Chapter Twelve:
Plague

     The man who walked forward to examine the hole in the ground stood almost seven feet tall, and he weighed over three hundred pounds.  There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, though.  The man was pure muscle.  The color of his skin resembled the sickly white of a grub worm that had never seen sunlight.  He wore U.S. Army desert combat fatigues, with an oversized Kevlar vest over the outside.  Tattooed symbols circled his shaved head near the hairline, so that from a distance it looked like he was wearing a black headband.  He had on a pair of RayBan sunglasses that reflected the flowing Mississippi River in their lenses.  He frowned as he examined the exit to the tunnel.
     “This is where the bleeding hearts came out, sure enough,” he said in a disgusted voice.  “I knew it.  I knew they were too pansy to blow themselves up.  Why didn’t we find this before noon?  Who was in charge of the search in this sector?”
     An average sized man in a Dallas Cowboys football jersey about ten feet away spoke up, “I was.  We started at the riverbank and worked our way further ashore.  It took us a long time to get this far down, and the entrance was magically concealed.”
     The big man crossed the ten feet to the smaller man and picked him up by his throat.  The smaller man managed to squeeze out a few strangled words, “Please, Count Plague.  Have mercy.”  Plague paid no attention, but instead gazed south down the river.  When the man stopped wiggling, Plague dropped his corpse on the ground.  Plague focused on the other men around him, who were all very nervous by that time.  He never got over the endless supply of idiots who streamed into Discordia.  As usual, idiots surrounded him.  Plague shook his head in frustration.
     “Do any of you geniuses know what a sniffer is?” Plague asked the small group of soldiers.
     “Is it a glass for drinking brandy?” one of the men responded with a question.
     “Get out of my sight,” Plague answered.  He couldn’t kill every stupid man he ran across, or the forces of evil would run out of people.  “Somebody find me a good sorcerer.  I need a sniffer to track the one called Louis.”
     “But there are no good sorcerers, Count Plague.  They’re all evil,” somebody pointed out.
     “Bring a sorcerer to this location!” Plague shouted at the top of his lungs.
     Every man in sight ran off in search of a sorcerer, leaving him completely alone.  Plague had no doubt that there would be several sorcerers at the tunnel entrance within fifteen minutes.  Some days Plague felt like switching sides, because he couldn’t take the constant incompetence.  The good guys would never take him, though.  Plague visited total war upon his enemies, and it wasn’t for the merciful or the faint of heart.  He lived to kill, and the goodie-two-shoes were all about love.
     It was almost noon, the day after the destruction of the Pentacle.  Despite Plague’s orders to search quickly and thoroughly for any escape routes out of the fortress, it had taken the soldiers six hours of daylight to discover the tunnel.  Plague knew that the bulk of the fleeing army would run for the Quad.  He also knew that Louis wouldn’t be there.  It would be a deathtrap.  That meant that there was a trail leading somewhere else, and Plague needed magical assistance finding it.
     Plague turned his thoughts to the sorcerers in his service.  The sorcerers proved the exception to the rule when it came to evil and intellect.  Anybody with an ounce of intelligence who showed up in Discordia knew that working as a soldier of darkness was high risk with minimal reward.  Only underachievers and true warriors became soldiers, and the rest attempted sorcery.  Most of the people who tried black magic died horribly within a year, because they dealt with extremely dangerous forces that were difficult to control.  The sorcerers that lived long enough to master the dark arts wielded enormous power, and invariably did so with genius level intelligence.
     Plague enjoyed talking to sorcerers, because he couldn’t find good conversation anywhere else.  The practitioners of black magic still made his skin crawl, however.  They all bought into the fashion clichés about evil magicians.  Plague had never met a sorcerer who didn’t look like they had gotten dressed up for a Bauhaus concert.  He wondered if black nail polish was sold in bulk somewhere on Discordia. 
     Plague had known a lot of people back on Earth who looked like sorcerers, but they were all patchouli-wearing posers.  The gothic look on Discordia was usually accompanied by the smell of corpses.  Plague pondered combining the two images for a moment, for a best of both worlds result.  He reasoned that a sorcerer who smelled like patchouli and listened to Sisters of Mercy would be a welcome change of pace.  Discordian sorcerers were all so concerned with practicing unspeakable deeds that they often neglected their personal hygiene.  Even if sorcerers were good conversationalists, the smell wasn’t pleasant for the people around them.
     A group of three pale white people dressed in black rags approached the tunnel entrance from the top of the levee.  Plague remembered his manners and bowed deeply.  They looked ridiculous, but they were people of incredible power.  The lead sorcerer, a hideous woman with a tall pointed hat, walked up to him fearlessly and bowed in return.  Her name was Beatrice.  Behind Beatrice came a man who might have been a body double for Lurch on the Addams family.  Unlike the Hollywood actor, however, the tall man before Plague oozed wicked cunning from every pore.  His name was Ansel.  Nothing escaped Ansel’s watchful gaze, and he appeared to be constantly calculating.  The last of the group was a small, diminutive man dressed in a simple black suit, with a white shirt and black tie.  His garb ruffled people more than the gothic look.  Nobody on Discordia wore a suit and tie.  It was creepy.  His name was Doe.
     “I knew the army of the Pentacle fled the fortress,” Beatrice said succinctly.  “Why did it take you so long to find the escape tunnel?”
     Plague pointed at the dead body on the ground, and said, “If you want something done right…”
     “Look, he was a Dallas Cowboys fan,” Ansel pointed at the jersey on the dead body.  “You don’t mind if I take this, do you?  I know a girl who’s a Dallas fan.  She’s not too bright, mind you.  I mean, she is a Dallas fan, but I might get laid for the jersey.”
     “I’m surprised.  I would have thought a man of your exceptional talents could easily ensnare women into sexual servitude,” Plague commented.
     “I tried that for a couple hundred years, but zombies just don’t do it for me anymore.  I like the real thing, a woman with cognition and volition,” Ansel grinned.
     “He’s old fashioned.”  Doe spoke up with a twinkle in his eye, “His girlfriend still thinks she’s on earth.  You should get him to tell you the whole story.  It’s a riot.  They’re going to be married.”
