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NOTE: These stories are
intended for a mature audience.

The Righteous Hand
A Kendrick story
By
Jennifer Brozek
Start from the beginning of the Kendrick Series

Karen faced the leaders of those she had managed to call and assemble over the last two hours. "I'll be perfectly honest, the plan I have isn't fleshed out. There's no time for that. The last time we went up against the Children of Anu, we were too late. I'm not going to do that again. Not with John Mueller and his family on the line."

"Each group will have general goals," John said. "Other than that, this is an extraction. Get the Mueller family out of there before any of them can be hurt. This blatancy on the part of the Children tells me they are so close to their goal ? whatever that is ? that they don't care who knows what they're doing anymore."

"Each group is going to enter the warehouse from a different direction. I got these blueprints of the warehouse from the Hall of Records so they should be accurate." Karen slid pieces of paper around to everyone in the room. "Susan, the gargoyles need to come in from the top. Their goal is to fight the Children and keep them away from the family."

Susan accepted the paper and nodded.

"David, the Special Unit needs to come in from the front. You guys have guns and the skill to bull your way through the crowd. Divide and conquer the crowd. Pick off the most dangerous from afar."

David accepted the paper. "We'll have the block around the warehouse cordoned off as well."

Karen nodded. "Lamiel, the Bacchanalia Coven's main goal is to get the Mueller family out. That's it. Do what you have to. You'll enter through the back of the warehouse. This could be the most dangerous job of all. I don't know." She handed sheets of paper to Lamiel and Walks-the-Ocean. "That's why the Makah Tribe has two goals ? help the Bacchanalia Coven and help the gargoyles. Divide and distract. Do what you have to do to get the family out."

Lamiel and Walks-the-Ocean looked at each other and nodded. Then Walks-the-Ocean gave Susan a nod.

Karen turned to Aaron. "Last, we have the Brotherhood of Light. Your job is-"

"Dealing with Vicki," he said. "Any way we can."

"Yes. Keep her off of the rest of us."

"We will." He glanced at Mason, standing at his side. Mason looked weary but he nodded, giving his permission to the Brotherhood to do what they needed to do.

"Your group will enter from both sides of the warehouse."

Aaron looked at the blueprint of the warehouse. "OK."

Karen's Bluetooth earpiece came to life. "Karen. Something's happening. Power's radiating out from the Camden District. It's putting parts of me to sleep. I can't see the Camden District or parts of the Gateway District anymore. I won't be able to help you."

She put her hand to her ear. "Shit. Are you OK?"

"I don't know. Hurry, Karen, please."

"We're coming. Hold on." She answered and then looked up. She had the room's undivided attention. "We have to go now. It's started. The Master of the City can feel the power building in the Camden District."

They all looked at each other a moment longer, the moved as one. They would explain the skeleton of a plan to their people on the way.

***

"You've had your time with your family. I've been generous enough." Vicki said. "What do you choose, Sergeant Mueller?"

John pulled himself away from Cheryl's clutching grip and stood, again with himself between his hapless family and the Children of Anu. "You swear, before those who worship you, that if I agree to this, to sacrifice myself, you will set my family free?"

Vicki rolled her eyes and then nodded. "I swear it. There are rules even I cannot break. Your family will be allowed to go home, unharmed, after the ritual is done."

John looked over his shoulder at his family. Cheryl's eyes threatened to brim over with tears again but she managed to put on a brave face. The boys, Darrin and Devon, were frightened but they did not really understand what was going on. He mouthed to her, "Don't let them see it. I love you."

Cheryl's eyes glimmered and the tears did spill over as she nodded to her husband with her own mouthed "I love you." She turned her focus on her children. Soon they would be all she has.

He looked back at Vicki. "Then I agree. I will be your willing sacrifice."

Vicki grinned at Sam and he gave a shout. "Let's get this party started!"

All around them, the Children of Anu moved to their respective tasks. Some moved to guard the doors. Some moved to bring out a steel rack. Others moved to prepare the ritual space. Vicki sauntered over to take her place on her throne. It was time she made Kendrick hers for good now that most of her enemies were too weak to stop her from taking the city and its power.

John did not resist as he was bound spread-eagle into the rack. He had spent two hours saying good-bye to his family. Not everyone gets that chance, he thought. I pray to God that Cheryl can keep the boys from seeing and I pray that I'm strong enough not to scream. Please don't let my screams be the last things my family hears from me. Please.

As suddenly as the movement began, it ended. Vicki sat alert on her throne. Between her and her sacrifice was her altar. Sam, dressed in the vestments of High Priest, raised his hands, one holding a bloodstained club, high. "Hail, Anu!"

***

"Are you ready for this?" John asked Karen as they pulled in next to the warehouse.

"No." She smiled thinly at him and shrugged, "But, then again, I never am."

"Ok. I'm here for you."

