Ghost Driver

"Holy fuck! She's not kidding," exclaimed one of the guys. "There's her picture." The woman's face fell. She seemed on the verge of tears.

"Hey, weird girl. I don't really know her that well. I don't really hang out with her either, so can I still come," asked one of the guys sitting at the table with her.

"Not only can you come; I'll let you in for free," I said. "What's your name?" He told me his name, and I made a note of it. "I'll set you up for a discount on your drinks and uhm ... STUFF," I said.

I got up and walked away to a chorus of people begging for me to come back, and swearing that they didn't even know the girl I had just ostracized either. I had begun to see why Agravon craved power. With only a few words, I had reduced my biggest tormentor to tears.

I felt absolutely no guilt over what I had done to her. I felt no need to be the bigger person. At least when I had been down, I had self-respect. Apparently, she had none. She started stalking me and offering me everything she could think of. She wanted to be friends. Then she wanted to volunteer to be my sidekick. She changed that to flunky. She offered to let her boyfriend have sex with me. Then she offered to have sex with me herself. She even started trying to copy my clothes.

I finally agreed to let all of her friends, including her boyfriend attend the rave. But I let her continue to suffer. There would even be photos of her at every entrance to make sure she could not get in. A few days later, she would realize two things. The first was that bullying has consequences. She had already learned that and regretted it immensely. The second thing she would learn was that she was actually the lucky one.

* * * * * *

Interlude

The sleek plane touched down at Detroit metro airport and taxied to a rented hangar. No one would search the plane. The large cross on the tail and the Vatican's coat of arms saw to that. The occupants of the plane all had diplomatic immunity. Inside the plane, there was a beehive of activity. There was also a constant and heavy thudding sound that everyone aboard the plane ignored. Two women brushed and cleaned distinctive leather cloaks. A man sat at a computer in a specially built alcove in the plane. His fingers flashed across the computer's keyboard like lightning.

Two other men immediately left the plane and went into the airport to secure a rental vehicle. In the rear of the plane, the three women upon whom all of the activity was focused sat.

They were a study in contrasts. A slim and beautiful woman who was about fifty years old but looked much younger sat at her own computer screen. She wore a pair of half glasses that sat perched on her nose like a librarian's would.

Across the aisle from her, another woman nervously looked out the window of the plane. She was short and thin with a lot of nervous energy. This would be her first real mission with the team. She had been with them for six months but hadn't seen any real action yet. They had been ordered to take a month off after their last serious mission a little over a year previous.

They had lost another member on that mission. A woman named Sister Piety had given her life in a struggle against a very powerful witch and the vampire that served her. That vampire had been hundreds of years old and was probably the strongest vamp they had ever faced.

The mission had begun with Sister Piety being kidnapped. They had called in Piety's erstwhile love interest; a New Orleans vampire named Mason Devereaux. They had worked with Mason before, and he had actually flown to Texas to rescue the other two team members, who were under siege by a mixed group of vamps and werewolves.

It turned into a battle royal between them, with everyone they could imagine helping them out. Besides their former member Sister Prudence, they enlisted the help of her husband Jason, four red-headed witches, the husband of one of the witches, a Native American Shaman, a bewitched car and its driver Who was a child with some type of powers herself.

The opposition consisted of several very strong vampires, a hoard of werewolves, a disembodied force that was thousands of years old and a woman who had been killed during the Salem witch trials which had absorbed the souls and powers of a hundred witches.

They needed the break to deal with Sister Piety's death. It was also a chance for Piety's replacement, Sister Praise, to gel with the team. They trained together. They studied together. They discussed strategy. They prayed together.

Their first three forays together weren't really much. The first was a pure research mission. The second turned out to be a hoax. And the third, although there had been some action involved wasn't really the type of case they were supposed to handle.

But this was different. This was the real thing. This case had the two veteran nuns worried. A local priest had gotten the report and had sent that to an investigator. The investigator agreed with the priest. He had relayed the information to a bishop who sent it up the chain of command until the team had been dispatched.