     “That’s great.  Maybe I can attend,” Plague poured on extra saccharine.  “I asked you folks down here to conjure a sniffer.  The one called Louis escaped last night.  The trail was covered by strong magic.  I’m going to need a demon dog.”
     The sorcerers stood there in silence.  Beatrice turned up her nose and sniffed.  Doe turned around in his tracks, and considered walking away.  Ansel burst out laughing.  Nobody liked sniffers.  The dog creatures known as sniffers could only be conjured by opening a portal into the true hell.  Sniffers were demons, but they lacked the ability to communicate verbally.  They were nasty, wicked creatures that were known to turn on the summoning party.  That was one reason they were so unpopular.  The other was that a sorcerer had to link minds with the demon to give it commands, and from all accounts that procedure was unpleasant at best.  Once summoned and under control, however, a sniffer could follow a trail over any terrain.
     “I should have stayed in bed this morning,” Ansel mused.  The tall man evidently had a sense of humor.  “I will do this thing, if my two companions will assist.  I can handle a sniffer by myself, but I would be exhausted for days.  It’s not as easy as saying it.”
     Does straightened his tie and cleared his throat, before volunteering, “I’ll help Ansel, for a price.”
     Beatrice agreed, “I’m with Doe.  What’s in it for us?”
     “What do you want?” Plague asked them.  He didn’t like the turn the conversation had taken.  Sorcerers were notorious at haggling and negotiations.
     “I want the corpses from the endeavor,” Beatrice answered before either of her companions had a chance to speak up.  “I was counting on dead bodies from the siege of the Pentacle, but almost all of the corpses were vaporized by the explosion.”
     “I keep telling you that was an implosion, Beatrice.  There’s a major difference.  As for your terms, your price doesn’t conflict with my price, which is lucky for our employer,” Doe inclined his head to Plague.  “I want every prisoner your men can capture alive.  Beatrice, you can have their bodies when I am finished.  I won’t take too long.”
     “I’m just doing it for the hell of it,” Ansel stated tersely when his companions were finished.  Everybody present seriously doubted that claim, but knew better than to ask about it.  If Ansel didn’t want to talk, then he would not say anything.
     “And I thought this was going to be expensive,” Plague admitted cheerfully.
     Something in the look on the sorcerers’ faces told him the price was more expensive than it sounded, but he continued smiling.  Sometimes Plague found it prudent to propagate the image of a buffoon.  If they underestimated him, then that added to his advantages.  They spoke politely enough to one another, but they were all cold-blooded killers and worse.  Even as they shook hands on the agreement, Plague knew the sorcerers were in cahoots, and that their plan would not be to his benefit.
     “Will you accompany the sniffer or view it’s progress from a remote location?” Ansel asked from rote.  He needed details to fine-tune the spell.  “Do you want the sniffer to attack the target, hold the target at bay or locate the target only?” 
     “I’m going with the sniffer, and I only need it to find these people.  I’m going to do all the rest,” Plague responded.  “Like I said when you arrived, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”
     “Then I suggest you prepare for the task.  We must retire to a location of power to perform the summoning spell, so you have a little time to get ready.  Be at this spot in thirty minutes, though.  Sniffers aren’t too difficult to control while they’re busy, but give them a bunch of free time and they turn vicious,” Beatrice told the giant warrior through her rotten teeth.
     Plague was so disgusted by the smell of Beatrice’s breath, he had a hard time understanding what she said.  He almost waved his hands in front of his face, but stopped himself at the last second.  “I’ll be here with my ten best men.  Is that okay?” Plague choked.
     “Just make sure no one steps in front of the sniffer while it’s tracking,” Doe warned as the sorcerers turned to walk away.
     Plague strode purposefully back up the riverbank to his Harley Davidson.  He climbed on and started the motorcycle, which roared into life like a fire dragon.  He turned the bike and took off up a gravel track by the river, heading for his new headquarters by the crater of the old fortress.  Plague had so looked forward to moving into that fortress.  It ruined his whole night to watch it go up in smoke.
     A few minutes later Plague climbed off of the motorcycle beside a large tent.  A couple of men stood up to greet him.  One of them was a wiry, medium sized black man named Bubby.  Two belts loaded with throwing knives crossed his chest.  He was the leader of the South Side Wrecking Crew.  Like every crew leader in Baton Rouge he was a close friend of Plague.  The man next to him was an older white man with a long white beard, and long, grungy white hair.  His name was Alex, and his age was deceptive.  He was deadly with a gun, and the leader of the Hundred Oaks Hundred.  Plague didn’t say anything, but he gave them a thumb’s up signal.  They both went into the tent to gather gear.
     “Why did it take so long to find the trail?” Bubby asked as he grabbed a small backpack and a shotgun.
     Plague sighed, “Morons.  I don’t know how some of these people ever make it to Discordia.  I used to think it took guts just to get here, but I have revised my opinion over the last hundred years.  They let anybody cross dimensions these days.”
     “I know what you mean.  My Hundred Oaks crew used to be a hundred seasoned veterans, tough as nails and crafty as foxes.  Now I’ve got mostly weekend warriors and armchair bad guys.  They wouldn’t last a second in a real fight.  Come to think of it, I think half of them died last night,” Alex chuckled.  “Serves ‘em right.  I heard there wasn’t anybody inside but Moira and her boy Scorn, and they still held out for ten minutes.  I wish I could have seen it.”
     “Moira would have fought for our side, if it wasn’t for Viper.  A necromancer told me yesterday that the assassin we’re hunting killed Viper.  Small world, huh?”  Plague mused.  “Viper was another moron, and he was a sadistic pervert.  That Jesus guy did everybody a favor, including Viper.  He’s better off in hell.”
     “You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, especially relatives.  He was your brother, Plague,” Alex spoke seriously.  Alex was a very nasty character, but he lived by a code of conduct.  He was as close to lawful evil as a former Hell’s Angel could get.
     “Yes, well, I’m going after the assassin.  Am I not?  Look, we need seven or eight more guys, and we have to move fast.  I’ve got sorcerers conjuring a sniffer even as we speak.  We have about another twenty minutes to get down there,” Plague told them. 
