Chapter #93The Raid, Part 2 by: imaj   Everything happens at once.
Rob is closest to you and he reacts with alarming speed. Unlike his brethren, he doesn’t gape in surprise or ask questions. The bowl he had been using to paint the victims clatters to the ground, spilling the red-brown paint within across the floor. He comes at you with a vicious backhand that catches you by surprise. You tumble backwards, but Miko’s reactions kick in quickly and you turn the tumble into a backwards roll. You come to halt a couple of metres back and spring back to your feet, poised and ready.
The women take this as their cue, although their reactions vary wildly. The first, the blonde, faints clean away, collapsing to the floor like a limp rag. The second, a mousy brunette barely over five feet tall stumbles clear of the pillar she was tied to. It takes her a few seconds to gain her bearings. Her eyes widen when she locks them with yours, just after you’ve regained your balance. For whatever reason, maybe she recognises you as her rescuer or maybe she saw you were the only person in the room without a robe on, she runs and hides behind you. She clutches onto your shoulder until you shrug free of her. The third at least has the sense to run for the door, waves of crimson hair dancing in her wake like a fire.
Meanwhile, Fyodor and Rick enter the chamber as soon as they see you are in trouble. Fyodor charges in with a roar, barrelling straight towards you at speed. The line of cultists lies between you and only one or two of them are quick witted enough to realise what’s happening and step smartly aside. Leading with his shoulder and pushing upwards, Fyodor connects with an unsuspecting brown robe. The cultist flies across the room and crashes to the floor some several metres distant. The collision robs Fyodor of his momentum though and a gaggle of cultists rush in and try to pin him down with little success.
Ricks advance is characteristically more circumspect. He’s drawn that huge knife you remember from your very first encounter with him and is moving cautiously towards the cultists furthest from the entrance to the chamber. With a wry grin you notice a stain spreading on the robes of one of the cultists nearest him as Rick uses his powers over water to wring out every advantage he can get
The leader is scuttling away from you now, towards the small plinth where the cult’s two remaining sacrificial daggers have been placed. You glance at the blonde woman. She’s still out cold and you realise that she could offer no defence if Rob went for her now.
Miko’s trim muscles spring into action and you sprint straight for Rob, launching into a diving tackle as you get close. Rob is caught unaware. Either he thought he’d dealt with you already or he’d discounted you as a threat. You bowl him to the ground and the fight quickly degenerates into a messy scrum.
You try to summon the sigil to your hand and knock out cult leader, but he sees the glow around your hand and manages to hold you by the wrist. Miko isn’t suited to this kind of brawling encounter and the leader kicks away until the glow fades from your hand. He manages to free himself of you, leaving you tenders about your ribs. You haul yourself unsteadily to your feet, spitting blood. Rob’s gone for the daggers again, and this time you will not be able to get to him first.
You look around. Fyodor has the blonde woman slung over one shoulder and a trio of unconscious cultists laid about his feet. The one remaining cultist near him is now backing away, stumbling as his legs give out beneath him.
Rick’s downed a cultist too, but two more circle round him, having drawn serviceable, if entirely mundane knifes of their own. You watch as he concentrates on one. The other starts creeping behind Rick, raising his knife unnoticed to plunge it into Rick’s back.
He’s only a couple of steps away, with your last reserves of strength you summon forth the sigil one more time. You hit the cultist on the back of his head with the palm of your hand and he goes down. He rolls over as he hits the floor and his hood flops open. It’s George.
Rick downs the cultist in front of him with a punch from his off hand. Then he spins round. Rick takes one look at you, then at Georges sleeping body in front of you and finally he looks back at you. “Looks like I owe you one squirt,” he says with a tight smile. Rick looks past you and his face falls. You turn around to see what he’s looking at.
Rob, the cult leader has taken the sacrificial daggers and is now standing on the platform at the centre of the room. There’s no one near him. You and Rick are several metres distant and Fyodor is off to the side holding the last remaining conscious cultist up by his clothes, their feet dangling in the air. Rob’s gaze casts from side to side. He knows it’s all over: There’s desperation in his eyes and panic on his face.
