anytime I want?"

Marcella choked.

"How did you get here, then?"

Head practically glued to the ripped up seat, Marcella stared at the feculent car mirror, only to see a slumped figure in the background with the tendrils of his skin written by the words of the dead and gone, brown skin kissed by the sweltering Haitian sun, eyes were kissed by the tears of his joint and runny soot that draped his face in a heathenʼd black.

The boy in the back was Hectar Valois, the son of the Illinois senator Joan Valois and transgender telecommunications tzar Reyne Anjou. Both members of the Order of the Dragonʼs court. Both probably about to lose their only son.

Marcellaʼs face grew white as she let out a panicked cry and clutched the arm-rest like her life depended on it.

"This is it; this is how I die. In the pickup with a senatorʼs son ODʼd in the back that drove here high as sh*t, and a drug-dealing satyr that doesnʼt know how to drive," Marcella spat.

Ciro winced as the Sidhe let out another loud cry.

"Iʼm sorry!" Ciro hissed.

She was going to die here.

There was a screech.

The Sidhe clawed at the car, tangling them in a ditch full of rotting vegetables and dead roadkill, damn near making it tip over the edge. As the attacks heightened, and the Sidhe began gnawing at the edge of the car and scratching the windows, Marcella and Ciro remained still.

Trying to not provoke the beasts; trying to draw as little attention as possible. The Sidhe let out unearthly growls, the spiked spires of bloody thorns and their nails and knives long as broadswords encasing the Toyota. Some crawled onto the truck's bed, suffocating them slowly. Marcella panted, staring at Ciroʼs terror-stricken face.

"Well, buckle up, b*tch," Marcella told him, taking off his seatbelt, and hers. "Youʼre about to learn how to drive."

There was a glock in the glove compartment that she brought with her for safe-keeping.

"How the h*ll do you have a glock–"

When the car nearly tumbled over, again, Marcella loaded the glock and watched as the wind gusted over them, making the Hula-dancer spin more furiously. The Sidhe ate at the car alive, curdling towards the station wagon with the brute force of their army, and as the Toyota rocked, Marcella did too.

"You ask too many questions," Marcella sighed. "Do you see where the gas is?"

"What gas, Marcella? There is no gas!"

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Marcella eased Ciroʼs calf towards the brake and the gas, making him press the pedals, one-by-one. Never tearing her eyes from the Sidhe. Teasing the pedals. When he hit the brake, the car tightened like it were sucking in air, and Marcella too let out a nervous breath at that.

"The pedal to the left, the kinda fat one, thatʼs the brake. The skinnier one on the right, thatʼs the gas. Hit the gas first, then hit the brake."

The Sidhe were growing restless. Chunks of the car licked the floor, torn from the dingy truck-bed, and as the gas leaking from the back grew into a murky black, Marcella readied her glock. When Ciro hit the gas, the car whined – roaring to life, and Marcella watched. waited. The Sidhe scratched, the itch intoxicating, their bladelike nails stabbing the truckʼs side, peeling, tearing, and in that moment, she was in C-uba again. With trap mix-tapes playing on the ʼ87 stereo like gospel, adrenaline running thick and hot summerʼs heat, and the menacing snarl of Colombian bullets whirring through the air like an airplaneʼs purr.

Marcella sighed dejectedly as Ciro pressed on the brake, making the car tighten around them and watched as Marcella motioned for him to not move.

"If we die today because of a pretentious Scottish f*ck that likes traumatizing high-school seniors, Iʼm calling it now, Ciro. Youʼre gay. Not all effeminate men are gay, but youʼre gay. Super gay. Infinitely gay."

"Hey!"

"Now, shift the gear stick ʼtill it hits drive. When I give you that cue I was talking about, hit the gas as fast as you can," Marcella breathed. "Slowly..."

The click of the gear stick reverberated through the car. The Sidhe purred as Marcella and Ciro stilled, curious by the lack of movement, and when they froze, they shrieked. Necks snapping, elongating, wringing around the base of their shoulders and spinning. Several drops of bright red streaming from the Sidheʼs faces in thunderous claps, snapping onto their faces in red hot flashes, dust rising from the ashes and plundering them; splintered bone hitting their sickly flesh, and when she was ready, she nodded at Ciro once...

And they let her r-i-i-i-p.

"DRIVE, CIRO!"

She was going to die here.

They lurched forward, the wheels screeching in pain. Clutching the wheel, Marcella jerked it to the right and watched the car skid towards the opposite edge of the road. As Ciro reared the Toyota towards the Glen Woods, the tires ground their teeth against the sand, and kicked at least three of the Last Sired to the curb. Chests pounding, heart crying and threatening to burst out of their ribcages, Ciro wrenched the wheel to the left and gripped it dear life. Jaw-clenched: eyes flaring, car too old, the Last Sired too bright as they raced them on foot, smoke too cloud. Leaning back against him, Marcella propped her legs above her torso, panting heavily.