     While Plague talked he slung a long, razor sharp machete over his shoulder, and moved on to other weapons.  He strapped a snub nosed .38 to his ankle and a derringer to his right forearm.  He equipped a long spike on a sliding track to his left forearm, and gathered extra clips for his standard side arms.  He always carried two Colt .45’s in belt holsters.  He lived by the Boy Scout motto.
     “I’ll go get Sharp and Terrence.  We should consider taking some normal guys with us, though.  For one thing, it’s not good to leave the entire city without leaders.  For another thing, we need a couple of normal guys to absorb enemy fire.  If the enemy only has us to shoot at, then they’re going to shoot at us,” Bubby opened his mouth and gave a big smile.  His teeth were perfect.
     “You’ve got a point.  And tell Terrence to bring his boomerang.  That thing kicks ass,” Plague called from the rear of the tent.
     “I bet by normal guys you meant normal white guys,” Alex laughed at Bubby.  “You racist prick.”
     “What can I tell you, Alex?  Black guys avoid gunfire too well for our purposes.  It has to be white guys,” Bubby laughed.  He strode purposefully out of the tent to find Sharp and Terrence, and a few unlucky white men.
     Sharp was the leader of the Black Guard, a highly organized group of warrior magicians that lived in mansions they conjured in the Garden District area of Baton Rouge.  Sharp was only seventeen years old when he crossed dimensions.  He figured out how to do it all by himself, with books in the Middleton Library at LSU.  Sharp was called that because of his wit.  Sharp was one of the more dangerous warlords in Baton Rouge, not because of his physical power but because of his influence on other leaders.  He looked like a kid, but his mind worked like a computer.
     Terrence lived in Valley Park.  Crossing dimensions didn’t change Terrence too much.  Valley Park on Discordia wasn’t much different than the Valley Park on Earth.  Every day was life or death.  People died and went to hell all around him, and the forces of order were always cruising to take down a member of his crew.  The only difference was that Terrence used magic to enhance his strength and endurance, and he couldn’t have done that at home.  A couple of years earlier a member of his own crew shoved a long pick in his ear.  Terrence pulled it out and used it to shish kebob the man’s liver, which he fed to his pit bull.  Terrence was a frightening guy.  He often used a three-foot long boomerang that could cut a man in half.
     They were all in front of Plague’s tent and ready to go within five minutes, and the group made it to the tunnel entrance right on time.  They gathered on the north side of the entrance, because the visible tracks were on the south side.  Nobody wanted to be in the sniffer’s way when it showed up.  Sniffers could tear a man apart in seconds, and often did.
     An uncomfortable silence settled over the warlords and their minions for a number of minutes.  All of the men rode motorcycles or dirt bikes, and they shifted uneasily in their seats.  Just as Plague suspected there was a problem, a rift appeared in the dimensional fabric.  It glowed a deep, dark red.  When it opened, a smell more horrible than anything in human reality escaped through it.  Men gagged and retched on both sides of Plague, and he was hard pressed to maintain a strong appearance.  It smelled like rotten egg abortion farts, which was not a good thing.
     The sniffer jumped through the rift snarling and growling, and the rift winked out of existence behind it.  The sniffer was the size of a Volkswagen, and it had tusks and horns.  It resembled a mastiff in some ways, though, and it slobbered exactly like one.  Its first official act was to sling a large glob of drool onto one of the enlisted men.  The drool, it turned out, was one of the more acidic substances in all the known dimensions.  It burned straight through the man’s clothes, and continued through his flesh and bones.  The man screamed and flung himself on the ground, flopping wildly as he tried to escape the pain.  He was dead in seconds.
    “Okay.  Everybody give the nice doggy some room,” Plague advised.  He needn’t have worried.  Everybody moved back out of saliva range simultaneously.
     It was one o’clock in the afternoon as Plague and his men started off after the sniffer.  The oversized bloodhound followed the levee for a short distance, and then turned inland.  Every time the wind shifted the group caught the stench of the beast, and nobody could disguise their nausea.  They traveled south down Nicholson.  Plague gritted his teeth and cursed the sorcerers.  They were heading directly for the fortress known as the Quad.
     “We’re screwed,” Plague told Alex and Bubby.
     “Maybe the trail diverges from the main army closer to the Quad,” Bubby suggested hopefully, but he did not believe that.
     “I say we follow this stinking ass dog until we see the actual fortress, and then we go back downtown and kill the sorcerers.  We know good and well the people we want aren’t in that fortress,” Alex grumbled.  He didn’t mean the part about killing the sorcerers.  He knew that was no simple task
     They followed Nicholson all the way to East Stadium, and then they turned east and rode up the natural levee.  Directly in front of them stood the immense fortress.  It was the size of four city blocks.  Plague sent advance troops to surround the fortress, just in case, but the fortress was so big that the force at the base of the walls looked pathetic.  The Quad stood against evil for ten thousand years for good reason.  The sniffer headed right for the front gate.
     “I cannot believe this.  Let’s go back downtown.  It may not be wise to try to kill my sorcerers, but it won’t hurt to turn up the heat.  Every second we waste takes our target further away,” Plague snapped. 
     Plague turned his Harley around and gunned it back down the hill.  A few seconds later he was flying down Nicholson.  Like most ancient roads in the area a canopy of oak tree limbs covered it.  Plague enjoyed the feeling of the wind on his face.  It helped soothe the uncontrollable rage that he felt.  He knew that his brother, Lord Viper, was a despicable man, but Plague intended to avenge his death nonetheless.  The hunt for Louis Comeaux and Jesus Mendoza became a personal vendetta when Plague discovered the assassin killed his brother. 
     Plague’s thoughts turned to his little brother, and that made him think about home.  Plague was born in Houston, Texas, in 1948.  His parents, Bob and Myrtle Hill, named him Raymond Kelly Hill, after his grandfather.  Raymond excelled in every aspect of his education while he was growing up:  academics, athletics, music, art and extracurricular activities.  He was the Salutatorian of his high school, and the Senior Class President.  His achievements paid off when he was accepted to West Point in New York.
