Chapter 46: The Fall of Seattle

Wormwood, as the disease became known, ravaged the world. No-one knows the precise number of men who died of the Demon Plague, but estimates are 1.02 billion. One-third of all the men living on the planet succumbed before the disease ran its course five months later.
–excerpt from 'The History of the Tyrants' Theocracy', by Tina Allard

Monday, November 18th, 2013 – Lilith – Sangi, the Democratic Republic of Congo

I looked proudly at my assembled daughters, most newly matured, as they stood in the muddy square of the rude village. It grated that I was forced to retreat to such a ... distasteful place. Well, that was about to change.

Alitha, Mazikeen, Tzavau, Manticore, Edimmu, Nirah, Zu, Aesma, and a dozen more different breeds stared worshipfully at me. A thousand monsters out of the darkest nightmares of mankind. The humans sill remembered my children in distorted legends and tales. The fear they caused etched into the very soul of mankind. My children were so feared, so powerful, the Creator had drowned the world and started anew. But not this time—He promised on the slopes of Mount Ararat to never destroy the world by deluge again.

And He keeps his promises.

"Open the portals!" I commanded. Lana, Chantelle, and Thamina leapt to obey, carving holes in the air to the Shadows.

It was time to retake my city. From Seattle I would breed an even larger army and sweep this world clean of all the vile men. I would fix the Creator's mistake in ever bringing the brutish pigs into being, ushering in a utopic paradise.

I would recreate Eden in my image.

Mark – The Matmown, Tacoma, WA

I was exhausted.

Mary and I spent the day healing those that had fallen to Lilith's plague. Hundreds had already died and thousands were falling sick. The plague burned across the world. It was more virulent than the common cold. Seattle was the worst hit. It seemed like every man in the city had fallen ill, Doctors included.

Hospitals had exhausted their resources trying to deal with the sick, reduced to staffs of mostly nurses and many of those were staying home to care for their own husbands, sons, and fathers. So far none of the Legion – the military sworn to me – had fallen ill, or any of those bound by the Zimmah ritual. But 10,000 soldiers was not enough to maintain order in the US, let alone the world.

"Our Hot Labs have isolated the bacteria," Dr. Franny Albertson explained. She was an Epidemiologist Officer from the CDC, trained to deal with pandemics. "It's a modified version of the Treponema pallidum, commonly called syphilis."

"It's an STD?" I asked.

"Well, not anymore. But it started out that way."

That explained why I was immune, and all those bound to us by the Zimmah spell. Months ago, Mary and I performed the Bathuwlah ritual and made ourselves, and those bound to us, immune to STDs.

"Someone has engineered this attack to affect only men," Dr. Albertson continued. "We're not sure how. And they've increased its durability, giving it a protein to protect it from UV light, allowing it to be transmitted in the air."

"What can we do to stop it?" Mary asked.

"Syphilis has a history of being resistant to antibacterials," she answered. "The exact protein of its outer shell has never been fully studied, and this strain is even more robust. The best thing to do is isolate the men not already infected. The only good news is we've seen about half of those infected begin to recover."

"What about containment?" I asked.

"We may be beyond containment," the doctor said. "There are cases appearing across the entire world. Seattle is a hub for international traffic, and the dormancy of this bacteria appears to be about 3-5 days before symptoms appear. This has allowed the disease to spread far and wide."

My stomach sank. "What about the military?"

"It's hitting the general troops hard," General Brooks answered. He commanded the Legion. "The Legion seems unaffected. Healthy units are being quarantined, and we're forming new units out of female soldiers. But they only form about 15% of the military."

There was a knock on the metal door to the Matmown and a junior officer walked in and whispered something to General Brooks. "My Lord, something is happening in Seattle."

Jessica St. Pierre – City Hall, Seattle, WA

I was exhausted.

I don't think I've slept since the outbreak started, other than a few minutes dozing at my desk. The situation was horrible. The hospitals were crammed with sick and dying men with only a few overworked nurses and doctors – the few who were still coming to work – to tend to them. It seemed most of the male doctors and nurses were infected before proper quarantine procedures could be established, creating more patients for the beleaguered female nurses and doctors.

