The Fall of the Society

Chapter 46: Pyre

He only had one choice left to him, to fight. Steadying himself from the fall he had just taken he clenched his fist and stared at Sid. "Fine!" he screamed as he lunged forward. The air soared past him, the dust still obscuring his vision. His fist pulled back and he released as his trajectory brought him to where Sid had been standing, but nothing was there and his momentum threw him off balance and he rolled and hit the far wall with a thud that shook more sediment from the ceiling.

"You are no match for me, there is no hope for you," Sid's voice rang out from the shadows. "Surrender and your death shall be painless. That is more than you did for my followers."

"All that talk, you are nothing, all I have to do is get my hands on you and you will crumble!" the man yelled into the slowly settling cloud of debris.

Sid stepped into the center of the room, highlighted by the light shining down from the first floor. Making his mark, the man lunged forward once more, pulling his fist back and thrusting it forward with all the power he could summon from within himself. His fist connected with Sid's jaw. The resulting shockwave blasted all the dust in the air away, causing the clouds to accumulate around the walls. The air around them was now clear, and the two men stood facing each other. Shock and pain lit one of the men's eyes, as even more fury filled the others.

"How is this possible!" the man screamed, holding his shattered hand. "I put everything I had into that attack, and it didn't even phase you!"

Sid reached up and grabbed the man by the back of the neck with his left hand, pulling him in close, face to face. "I wanted your hope to be completely diminished, and this was the only way to do so." A flash of silver and Sid had driven his blade all the way to the hilt into the man's heart. Blood bubbled at the corners of the man's mouth before trickling down his chin. His eyes grew hollow as Sid pushed the man from his blade and he collapsed onto the floor.

Footsteps sounded on the floor above him and Rose's pretty face soon came into view, peering down into the open hole that led to the basement. "Are you alright?" she asked with concern. The smell of blood and dust filled her nose, causing her to cover her face. "What happened?"

"So very many things it is hard to know where to start," Sid replied flatly. He wiped his blade clean and walked up the stairs. "Will you do me a favor? I would like to give my men a funeral pyre, would you be willing to perform it?"

Rose was taken aback at first, but quickly recovered. "Yes, of course."

He nodded his appreciation, "Before we attend to that, I believe there is another person that is missing. They are probably hidden around here somewhere." Sid began running his fingers along the chair rail around the wall, as if looking for something. Rose watched him intently until he stopped suddenly and ran his hand upward toward the ceiling. His fingers then disappeared in a spot just shy of the ceiling, and a light click sound was followed by a low scraping noise. A very small compartment opened low to the floor, and inside was sitting a terrified and soundlessly crying woman. "You are okay now," Sid told her softly.

The woman was trembling, her face buried in her arms. Barely revealing her eyes, she glanced up at Sid and Rose. "You... are not... the ones," she said shakily and broken. "Where... are... the others?" the girl asked in between sobs.

"I am sorry, but we did not make it in time," Sid apologized. "Are you able to tell me what happened?"

The woman pulled her legs around to face the other two, still hiding most of her face. "We heard a plane fly overhead, not high up, but low, like they were searching for something. A short while later, Sigmund told me to hide in this secret compartment and he told Eric that once the men came in the house to run and try to lead them into the forest. If he had made it there, they would have had a challenging time following him, he is exceptionally good at camouflaging in that environment," she continued sadly.

"There was nothing you could have done; hiding was the best choice. Do you know what happened next?" Sid asked her reassuringly.

"After hiding in here, I heard the door burst open. Sigmund began struggling with the strangers, but he did not have powers, so he was quickly overcome, but he managed to hold them up long enough for Eric to make it out the door. Unfortunately, I do not think he was fast enough because I heard them drag him back in a few moments later." The woman dissolved into tears once more, "Then... I could.... hear them.... screaming! It was... terrible!"

Rose ran forward and wrapped her arms around the hysterical woman, her heart wrenching sobs rending the silence. She rubbed her back sincerely as she had to fight back tears of her own at the sadness that emanated from the woman. "You are safe now," Rose whispered.

"We cannot say the same for everyone in our operation though. There has clearly been a leak, I will have to enact Strew Protocol across my network," Sid said, more to himself than the others. He retrieved his bag and rummaged through it for a moment, removing a device that looked like a high-tech cell phone. Placing his thumb on a scanning pad the screen lit up and he began punching in a series of commands. When he hit enter, a ringing sound came from beneath the floor on the opposite side of the room. Sid hurried across and used his sword to pry up the floorboards there, revealing three bags. He pulled them unceremoniously from their hiding place and began looking inside of them. The three bags looked almost identical except for the writing on the tags, which contained the names of the people in the house. Sid pulled the tags from Sigmund's and Eric's bags first before removing an envelope from each of them and jamming them into Verona's bag. "Verona, I am sorry that this has happened, but you must take this bag and follow the instructions within it. I have arranged a new life for you that the Society will have no way of tracking. Your old identity has been completely erased. Time is short so you must go, is there a vehicle here?" Verona nodded, but did not speak. "Take it and do what I have told you. I wish you the best of luck."

She stared up at him for a moment and could see sincerity in his eyes. Without comment she stood and took the bag before heading outside and climbing into the car parked beside the building. The rumble of an engine broke the silence followed by the sound of the vehicle speeding away from the building and the horrible things it held inside. Sid headed back to the basement and gathered Cisero's body parts into a bag before dragging them upstairs and outside. He then returned and carried the other man's corpse unceremoniously from the house as well.

"What are you doing?" Rose asked in confusion.

Sid returned to the house and she followed him into the basement. He began to unhook Sigmund from the wall and laid him in a more respectable position. Rose followed suit and began untying Eric from his bindings on his chair. Sid then grabbed another sheet and draped it over Sigmund before taking a moment of silence over his fallen fellows. "We can do no more for them from here," Sid said respectfully. "Let's head up and begin the pyre."

Rose nodded her head and followed him once more out of the basement. "What about them?" she asked, pointing at the remains of the two men outside.

"We leave them, they do not deserve the honor we are paying Sigmund and Eric," Sid said firmly.

She did not fully agree but did not argue as Sid's tone was final. Turning back to face the building she held her hands in front of her and they began to glow bright blue, and then white. The paint on the outside of the building began to peel and blister before the flames had even erupted from her hands because of the heat. The grass around her feet singed and turned black. It was easily the hottest fire she had ever produced, and the house was soon blazing all over. Spreading unprecedently quickly, the flames consumed everything within the building and the roof caved in, followed by the walls collapsing inward on them. She held her stance for no more than five minutes, but it was enough to reduce the building and everything within it to ash as she called the flames back into her hands. When she was done there was nothing left except smoldering ground and it was almost impossible to tell there had been a house in that spot moments before.

"The Society has now declared war on me. I will understand if you want to leave, but the most effective plan I have involves you," he told her. "This confrontation is going to be incredibly violent and bloody, and once you agree to come with me, there will be no turning back."

Rose thought for a moment, staring at the ashen remains on the ground. "I decided to do whatever I could to destroy the Society when they killed Tripp, and that has not changed. The best route I know of doing that is with you, I do not have the knowledge of their operation needed for what we are going to undertake." She waited a moment before finishing. "I am with you until we finish the Society or die trying."