     Raymond attended West Point with the Vietnam War in mind.  Tactics, strategy and warfare fascinated him.  He took his commitment to the United States Army very seriously, and he strove to achieve merit and distinction as a soldier and an officer.  The entire time he studied and trained at the academy, he couldn’t wait to get into the field.  Raymond wanted to fight.
     He joined the Special Forces in July of 1970.  He entered combat in Vietnam as a Green Beret, and his entire life changed.  He couldn’t get enough of the adrenaline, and volunteered for the most dangerous missions and assignments available.  He spent every moment of his free time perfecting his skills in armed and unarmed combat, and every moment of mission time anxious to put his skills to use.  After three tours of Vietnam, Raymond had killed over a hundred men.  A quarter of his kills came in close quarters, with edged weapons or with his bare hands.
     Raymond Hill was a highly decorated soldier, but he wasn’t in the military for the advancement.  He turned down several promotions that would have taken him out of combat.  He lived for the kill, and could think of little else.
     When the war ended Raymond threw away a promising military career to pursue life as a mercenary.  He journeyed to the Congo, where he fought first for the government and later for the rebels.  Raymond turned his back on moral standards and Christian decency.  Instead he worshipped total war, and physical superiority.  Bodies piled up in his wake so quickly that his comrades called him Plague, and the name stuck forever.
     Plague traveled to Afghanistan in 1986 to fight against the Soviet invaders.  While he was high in the mountains on the Pakistan border, Plague met an old Kurdish necromancer named Khalid.  Khalid expressed admiration for Plague’s deadliness, and Plague opened up his black heart to the old man.  He told Khalid that only killing gave him peace.  Khalid convinced Plague to take part in a ceremony that would call up a devil, a devil that would bestow magical powers on the American.  Plague believed the old man, and eagerly participated in the ritual.
     The ceremony called up a major devil called Ashoman.  The devil sought to barter power for Plague’s soul, but Plague wouldn’t hear of it.  Then Ashoman, seeing the essence of Plague’s soul, spoke at length about Discordia, an undeveloped wilderness engulfed in warfare.  Plague immediately knew that he belonged in such a place.  He asked for the powers in exchange for representing Ashoman’s interests in Discordia.  Ashoman agreed, and transported Plague without delay.
     It took Plague a hundred years in Discordia to make his way back to the Americas.  When he returned to Texas he found his brother, Sam, who went by the name of Lord Viper.  When Raymond disappeared, Sam crossed into Discordia on a hunch, a hunch that eventually proved correct.  Sam knew he would find his brother there, and after two hundred years he did.  They met again on much different terms than they had parted.  They parted as clean cut American boys, but they reunited as multidimensional warriors.
     Once they were together again, the Hill brothers attempted to gain control of Houston.  The city overflowed with cowboys, gang members and cut throats, which was too much of a good thing.  No matter how many people Plague and Viper killed, the brothers couldn’t establish a dominion there.  So they took off for a city where they could make a major impact.  They took off for Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
     In those days Plague’s younger brother Viper was all about the combat.  After a couple hundred years in Louisiana, Viper changed.  He grew sadistic and twisted.  Plague didn’t approve of the sickness that Viper succumbed to, but he never turned his back on his little brother.  Kin never abandoned kin.  Plague intended to avenge the man he knew as Sam, and nothing in any dimension was going to stand in his way.  Jesus Mendoza killed his brother, so Jesus Mendoza had to die.
     As Plague rolled into the downtown area he decided to play a hunch.  He looked over his shoulder and saw Alex, Bubby, Sharp, Terrence and five grunts following behind him.  He signaled for them to follow him down to the river.  When they got back to the tunnel entrance where they started, Plague killed the engine of his Harley so they could hear what he had to say.
     “The Order of True Love expended huge amounts of energy to keep these jokers safe, so much energy that even a sniffer couldn’t follow their trail.  Their magic didn’t stop me from thinking, though, and I was thinking about what I would do. 
     “It’s the middle of the night.  Thousands of bloodthirsty maniacs are chasing me.  I don’t have a safe place to go.  I don’t have a safe way to get there, because the bloodthirsty maniacs own all the roads.  I would follow the river.  They followed the river, boys,” Plague said with absolute conviction.  “I can feel it in my bones.  I’m going down river until I find tracks, as soon as I swap out my hog.  Who’s with me?”
     “Do you really have to ask if I’m with you, Plague?” Alex asked congenially.
     “I’m in,” Bubby spoke up.
     “You know I’m in,” Terrence added.
     “Hell yeah.  Let’s ride!” Sharp exclaimed.
     “Do you still want normal soldiers along?  I do have a couple of things to do.  All of my shirts are dirty, and my apartment is a wreck…” one of the grunts tried to weasel out of the mission. 
     The grunt was silenced when Terrence embedded a giant boomerang in his face.  The black man didn’t even throw the weapon, he just sort of tossed it at the guy.  The boomerang was very sharp.  Two of the normal enlisted men gunned their bikes and fled down River Road, too afraid of their commanders to remain.  The other two stayed put, but their fright was tangible.
     “You two men can go.  Let the big boys handle this,” Plague told them.  He shot both of them in the back when they turned their bikes around.  “I did them a favor.  There are worse ways to die here, and they didn’t have the guts to survive on Discordia.  You can always tell the ones who died on Earth.  Everybody ready?”
     A loud shout went up from the other four men.  Together they were five powerful warlords of darkness.  Louisiana had witnessed a million doomed faces over tens of thousands of years, but it had never seen such a coalition of power and depravity.  A hundred thousand souls burned in the fires of hell because of their handiwork.  Innocent women, children and the elderly earned no quarter from the wicked soldiers.  As evil and powerful as the warlords were, however, they were still only men.  That day they were men on a hunting mission, and they set off down the Mississippi River on dirt bikes to find their prey.

