CHAPTER ELEVEN
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The deafening silence that was so loud you could hear hearts beat and eyes blink. What a sickening thing to hear, a sickening thing to feel, but in the perspective of man, the absence of such is in fact sickening. How could it be when the beating hearts and blinking eyes belong to the deceitful? They did not see that, for the eyes that blink are blind in the perspective of all but themselves. The very walls that sat as silent as they watched as the humans greatest fear stepped down the stairs and turned the corner. Death. This is what they feared, and there he was, him and a readied handgun staring deep in their souls. They didn't hesitate and neither did he. Grabbing the young woman behind him by her shoulder, he pulled her in front of him, wrapped his arms around her like a coat, and disappeared, letting missed gunshots fire into the wall. It was dark, she could remember. The fact that she could still feel his embrace comforted her, but there was no way it could make her completely ignore the sharp needles that was her nerves. Falling asleep like a static, she could not move her arms, her head, but she knew he was behind her. Yes, she had done this before, glowing and floating like a lantern in slowed time. She stayed in the drift, the feeling like her and 18 was a drifting cloud. Weight began its return at her toes and worked its way to her shin, the hips, the torso, and up, swallowing her like the sides of a long throat. Water returned in pixels and she was back. The rain persisted above them and Madam could move, becoming aware that she was back outside and enclosed underwater in front of the minster. There he stood, behind her just like he was, and The Tier Head took off, gun still in hand.
"Septimo conditio! Quickly! Septum! Septum!" The Tier Head shouted at the front guards as he jammed his fingers into the church door handle and swung the door open. The Tier guards, loyal to their leader, followed well prepared orders, rehearsed acts that now was reality. Elenora stood at the doorway, fear as a steel dagger, ripping through her chest.
"Septimo conditio! Out! Quickly!"
There they were, scattering from their rat hole, the humans flying through the storage door toward them with only two possible objectives. To kill, or to escape. Both of which eventually lead to destruction. Turning in a second and grabbing the young woman's arm, Death rushed to the enclosed side of the church. Running quickly, and abruptly stopping and grabbing her shoulders, he could see the fear stomping at her eyes, and the aftershock shaking her nerves.
"Elenora, love." 18 spoke with her in a manic but hushed voice, trying not to scare her, but needing to tell her quickly. The man reached into his coat, retrieving the small human revolver she had found in the East Hold base.
"Take this, defend yourself if you have to, and stay here." he said. "I promise, I'll take care of this and be right back here to get you, alright?"
She nodded, knowing and accepting.
"Promise me you'll stay safe and-"
Elenora yelped and stepped back watching a blade rip through 18s shoulder, just stopping before his arm was slit completely off. The man just stood there, the anger raising hell now in his eyes. The grip he had on Elenora's shoulders fell. This is exactly what happened to his head, luckily both times he didn't feel it. 18 grip on his sliced arm bettered the gun's position in his gloved and now bloody palm. Viscous black blood dripped down The Tier Heads suited arm and gloved hands, and the humans just stood there, waiting for him. 18 wouldn't kill these men if he didn't have to. He would do all in his power not to, as long as the human didn't do all in their power to get themselves killed. Elenora shuddered as her eyes followed 18s other hand up to the blade and watched as he squeezed his grip shut, cutting through his glove, digging the blade into his hands and ripping it out of the humans grip and the newly made bloody valley in his shoulder. Thrown across the ground, skidding to a stop on the terrain.
With no sense of any urgency, 18 turned to the two humans and pointed his gun between one man's eyes, then to the others.
"Down on your knees. Both of you."
"The... The Mortem Tier Head..." The first human muttered.
"Down on your knees! Per me facere nunc! Do it or I'll kill you human!"
18s anger danced in a nerve racking glow in his eyes. The hatred waltzed to his fingertips. Frantically snatching a dagger, the first human slashed twice in the empty space in front of 18 before he snags the human's wrist and launches him back. The ringing shot made Elenora leap. The Mortem leader stood in impatience as he waited for the human to finish moaning about his now bloody arm. He was shot. The second man stared blankly at his wounded friend, then to the Mortem. The gun was steadily redirected.
"Down on your knees! I don't want to kill you!" Now to the bloody Hominum, clutching his blade on the ground in pain.
"Drop the blade! Nunc, Human! Or this time it will be your head!"
The human's arm was now as bloody as he had made 18s.
"I'll..."
The Mortem glared at him from above with sharp eyes as the human muttered and twitched.
