Chapter 35

“You can’t force love, I realized. It’s there or it isn’t. If it’s not there, you’ve got to be able to admit it. If it is there, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to protect the ones you love.”
― Richelle Mead, Frostbite

1045 hours, local time
Tuesday, 6 January, 2015
Temporary Location Just West of Gary, Indiana

Charles Tremaine and his tribe were relieved to have gotten through northern Indiana without incident so far. This was mostly because he and his handpicked team of negotiators had made it as plain as possible that they only sought passage through the territories in question without interfering in the internal affairs of the local factions or regimes. They didn’t take sides in the ongoing feud between the Black Panthers in Gary, the militant Catholics of Opus Dei in South Bend, and the New Democratic Movement regime of Indianapolis. That neutrality helped for sure there.

“I think that we’re getting uncomfortably close to the ruins of Chicago for my taste. Where are we again?” Mike wondered aloud.

“Just between Gary and Hammond. The sooner we can get past this particular area, the better. There’s hardly a safe place here at all, and we’re lucky that they are busy trying to keep us from taking sides, otherwise, well, you get the idea,” Charles answered rather laconically now.

That was when a shot was fired and the caravan began firing back in a hurry at the party responsible for it. It wasn’t immediately clear who was behind the attack, but they weren’t taking any chances. If someone decided to foolishly assault them and break the uneasy peace, they would have to pay a hefty price. Charles lifted his staff in a sudden impulse and the enemy began screaming in agony due to the flames engulfing them, which was a bit of a surprise in spite of some warning about his new powers. It still took some adjustment to see just how powerful the guy was now as a resurrected being as well as a Prophet with an angelic father.

There were more shots, probably acts of desperate bravado. Whoever did this, they were in for a real, nasty surprise. Charles smote them in seconds, before anyone else could get off a third shot. They all lay there in a serious state of near death, the handful who survived. Charles then directed his tribe to finish the job. Larry in particular took great pleasure in dispatching them, execution-style, with pistol shots to the face. That was when Rupert began dousing the bodies in gasoline and Joey struck a match.

“Yes, let’s burn this trash!” Courtney scoffed at the idiots who picked such a fight.

There were twenty-seven of them, in fact, all quite dead, soon to be charred remains, of course. Clearly, this was a hit squad, not a full-combat unit team. All of them were quite black, too. The only conclusion that could be made, especially with the berets and armbands, was that these were Black Panthers. Evidently, someone in Gary got a bit nervous and decided not to let them get too far away before terminating them with considerable prejudice. Not wishing to punish anyone but the offenders themselves, not if it would impede their journey, they simply plowed ahead and went further west.

Five more kilometers ahead, more shots rang out, and it was soon clear that these guys were Christian fundie types ... and very white. They had white crosses on red armbands, not to mention the crusader-themed logos everywhere in sight. They were unprepared for what came next, presumably due to the Black Panthers not passing word down the line to warn them. When Charles lifted his staff, they tried to pray down divine protection or whatever.

“Let God arise and His enemies be scattered!” one of them intoned, quoting Scripture.

“Amen,” Charles answered, and then proceeded to scatter the few who survived his juggernaut.

The lightning that escaped his staff fried the bulk of the group in a hurry. The survivors were in abject terror and were soon mowed by the other members of the tribe, as no one was eager to let them return to report to their superiors. Apparently, the Christian nationalists and the black ones had more in common than they cared to admit. Both felt sufficiently threatened by this traveling troupe, despite the lack of incidents prior to this one, that they chose to stir up some heavy shit with them. That was spectacularly unwise, as Charles thought to himself. He wasn’t alone there.