Chapter Thirteen:
Swamp Crossing

     The alarm clock went off at four thirty in the morning.  Lena set it in case they needed help waking up.  Jesus rose long before the annoying beep disturbed the pleasant silence, and left Lena alone so he could slink into the night and scout the area.  Lena awoke groggily and slammed her hand down on top of the clock repeatedly, until it finally stopped making the noise.  She sat up in bed, and quickly missed the presence of the man she went to sleep with.
     Lena hated waking up alone, especially if she went to bed with someone. She got dressed hurriedly, intent on finding Jesus.  She found clothes in the house to change into the day before, and chose to sacrifice the sexual appeal of the latex top for a more comfortable Tulane tee shirt.  Most guys would have found her sexy in anything she wore, but she could never know the full extent of her effect on males.  Once fully clothed, Lena slipped down the stairs quietly.
     Michael, Dorothy and Elizabeth all woke up early as well, and they talked softly to each other from seats around the dining room table.  Somebody had made coffee, and Lena headed directly for the mugs.  She overhead Michael telling the lady warriors that they weren’t necessarily breaking God’s laws, depending on how the scriptures were interpreted.  Lena didn’t want any part of that conversation, but she wanted to know about Jesus.
     “Where’s…” Lena was cut off.
     “Jesus went out to scout around,” Dorothy told her.
     Lena turned around without finishing her question and went into the living room.  She eased herself down onto the sofa and sipped her coffee quietly.  Jesus walked through the front door before her mug was empty.  She smiled at him, but there was a hurt expression in her eyes.
     “Jesus, can I talk to you about last night?” Lena inquired hesitantly.
     “I was under the impression we said everything there was to say.  I’m really sorry.  You know that if things were different we would be together,” he shut down the conversation with a shrug.
     No man in Lena’s life had ever turned her down.  She didn’t know how to deal with a spurned advance, and Jesus made her crazy.  He allowed her to shower with him, but he wouldn’t make love to her.  She had never experienced such frustration before.  She wanted to hold him down and beat him into submission.  Somehow she didn’t think that would work, however.  Not only was he stronger than she was, everything he said made sense to her.  That was the part she truly hated.
     “I’m falling in love with you, Jesus,” Lena confessed.  She heard the words come out of her mouth, and she didn’t know how it happened.  She hadn’t planned to say the words.  They came out on their own.
     “I care strongly for you too, Lena,” Jesus intoned without feeling, and he turned his back and walked into the kitchen.
     Lena reacted as if Jesus had slapped her.  He said he cared for her, not that he loved her.  She figured that must be about the harshest rejection in the world.  She shook for a minute, and then got herself under control.  She hated Jesus, and she hated her hormones.  Somebody told her she wouldn’t menstruate on Discordia, but she certainly felt like she had a bad case of PMS.  Lena went to the bathroom to look for Midol, or preferably Valium.
     Dorothy enjoyed waking people up.  She beat on the door of the master bedroom until she heard Louis yell something nasty.  A big smile spread across her face, and she scooted off before he opened the door.  Experience taught her not to trifle with the sleepy, no matter how scrawny they looked.  Louis opened the door wearing an angry expression on his face, and holding a pillow over his privates.  Louis didn’t like mornings either.  He slammed the door shut and went back to bed.
     Jesus recognized the precariousness of their situation, and knew they didn’t have time to waste.  He went to the door and yelled in to Rosie and Louis, “We have to leave.  Immediately.  Move your asses!”
     Rosie opened the door fully clothed before Jesus could back away from it.  She wore a happy expression on her face, and all of the tension had drained out of her eyes.  She went directly to the pile on the living room floor and grabbed a backpack.  She took it back to the bedroom to fill it up.  Louis came out much more slowly, and headed in the direction of the coffee smell.  Jesus followed Louis and gave him a quick briefing.
     “I’ve got a bad feeling, Louis.  I can’t say for sure, but we need to leave quickly.  It won’t hurt to be safe,” Jesus fretted.  The assassin had killed thousands of men, but he had never tried to keep one alive before.  He found the experience more stressful than his usual line of work.
     “I get it.  We’re leaving.  I’ll be ready,” Louis said laconically but not unpleasantly.  He hated waking up, but he felt like a million dollars.  He hoped Rosie kept quiet about their engagement, though, until he at least finished his coffee.
     Rosie came out of the master bedroom with her backpack, and she was all smiles and light.  The others were busy sorting out the useful items on the living room floor.  Rosie sprayed herself with insect repellent and plopped down in a recliner.  Everybody was too busy to pay any attention to her, so she decided to break the good news.
     “Louis and I are getting married!” Rosie exclaimed.
     Lena congratulated her first.  Something about the way Lena spoke gave Rosie the impression that the woman was unhappy.  Dorothy and Elizabeth both offered their best wishes politely, and returned to the task of loading up to depart.  Jesus laughed and didn’t say anything at all.  In the kitchen Louis put his hands over his face, and slammed his head down on the table.  Michael cheerfully volunteered to perform the ceremony, and the sound of the priest’s words caused Louis to groan.
     Rosie walked into the kitchen and saw Louis slumped over the table.  He heard her approach and picked his head up to smile at her.  She kissed him and climbed into his lap.  Louis forgot what he was fussing about.  He remembered that he was the luckiest person alive, and hugged Rosie.
     Elizabeth brought the horses up to the front porch.  The horses calmed down the day before, after they understood there was no danger.  They stood calmly while they were loaded up with the party’s belongings.  When the packing was finished, everybody exited the house and saddled up.  There was barely enough light to see by as they rode into the lowland forest.
     The party rode southeast through increasingly difficult terrain.  They had no path or trail to follow, but instead relied on the compass to point their way.  Nobody relished leaving the comforts of the strange house in the clearing, but they all knew there was no other choice.  Everybody rode in silence for most of the morning.
     Lena rode behind Jesus again, and nobody could have mistaken her mood for a good one.  Louis rode behind Rosie, but they found no reason to chatter.  Their night of pleasure left the two contented with each other’s presence.  Michael carried on like a trooper, much more confident in his riding skills the second day.  Elizabeth and Dorothy brought up the rear once more.  The two warrior women weren’t unhappy, but they were unwilling to disturb the quiet.
