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"Rachel Gardener is a witch!" Grey declared as his gavel struck the sound box and echoed throughout the chamber. "She will now be burned alive!" With his final word a ring of fire on the floor engulfed the young girl trapping her.
Rachel watched the flames rise to hip height around her but she did not step away. There was no use in lying anymore. It wasn't getting her anywhere by denying. she was sure by hiding the truth she was only upsetting the dark God that had gifted her with her abilities. With a small sigh she finally spoke, her voice soft, barely audible over the roaring flames. "You are right father Grey. I am a witch. And I did enchant your angels." Her eyes reflected the light of the fire before her as she spoke. "But not Zack. He follows me without a spell. Let me go and no harm will come to him."
Grey glared at the blonde from his high perch. "You have already corrupted him with your treachery. If you burn now he will be out of harm's way."
"It was his own choice to stop being one of your angels. Douse these flames now and let me leave in peace or I will take Zack with me." Rachel threatened
"Zack knew the rules, he killed another floor master. He is a sacrifice just as you are. You both will die." Grey shouted banging his gavel again and the flames grew higher.
Rachel glaced at the flame around her noting that no heat came off of them. A neat trick she noted before she reached her hand into the flames and watched as they did not burn her. "Your God has granted you the power of fake flames, hallucinations." She waved her outreached arm as if pushing something to the side and the fire and court house disappeared before her eyes, replaced by the familiar church interior. "My God granted me with hell fire."
Grey watched as the petite sacrifice before him stared at him with calculating cold blue eyes before a circle of fire surrounded him. He reminded calm Ashe antagonized her further, "What about the medication for zack?" He pulled the bottle out of his pocket and held it up so she could see.
Rachel had turned and was already walking away from the preacher when he reminded her of her original goal. "I almost forgot." She turned and held her hand out causing the bottle to rip from the elderly man's hand and fly through the air before landing in her own clutch. "Thank you." With that, she turned and walked away from the priest leaving him to his own defenses in her ring of hell fire.
"Zack?" Rachel asked seeing the young man right where she had left him, against the wall in a nearby hallway. He appeared to be asleep so she unzipped his bloodied jacket and lifted his shirt up to reveal his blood soaked bandages. These would have to go. She removed his bandages around his abdomen before wiping excess blood away and applying the medicine. The blood on his skin masked the color of his scars but she couldn't help but trace the outline of one of them with her fingers. Within a few minutes Zack stirred and opened his eyes and Ray ripped her hand away from his stomach.
"Ray?...What the fuck you think you're doing?!" His voice went from confused to pissed in a heartbeat.
"I got the medication from Father Grey." She replied bluntly as she pulled her sewing kit out of her bag "Your wound needs stiches."
"Gimme that! I can sew myself up." Zack growled trying to snatch the kit from his laying position on the ground.
"You can?" Ray asked innocently believing him
Zack paused for a second then huffed "No. Uhhgg.. you do it."
Ray nodded and threaded her needle quickly before she began to sew up his wound. She pulled the skin and muscle back together with her bright red thread that she had doused in the medication also. The process only took a minute before she proclaimed she was finished. " I'm done."
Zack sat up and looked at her handy work slightly impressed for a second. "Did the priest show you where the elevator is on this floor."
"No. We will be taking the stairs to leave the building. They are hiding behind the stained glass." She replied in a monitone voice as she packed her sewing kit back into her bag and stood up. She offered her hand to Zack but he ignored it and used the wall to help stand up.
"He told you that?" Zack asked surprised, the bandages around his eyebrows moved like he had raised them.
"No, there was a draft coming from the window." Rachel replied. She stared at him nervously, the priest would probably still be trapped in her ring of fire and she wasn't sure how to explain that to Zack. She didn't want to lie to him anymore. "Zack?"
Zack replied only with a grunt
"Nevermind." She whispered before walking ahead of him changing her mind. Perhaps after they escape she would tell him.
The light coming from the chapel was bright as they rounded the corner. Ray gasped stopping dead in her tracks seeing how out of control her fire had gotten. The pews were aflame along with most of the floor and there at the pulpit was still the revrand surrounded by hell fire. His hands were raised as he prayed aloud. This fire was not one of Grey's hallucinations this time as she could feel the heat already at a miserable temperature in the room.
"Zack we need to break the glass." Ray informed him but did not hear a reply. She turned around to see the tall brute of a man pressed up against the wall with his eyes firmly shut.
"Zack?" Ray asked and approached him. "it's okay. I'll clear a path for us. You will be okay." She turned from him again and sighed before focusing and dousing the flames in a straight path to the stained glass behind the pulpit.
