“Sam,” came the voice of his wife, cutting through his dreamless sleep, “Sam, wake up! They’re here!”

‘Not her,’ he thought as he forced his eyes open. Sunlight was just beginning to spill through the curtains and paint the room in a soft golden hue. He blinked several times and scrubbed at his bleary eyes in an effort to get them to focus. Rolling onto his back, he found himself staring directly into the hauntingly blue eyes of Ellie.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” He grumbled as he slowly sat himself up, knees and back popping audibly.

“Like what?” She asked incredulously, pushing herself up to match him as he slowly stood.

“Like a shiny new piece of jewelry,” stated Sam with a small chuckle before his brain caught up and he sprinted to the window that faced the parking lot. Pulling the curtains to one side, he spied the area and his heart hit his stomach.

Several men with guns and tattoos were standing outside, milling about the parking lot and checking cars.

“Four, no, five possible bad guys in the parking lot,” growled Sam under his breath. “Shit.”

“They’re bad guys, trust me," said Ellie from behind him, resting her hand on his shoulder.

The contact almost made him jerk in surprise. He briefly shot Ellie a glance before returning his gaze out the window.

“Then I’d say we have less than five minutes before they start trying to search rooms. Factor in how long it’ll take them to get to the second floor and…” Sam trailed off as he shook his head side to side, thinking, “We have less than ten minutes to get ready for a firefight and escape.”

Sam spun around and hustled to the duffel bag beside the bed. He pulled a chest rig loaded with magazines, a short-barreled AR-15, and his battle-belt out, putting them on quickly as he pulled the PDW free as well. Turning, he rose to his feet and walked back to Ellie.

“Here. Take this,” he said, handing the PDW to the woman, who quirked a brow but slowly accepted the offered item.

“I… thank you,” she replied, swinging the single-point sling over her head, “It’s been too long since I was in a proper firefight.”

“The sandbox?” Asked Sam, zipping up the duffel bag and double-checking the pockets.

“In a way…” She answered, further provoking his curiosity.

“CIA? Military?” He chambered a round on his AR, and confirmed that his pistol was also loaded.

“I suppose you could call my background a ‘non-governmental organization.’ Private interests and all that," she replied, racking the slide on the PDW nonchalantly.

“What, a tactical secretary?” Sam teased, grabbing his keys off the counter, slinging his duffel bag onto his shoulder, and confirming that he had everything he’d brought with him on his person.

“Actually, that’s probably the most accurate description of my job title I’ve heard to date!” She responded cheerily, sounding genuinely happy at his description.

“Alright, secretary, how’s your small unit tactics and ambush skills?” Sam asked, snorting and looking at his watch.

“Rustier than yours, better than theirs," she replied with a shrug. “Thinking of catching them in an ‘L-shape’?”

“Right on the money, I’m gonna sneak out the door, and cross the balcony over to there,” he said, pointing to the other side of the U-shaped hotel, “I want you to count to thirty, and then exit. We go on my shot.”

“Got it, get going!” she said with a grin.

Sam hid a smile. Her relentlessly positive attitude was charming, but this wasn’t the time. Opening the door as little as possible while still allowing him to leave, he squeezed through and crept low along the balcony, his rifle at the low ready as he stalked above the cartel members. Making it to a ninety-degree bend in the walkway, he slowly leaned around it. Satisfied that the second floor was clear, he got to a midpoint on the railing and took a knee.

Mentally finishing his countdown of thirty seconds, he peered over the balcony from several feet back, seeing Ellie closing the door behind her.

‘Give it ten seconds, begin. Sweep from right to left, watch fire,' he thought, checking the chamber on his rifle yet again, ‘Might be civvies in the field of fire.’

He rose above the wall and the red dot snapped into position on the man standing next to the car that was blocking the mouth of the parking-lot. Likely an authority figure, low level.

Exhaling a slow breath, he pulled the trigger. The report of the rifle was loud in his ears despite the suppressor. The round took his target low in the throat and he dropped like a marionette with its strings cut.

‘Severed spinal cord, probably,’ Thought Sam. ‘A clean kill.’

He lined up his next shot, a man in a yellow t-shirt who was scrambling for cover behind the trunk of an older sedan. Chuckling, Sam sent three rounds through the trunk. The thin sheet metal didn’t have a prayer of stopping a bullet. He nodded in grim satisfaction as the man fell out of cover, clutching his chest. One more round through his skull. Keep it clean.

Ellie chose that moment to begin to open fire from her side of the ambush, the staccato pops of the compensated PDW ringing loud in the parking lot as the remaining three sicarios turned their attention to her.