Karen looked up and watched the shapes of the remaining gargoyles in Kendrick bound from building to building against the twilight sky and gather on top of the warehouse. "Thanks."

***

John stifled his cry of pain as Sam brought his club down hard on his leg. He brought all of his considerable will and experience as a cop to keep himself from throwing up in the shock. His leg was broken. He knew it. And that was just the first blow. Vicki had said nothing of this ritual being torture before his death. He did not know how long he could go without screaming.

Vicki, too focused on her sacrifice, noticed the first tendrils of power not of her making only a second before the sound of breaking windows heralded the arrival of the gargoyles through a shower of broken glass that rained down upon the Children. "Stop them!" Vicki shouted to her Children before turning to Sam, "Continue the ritual, High Priest."

As gargoyles dropped down from the ceiling of the warehouse in what seemed to be a mass of hundreds, a second explosion of sound startled the members of the congregation. From the front of the warehouse, where the main doors were, a third explosion of sound erupted and the front doors buckled to the strength of the Special Unit ram. A dozen men in black combat uniforms spilled into the room in an organized tumble. They began firing non-lethal rubber bullets into the crowd of Anu worshippers to keep them ducking for cover.

Sam focused on his goddess and obeyed, as the entire warehouse erupted in chaos. Even the sudden entry of the Brotherhood of Light from both side doors of the warehouse was not enough to keep him from his task.  He turned back to John, helpless in his bondage. "For you, Anu. Marduk. Enlil. Bel. Victoria." He raised his club and brought it down on John's other leg.

Even if John had screamed, Cheryl and the boys would never have heard it in the din of the fighting. Cheryl had freed herself and scooted herself and her children back against the wall. She was snarling at the black clad gothic people in front of her. "Get away from us!" She screamed and brandished an iron pipe at them.

"We're here to rescue you." Lamiel said and backed away as Cheryl took a swing at her. She sighed and said, "Sleep now." The tendril of magic made Cheryl's eyes roll up in her head as she fell over. Kurosawa caught her before she hit the ground. He nodded to Lamiel as he carried the unconscious woman out the back door.

Lamiel crouched down to look the twin boys in the eye. "I'm a good witch and I'm here to help rescue you. You won't give me any trouble, will you?" Wide-eyed and wondering, both little boys shook their heads. Then Darrin pointed behind her. She quickly turned and saw that they had been noticed. Three Children of Anu advanced on them. "Stay behind me," she ordered the boys as she pulled her atham?rom its sheath.

John and Karen entered from the side after the monks did. Four monks knelt in prayer on either side of the warehouse. Two monks armed with swords guarded each set of praying men. Between the gargoyles, the Special Unit and members of the Makah Tribe, most of the Children of Anu were fighting, scattered or were already down on the ground. Karen looked around and spotted Sam striking John in the right arm with the club. "There!" She shouted and pointed. John Corso took off at a run for them.

Vicki, feeling the combined power of the last of Kendrick's protectors coming to bear on her, snarled and left her throne. She felt the psychic onslaught from the Brotherhood and ignored it. She walked towards her sacrifice and her high priest. "Finish it. Finish it and it's ours!" She saw Corso sprinting towards them, picked up a knife from her altar as she passed it and threw it at him. The moment the dagger left her hand, she herself was bowled over from the side.

Corso, hit in the arm by the knife, did not stop. He plowed into Sam before the club could come down a fourth time. The two men went tumbling over, fighting as they went down. Corso's one intent was to keep Sam from completing the ritual. Sam, intent on doing just that, pulled the dagger from Corso's arm and stabbed him again with it.

David shouted orders from his position in the front of the warehouse. He saw Lamiel in trouble. Two of her people were down and she was the only one standing between the Children and the twins. A faintly glowing green shield kept the Children from them but it was fading. Just as he was about to order two of his unit to help her, a pair of gargoyles, almost as large as Lamiel, landed on either side of her. They roared in unison causing the attacking Children to scatter.

Vicki pulled herself to her feet before Mason did. "Hello, Father," she said before she pulled him to his feet, punched him in the gut and then backhanded him into the wall. She watched him slide to the floor, bleeding from the mouth and nose. His eyes did not open again. "Good-bye, Father," she said and turned back to her sacrifice. She saw that Sam was in the middle of a fight with someone else and knew if she wanted to keep what she had won, she needed to finish off the sacrifice herself.

While the two gargoyles roared on either side of her, Lamiel felt the sudden bonding of gargoyle and human through the shield she had up, protecting herself and the boys. 'I choose you,' reverberated through her skull but she knew that she was not the one chosen. Both little boys behind her were. She looked at the gargoyles and dropped the shield. "They're all yours," she said. The gargoyles each picked up a boy and scrambled up a wall. She knew that was going to be something interesting for someone to explain ? later. In the meantime, she had her own problems to look to.

