Wine tasting

[Damien]

Damien and his cohort entered the town when the earth rumbled beneath them. Damien could feel Dane and the other close by. He did not touch the Light himself. It was a gift for Dane alone.

Shouts and shots still rang in the night but the most fierce fighting had since died down. It was now a fight for survival. He received word that Ramirez had rounded up the dregs that remained to defend the main compound. A coward's desperate attempt to extend his life another pitiful hour.

Damien frowned and stopped by the wall of a burning house. His guard fanned out to secure the area despite it already being declared secure by the forward squads. The enemy was now mostly pinned down in pockets of resistance.

"Is there a problem, sir?"
one of the young guard asked. The boy's voice wavered as he spoke.

"No,"
Damien stood tall amidst the embers of battle. The boy was in the safest place in town. But what was Dane doing? Drawing the other into a trap? "Let's continue."


Damien pointed in the direction the Light turned. A few of his guard wore puzzled expressions but they complied without a word.

[Dane Gregory]

Dane stumbled across an open space that he took for a road in the chaos of the town. He ran along what seemed an endless stretch of cement block walls higher than he was tall. A simple flick of power would let him barge through, but the power slipped through his fingers. The continual failures sent him into near panic, especially with the menacing presence growing closer and closer.

He rounded a parked car. Locked, but he would hide in the back seat if possible. Then past a pair of rolling metal doors. The buildings were all attached to one another. The only windows were high over head. The few at ground-level were barred.

A tree and a long stretch of iron gates with spikes piercing the tops. More cinder block buildings. A wooden gate, locked from the inside. He wanted to scream! But every door he checked slowed him down. The presence grew closer until he was sure they were able to nip at his heels.

Finally, a light illuminated a slim arched window, too narrow to crawl through. An open courtyard placed the building off the street. Wide arched doors were positioned in the center. It was folly, but he checked the gate and gasped when it swung freely.

He stumbled inside and rammed his shoulder against the door. The wood gave way and he all but fell inside his sanctuary and fumbled to close the door behind him. And lock it.

Sweat ran down his face, stinging his eyes as he backed away from the door like the moment he peeled his eyes away his stalker would burst in.

The outer gate swung again on rusty hinges, and shaking he made himself turn. He was shocked to find himself in a church.

Two women and four men looked up from their prayerful posturing as he ran down the main aisle yelling for help. "Hide me! Hide me!" He yelled, but they went wide eyed and scattered.

Behind him, the main door burst and broke from its hinges. The assailant strolled through the dust. The parishioners screamed and ran, but Dane yanked the sleeve of the nearest woman and flailed behind her, shoving the woman ahead of himself.

"Let her go!" The stalker ordered in broken english. Dane backed away as he hunched behind her, peering around her head. The stalker was a young mexican man in heavy pants and a ragged shirt. A machine gun was wrapped around his torso, but held at ease at the moment. His hands were raised high, but a scowl of hatred twisted his face in contempt.

The others had escaped out a side door by the altar. Dane did not think his chances were favorable to reach it.

The woman, older and weaker as she was, wrenched herself free of Dane's weakening grasp. Without her weight, Dane tripped forward and fell to his knees. He scrambled for the power that was his shield from fear but it was far from reach. Tears leeched from his eyes and he crawled off to hide between two church pews.

[Damien]

Damien slowed the closer they came to the two storm clouds of Light that hung in the air. Soon he would be within reach of Dane and the other and he did not want any accidents. His cohort blended seamlessly into Damien’s shadow. With Ramirez now stuck in a corner, the night was empty of hostile forces. Now and then a whimper could be heard from inside one of the dilapidated houses. Damien left the townspeople alone. More armed forces would only make matters worse. When their task tonight was done he would address the people.

He turned down a mud crusted street moments before a blast rocked the surrounding area and splintered wood flew through the air spraying him with a rain of debris. Damien intended to wait. The desire to seize the Light for his own purpose was strong. The choice was taken from him. In the seconds following the blast a group of mismatched thugs opened fire in his direction.

Light poured from the cup of the heavens into Damien’s body. He snatched a glimpse of the building that had been assaulted. The sight sickened him. He cared nothing for religious sentiment but a church was a place of refuge and peace, not a slaughterhouse.

The thugs had caught him unprepared, focused as he was. Rounds soared through the air either to either side trailed by the acrid smell of gunpowder.

One.

Two.

Damien was forced a step backwards by the impact of the bullets. The first shook his left shoulder which immediately fell to his side, numb. The second tore into the sinews between his neck and collar bone. He could not tell if the wound was fatal. All he could feel was the warm spread of blood down his chest and the elation of the Light lifting him higher above the mortal skein. The pain was far more potent bathed in the Light but the same power granted him strength above anything the dregs before him could realise.

Within seconds Damien prepared his counter attack and this time the ground below truly shook with the might of the heavens. A bolt of white lightning pierced the earth. All that remained of the enemy was twisted pieces of metal and charred flesh.

