The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,109

Didn’t we have a follow-up?”

“I’ll have to reschedule.”

“He’s a fanatic. You’ve just killed for him. How much further will you go?”

“Mind games,” Sebastian noted. “Don’t listen to him.”

“You’re just enabling his fantasy and your own.”

Lucy spoke for all of them, holding tight to Sebastian.

“What happened down there was no dream. A nightmare, maybe. Not an illusion.”

“Miss Ambrose. I understand now why you haven’t called. You’ve been busy.”

Frey was working them. Getting into their heads.

Suddenly, the windows were filled with police snipers. Sirens wailed, rifle barrels poked through empty spaces between the loosened boards in the lower and upper windows. The sound of static from police radios filled the air. Lights from news cameras booting up outside shone an otherworldly glow into the church. A third alarm sounded, alerting firemen in distant stations to head for the scene, creating even more chaos in the vicinity.

“I see him, but I can’t get a fix on him!” an officer yelled. “Too much smoke.”

“The hostages are too close!” yelled another.

A voice came hurtling from a megaphone.

“This is Captain Murphy. The building is surrounded. We don’t want anyone to get hurt. Raise your arms in the air and walk forward.”

“We’re not hostages!” Cecilia wailed to no avail, drowned out by the helicopter whirring overhead and the expectant mob surrounding them.

The fire chief ordered his men back until the police had done their job, leaving the fire and the smoke to build. The crowd outside was growing.

Sebastian turned the altar behind them on its side and ushered the girls to kneel behind it like a shield. He stepped out in front. Vulnerable. A standing target.

“Step away from the girls,” Murphy ordered. “This will be your last warning.”

Jesse was freaking. He was sure he’d be caught in the crossfire, that they all would.

“Don’t shoot!” he stammered from the balcony, revealing himself. “Don’t shoot!”

Frey and the girls looked up at him in surprise.

“Call the police and tell them you are coming out,” Sebastian ordered Jesse. “With the girls.”

“We’re not leaving!” Cecilia screamed at him, holding him even tighter, more closely.

Jesse nodded nervously, but fumbled his phone as he dialed, dropping it to the aisle below.

“Shit,” he whined and raced for the staircase.

In that instant, the scene turned even more intense. Red and green lasers sliced through the acrid smoke, a spectacular light show unlike any they’d ever seen at any concert. Tiny glowing dots searching for targets.

“Get down!” Sebastian screamed to Jesse as he reached the nave.

Jesse hit the floor and crawled between pews, out of view.

Sebastian turned to them. Even in the haze, they could see the farewell in his eyes.

“It’s time,” he said. “I didn’t know it would be this hard. But it is. Now that I know you. Now that I love you.”

“Sebastian, no!” Lucy cried. “Don’t do this.”

“We need you!” Cecilia screamed. “Please.”

“Don’t leave us!” Agnes wailed.

“I’ll never leave you,” he said. “If you believe nothing else, believe that.”

“Yes, you are leaving,” Frey said. “In handcuffs or a body bag.”

“They aren’t fooling around, Sebastian,” Lucy pleaded urgently. “Just surrender. We will fight for you whatever happens. Don’t let him win.”

Sebastian smiled sweetly. “Don’t you understand? He can’t win—not now. It’s up to the three of you.”

“The night isn’t over, Sebastian!” Frey exclaimed.

“I told you there would be others, Doctor,” Sebastian said defiantly. “The war goes on with or without me.”

“Collateral damage.”

Sebastian ripped his shirt off, revealing the brand, their brand on his heaving chest, spread his arms, and let out a loud yell.

“Brave,” Dr. Frey acknowledged with a modicum of respect for his adversary. “And foolish to the end.”

“It’s not the end,” Sebastian corrected. “It’s the beginning.”

At that, Lucy, Agnes, and Cecilia jumped up and stepped in front of Sebastian, forming a human wall in his defense. Frey smiled. Chaos was his friend and the odds of a happy accident, from his perspective, was still possible.

“Hold your fire!” Murphy shouted into the snipers’ earpieces.

The tumult outside began to spill into the church with Jesse’s flash mob banging on doors and whatever was left of windows. Sneaking smartphone pictures and video that prompted a frenzy of posting to social media sites by the thousands. The three girls, standing defiantly, risking their lives for love and mercy, were suddenly famous. “Saints of Sackett Street” Jesse coined them.

“Shoot him!” someone screamed in random bloodlust.

The scene, inside and out, was getting completely out of hand.

“Captain, we can’t let this go any longer. The whole neighborhood will go up in flames,” the fire chief insisted. “You’ve got to end