Aaron fought his way towards the back of the warehouse where his foe was. He watched Vicki throw Mason across the room and then turn back towards the bound man. He threw out a lasso of prayer and caught Anu in the Spirit Realm. It was too powerful a spirit to take on by himself but he had to keep Vicki from the sacrifice.

Vicki grabbed her head in pain and snarled. Anu gathered a portion of their considerable power and honed it into a killing spell. She/He saw that Aaron understood what she/he was doing but still would not let go. He was vulnerable and sacrificing himself to delay her. She grinned a malicious grin and threw the killing magic at him.

The owl intervened in the Spirit Realm and took the full brunt of the death blow, saving Aaron and allowing him to hold on to Anu, drawing the spirit's power away from his host. In a car just outside the warehouse, Walks-the-Ocean coughed up blood and told Lumbering-Bear, "Tell the Brotherhood what I did and then tell them I hope I have paid them back for my betrayal."

Vicki ignored what was going on in the other realm. There was pain, yes, but great victory often came out of great pain. She returned to her sacrifice and picked up Sam's fallen club. She no longer knew where her high priest was nor did she care. She raised the club and brought it down on John's arm. The din in the warehouse had died to a dull roar as gargoyles and Special Unit members rounded up the Children. This time, John could not stop the cry of pain.

Karen heard it and saw Vicki going for the kill. She shouted "David!!" and pointed at where the sacrifice was about to happen. David looked up, saw Aaron charging with his sword and knew that he would be too late. John Mueller would die and all would be for nothing. He would not have that. David pulled his pistol and fired at Vicki.

Vicki, gasping in Anu's pain from Aaron's attack, almost dropped the club. She was so close to winning, she bulled through the pain. She raised the club again; this time it was aimed at John Mueller's head. "The city of Kendrick is mine!"

The sound of the gunshot echoed through the large building. The bullet struck Vicki in the head a second before Aaron reached her and swung his sword ? not at her but above her. The club fell from Vicki's fingers as she collapsed, bleeding from the side of the head.

David rushed through the waning crowd to his friend. "John?" He was afraid to touch the man. He could not tell how many bones were broken. "John? Please, say something."

"Something." John Mueller said with a soft groan.

"Oh, thank God, you're alive."

"My family?"

"Rescued. Just like you. You're gonna be OK. We're all gonna be OK."

***

Later...

Karen and Susan sat in Karen's apartment, drinking coffee. Both looked tired but happy. "I'll tell you, trying to explain to a mundane mother that her children were no longer mundane was not an easy task."

"How's she taking it?"

"Better. Now that her husband is home. He had to explain to her that he knew all about the supernatural creatures of Kendrick." Susan sipped her drink.

"So, now what?"

Susan shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I get to be the old woman on the mountain who talks to god and occasionally mentors the young leaders. Alexander is pleased at what's happened."

"Good to hear." Karen nodded.

She tilted her head, "You're unusually taciturn today. What's up?"

Karen shrugged. "It's just hard sometimes. Two more of the Bacchanalia Coven died. Vicki is in a coma. Mason has a concussion. Walks-the-Ocean sacrificed himself to save Aaron. Poor John was stabbed like six times. And Sergeant Mueller will be in casts for the next three months."

"But we won. The city is safe."

"Maybe."

"What do you mean?"

Karen sighed, "Aaron isn't sure what happened to Anu. He didn't banish it and it didn't flee back into wherever it came from. He said, what it looked like to him, was that someone sucked it away from Vicki the moment David's bullet hit her."

"Maybe because it turned out that David was the Righteous Hand?"

"Maybe." She shrugged. "But now David has a lot to think about. He's been invited to join the Brotherhood of Light and that's got my mind in a spin. I guess I'm having a hard time reconciling everything."

"You've got John now."

"I do." She smiled.

Susan reached out a hand to Karen. "Maybe you ought to just let the past go. Let David and Aaron work things out. Work things out with Aaron. Just let it all be."

"I'll try."

"How's the Master doing?"

"I'm fine now," Karen's Bluetooth earpiece chirped in her ear.

She smiled. "He's fine. We did save him. We did save all of us."

"That is something to be thankful for. Who knows what's waiting around the corner for us?"

"I don't know. But I'm pretty sure it won't be dull."

***

Elsewhere?

Corelli looked down at the flawless quartz crystal. It was as big as her hand and shone with an inner light. Those sensitive to such things could feel the power emanating from it. "It is a thing of beauty and precious beyond words." She looked up at V'ger. "Tell the Order that they did very well. We got exactly what we wanted. This will be an excellent power source for a long time to come."

He nodded. "What are we going to do with it?"

"Anything we want," Corelli said with a smile.

Story by Jennifer Brozek, Copyright 2008
Image by Rory Clark, Stopped Motion Photography, Copyright 2008