Unholy Mary

Checking Out

Fleur and I have been on the run for three weeks now. Passing hotels and motels on the way. She has been stalked by members of the Cross ever since the academy got invaded four weeks ago. She has restlessly been looking for her students, but the only person she found was me.

Fleur enters my room with one of those soft white towels wrapped around her head. Her bruises are gone and the cut over her eye has started to heal nicely, but it will leave a nasty reminder for sure.

 "Nothing better than a steamy shower to wash away all the winter's cold." She smiles at me.
"Blood is very hard to remove once its gotten under your nails. She sighs and takes a look at her nails. "Looks like I finally got the last of it, though."

I laugh. Fleur is such a cheerful girl, given the fact that she had a "meeting" with  a member of the Cross just a day ago.

She runs up to the radio and turns it on. Once she hears that her favorite band is playing she turns the volume up. She starts singing the vocals, the bass lines, reenacts the drums and even plays air guitar, all at the same time.

I cock my head and look at her. Her heavy french accent makes it extremely funny to watch.

She dances through the room, twirls around and dissapears into the bathroom again to get dressed in the new clothes we hastily bought. No matter what happens, Fleur shall not allow me or herself to go through life looking like a beggar. I hear her singing through the door

We got to know that the Cross isn't some little group of fanatics with some delusional beliefs. They're organised, equipped and the scariest of all : They grow in members each day.

We also know the Cross has a self appointed ruler, named the Father.

We have no idea what the identity of this man is. All the members we encountered  haven't even seen him, or know where he resides. They all tell the same sad story of how they were lost and a Priest found them.

These "Priests" are tasked to recruit and find new members. By the looks of it they're doing a great job.

There's also the Deacons. They follow up orders from the Priests, unless they have an explicit order from the Father. Most of the members we encountered were  Deacons. They look like normal people, have normal families, work normal jobs and live in normal houses. That's what makes them dangerous.

The Deacon's motto are : "Leading through serving." Pretty pathetic in my opinion. They're just little puppets in the Father's game. The man I killed in the academy would've been a Deacon for sure. Too bad for him his ambition outweighed his talent.

Then we have the Angels. They're the military department of the Cross. Better equipped than the army they are a force to be reckoned with. They had military training for sure. The people that invaded Fleur's academy were Angels. They shoot at command, to capture or to kill.

You can compare them with America's secret service.

Just some years ago the Cross ( then named : "the exposers!") had their own little website run by some of geeks obsessed by conspiracy theories  who, for instance, believed that gravity was created by the American government to keep the civilians in check.

Nobody really paid attention to what they were doing. They couldn't cause any harm anyways.

Now we get to pay the price.

In those three weeks of running we've had no contact with my siblings. It's not the first time I stay away for this long, so I doubt that they're actually worried at all. We cannot risk their safety. We have no idea if the Cross would tap our phones but we ditched them, just to be sure.

I let myself drop on my bed. Right place, wrong time (check out the song below.)  is blaring out of the radio. Fleur struts back into the room, grabs my arm and pulls me off the bed. She dances around me and laughs. I whirl through the room with Fleur.

Suddenly she leans closer and whispers. "Count to eight and throw the bed at the door. Use all your force."

She breaks away from my ear, laughs again and she twirls away from the bed, giving me the space i need.

"Come on now, Mary!  And a one and a two and a one two three four!"

Without thinking i turn around and sway my arm. The bed shoots beside me. At that exact moment the door breaks down and three heavily armed men set foot in the room. They have cleanly cut half a second second to lift their rifles before they get smashed back by the airborne bed, I hear bones crack.

Fleur laughs loudly and grabs my arm. The song still blaring through the radio.  She jumps over the broken bed with the armed men knocked out under it, out of the door. "Make sure to get enough rest, assholes!" she shouts behind her as we race away through the carpetted hallways.

We turn a corner, only to see some more armed men running toward us. They lift their rifles.

At that moment an elderly woman leaves her chamber to check out what all the fuss is about . When she sees the armed men she screams and rapidly closes her door again.

Taking advantage of the distraction the woman provided I flick my hand up, making the ammo drop out of the weapons. Without hesitation the men drop their guns and grab bludgeon weapons from behind their back. Just then i notice a rack with more of those soft white towels standing at the side.

I throw a look at the rack, and at Fleur. She nods her head and grins.

I spread my arms. Towels shoot out of the rack. Wrapping themselves around the heads of the Angels, blinding their sight.  I close my arms again  and clap my hands with spreaded arms, making the Angels  smash their heads together. We push through. I run to the staircase, but Fleur grabs me and pulls me back. "Ladies don't do stairs."

She wasn't kidding. We took the elevator down. It seemed so surreal. A minute of rest. Where we slowly went down, with a soft tune playing.

Fleur fixes her hair in the mirror and quickly applies some lipstick. Just now i notice she took the time to grab her purse. That woman is unbelievable.

Fleur grabs a pair of sunglasses out of her handbag and puts them on to hide the scar. She purses her lips while i try to control my panting.

The elevator stops and the doors open with a loud "Ding"

More armed men. No angels though. It's the police. The old lady must've called them, thinking the hotel was being attacked by the maffia or something.

We calmy walk out of the elevator, like we don't know what's going on.

"évacuer, civilian, there's a robbery going on!"

Fleur acts surprised and brings her hand to her mouth. "Oh god! No! We must get out of here!"

The police officer comes and guides through the lobby.

"We have everything under control, ladies." Don't you worry, you're all safe. No one will harm you."

Fleur smirks.

"You sure know how to save a damsel in distress."

Once we're outside Fleur grabs a piece of paper out of her Purse, she must've taken it from one of the blinded Angels.

She takes a good look at it and smiles.

"Looks like we got ourselves a clue!"