Sam snuck a glance to her position as they opened fire on her. She was running along the balcony, pausing every few feet to send several rounds down at the fighters. Best thing he could do for her was end this quick. He snapped the gun onto one of the sicarios, who was in the process of pressing a phone to his ear. He sent a single round through the man’s skull, cutting him off mid-shout.

One of the two remaining soldiers spun, lining up on Sam with his AK. Time slowed as the two men focussed on one another, killing intent searing the air between them. Then the man jerked forward several times, stumbling to his knees as he clutched at his back futilely.

That one was done for. Sam ducked behind the low balcony wall and shuffled a few meters to his right, Swapping his nearly empty magazine for one from his chest rig. Glancing over the wall, he found that Ellie had pushed down the opposing corner stairwell, killed the remaining fighter, and was in the process of finishing off the man she’d wounded earlier.

Making his way down his own stairwell, he trotted up to Ellie, who was kneeling next to the man with the cellphone and half a head.

“Bad news,” she stated, tossing the small cheaply-made phone to Sam, “He made a call. We’ve probably got less than ten minutes ‘till reinforcements get here.”

“Shit… alright, better get moving.” Sam snapped the phone in half with a grunt and pointed at his blue SUV. “Take the backseat so you can fire out either side.”

“On it!” She replied, jogging ahead of him as he pulled the keys from their pocket on his duffel bag. He tapped the unlock button twice, the car chirping happily just before Ellie made it to the door and jerked it open, bouncing into the backseat.

Sam slid into the driver’s seat,r tossing the duffel onto the passenger side. The engine roared and the tires squealed as he jumped the curb to get around the sedan that was still blocking the parking lot entrance. They bounced onto the road, and he pressed the accelerator as he began their drive out to the desert.

“Why are we going west?” Ellie’s voice came from the back seat.

“They’ve probably got people watching the main roads heading north,” replied Sam, glancing at the rear-view mirror.

He blinked several times, his mind grinding to a halt. He whipped his head back to look back over his shoulder, then in the reflection again.

The face in the rear-view was not the same as the face of the woman in the back seat. That woman had deeply tanned skin, pale blonde hair, and orange-hazel eyes. The face in the mirror watched him with luminescent red eyes, smooth fuchsia skin, long pointed ears, and a face that looked hand-crafted by an artist.

Her large, slanted eyes regarded him with amusement in the mirror for several seconds as he stared dumbfoundedly at the reflection, a teasing grin slowly parting her large, purple lips as she flashed him a set of teeth decidedly inhuman. Three sets of alabaster-white canine teeth flashed at him as her brow began to creep skyward.

“See something you like?” The alien face moved in time with Ellie’s voice from the back seat, and it blew a lock of pearl-white hair out of its eye.

“No… I-“ he began, then jerked the SUV back onto the road as the tires touched the shoulder. He shook his head to try to clear it, and focused on the road. “I-I think I’m beginning to lose my grip on reality just a bit.” He gave a nervous chuckle, avoiding the mirror for all he was worth.

“Ah,” her voice held a note of amusement. “So long as you don’t drive like a mad-! OH SHIT, THE MIRROR!”

‘What the actual fuck?’ thought Sam, locking his gaze on the horizon, ‘Okay, it’s okay, just get out of the city, park the car, and figure out what the goddamn fuck is going on there! You don’t have time for this now!’

They carried on in uncomfortable silence for nearly an hour as more and more people turned off the road, leaving them speeding down a nearly-empty highway. Shooting a passing glance out the side-mirror, Sam’s blood ran cold.

Four black SUV’s were trailing in a clear formation several hundred yards behind him, gaining quickly.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, trying to figure out how he could possibly lose them in them in his decade-old blue beater.

“I know what you saw.”

“Yeah, four of em, more than likely loaded with sicarios,” he replied, looking back out the side mirror. “I’ll pull us off the road, see if we can’t lose ‘em in the canyon, or at least get us to an elevated position.”

“No," she stated, her tone deadly serious. “In the mirror.”

“What?” He asked, his brain taking several seconds to catch up. “I don’t think now’s really the time.”

He pulled off rapidly to a dirt road on their right side, trying to place his tires on as many dusty spots as possible to create an impromptu smokescreen.

“Now is the only time,” replied Ellie, her voice full of melancholy. “You don’t survive this one.”

Sam grimaced, a scowl creeping across his face as a suspicion bloomed in his mind.

“You’re working for them, then?”

“Goddess, no.” She chuckled, placing a hand gingerly on his shoulder, “You were always fated to die here, Samuel.”

‘Yep,’ he thought, taking them too fast around a corner in the canyon road, ‘Batshit crazy.’

“Listen lady,” he looked back at her and wished he hadn’t. As he made eye contact, she waved a hand over her face, and the fog in his mind cleared as if it had been blown by a strong gale. Glowing red eyes snared his for a moment before he snapped his vision back to the road ahead. “I don’t know what damn brand of doomsday cult crazy you’re trying to sell me, but I’m not fuckin’ buying!”

