"Do you think that the water faucets will need to be all turned on for our plan to work to
form the circle?" Father Mike asked simply and directly.
If Madam Serenity had been the paranoid type, she'd have almost thought that Father Mike
was almost -trying- to find holes in the plan. Then again, that was a reasonable
precaution, they didn't want their final move to suddenly prove a complete dud after all
their hard work, sweat and tears.
"We don't need a million small circles, just one big circle, or at least I hope so. Otherwise
we'd just to hunt down and cure every victim one by one, which would meaninglessly
extend this beyond the point of reason. As long as the water is flowing somehow, it should
HOPEFULLY create the circle the cure requires... "
"I hope so too..." The twice mutated priest said.
++++++++++++
Glass Marie said, "Kathrine was just very very VERY LUCKY that when Kathrine STUPIDLY
called an Inquisitor 'she' that they didn't know that Inquisitor WASN'T one of the jobs
human woman were band from on penalty of death and DIDN'T go straight to the proper
authorities on a glaring and obvious violation of gender lines at least, or didn't kill her for
trying to con them with an 'obvious lie' at worst! Kathrine wasn't absent minded, in spite of
the mask she was expected to always wear, but she spent so much time paying attention to
some details she'd often skip over the more basic ones."
"She had stockholm syndrome?" Betty asked.
"I wouldn't go that far."
"Stockhom what?" Lilly asked first.
"Nothing you need to ask about." Maddex said sternly to his daughter.
"Moving on." Marie sighed wondering she'd EVER go to the end of this story.
+++++++
'We will make the world fair. We will make people fair. We will make life fair. We will make
EVERYTHING FAIR!'
Those words had echoed like a shock wave from the witches when Marie had been blown
out of her own vision.
Marie could appreciate the words... but the tone that was used, and the force behind them,
made the young woman shudder.
And while Marie had endured many a sleepless night, over the next couple of days,
Kathrine looked positively WORSE!
Glass Marie said, "Kathrine wasn't a housewife with no day job, and she was hardly a
woman with no expectations (she was in fact still sixteen and Marie still seventeen for a
few more months). She might not have taken her final vows, but still had expectations to
live up to... and while she could make some excuses with 'cat-naps' relying on people's
stereotypes of felman... the stress of building up her body with the lupmans, and the stress
of maintaining her farce of an always perky woman, and STILL living the life of a sister of
the church... Kathrine began to break. To her credit, she lasted a lot longer than most
would have, she pushed her body along with less sleep than she should have via sheer
force of will!
Marie wanted to know what Kathrine was up to, but she had her own expectations to live
up to, and with her god father dead, she found herself with more assignments than
normal.
Marie had never been made to torture and execute the more 'mundane' offenders that the
Inquisition discouraged simply because you didn't want the average deviant to begin
rumors that the Inquisition was using WOMEN to accomplish it's goals. Such a shame
would be incalculable.
Again, Marie wondered about letting Kathrine help carry her burden."
Marie Cruz shook her head, "It doesn't matter how much strength or skill you have, it
doesn't matter how smart or clever you are, none of that matters... to an enemy who just
needs to blink your way to kill you..."
'I wonder if I'm mad for even bringing Vatican along... ' Grotesques were not invincible,
Marie remembered the Grotesques the arab in white had killed. Against a trio of impossibly
powerful witches... what chance did he have? What chance did Marie have? What chance
did a little felman girl have?
Marie stopped before she made herself sick again.
"Dog of your god! You have the gall to call yourselves heroes?" Said the turk who had
Abaza's contact hunted down at least.
Marie said simply and carried out her duty. "I don't recall ever calling myself a hero."
At that same time half way across Rome on the other side of the city.
"Not bad for an inferior species." Armando surmised as the sleep deprived Kathrine lay on
her hands and knees, her bright and colorful fur making the mud and grim stand out even
more. Unlike Lupmans and Leomans, Felmans had a limited sense of modesty... Which
made running in her dress even WORSE for Kathrine under Armando strict training to shape
the young woman into a soldier.
Glass Marie beat then all to it, "This was the 1680s, racism and speciesism both existed,
moving on."