Before Ray could turn back around to zack she felt the gentle kiss of the sythe's blade against her throat. "How did you do that Ray?"
Ray stared straight ahead at the crusifix on the wall "Will you still kill me if I am a witch?"
Zack's weapon didn't move from her neck. "A witch? You lied to me?"
"No I didn't lie! You never asked!" Ray let out a sob knowing that this was always going to be his reaction. She hid her true self from him and betrayed him.
"Do not feel bad Zack, you are not the first one to be bewitched by her. Edward, Cathy,and Danny have fallen to her spell too." Grey interrupted.
"I am not under a spell!" Zack growled and grabbed Ray by her hair and pulled her to his side replacing the sythe's blade for his knife on her throat. "Am I?" He asked slightly quieter to Ray.
"No." Ray said firmly
"Witches lie! You could be under her spell and not even know." Grey shouted over the roar of the fire. The flames grew so big Zack could no longer see him behind the bright yellow and blue color.
It was becoming uncomfortably hot as the fire and smoke covered almost everything in the large room. That's when Zack noticed that the corner he and Ray were standing in was untouched and the air he breathed in was fresh. "How would I know if you are lying?"
"You can feel when you are under a spell, you feel foggy and tired." Ray stated softly but not all her focus was on answering his question. Holding back the smoke and fire so it did not surround them was becoming a difficult task and the heat was becoming unbearable. "I can't hold the fire back much longer Zack."
Zack looked down at her debating whether or not he had felt foggy or tired throughout their journey together. The blood loss made him both of those things but he didn't really think that was her fault. And if he was under her spell would they even be having this argument? None of the other floor masters debated if they were under a spell.
The knife pressed against her throat lowered and allowed her to step away from him. " Zack, I can't hold the fire back any longer."
Zack's head snapped to the fire right outside their bubble as it rose up many feet above him and tried it's hardest to penetrate the barrier. "You will keep the fire back or I won't kill you." He growled as he walked forward towards the stained glass behind the altar.
Ray grit her teeth and trudged behind him. The fire and smoke parted in front of them as they moved but the bubble was shrinking quickly. What was once a bubble that reached taller than Zack by a few heads was now just barely staying put over his hair. The width of the bubble was also continuously shrinking causing them to walk single file towards their exit. "Zack, I cant keep the smoke out."
Zack's next breath filled his lungs with smoke causing him to gasps for air further filling him with smoke. The heat burned his lungs as they arrived at the stained glass, amazed it had not already melted in the heat. Zack looked back at Ray to make sure she wasn't unconscious on the ground and found her looking like she was about halfway to that reality.
"Break the glass." She choked out with tears running down her face from the smoke and heat stinging her eyes. The fire leaped at them as if purposely targeting their forms, but died as it connected with her invisible wall.
Zack swung his sythe back then smashed the glass to colorful pieces that rained around them, bouncing off Ray's shield. He reached back and grabbed ray's arm, pulling her into the room behind the glass that was flame and smoke free, for now. "Start running." Zack coughed and pushed her forwards.
The fire behind them quickly found the new untouched room and lit the carpet at the beginning of the stairs aflame.
Ray chased after Zack up what seemed like a never ending staircase. About what must have been half way up the stairs a large gate blocked the path. Zack swung his sythe at the metal bar but it only clatered off the metal.
"Stand back." Ray commanded as she raised her hand in front of her and whispered in a foreign language. The fire roared behind them as it was catching up.
"Hurry up Ray!" Zack shouted nervously before the bars on the gate before them bent into a shape just large enough for them to squeeze through.
Zack grabbed Ray and jumped through the person sized Gap in the bars. "Hurry up Ray!" He shouted at her again noticing she was slowing down and the fire was catching up. Without hesitation he picked her up in his arms then positioned her on his back and continued the climb.
He knew he had reached the top of the stairs when he reached a metal door with dim light peeking out beneath it. He kicked the door open and found himself inside what appeared to be an empty warehouse. Windows at the top of the wall shone afternoon light into the room, illuminating the concrete walls and floor. Zack removed Ray from his back and looked at her. Pale and covered in soot but still alive.
He pulled her along to the clearly marked exit and opened the door. They both squeezed their eyes shut as the bright sun burned them. After a moment their eyes adjusted and they stepped out into the street and looked up at the building behind them. Thick dark smoke rose from ventilation shafts and sirens could be heard in the distance.
"I'll keep my promise to kill you but we need to get out of here." Zack grumbled, his voice was hoarse and gravely after inhaling so much smoke.
Ray stared at the story just above where they exited and nodded. The windows were dark but she knew she felt eyes watching her. "Let's go."