They had no idea what was causing people to behave crazily, but it was determined that some sort of supernatural force was involved. Further investigation over the last few days had seemed to indicate some sort of demonic instigation.

The pattern seemed to indicate that whatever was instigating it, was building towards a large ritual on Halloween night.

Sister Praise was nervous. But she was more nervous about her team mates than the mission.

A part of the reason for her nervousness was sitting just behind her. Sister Penance was the biggest scariest nun who Praise had ever seen. She was like a really beautiful football player. Penance was over six feet tall and over two hundred pounds of muscle. She had huge boobs and a well-shaped butt. But she was stronger than most men.

At that moment, Penance was slamming the head of a huge Gothic mace into a rubber pad on the floor of the plane. Every time she slammed the mace against the pad the impact shook the entire plane.

The mace was a new toy that Penance had recently picked up during their stopover in Chicago.

They had gone to Chicago while their analysts were getting information on the situation in Michigan. It had not been what Sister Praise expected. They took a car to a really nice house in suburban Chicago. They had knocked on the door and a man, holding a little girl had answered the door. Praise hung back. The man had handed the little girl who had to be all of three years old to Sister Patience. He had hugged Patience like they were old friends, which had shocked Praise.

The Sisters of Fate were an extremely rare and special order. Most priests deferred to them. It was shocking to see a man just hug one of them.

Sister Penance reacted.

"Get your grubby hands off of her," she bellowed. The man looked across at Penance and with no concern on his face asked, "What are you going to do if I don't?"

"Step outside, and see," said Penance. Praise was taken aback. Even for Penance the behavior was shocking. They had been drilled over and over about conducting themselves as ambassadors of the church. They were supposed to be professional and courteous at all times.

Praise looked over at Sister Patience, who was so busy bouncing the tiny little girl on her knee that she was paying no attention to their teammate's rampage. Praise followed the man outside into a sizeable yard.

Penance grabbed a club off of the table and charged the smaller man. Praise was aghast. She had no idea whether she should try to rescue the man from her hulking teammate or just let it play out.

The man retreated from Penance and snatched a wooden Kendo sword from the table.

A hand touched Praise lightly on her shoulder. Praise turned to find the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, standing beside her. The woman looked like a model or an earthbound goddess. Her long golden hair formed a halo around her head.

The woman seemed to be extremely happy. She had that inner glow that only someone who was extremely happy ever had.

"Don't worry, Sister," the woman said to Praise. "This is their way of saying hello."

Penance took a swipe at the man's head with the club, and she was not holding back. The man was quicker than greased lightning. He ducked under the swing and chose to mock slash Penance's thick legs with the wooden sword.

Praise noticed that he could have slashed her midsection and seriously hurt her or even done a thrust that would have penetrated her internal organs and ended the battle had it been real. But he had chosen the leg cut. He clearly wanted to extend the battle.

Feeling the sword touch her legs, Penance was enraged. She slammed both of her hands into the man's chest knocking him backwards. He rolled with the impact and leaped into the air bringing the wooden sword in a horizontal arc in mid air. With great control, he lightly tapped it against the side of Penance's thick neck.

"Alright that's one," bellowed Penance.

"Isn't that two," asked the man politely. "Did you forget the leg cut?"

"Okay, we're tied," said Penance.

"Your club hasn't touched me yet," said the man.

"My palm strike would have caved your chest in," grumbled Penance. "And since I did it with both hands that counts as two."

Penance swung her mock mace even as she finished speaking, hoping to catch the man off guard. He sidestepped her blow. The club whistled past the man so hard the club dug into the grass. The man quickly stepped onto the club trapping it on the ground and tapped Penance on the shoulder with the sword.

"That didn't count," yelled Penance! "No one said go."

"But you attacked," sputtered the man.

"Yep, I did," said Penance. "But I never said go. There are rules you know!"

"There are rules about tearing up my grass too, Penance," yelled the woman beside me.

"Oh come on Prudence," whined Penance. "Your husband is cheating."