Yet to your amazement, Rob’s expression changes. A wave of calm passes over his face, to be replaced in turn by that smug serpent like grin you saw this morning. One of the sacrificial daggers clatters to the floor, dropped by the cult leader as if it no longer mattered. He takes the one remaining one, grasping its hilt with both of its hands, and turns it until it points inwards, directly at his own heart.
You don’t understand the significance, yet it’s clearly important. Fyodor has dropped his cultist and stands reaching out to Rob, the word ‘no’ starting to form on his lips. He’s too far away to do anything though.
Rick though, has one last action to take. He hefts his knife and with an ease that come from long practice he throws it at Rob. The knife tumbles through the air and strikes home with almost supernatural accuracy. The cult leader has just enough time to look surprised then the dagger slips from his hands. He topples over backward, Rick’s knife sticking out from his eye socket.
It’s over.
*****
You sit on the edge of the platform in the ritual chamber looking at your feet. You never imagined that there would be so much time afterwards spent cleaning up. Fyodor stands a few metres away barking at five of the cultists. They are the ones that weren’t in too deep. The ones that joined this year, that thought they were joining some secret fraternity that would get them a seat on the Oxford crew at the next University boat race. The ones that only flirted with human sacrifice and their own damnation.
To you, it seems crazy that they get no more than a stern talking to: Told not to do it again, told they will be watched and threatened with punishment if they do. Fyodor is an intimidating man though, he looms over the cultists and they look thoroughly wretched. A sixth is on his way to hospital and will get the same talk in a few days once he regains consciousness.
The last two sit apart. They are the repeat offenders, the ones who have returned at least once to participate in the ritual again. They sit bound and gagged, with black hoods tied over their heads so they cannot see a thing. One of them is George. Their presence doubtless reinforces Fyodor’s message, though you do not know what will happen to them.
Rick sits down next to you. He’s returned from escorting the women to safety. “The brunette asked for your number by the way squirt,” he says. “Nice girl, cute glasses.”
“Oh,” you say looking up.
“Don’t get your hopes up though,” says Rick with a rare grin. “It was Miko’s number she was asking for.” You sigh and stare back down at your feet. “I wouldn’t go there if I were you squirt.”
“Do I look suicidal,” you sigh.
“You look miserable squirt,” replies Rick. “I’m gonna risk my hard won reputation for world weary cynicism and ask you what’s up.”
“I don’t understand,” you explain. “All through my training you’ve been careful that I don’t steal from anyone, and I got in so much trouble over the flight attendant, but you killed that cult leader without a second thought. He was the only one left, another few seconds and we’d have knocked him out too. I don’t get it.”
“We didn’t have a few seconds,” explains Rick. “He was about to plunge the dagger into his own heart without whatever protective bindings the ritual would have made. You saw the look on his face, he knew exactly what he was doing. So I had no choice.”
“It just seems at odds with the whole ‘no stealing’ thing.”
“Squirt, there are innocents out there and there are people who do bad things,” he replies. “Do no harm to the innocents and let the bad guys get what’s coming to them.”
“But how can you tell you did the right thing,” you persist, the question still nagging away at you.
“Because we’re sitting here talking about it,” he explains. “If I’d gone off the rails you’d let me know, or Fyodor would let me know. At the end of the day it comes down to my golden rule,” he finishes,
You have to ask. “Which is?”
“Do unto others as you would have them do to you,” replies Rick.
“Uh… Rick… You killed him?”
“Squirt, if I was so far gone that I thought that carrying out that kind of human sacrifice without ritual bindings in place was a good idea, that’s exactly what I’d want you to do.”
*****
You wander into Margaret’s library before breakfast the following morning, hoping to get your session out of the way quickly. Her chair is empty and she is nowhere to be seen.
Rick is hovering about outside. “She’s down in the basement,” he explains. “They’re deciding what to do with the two we brought back here.”
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