     The lowlands changed into deep-water swamp, and the group slowed to a snail’s pace.  The horses could swim short distances, but they couldn’t tread water all the way to New Orleans.  The party spread out in a line as they searched for solid ground repeatedly.  A section of barely submerged land would be discovered, only to be swallowed up by an eight-foot deep invisible runoff a hundred yards further along.  The group experienced first hand the terrain that prevented many modern developments in South Louisiana, all the way into the twenty-first century.
     The swamp was like a nightmare that wouldn’t go away.  Mile after mile everything looked the same.  They encountered mosquitoes that enjoyed the taste of insect repellent, and seemed to be attracted by it.  The horses plunged into deep water so many times they developed a shyness of moving away from the bases of the trees.  Moisture hung so heavy in the air that breathing required conscious effort.  Everybody’s clothing clung wetly to their bodies, totally drenched with perspiration.  As if those tribulations weren’t enough, Michael reminded everyone of the threat of leeches.  Everyone in the group found a few of the bloodsuckers up their pants legs, from the regular immersion in deep, filthy water.
     They all developed an appreciation for the Cajun and Creole swamp dwellers of Acadiana back on Earth.  The Atchafalaya Basin dwarfed the swamp Louis’ group was passing through, but provided a home to thousands of the French and Spanish descendants.  Those people lived in the swamps without electricity or running water, but survived and prospered.  The difficulty of such a task suddenly came into perspective.
    The adventurers caught a reprieve from the soggy nightmare when they came across several series of long swamp meadows.  They traversed twenty miles on solid ground.  They only had to cross six creeks in three hours, and their spirits improved somewhat. The temperature dropped to a more comfortable level when clouds blotted out the sun, so the gods must have looked after them.  They joked and talked jovially beneath a sky that grew partly cloudy in the middle of the day. 
     The clouds burned off in the late afternoon, and they ran out of meadows to ride through.  They plunged back into formidable swampland at the peak of the day’s heat.  After another two miserable hours the party came out of the swamp on the shore of Lake Ponchartrain.  They found dry, level ground easily enough, and made camp for the night.  The entire group was exhausted by their journey through the swamps.  The horses especially needed rest.
     After the Jesus and Michael pitched their tents, everyone cleaned up in the water of the great lake.  The sun hung low on the western horizon, and Jesus built a fire to light the coming night.  The assassin put off discussing the next day’s travel plans until the group was settled down.  He hated to tell the women about the decision he made, but circumstances dictated his course of action.
     “I can find no way around what I have to say,” Jesus started the difficult conversation.  Everybody recognized the seriousness of his tone and gave him their attention.
     “Dorothy, Elizabeth, both of you have made great sacrifices to help us on this trip.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you have done.  It pains me to tell you that I require your further services, in a way that you may not agree with,” he continued reluctantly.  “We don’t stand much of a chance of making it to Asmodeus’ palace alive.  It would be totally senseless to endanger your lives, and the lives of these two innocent girls, by allowing you to accompany us into New Orleans.  Not only would it endanger your lives to be there, but I feel that a much smaller party stands the greatest chance of passing through the city unharmed.  Your presence would make it far more dangerous for Louis, and I’m speaking of all four of you.
    “I would consider it a tremendous personal favor if you, Dorothy, and you, Elizabeth, would escort Rosie and Lena to safety.  I should have demanded that all four of you seek the safety of the Quad when we fled the Pentacle.  I allowed my personal feelings about the girls to cloud my judgment at the time, and I regret that lapse of judgment.  I won’t make that mistake again.  Will you grant my request?” Jesus addressed the two warrior women.
    The stunned silence that followed his announcement momentarily gave way to chaos.  Rosie and Lena both objected simultaneously.  Dorothy and Elizabeth recognized the wisdom of his decision, and both asked questions about it at the same time.  The result was a tumult of spoken words that nobody could make heads or tales of.  Louis, of all people, shouted for silence.  After that the conversation returned to order, but the painfulness did not dissipate.
     Dorothy spoke first, “I came to much the same conclusion myself.  While I would gladly follow you into a losing battle, I see no reason for these young ladies to do the same.  It would certainly mean their demise, or fates far worse than death.  God works in mysterious ways.  My purpose on the journey came to me last night, and Elizabeth agreed.  We expected your decision, and we accept the responsibility of carrying Rosie and Lena to safety.”
     Elizabeth spoke next, “You three, Jesus, Louis and Michael, will carry with you all my hopes and prayers.  Even though I am not an innocent woman, hopefully my prayers will mean something.  Dorothy and I knew this moment would come.  We talked about it last night.  I will guard Lena and Rosie with my life, for their sakes and yours.”
     Lena could contain her emotions no longer.  Her voice cracked as she lashed out, “I knew you would leave me, Jesus.  I always knew you would leave me behind.”  She crawled into her tent weeping bitterly.
     Rosie felt hopeless when confronted by the resolve of the group’s three veterans.  She didn’t want to be separated from Louis, but she also agreed with the decision.  She wouldn’t mind death so much, but the idea of Louis getting killed because of her presence was intolerable.  “I understand.  I don’t want to leave you, Louis, but it’s the right choice to make,” she agreed as she blinked back tears.
     “No matter what happens to me, I will love you forever, Rosie.  I know we only just met, but I feel like I’ve known you forever,” he told her sincerely.  He hugged her tight, and they both cried.
     “I can marry you two before our groups part ways,” Michael offered through his own misty eyes, “if you would like that.” 
     Michael didn’t say anything, but he thought their love could be the key to Louis’ survival.  Michael approached his God appointed task with proper diligence.  He noticed Louis Comeaux changed dramatically in a short period of time, and the changes were for the better.  Michael failed in his initial attempts to bring Louis closer to Christianity, but Rosie succeeded in filling the young man with love.  Michael had absolute faith in the power of love.  He resolved to have another spiritual conversation with Louis before they reached New Orleans.
     “Would you do that for us, father?” Louis asked sadly.  “I mean, it would mean the world to me if you would marry us at dawn.”  Rosie grabbed him by the neck and pulled him into a deep, long lasting kiss.