Penance took her stance up. She held the mace in a high guard. Her face was intense with concentration.

"Go," she rumbled. I have never seen anyone move as quickly as the man did. He one handed his mock sword. With his free hand, he grabbed Penance's club hand at the forearm. He leaped up onto her bent front knee and brought the tip of his sword down lightly on top of her head.

"Grrrr," growled Penance. "That was so cheesy it shouldn't count."

"What did I tell you about using that high guard," he said. "Penance, you are amazing with a mace. You are the most powerful bone-crushing mace woman I have ever seen. But your specialty is power. You are not fast enough for a high guard. I know you like it because you get to add gravity to the force of your blow, but you're not going to connect very often, and your arms are too far away to block most blows."

Penance looked towards us. "Did he not just say that I won," screamed Penance, jumping up and down.

"Huh," asked the man in confusion.

"Honey, you said she was amazing and the most powerful," said the golden goddess beside me. "In Penance talk, that means she won."

"What did I win? "What did I win," asked Penance.

"Come on in the house," said the man. "I was saving these for Christmas, but I'll get you something else by then."

Praise looked at Patience. She walked over carrying the little girl. "Sister Praise, this is the former Sister Prudence," said Patience. Praise went into shock.

"But you ..." she sputtered. "You didn't lose your grace. I don't understand."

Prudence smiled at Praise. "Come into the kitchen with me Sister," she said. "We can talk while I whip up some sides. Jason is probably going to grill. Shit, I hope we have enough steak for Penance. We'll have to do some chicken and some Salmon too."

"Purity, show you Aunt Patience your new move," she yelled.

"Sister you swore," gasped Praise.

"I'm not a sister anymore," smiled Prudence. "I'm married. I have sex ... A lot! And I have a baby. Besides, Penance swears all the time."

"Yeah but we're all too afraid to do anything about it," said Praise.

* * * * * *

As they prepared to get off of the plane and go after whatever waited for them in Michigan, Praise thought back to her time in Chicago. Prudence had made her choice, and she was immensely happy with her life. Had Praise ever been that happy? Another thing that bothered her was that she got the feeling that Patience and Penance still thought of Prudence as their partner.

Praise had met Piety once. Piety was selected to replace Prudence, but everyone knew that Prudence had been better than Piety. Praise had found out that Prudence even without her Grace was better with a sword than Piety had been. Piety tried to become Prudence. Piety was also better with a sword than Praise was. Perhaps she should bow out and allow Sister Prudence to take her spot back. It could be done. There were Nuns who had joined an order later in life after having children.

"Did you fill out a will, yet," smirked Penance, slamming the mace into the pad again. "We keep losing third members like spinal tap loses drummers."

"Don't worry," smiled Penance. "If anything goes down, I'll protect you. I have to. We're running out of names that start with P."

"Penance is joking, Sister," said Patience, turning off her computer. "She's trying to scare you. Conflicts with demons usually involve more exorcisms than anything physical. It's not like we're going after Vampires. You'll be fine."

* * * * * *

Callie

Oh my fuckin' God what have I gotten myself into? The party started out great. I was like a queen. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of people all gathered in a field on the old state fairgrounds. The music was very loud and very constant. I couldn't help myself; I danced my ass off.

I didn't drink anything or do any drugs. I'd never tried alcohol or drugs in my life. Agravon told everyone to let the party progress until around midnight. Then the real party would begin.

In the darkness, I looked around and recognized a lot of Agravon's guests. There was the woman from the other night who'd told me I didn't need to be afraid of her. There were lots of others there too.

One of the drug dealers, a guy named Michael was making an ass of himself. He kept bothering Agravon to find out whether or not he would be working the Halloween Rave too. He fancied himself some sort of wannabe gangster. He even had his people call him Scar-faced Mike.

When he noticed that he wasn't making any progress with Agravon, he started on me. He offered me free samples of his stuff. He told me how pretty he thought I was. But I was getting smarter day by day. I told him that if he wanted to even be considered for the Halloween party, he should get his ass back to peddling his shit.