This is what Lilith wants—a world without men.

I stared down at the report in front of me. It was an order to start burning the dead. There wasn't time to bury them and they were beginning to pile up in the makeshift morgues. The battalion of soldiers Master gave me were stretched thin. They were the only men in the city immune to the disease, and had to be everywhere, trying to help out. I only had a section, half of a platoon, guarding me at city hall. It was all that could be spared.

I nodded my head and jumped. I had fallen asleep. I was so tired. I rubbed my eyes. What was I doing? I looked down at the order. Right. I reached for a pen, and scrawled my signature neatly at the bottom. I set that aside, and reached for the next piece of paper. A casualty list. It was heartbreaking. Most who died were young boys and elderly men.

I grabbed the next paper. Proposed food distribution sites. Every store in the city was shut down, no-one wanted to be out in public anymore. But people needed to eat and rations were being brought in by the military. Places needed to be chosen for those spots. I blinked, the page growing blurry as I struggled to focus.

I jumped; fireworks exploded outside.

I frowned, standing up. Why would anyone be setting off fireworks at a time like this? I walked to the window, glancing down at James Street and saw three soldiers firing their weapons down the boulevard. My exhausted mind struggled to think. Why would they do that?

A black rock crashed into one of the soldiers, caving in his chest. That woke me up; adrenaline spiked through me, setting my heart thudding. Up the street a brown-skinned, hairless woman ripped up another chunk of asphalt and hurled it at the soldiers. No, one of Lilith's monsters, I realized with a chill. More monstrous women rushed the soldiers, covered by the asphalt missiles. They were all varied: a gray-skinned woman with white hair, a gaunt woman with shriveled sacks for breasts, and a green-scaled woman loping on all fours.

The remaining soldiers kept firing; their bullets ripped into the green-scaled woman and she collapsed in a bloody heap, smoke rising from her wounds. The gray-skinned monster stopped and thrust her hands forward; a great wind swept down the street, buffeting the soldiers and knocking them to the ground. The skeletal woman reached one of the prone soldiers, her fingers sharp as claws, and she drove them through his body armor into his chest and plucked out his heart.

I couldn't hear what the last soldier shouted as he struggled to aim his weapon. He fired a grenade from a launcher slung on the bottom of his rifle. The window shattered before me as a boom rocked the building. I threw up my arms as a few shards of glass cut my forearm. The skeletal woman was gone, bits of her staining the street.

The door to my office burst open and I whirled about in fear. It was Privates Brasher and Santillian. "We have to go, ma'am," squat Brasher shouted. His radio squawked noisily. "Those damned monsters are popping up all over the city!"

Santillian grabbed my shoulder and pushed me forward while Brasher led the way to the elevator. Another boom rocked the building, then a loud, repeating roar—some sort of heavy weapon firing. The elevator ride seemed to take an eternity to go down the two floors to the lobby. I trembled in fear; my heart seemed to beat a million times a second. I was afraid it was going to explode.

The doors opened on the lobby. Outside was parked a Stryker. The repeated roaring noise came from the machine gun mounted on a turret atop the armored vehicle, firing down Fourth Avenue. No-one manned the turret, it was controlled remotely from inside. Two more soldiers huddled on the side of the vehicle, firing their weapons in the same direction.

The air rippled behind one of the kneeling soldiers, like a mirage dancing on hot pavement, and then a woman stepped out of the ripples. She was pale; her hair seemed to glow with white light. She pointed her finger at the back of the soldier and a bright, red beam struck him and he fell forward, a smoking hole through his body armor.

"¡Madre de dios!" Santillian cursed as he and Brasher opened fire on the woman. The glass front doors shattered into tiny beads of broken glass. The woman turned, pointed her finger at us as a bullet struck her in the chest. Her red beam went wide, slicing through the front of the city hall, leaving behind a smoking line of destruction.

"Go! Get in the Stryker!" Brasher roared and raced for the front door.