He was easily breaking 85; a f*cking natural.

"MOVE!" Ciro howled.

Marcella pressed into him more, the suction and raw force that pulverized the pickup overwhelming. The Sidheʼs footmen were devouring it whole, with the Helleʼs Knights and the Scotsman charging nearby, chasing death. The clouds filled with thunderous applause, lightning the veins, and as they jeered to the right, Marcella kicked down the doors, still guiding Ciro through every twist and turn. The Last Sired flying through the air. The others accelerating with a burst of speed. They ran towards the passenger seat, on fours and on both feet. Marcella bounced up, shooting, her boots slamming into the Sidhe. She kicked one at shot at another, see-sawing with the Toyota and Ciroʼs sloppy driving, hitting the ground running with every tug, every push-and-pull that fed the Sired the meat on her legs and the Knights that managed to get ahead of the pack the blood in her bones.

"Whatever you do, keep your eyes on the road!" Marcella told Ciro.

She was going to die here.

The Sidhe were running now; the dirt against their feet crumbling. Pushing them forward; a tomb of fire and blood; Helleʼs knights picking up the speed, the Sired shadowed by the Scotsman and his horse. Ciroʼs hands trembled as Marcella inched towards the lolling passenger seat door, screaming prayers in old Spanish when the door was ripped from its hinges and the wind punched them back.

"Muñequita–"

The canopies barreled into them, fat and full with pincers for teeth and a clenched, thorny fist. Spitting out leaves, Marcella clung to the roof of the Toyota. Blood rushed through her veins; propane held her in a chokehold; the Sidhe was insatiable and she was, too. For eighteen years, this is what she lived for. The thrill, the chase. A crazy roughneckʼs daughter with a bloodlust that knew no bounds. Gripping the expanse of the roof, Marcellaʼs glock fired with a harsh precision – shivving the Sidhe, slicing into them, one-by-one, drop-by-drop. She moved, she shot, the glock dug into her palm as she fired, and the Sidhe exploded into broken bone against the tarmac. Fire shrieked from the glock. Gunpowder blinded her with a stinging burn. Her nails screamed in agony. She clutched the roof of the Toyota for dear life, she watching as Ciro jeered onto the dirt, plowing into the earthy tendrils of angry thistles and the snakelike traps of angry weeds.

"Ciro, r-i-i-i-ght!" Marcella shrieked.

The car hissed as it passed the street lights, the back tires popping off in a seating blow of smoke and rubber.

And when Sidhe hissed as it punched her in the face, she burned.

She was going to die here.

Letting out a painful groan as the Sired cracked its fist against her skull, Marcella hit the roof of the car with a blunt smack and moved against the car with the wind gnawing at her back. Her skin was set ablaze. Black as coal.

She was going to die here.

Screaming, with an inhuman strength that rivaled the horsepower of ten f*ckinʼ pickups, the Sidhe lunged. Fist wedging into her lip. Nails slapping her glock out of her hand. Splintering her skin. Dousing her in a series of piercings stabs. Jolted pain. Crying blood. Hissing as she wobbled against the gaping hole of the howling pickup where the door should have been, Marcella rolled over to her side where another snarling, drooling Sidhe footmen bore its acidic mouth.

The burns spread.

She was going to die here.

As the footman clung onto the windshield and perched its nails against the breaking glass, Marcella wiped the crusty blood on her mouth with the back of her hand and watched the burns spread along her skin. Reddening it until the flesh was loose and blotchy red. Dying like a rotting corpse. Her body was hungry prey; her mind an angry predator; her arms were weak with exhaustion; her claws sawing at her zombified skin and –

– she saw death ahead. Edinburghʼs prized flower, ripe with an innocence that rivaled a brideʼs with a purity that wasnʼt born, but created. With Portugalʼs sun-kissed hair and Scotlandʼs skin. Her unmarked grave, right next to Ciroʼs.

Ciro, Ciro, Ciro...

"MUÑEQUITA, BEHIND YOU!" Ciro howled.

Glass. It seared the sky in decadent ripples, crashing down on Marcella like a Messiah was descending upon them in a fiery blaze. The windshield went flying, the shards met the sky, the Sidheʼs bony fingers met her neck, and when Marcella slammed herself against the cushion of the passengerʼs seat and the roof of the truck, Marcella's eyes glowed a bright yellow. Gold with an exquisite sharpness.

A wolfʼs yellow. Grinning, Marcella felt the ashy Sidheʼs hands ignited the fire on her skin, tormenting and turning and twisting into an explosion of discolored skin and dark blood. The red leather melted against her skin, sinking its teeth into the pulpy scars and dead skin that lurked underneath, and when the Sidhe roared with delight, the throb of defeat was an ache buried in the bitter taste of blood. The pickup rocked against the asphalt. The second wheel popped. Helleʼs Knights gained on them. The Scotsmanʼs horseʼs whine made the ground split open underneath them.