Damien had no time to rest, the other turned from Dane who was somewhere inside the church to face the enemy at his back. A ball of fire sizzled through the air well clear of Damien as he turned to see a dirt-smeared Cartel Light-bearer sway uncertainly in the aftershock of his attack.

There was no mercy to spare on this creature as it had been spared on Dane. Before he could so much as lift his eyes to meet Damien’s twin blades of golden fire spouted to life in front of him, skewering the creature in the heart and lungs. As the creature dropped to his knees, Damien glanced around the room. He saw faces stare at him with revolution and terror. Among them was a tear-soaked Dane Gregory.

“Check the wounded,”
he commanded his guard who had followed in his footsteps. Two immediately came to his side to staunch the bleeding from his own. He looked at Dane. “You. Go with the rest of my guard. Ramirez must be extinguished. He is just a man. You will succeed.”

[Dane Gregory]

Dane kept his neck curled down as wracks of panic shook his body. He was about to die. All in some filthy mexican town surrounded by the scum of the earth. His body was probably going to be dragged through the dirt street. Dogs would chew on his hands and feet. The rest of him would be left to the vultures.

Booms of power erupted all around him. The bursts echoed inside his brain like deep drums pounded inside his skull. He distantly became aware of two bleating blasts, one in opposition to the other. But the first dwarfed the second so completely, it might as well be a beating heart compared to rumbling thunder.

The beating heart moved away. Dane didn't look for the reason why. Screams surrounded him, flooding the church ready to drown his soul. Voices followed. Most in Spanish, but one, one he understood.

Dane's wet eyes finally lifted to behold Damien. He radiated power, and Dane shivered.

He came to stand, jaw tight and eyes dull with complacency. "Yes,"
he said dimly and slunked by while others ushered Damien to safety. Blood flowed freely from his chest and neck. Dane's eyes lingered a moment before the guards swept him away.

Dane wiped his face with his palms, smearing the hot tears with the drops of sweat. The others looked over their shoulders at him as they led him from the church and snickered something about it in spanish. Hatred stirred in Dane's gut, and he thought of stabbing them through the throat, but he did nothing.

Ramirez waited.

[Damien]

Dane left without preamble. Damien swayed on his feet. He staggered as he attempted a few steps, blood loss misting his vision even with the Light supplying greater amplification.

A steady ache suffused his shoulders, weighing down like a mountain upon him. Damien set his teeth in a razor sharp snarl against the burden.

"Sir!"
an alarmed voice called out. Hands guided him downwards onto the long bench of the church. He tried to resist but found his limbs unwilling to comply. "Please, do not move. You have already lost..."


Voices faded in and out.

"...-eed to get to a hospital..."


His eyes felt heavy. Damien allowed the warm weariness to suffuse his bones. His men were devoted. They could take care of the rest of the battle. He had earned the right to sleep.

Damien's mind drifted and quickly succumbed to oblivion.

[Dane Gregory]

Damien's guys were suppose to accompany him, but really, they herded him on to a destination that Dane knew not where. Damien had been shot, yet wielded power throughout the rampage. That cloud hung over the back of his mind like blankets. Smothering. Dane wanted to choke on his own shirt. But the cloth was long stuck to his body by sweat, and the collar hung wide around his chest.

Ramirez was just a mortal man Damien said. In the moments before he passed out. The power behind those bullets ripped flesh and drained blood. Power. Blood. Dane could taste both in the back of his throat. That sick intoxication pierced his mind. He wanted another hit of both. But far away from Damien. Far away from anybody. He wanted to confront Ramirez alone. Watch the vessels burst in the whites of the man's eyes.

The other men positioned Dane in front of a building that looked like all the others. The front was cinderblock. The door barricaded. Cement and bars were nothing to one such as he. He drew upon that furious source of power and drank deeply of its well. A flick of the mind and power delved into the front wall. Like a rope tied around the bars, they were ripped from their holdings. Rebar spikes bent like twigs under foot, encircling a gaping portal where the door once stood. Dane waved and held his hands over his ears while the others entered ahead of him and cleared the path with a spray of gunfire.

Dane followed, stepping carefully over bodies and nimbly avoiding empty shells that glittered on the floor like nuggets of gold. Ramirez leaned in a corner. His gun had been kicked away from him. His legs were rendered useless by bullets clawing apart the flesh. Damien's grunts checked the other rooms, and Dane approached alone. The whites of Ramirez's eyes flared in surprise. "Damien sends his regards."
Dane smiled and knelt alongside the wounded cartel leader who now found himself struggling against invisible bonds. Power raged like rapids in his mind. "Thank you for that girl. I forgot her name already. She filled something in me I didn't know I lacked. Or perhaps that I didn't know I enjoyed so much."
He shrugged and stood back to avoid the mess soon to come. He crossed all the way to the other side of the room and waited until Damien's men returned to watch. They needed to learn this lesson too.

Slabs of power pressed upon Ramirez's body. The vessels in his eyes did burst before the end. But it was the sound of vomiting from Damien's gunmen that turned Dane's stomach. He stepped back through the spiked portal, careful to avoid snags of his clothes on the rebar as he went. Mexico City never sounded so luxurious.