A bullish, winged woman dropped on the Stryker from the sky, the vehicle rocking on its four axles, groaning in protest. How could something so heavy fly? She grabbed the turret and ripped the machine gun off, hurling it down. Then she grabbed at the hatch on top and started prying up the metal. Brasher fired his weapon at the winged monster. She didn't even flinch as his shots stung her body, leaving small, bloody holes.

The remaining soldier outside the Stryker ran for City Hall as a horde of monstrous women poured down the street, no longer kept at bay by the turreted machine gun. The lone soldier did not get far before a leonine woman spat a quill at him; he convulsed and fell upon the steps of city hall.

"Run, chica!" Santillian yelled. He knelt down behind a pillar, pulled out a grenade and tossed it out the door. "We'll try and hold them off."

The grenade detonated, killing several monsters, but more were pouring up the stairs. I turned and fled deeper into the building. I vaguely remembered that there was a fire escape out onto Cherry Street this way. Behind me, Brasher and Santillian's gunfire faltered and went silent. I raced down hallways, fear faster than I thought possible.

There was the fire escape! There was safety!

I sprinted down the hall and crashed through the red door, ignoring the alarm I set off. Cherry Street looked like a warzone. Three cars burned, set ablaze during the firefight, and a few, cratered holes littered the street. The soldiers guarding this street lay torn apart. There were no monsters. They all seemed to be around the corner, so I turned and ran down Cherry street away from the carnage.

I was going to escape!

A red-winged woman with a hawkish nose dropped before me. I tried to stop, but my momentum carried me into the monster. Her talon-like hands gripped my arm painfully and she eyed me up and down, her head moving with jerky, stilted motions, like a bird.

"Well, well, Mother will be pleased to see you, Jessica."

The bird-monster dragged me back into city hall. More monsters roamed the hallways, breaking down office doors and dragging out the few women that were trying to keep the government running. As we walked past, the monsters growled, snarled, or leered at me. I shivered in fear, clutching my choker. What was going to happen to me?

"I will take her," a man's voice said.

I blinked. Nate Kirkpatrick stood next to my former slut-sister Thamina. It was a punch to the stomach. I had relied on Nate. He had been my right-hand man in running the city. Why was Nate helping them? He was a man. I thought Lilith hated men?

"I caught her, I'll bring her to Mother," the bird-woman protested, squeezing my arm painfully.

"Lilith's orders, Pazu!" Thamina snapped. There was a flinty look in the Arab woman's eyes.

"Yes, Priestess," Pazu pouted, shoving me at Nate.

"What's going on, Nate?" I asked as he and Thamina led me to the stairs that led to the utility basement.

"I'm not Nate," he answered. "I'm Ziki. You are going to help get my mother back."

Your mother? He's one of Lilith's children? She could have male children? Then the import of his words struck me and hope blossomed. "We captured Lilith?"

"No, Fiona!" Thamina hissed. "Mark and Mary love you. They'll be more than willing to trade you for her."

"But first we need some information," Nate-Ziki smiled and I shuddered. "Then we'll trade you for mother."

I swallowed my fear. They couldn't hurt me too much. They needed me if they were going to trade me for Fiona. I glanced askance at Thamina. "Why are you helping Lilith?"

"For Fiona," she whispered, then glared at me. "It doesn't matter. I have chosen my side. You chose yours. Now we have to live with our decisions."

They opened a door, and I was pushed into a storage room piled with folding tables and boxes; it smelled a little musty. Nate-Ziki threw me roughly to the floor as Thamina pulled out a thick, black marker from her pocket and proceeded to draw strange symbols on the wall while muttering under her breath. They were like the symbols in the Matmown.

"What are you doing?" I asked, falling back on my reporter training. Ask questions, get answers. "What are you drawing?"

"I'm masking this room from unwanted sight," Thamina answered. "It won't stop a powerful entity from spying here, but it will keep out Mark's ghosts."

"Is that how Lilith kept Master from finding her first lair?" I asked her.

"We thought it would, yet he seemed to find it anyways," she complained. "How did he do that?"

"I can't tell you that," I protested.

"Of course not." She was working on the third wall, skillfully drawing the symbols with what smelled like a permanent marker, sharp and pungent, burning my nose.

