No Blessed ✓

Saved

The corpse was decked in a casual blue gown, and given an elaborate finish with silver sandals that was beginning to slip off her feet.

Propped up in a rickety wooden chair, its shriveled skin was loose against the visible outlines of its bones. From its corner, it was positioned to face Zoe and Aaron, as if it was watching them.

The men who had followed Tyler into the room shrank back momentarily at the sight of it, one of them releasing a hushed expletive under his breath.

Shaking off his fear, Tyler walked over to Praise’s kids, silent fury flattening his lips when he saw the extent of their wounds. Zoe jumped into his arms weakly when he squatted near them, her voice gravelly and strained.

“Aaron…they hit him real bad…” A cough interrupted what she was going to say and Tyler’s arms tightened compulsively around her frame. All this, was his fault. If he had been a little more careful, a little more wary, he’d have been prepared.

He led Zoe out of the room, placing a call to the city’s emergency helpline while his men helped Aaron out, all of them regrouping in front of the crematorium. Aaron was placed in the backseat of his car, Zoe letting go of Tyler’s hand so she could sit beside her brother protectively. This was the most quiet Tyler had ever seen her.

As she sat beside Aaron with a quiet sniffle, he took her hand in his, squeezing it feebly.

“Shh,” he whispered, “you’re ugly when you cry.”

She smiled at the snarky remark, a little upward curve of her lips through the tears slipping down her cheek, and nodded compliantly.

It had not been up to an hour when help arrived, and with it, medical attention for Aaron as well as a few police cars. The ambulance left almost immediately with Zoe and Aaron while Tyler stayed behind. As the police searched the house, bringing out the corpse that had been in the room and placing it in a body bag, Tyler could not help but wonder who that woman was, or rather, had been.

Although her face was gaunt and scrawny, she greatly resembled the woman whose pictures had decorated the room they had entered and Tyler was disgusted to think Sean had hidden a corpse for so long, and dared to lock Zoe and Aaron in with it.

From the little Tyler knew, he remembered Sean’s only family had been his wife, who had died more than a decade ago of health complications. Old newspapers he had researched prior to this incident claimed Sean had cremated his wife, but if that what the case, who was the woman in the room?

It might just be a product of his brain working on overdrive, but if the corpse was indeed Sean’s late wife, then Tyler didn’t think she had died of any health complications. If his hunch was true, then it was a good thing he had found Zoe and Aaron as quickly as he did, he doubted Sean had intended to return them alive in the first place.

In the sky, the clouds were darkening gloomily, and the beginnings of a storm turned the still air into a cumbersome wind, sweeping all over the city.

This would be a storm to remember.

*

He had finished writing the program, but nothing was happening. The sounds of battle still reached him through his shield but Mikel barely processed it, too occupied with the shock that course through him. He had failed?

The holographic keyboard had disappeared the second he’d inputted the overwrite sequence and the code which had been rapidly running had faded as well. What was happening?

A cool breeze hit him as his shield suddenly withdrew, splintering into shards and a barrage of soldiers attacked him. Mikel picked up his staff at once, calling upon the first spell he remembered. “I beckon unto me the strength of the angels, and to my foe the wrath of gods, let him feel the power of judgement and know that this day Erynla lives!”