I saw Agravon standing up on the DJ booth. To most people, it would seem as if he wanted to be seen. But I knew better. Things were about to get started for real, and he needed to see what was going on in order to feed. He gestured for me to join him, but things started before I could get there.

I saw the woman from the other night brush by me. "Dinner time, Sweetie," she smiled. She grabbed a man from behind. He was one of the students from my class.

She had far more than normal strength. She bent him backwards until his head was back, and his neck was exposed. She bit into his throat so hard that blood spurted straight up into the air like a geyser.

She picked her spot well, as the crush of people covered what she was doing. His arms flailed as she drained the life from him. She drank her fill and then straightened him up. And pushed him deeper into the crowd where the crush of bodies kept him upright until he fell over.

The drugged out kids kept dancing as he fell to the ground. They probably thought he was too high to stand up. It was the first time I ever saw someone murdered. Well okay ... I'd seen Agravon take the body he wore from the guy he became. And I saw him kill that woman he had sex with. But I guess I had thought that those were cases where he didn't really know what he was doing. It was like a puppy chewing up your sneakers.

At that point, I still thought of Agravon as mine somehow. But as I watched that woman, that ... Vampire skipping through the crowd, drinking her fill and murdering person after person, I realized that I had lost control over him. All the woman's friends were doing the same thing.

And there were others. There were people who appeared to be human who were grabbing people and simply dragging them away in their drugged state. And above it all, above the drugs and fighting and murder and dancing, Agravon held court. He watched and swung his hands back and forth like a deranged conductor directing his symphony of death and Chaos.

None of that was what I had planned. All I wanted was to have a friend or two to combat my loneliness and my feelings of being worthless. I didn't want to kill anyone. Things were just getting out of hand.

And then it changed. Out of nowhere, I saw a huge woman with some kind of metal club that appeared to have spikes on it.

Agravon saw her too. I think he thought at first that she was one of his people. He actually licked his lips at what she might do with that mace. She was focused on two big male vampires who were about literally to rip a thin, drugged out nerd in half between them.

The big woman moved towards the vampires, brought her mace upwards, and then brought it down onto the arm of one of the vampires. He howled in surprise and pain as the spikes on the mace bit into and literally shredded his arm. He looked at her in surprise, but that was all he had time for?

One, and then a second small missile like object buried themselves in the chest of the screaming vampire. Although the arrows or whatever they were had struck his chest, they hadn't hit his heart.

But they were clearly treated with something special because his body began to burn from within. I looked back from where the vampire stood and saw another woman in head to toe white leather, including a hooded leather cloak that I would have died to wear just once. She held a white crossbow, and she had obviously fired the bolts that were killing the vampire.

The big woman who had begun the attack was clad in green leather. Her outfit was exactly like the white leather her comrade wore. She menaced the second vampire, causing him to retreat. Unfortunately, this put him right in the path of the third leather-clad woman who wielded a small round shield and a roman gladius.

She sliced at the vampire's head, shearing off a chunk of scalp and long dirty hair. The big woman moved back into range and crushed the creature's face with her huge mace.

A second later the third woman, the sword wielding one in the maroon leather hacked at the creature's neck. A gout of vile smelling blood and a bleating cry of anguish was the result. As the vamp fell, the swordswoman took one more swipe of her short razor-like blade, and the vamp's head sprang free of its neck.

I was so afraid that I pissed myself. The women in leather all wore crosses and holy emblems embossed on their leathers. The leather was thick and contained plates of what appeared to be padding or Kevlar over vital areas.

They were obviously affiliated with a church or something, and they scared the living shit out of me. I hoped that they knew that I had nothing to do with the vampires. In my mind, I saw them hacking me to bits like some sort of Holy Roman Ginsu team.

I looked to Agravon, and he was pissed. He was also clutching his chest, and he looked green. It was as if the Chaos that he'd planned and orchestrated gave him strength, but the counter attack by the leather women took his strength away.