"So what are you?" I asked Nate-Ziki. "You say you aren't Nate Kirkpatrick."

"He's dead," he answered. "I killed him."

"And took his form?"

He nodded. "It was useful to get our people into the government." He gave a small laugh, his fat belly jiggling beneath his sweater. "All wasted thanks to Mark." He practically spat out Master's name, like it left a bad taste in his mouth.

"I assume all the women you recommended for arrest were innocent?"

He grinned at me; I suppressed a stab of anger at the betrayal. How could I have been so stupid. I was so fixated on Lilith's hatred of men that I assumed any man could be trusted. Then it hit me. "You knew where all the soldiers were stationed in Seattle."

"That's why I was born," he shrugged. "To spy on Mother's enemies."

"Strip," Thamina commanded abruptly, as she finished drawing her symbols.

"Why?" I asked.

"We can't take the chance you have some enchanted item from Sam," she answered. "Like the amulet you have around your neck."

"Fine," I sighed. I pulled off my bronze amulet, handed it to Thamina, then pulled off my transparent blouse and my short skirt, then I pealed off my stockings. "There."

"Choker, too."

My hands went protectively to my gold choker. "No."

"We'll take it from you, Jessica," Thamina sighed. "You'll get it back when we trade you for Fiona." Her expression softened. "We can't take the chance that it's enchanted, okay. I'll take care of it. We were sisters once. Trust me, Jessica."

I stared into Thamina's face and remembered the passion I once shared with the woman. "They still love you," I said, reaching behind my neck to unclasp the choker. "Fiona, too. Ask for their forgiveness and come back to them. Remember all the fun we had. You're missed."

Thamina shuddered. "I won't be their whore again!"

"Fine, but why side with Lilith? She's evil."

"Lilith never stole my free will."

"No, she's just unleashed a plague that's killing thousands and many more."

"Men," Thamina dismissed.

"Even the children? The infants?"

She flinched, then turned and fled the room with my clothes. I glanced at Nate-Ziki and realized he had stripped naked. He was a big, burly man, his fat stomach hanging over his groin and his cock just visible beneath the pouch.

"Are you going to rape me?" I asked.

Nate-Ziki cocked his head, his eyes examining me. There was no lust in his eyes. It was—clinical. He was studying me, like a scientist peering into the microscope at some strange, new bacteria. For the first time since I became their slut, I felt self-conscious at being naked, and covered my breasts with one hand and my pussy with the other.

"What do you want?" I asked, fear trembling in my voice.

"What do you want?" The words came from his mouth, but that was my voice. The same pitch and timbre, the same rhythm. The same fear trembled in his words.

"Oh, Gods!" I gasped.

"Oh, Gods!" His head cocked, still examining me like a specimen.

"What are you?"

"What are you?" he mimicked perfectly. "You have a very controlled voice," he said suddenly, still sounding like me. "But this is not your real accent. I can pick up its intonations buried beneath this learned diction. You are from the area known as the South, yes?"

How? I had worked very hard in school to lose my accent; a journalist should speak clearly.

"Louisiana?"

"Fuck you!" I snapped.

He smiled, then began to change; his skin rippled like water and he contracted, his fat disappearing, absorbed by his body. The limbs shrank, turning skinny, lithe. The stomach was completely flat now, the shoulders narrowed and pleasant curves appeared at his hips. His sagging man boobs perked up, shrinking and transforming into a pair of nicely formed breasts; the cock between his legs shrank, vanishing up inside his body along with the coarse pubic hair. And not just the pubic hair, all the body hair disappeared, growing back inside his body. The age vanished from his face, the lines softened, the nose shrank; his hair grew honey-brown and lengthened. Spots of caramel blossomed on his skin, spreading like mold until his entire body was the same, rich brown.

Nate Kirkpatrick transformed into me.

I swallowed, and my doppelganger swallowed, adopting my trembling pose. I moved my arm, it moved its arm. It was like looking into a mirror. I raised up my right arm, so did Ziki. No, not a mirror, my image wasn't reversed. I licked my lips, Ziki licked hers. I breathed in and so did she.