Free Sins 02 - Sins of Violance by J.F. Penn Page A

killers.
    Found to be airborne, the virus soon reached the larger urban populations of the Northern Hemisphere and it spread quickly, taking millions in its bloody wake. International disputes had erupted in the panic, with blame being heaped on whichever nation was considered a sworn enemy, for humanity has only ever been a splinter away from chaos. It didn’t take long before the first nuclear warhead had been fired, millions more people atomized, wiping out the major cities where most of the infrastructure and knowledge resided. The world was split apart and now humanity dwelled in the ashes.
    Ari and Sibyl walked quickly along the edge of the road, where the buckling and cracking was less pronounced and it was easier to pick their way carefully through the streets, using the crenelated buildings as cover.
    “Is that his Mark?” Sibyl asked, pointing to a graffitied wall, where a symbol was painted in pitch, its edges dripping like black blood. It was an orb cupped in a bowl on top of an inverted cross, representing the God of the Underworld who had stolen the hope of summer from the earth. Ari looked up and couldn’t help the memories flooding back from the night of her Blessing when that symbol had been seared into her brain. The Fallen Ones had held her down as she writhed, while the sound of a thousand fiendish angels cursed and screamed for her corruption.
    “It is,” Ari said, her voice hollow. “He calls this place the city of Dis, supposedly guarded by 25 fallen angels, punished by God for their disobedience, and this Mark encircles his domain.”
    The Contagion had separated the remnant of humanity into those who turned from any idea of deity, and those who believed it was God’s judgment for the sins of the world. Perhaps it was strange that the end of organized religion and the so-called death of God had resulted in so many cults flourishing in the aftermath, but Ari knew the reality. There was no God here, only one man’s brutality, and the shadows were ever deepening.
    “We need to get moving now,” Ari said, “because the Blessing will begin as the sun dips below the horizon.”
    The pair started a slow jog toward the walls that loomed in the distance, where fires burning on the ramparts proclaimed the city’s dominion over the scarred land. Sibyl ran beside Ari, their even breath creating a rhythm born from years together in the Corps. When Ari had escaped and stumbled out of the city, just a child covered in the blood of sacrifice, it had been Sibyl who had found her. The Goddess brought them together and they had joined the Corps, their need to fight for the innocent overwhelming any desire to be free in what was left of the world. Ari had never told Sibyl what had happened behind those fortifications, but now she needed her friend to help save her sister from the same fate.
    The city of Dis had grown up inside the walls of an old power station that had been luxurious flats back in the days Before. In the chaos of the last generation, factions had sprung up and people had aligned themselves with the warlords who had fought for dominance. The man who now ruled Dis had a name back then, but now he was only known as the Minotaur, his neck as thick as a bull’s and his propensity for violence extreme. He echoed his name by living at the centre of the labyrinth that the city had become, and he called the prettiest girls to its heart for the Blessing.
    As they jogged, Ari glanced up at the trees growing along this stretch of road, their emerging roots thrusting through the concrete, for Nature had thrived as humanity was all but destroyed. These trees had been their refuge most nights, and their home on the Corps mission, code-named Theseus. She craved the security of those branches now but she forced herself onwards.
    “What’s that?” Sibyl asked, pointing at thorny bushes ahead. They were too far away to see clearly, but the bushes seemed to be hung with scraps of material.
    As they drew