She was going to die here.

"First rule of recreatinʼ Steven McQueenʼs Bullitt," Marcella panted. "Donʼt bring a werewolf to a car chase."

She pushed the Sidhe off the side of the car.

Growling with the bloodthirstiness of the Latin wolf, Marcella ripped the footmanʼs throat open, bone spraying the sky and the Siredʼs fiery blood spraying her face. Drip, drop, drip, drop–

– Marcella dropped bodies as she swung herself into the truck bed. Still in human form, Marcella shrieked as her back doubled over. Snapping, cr-a-a-cking as the car lit up its dying sparks with a bansheeʼs scream. The Sired footmen whipped back-and-forth as Ciro revved up the engine, and when Marcella jerked to the right of the truck bed and then was slammed into the left of the truck bed, she stuck to the edges. Kneeing the Sidhe in the guts, feet cresting into their chests. Struggling for control, struggling to get off the floor. She fought dirtily, she fought to win, she sunk her teeth into the Last Sired and their bone-ridden shoulderblades, crunching as she broke the bone, and when they did, their shoulder-blades grew barbed. Sharp. Knifelike spires sprouted from their backs, and with a howl of pain, Marcella fell backward, mouth caked in blood.

She was going to die here.

Panting huskily, Marcella gasped for last intakes of air as the Sidhe shoved her back, head lolling off the side of the splintered truckbed. Her head pounded with the echoing fury of a thousand drums and as she backed herself into a corner, resting her weight on her forearms, she heard a voice. Raw, parched, snobby. Probably Hectar, the senatorʼs kid, waking up at the absolute worst time.

"What the hell?"

She was going to die here.

Straining her neck, Marcella peeped at the sky and then at the road. At the other cars pooled around the grassy knolls of the Glen Woods, at the chunks of the street that were blown to kingdom come, at the groan of a giant, demolished draw-bridge pregnant with the mutilated guts of dead fowls and carrion birds that mounted towards the sky. Hungry for meat, hungry for bone and the rancid odor oʼ rot – maggot-infested, churning and thriving rot of ruinous dismembered body parts that shouldnʼt have been moving on their own but were.

The Scotsman and Macbethʼs army rose their knives and axes.

She was going to die here.

Marcella cursed.

"What the hell!"

The pit in her stomach grew. Tight with anticipation. The sweat on her back grew even more damp as she saw Chicago get slaughtered right before her eyes. The petroleum from the car splashed the walls of the car, fire raining down from the vengeful with the poisonous tongue of a lost love song dancing off the infernoʼs harsh arm. The fire was a scorned daughter trapped in a loveless marriage between her parents, reigning with a merciless hatred, and overhead, she made everything burn. The fumes of her resentment sprayed every wall, every crevice, every edge that drew the light in closer, and with the force of Macbethʼs army...

The Sidhe launched the knives in the air, catapulting them into the pickup.

Soaring like eagles, sailing through the air as the fire raised its holy hell. They gained speed. Whipping through the wind. The Toyota sobbed as a third wheel blew up like a g*ddamn candle, jerking into the air. Her body plunged into the grasp of the Sidhe. The gasoline scorched their lunges ten times more viciously than the Glen Woodsʼ fires.

The knives hit the gravel below. Once, twice. They dug into the side doors; the flames stoked Warʼs sparks just as greedily as the Scotsmanʼs hunger did. Once, twice. Then, violently, the knives torpedoed into the rearview window and the windshield with an exploding scream. Glass shattered, blanketing them with toothy glass and ear-splitting screeches. Marcella broke down, howling in that called to her with stifled sobs that wracked her bodies.

The car exploded.

She is going to die here, Lulach, Isobel whispered.

She saw Edinburghʼs prized flower again, whispering her name – Isobel, Isabelle, Isabela – over-and-over again, ripe with an innocence that rivaled a brideʼs with a purity that wasnʼt born, but created. With Portugalʼs sun-kissed hair and Scotlandʼs skin. A girl, on the edge of the road, in a flowing white gown.

Next to her, were five people, with her body smack-dab in the middle. The Hevenian moon cast its light down on the Glen Woods, filling the nature trail with the swelling rills of Purgatoryʼs pitch-black water, and Isobel called out to her. Extending her hand, screaming. Next to her, were Apparitions: ghosts of five Children with different ages and ethnicities, one donning a warlike crown forged from iron and African blood diamonds, another wearing a Clan Duff helm made of Illyrian steel, another baptized in beautiful arcs of fetal, Caesarean blood, another holding a Dunsinane tree as a weapon, and finally, the last of the Children wrapped in the depths of demonic darkness.

And then, without warning, they were gone. Swallowed by the waters of Hevene and their gaping mouths.

Everything went white.

She is the Savior, sweet sister. She will never die.

The car exploded.

And Marcella went out in a blaze of glory.