Legion's Arc

Chapter 20 of 22

Mark rose from his knees. Diana went to him. She wrapped her arms around the husband she had buried in her heart. His chest moved under her hands. He was warm. He was real. Then his fingers closed on her wrist. He pulled. Diana stumbled against the altar. "Mark, stop." His grip did not loosen. He dragged her across the church floor, past the bodies, toward the old wooden altar where the bark book lay open. The freed villagers scattered from his path. "You never understood," Mark said. His voice was calm. "I brought you here. To the woods. To this town. All of it." He forced her down against the stone. "Ezekiel locked hundreds in that cellar. I found the last of their blood. You." Diana twisted in his hands. "What are you saying?" "I am his son too." Mark's eyes were flat and old. "Ezekiel Blackwood's blood runs in me the same as it runs in my brothers, and my mother, Margaret. The curse hunts our line. I meant to end it. One last sacrifice breaks Legion forever." He pressed her wrist to the altar. "You are the last, Diana. It has to be you." She stared at the man she had loved for twenty years. Behind his eyes, something ancient watched her, pleased. Her whole marriage turned to smoke. His kindness, his laughter, the years at their table. He had chosen her because of her blood. "Your love brought me back," Mark said. "Now your death sets me free.” Mark laughs, “And I was out of the picture! Legion had taken me and I thought that was it. But you.” Laughing again. “You brought me right back! Wow! Crazy right? And you didn’t even know you were a witch! Guess I’m just in time to take out the last one.” He reached for the bark book. He tore a page from the spine. The dry bark ripped loud in the quiet church. He fished a match from his shirt and struck it on the stone. The flame caught the page. Diana saw the fire and her blood went cold. She knew what fire did. She had burned the shirt and the book once. The flames had not killed the beast. They had made it whole. They had made it worse. "No," she said. "Mark, put it out. Fire doesn't end it. Fire feeds it." He smiled and let the burning page fall to the altar. “An expert all the sudden? Your kind always thinks they know everything don’t th…..” A roar came from outside the church. It shook the broken doors on their hinges. The freed villagers had slowly been surrounding mark and Diana while they weee talking but Mark never noticed. The sound was deep and wet, built from a thousand throats at once. Diana had heard it before. It was the swarm. It was rising again. All the faces surrounding Mark began to distort and change. Mark's smile fell. He turned toward the doors. His grip slipped from Diana's wrist. The fire grew hotter and was quickly spreading across the room through the old rotting wood. The roar came a second time, closer now. Something huge moved in the dark beyond the church. The curse was not broken. Mark's fire had called it back, larger and hungrier than before. All around them, the people were growing. Claws came out, fangs came to sharp ends, and there was the hunger. And they all moved in closer to Mark.