"I'll kill you... In the name of our great Hominum Tier Head!" and he took off at 18 only to meet directly with the Mortem's fiery fist to his jaw. The second man darted, his friend occupying 18, to make his move. Another echoing gunshot. A single bullet fired by Elenora's revolver, piercing the approaching humans leg. The man stumbled, but pushed on, eager to make The Tier Head pay for what the Mortem did to his friend. It was what added wood to 18s fire. The unbelievable sound of his beloved Elenora's flesh being ripped open and her helpless, vulnerable shriek. The sound of her body slamming to the ground and a bloody snap. Another yelp. 18 now glared at him, the Mortems eyes like the blade used to pierce his shoulder. Processing what had happened for a bit and leaving the first human, disregarding him as an insignificant compared to the man who had just bloodied the Bearer. A grin wiped across the human's face like he took care of a chore.
"You bloody... I'll break you!"
The human's feet were lifted far off of the ground by his grip, carried by his shirt, the chord of his mask pulling down toward the tank. The Tier Head didn't look the same when rage danced in his still veins. 18's mustard colored eyes flashed brightly and his teeth now seemed sharper to the human from above. 18 reared back and hit him in the face, but it was not just a fist. Now electricity surged in and out of his veins, and he was thrown to the ground to twitch. 18 shot him in the leg previously bloodied from Madam Elenora. A yelp, and another bang. The human's panicking breath was muffled by the mask. Elenora watched him, grimacing in pain. Watching how 18 shot the human continuously with his arm that was going to tear off. Two shots, three, then four, until his limb was a bloody, pulpy soup. Madam could not move, and neither could the second human. 18s shoes was all the Hominum could see walking menacingly towards him in lengthy strides. Then, it was the single thing he felt on his head. The Mortem's shoe weighed down relentlessly on his skull. 18 hissed through his teeth, pitching it into the air for all to hear. The pressure of his heel engaged a sharp excruciating pain in the human's head, splitting it like a pumpkin from the top, gathering pressure, then showering the floor with his blood.
"Obcido! Mori! Emorior!"
A skip of a soul behind him and a slash from the blade of the first, but the Mortem was gone. Disappearing and reappearing, the humans attempts barely touched him during a brawl, and The Tier Head appeared with a flash, pinning the desperate human to the church wall by his throat and kinked the chord of the air mask. He squeezed the chord and eliminated all openings for air to escape. Death watched the man gasp for air, arms flailing, leading to a shot that rang louder than thunder. Right through his brain, a fountain of bloody mess that flew from the Hominum's head, out of the surrounding emptiness and mixing into the water. Staring through his temples like a gate, and he fell loose from the grip against the church. There she hunched, the flaming human revolver steady in her grip and a limp left arm dangling at her side. Chest dripping wet and soaked in blood, Elenora Bourdeleau, the woman who was told to defend herself, helping Death with slow breaths. The lifeless body was thrown to the floor.
The woman dropped the handgun, staring at 18 with pale, sad eyes. She rocked a bit, and fell over back into her own sloshy pool of red. An echoed stumble, he ran to her, then that same embrace, that same feeling.
"Elenora!"
18 took her by her shoulders and slowly rolled her onto her back. It hurt him to hear the woman wail in pain.
"Elenora, love, can you sit up?"
She didn't say a word. Utter silence. 18 slid his arms underneath her, and lifted her limp body off the bloody ground. His shoes were spongy and caked with thick red goop, his arm was ripping off. The Mortem looked down at Elenora's sad face. She just stared at him with lifeless pale eyes, tightly gripping his shirt with her soft, small hand. Frozen in time, emotions absent. Walking slowly around the building, poor Elenora could feel the weight pushing harder and harder with each step he made.
"I'll get you to safety. Don't worry, alright love? Everything will be alright, I promise."
"O... okay."
Crossing the side of the church and out to the front, the two were quickly noticed. Madam Charlotte didn't hesitate to leave the bounded humans to be accompanied with the other guards whiles she tended to them.
"Madam Charlotte, please," 18 said. "where could I go where she could rest?"
"There's a small hotel just past the corner shop. I advise you take her there and I'll talk to the counterman. I'll take care of it!"
"Thank you, Madam Charlotte, you truly are kind."
The young Mortem guard smiled with a quick bow, a smile to indicate that everything would settle soon. The girl knew 18 would be okay. To Mortem's, what burdened him was a minor injury, but to a human, bleeding quickly like she did with her own was fatal. Madam Charlotte had already marched off and disappeared in a hurry, and 18 intended to do the same. Methodically making his way to the open field, the humans barked in plea for him. They waited for the Mortems word. The same word that would either save them or kill them. Staring up at him with their hands behind their back, they jerked and pulled at the invisible binding. The Tier Head stared back, a glare that could kill.
"Take them away." 18 insisted. "They need to be converted immediately."
"No! No, please! Have mercy on us, please!" they wailed as they were slowly dragged away. The man turned, tuning out the crying plea's for death as it faded to nothing.
"Please! Kill us! Don't do this! Kill us!"
"You... You didn't kill them..." Elenora's hushed voice pillowed the uneasy atmosphere. She tugged his waistcoat a bit.
"There's no need for any more of that... This is as much mercy as war will provide for them now without it."