     “Okay.  I hate to break up the pity party, but I still have a few things to say,” Jesus broke in flatly.  “Dorothy, another thought occurred to me.  I don’t know if you were considering a run for the Quad, but I have a better idea.  The four of you could ride straight east for the Mississippi, and then head north again until you find the point where we left the riverbank.  It would be far safer and easier to reach that house than to return to Baton Rouge.  Not only is the Quad most likely under siege, but you would have to ride through the city to get there.  We all know what the city is like.”
     Elizabeth responded, “Somebody is sure to have discovered our trail by now.  No amount of magic can stop a determined human mind.  They may have burned the house down, or worse.  The forces of evil may have occupied it by now.”
     “They may have burned the house down, but I don’t think they would occupy it.  It’s in the middle of nowhere, totally cut off from all assistance and communication.  You’re probably right about the trail, but any pursuers will be hot to catch up to us.  They won’t sit in that house twiddling their thumbs,” Dorothy reasoned.
     “I tend to agree with Dorothy, but you made a good point, Elizabeth.  Should you two decide to go back there, approach the location with extreme caution.  If I were you I would return to that house.  It’s Louis they want, and they know he’s going to New Orleans.  They won’t care about the house.  It should be a safe short term hideout,” Jesus conjectured wearily.  He wanted a simple solution, but nothing was ever simple.  He hoped he wasn’t steering them in the wrong direction.
     “Don’t forget to hide your trail when you leave this campsite.  You wouldn’t want them to track you all the way back to the house,” Louis warned.  He had grown to respect and admire all of the women, and he worried for their safety.
     “Don’t sweat the details, Louis.  I’ll do everything in my power to keep Rosie safe,” Elizabeth told him.  She was moved by his concern.
     “It’s not just Rosie that I care about, Elizabeth.  I can’t bear the thought of you and Dorothy and Lena dying because of me.  Every second of this trip I have agonized about your presence.  I was brought up to believe that women should be treated with respect.  This place makes me sick.  Women are slaughtered just for fun.  I don’t want anything to happen to any of you, especially not because of me.”  Louis voice revealed the guilt in his soul.
     “Not all women are slaughtered, young man.  I’ll give ‘em what for, if it comes down to it.  You just rest your worries, Louis,” Dorothy reassured him.  She meant every word of it.  Dorothy wasn’t a warlord yet, but she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
     “I’m going to bed, folks,” Jesus informed them. “We’re leaving at first light.  There’s no need to stand watch out here.  My senses are on full alert, and if anyone approaches I will raise the alarm.”  With that he crawled into the tent with Lena.  No sounds came from inside.
     “That sounds like a good idea,” Rosie spoke up from Louis’ lap.  She hadn’t spoken in a long time.  She waited patiently until they others finished their discussion, and then she made her move on Louis.  She dragged him into the tent behind her.
    “Well, father, it looks like you’re sleeping alone again,” Dorothy spoke sympathetically, “unless you’d like to join Elizabeth and I.  You’ve vowed to face death with the men.  Certainly it wouldn’t hurt for you to experience the pleasures of the flesh one last time.”  She offered out of a sincere kindness, and somehow it didn’t sound wicked or sinful at all.
     “I no longer feel the stirrings of the flesh, sweet woman, but I will never forget that you thought of me as a man.  Thank you, Dorothy,” Michael answered her respectfully.  He crawled into the fourth tent to pray.  He knew that death waited for him in the crescent city.  The sounds from the other tents didn’t bother him at all.  Michael prayed fervently, preparing himself for his passage into heaven.
    
     Jesus crawled beside Lena and wrapped his arms around her.  She tried to pull away from him, but he held her tight.  She was no longer crying.  Instead she had resigned herself to losing the only good man she ever knew. 
     The assassin’s past meant nothing to her.  She never met the cold-blooded killer who entered Discordia through a voodoo ceremony.  The man she knew saved lives selflessly, and had embarked on a heroic quest that would probably take his own life.  At least that’s the way she saw it.  She got very sad again when she thought about how he didn’t want her.
     “Cheer up, Lena.  I want you to listen to me.  I’m not the person you think I am.  I’ve killed so many people I lost count centuries ago.  I don’t deserve someone like you, and you deserve someone better than me,” he spoke to her softly.
     “You may have done those things in the past, but I know the kind of person you are, Jesus.  You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.  It’s foolish for you to say such things.  You’re only saying that because you don’t want me.”  Her voice cracked with emotion, and she couldn’t seem to stop the tears that kept flowing down her cheeks.
     “Let me tell you a secret.  I found out something when I met you, Lena.  In over two thousand years I never found one good thing about Discordia, until I met you.  Time moves faster here than on Earth, and I always thought that was a bad thing.  Then I fell in love with you, overnight.  I found out that love moves much faster here too, just like time.  I love you, Lena, and I do want you.”
     She turned to face him.  She wanted to see his face, even if it was only by firelight.  When she did, he kissed her, and all the love inside him flowed into her.  She felt warmth spreading all though her stomach and her legs.  Desire consumed her, a desire so acute it devoured her rational mind.
     Lena explored his mouth with her tongue, and he in turn sampled the sweet taste of her mouth and her lips.  She pulled away and kissed his cheeks, his forehead and his chin, and pressed her hot cheeks against his.  The wetness of the tears lingered, but quickly dried up from the heat of their touch.  He kissed her neck and sucked on her earlobes.  She couldn’t contain the sound that built up in her lungs and forced its way out from deep in her throat.
     Afraid to do something Jesus would disapprove of, and unsure of herself sexually for the first time in her life, Lena allowed him to proceed at his own pace.  He kissed her mouth again passionately while he pulled her shirt up and exposed her breasts.  Jesus ran his hands over them softly, and then grazed her nipples with feathery caresses.  The skin around them tightened and wrinkled up, and she felt the tips throb with every beat of her racing heart.
     Lena thrust her hands under his shirt, because she had to feel his skin.  She couldn’t withstand the craving any longer, and she ran her hands all over his back.  He fulfilled her all her desires by taking off his shirt and pants, without ever ceasing his attentions to her neck, her breast and her stomach.  She noticed he managed the task effortlessly, and the idea of his expertise fueled the burning in her loins.  She felt clumsy as she skinned out of her clothes.  She wanted to be perfect for him.
     He withheld the object of her desire from her, even though she pressed herself against him and spread her legs wantonly.  He caressed her mound where the moisture had seeped to the surface, and then lazily fingered her most private spot.  She scratched her nails down his back, and groaned as quietly as the all-encompassing desire allowed her to. 
     Jesus finally entered her in one smooth stroke.  His size caused her to gasp, and hurt her just a little.  She was so wet his entire length slid effortlessly into her, all the way to the base.  He pulled almost all the way out of her, and then slammed all the way back in.  She felt the end stretch her inside, and the pleasure and pain made her orgasm instantly.  She had never achieved orgasm so quickly in her life, and he was just getting started.
      Lena could not control the screams and cries that burst out of her.  She could not stop the waves of pleasure that built and built until they crashed down upon her, as Jesus rode her with total awareness and total control.  He was mastering her as though she was his plaything, and with every stroke she belonged to him more and more.  The mind-boggling sensation that mounted from her loins and took over her awareness dictated that Jesus owned her, body and soul.
     Just when Lena knew that sanity would leave her for all time, Jesus climaxed inside her.  She felt the explosion of warm liquid deep inside her, and she thanked God it was over.  She couldn’t have withstood the pleasure for another minute.  She wrapped her legs and her arms around his back and held him in place with all her might.  Only when his erection subsided completely did she allow him to pull out of her.  She held him on top of her for a long, long time, overcome by the intensity of what she had experienced.  It had never been like that before.
     “I love you, Jesus,” she told him, and she was never more sure of anything in her life.
     “Uh-huh,” he answered her.  He descended into the relaxed torpor that follows the male orgasm.  Lena’s body cushioned him from the hard ground, and he fell asleep quickly.
     Lena lay there savoring the feel of his weight crushing her.  She took delight that Jesus didn’t pull away from her, but instead was content to use her as his bed.  He wasn’t heavy enough to suffocate her, but she couldn’t imagine a more pleasant way to die if he had been.  Delicious contentment stole through every fiber of her being, and she followed him down into a restful slumber.
     When next Lena opened her eyes, Jesus was unzipping the entrance to the tent.  She knew that he was preparing to leave her, and she felt a dull ache inside of her.  She really had two aches inside of her, but one of them was purely emotional.  She didn’t get up, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to remain in control of her emotions.  She closed her eyes and said a prayer.  It was the first prayer she had said since she was a child.  She prayed to God to bring Jesus back to her.
     Outside Father Flannery pronounced Louis and Rosie man and wife.  Rosie didn’t mind the abbreviated ceremony.  It was better than no ceremony at all.  Louis kissed away her tears, and promised her everything would be all right.  They were both physically and emotionally drained from the night before, and self-conscious about all the noise they made.  They were so loud they hadn’t heard Lena and Jesus making love at the same time.
     Neither of the heterosexual couples heard Dorothy and Elizabeth making love.  Only Michael heard all of it.  He rested in his tent, and pondered the synchronized sexual event.  He sensed the hand of God in the simultaneous acts.  The next morning the feeling of love in the campsite was so strong it was a tangible thing.  The priest never witnessed anything like it before, and was certain he never would again.  The thought struck Michael that he should offer to marry the other couples.
     “Jesus, would you like me to marry you and Lena?”
     “That depends on Lena.  I would certainly marry her, but I haven’t asked her to marry me, so I’m not sure how she feels about it.” 
     Lena heard everything from inside the tent.  She pulled on her clothes frantically, desperate to join the conversation before it was too late.  She forgot where she was and tried to stand up inside the tent.  The tent collapsed on her, and everybody started laughing while she fished around for the zipper.  Jesus helped her climb out of the entrance, and she threw her arms around him.
     “Yes, Jesus, I want to marry you,” Lena told him.  She might never see him again, but she could always say he was her husband.
     “Are you sure you want to marry me?” Jesus asked her doubtfully.  He had never had a real relationship with a woman in his life.  He didn’t understand what Lena saw in him that so many other women did not.
     “More than anything in the world,” Lena told him breathlessly.
     “It will be the same short pronouncement.  I’m afraid we don’t have the time or the facilities for anything more elaborate,” Michael explained interrupted their cuddling session.  He was anxious to get the women out of harm’s way.  Jesus was too, and caught on to the priest’s hurried attitude.
     “I don’t care.  Just pronounce us married, father,” she said anxiously.
     “I always wanted to have a family.  Now I have a genuine reason to live,” Jesus admitted.
     “Very well, then.  I now pronounce you man and wife,” Michael intoned.
     The newlyweds kissed, but Jesus pulled away.  He touched Lena’s cheek, and told her, “No matter what happens, I’ll never forget about you, but right now we need to go.”
     Elizabeth and Dorothy refused the offer to be married.  Elizabeth said they didn’t need a pronouncement to legitimize their relationship.  Father Flannery thought that was probably true. 
     Louis inflated the giant rubber raft, and Jesus and Michael busied themselves folding up the tents and packing up.  The men packed most of their gear onto the raft, but some of it was too heavy.  Jesus gave Dorothy the M16 and all the ammo, to help keep the women safe.  When the raft was fully packed, Lena looked at it doubtfully and expressed her reservations about Jesus’ plan.
     “I don’t think we could survive a passage through Metairie, so we have to float across Lake Ponchartrain.  The lake would be safer in a hurricane than Metairie on a pretty, sunny day,” Jesus explained.  He absolutely no idea what he was saying, but nobody else knew that.
     Farewells were exchanged all around.  Emotions overflowed as the newlywed couples hugged and kissed for what might be the last time.  They all marveled at the power of love, and how it didn’t follow any rules, patterns or precedents. 
     Louis pushed off from the shore with a final goodbye, and the women finished the task of breaking camp.  The raft floated out of sight, out into the waves of the great lake, with Michael paddling and the other two men gazing back to the shoreline.  Nobody knew what the next few days held in store.  They hoped that they would all meet each other again, but none of them believed that they would.