“I wasn’t lying when I said I was a recruiter, Sam,” she stated in a reverent tone, her hand not leaving his shoulder. “Death hangs over you like a tempest, and it calls to Her. It calls her across worlds, time, and belief.”

“Stop preaching, start loading mags,” growled Sam. The sales pitch was original, but if he was going to make it out of this, he was going to need every last possible round. With a sigh, she removed her hand, grabbed the duffel bag, and pulled it to the backseat. A few moments later the click of bullets being pressed into magazines sounded.

Loud pops began to echo from behind them as they drove along the bumpy road, and a bullet shattered the rear window, the .45 caliber projectile passing through two rows of seats and bouncing off his front windshield to roll around on the dash with a loud pop.

Spiderweb cracks wrapped themselves around his field of view and obscured his vision from the impact. Leaning forward to see the road in front of him, he barely had a second to realize his mistake before the front right corner of his SUV impacted a large boulder at an unseen bend in the road.

The vehicle spun and rolled on its side as the momentum from his speed carried it forward. It flipped into its back in a ditch several yards past the boulder. Something in his leg felt decidedly wrong as he looked up, or down as it were, from where he hung.

Groaning loudly, he knew he had to move and unclipped his seatbelt, falling unceremoniously to the roof of his car. Shaking his head several times on his hands and knees, he looked to the backseat, finding Ellie sprawled on the roof of his car, a small trail of violet blood spilling from her lips.

“Ellie,” he groaned, shuffling to place a hand on her shoulder and shaking her several times. “ELLIE!” he shouted. Her eyes snapped open for a moment before she grit her teeth and screamed, curling up in a fetal position as he noticed a jagged shard of sheetmetal embedded in her hip.

They had to move. He grabbed his carbine from the roof in front of himself, and scurried out the shattered window, glass and stones cutting into the skin on the palm of his hands. Moving quickly, he got to his feet outside of the car, turned to the backseat and ripped open the door, which provided far more resistance than it should’ve.

“C’mon, we can’t stay here,” he said, looping his arms under his injured companion’s shoulders and dragging her from the car. “Can you walk?”

“No,” she muttered deliriously, “Please, accept the contract. I need you!”

He set her down next to the upturned vehicle briefly as he rummaged around the floor. Finding what he was looking for, he hooked the handle to his belt and pulled her arm over his shoulder.

‘Up the hill, to those rocks,’ he thought as he limped with Ellie up a small hill opposite to the road. ‘Ambush the ambushers, give medical care to Ellie. Steal one of their vehicles, cross the border and get her to a hospital.’

Looking to his otherworldly friend, he grimaced. Explaining her appearance to the doctors was a problem for later.

‘Maybe call Jeff?’ he thought, altering his plan once he remembered his Army-medic-turned-nurse friend, ‘Might be able to convince him to keep his mouth shut.’

“Please,” muttered Ellie slightly more lucidly, “Swear yourself to Senire, entrust your soul to her.”

“Sounds like a-“ Same grunted, lifting them both over a step in the canyonside. “Deal with the devil there.”

“NO!” shouted Ellie, sounding genuinely offended, “She isn’t!”

“You’re telling me that the lady who sent you here to die isn’t bad?” Sam teased despite the situation, setting her gingerly against a large pile of rocks in a half circle that would serve as his bunker for the time being.

“Not the first time-“ she growled, ripping the piece of metal from her hip, “I’ve died. Good healthcare plan, remember?”

Sam snorted but said nothing, leaning forward and resting his rifle against the rocks, minimizing his profile and creating a steady shooting platform as the SUVs rounded the corner and slammed to a stop behind his vehicle. Men with rifles and handguns stepped out of the vehicle, several of them dressed in plate carriers and helmets. Fanning out around his car, several of them approached and leaned down, holding their guns horizontally to the ground and clearing the vehicle.

Sam took this moment to remove the quick-detach suppressor from the front of his weapon and place it in his dump pouch. The recoil-mitigation of his three-prong compensator and flash-hider combo would serve his purposes better here.

Taking aim at one of the equipped cartel members, he exhaled and fired three rounds, stitching the man’s side from his chest up to his neck. Sam aimed at the next man when a searing pain pierced his left shoulder and knocked him back.

It wasn’t his first time being shot, but it still knocked him senseless for several seconds. Kneeling on the ground as rounds snapped loudly overhead, Ellie snared him with her gaze again. Her glowing eyes settled on his warmly, inviting him to focus in on her alien face.

“Like I said, Samuel Aiden Caulfield, you were always fated to meet your end like this,” she said softly, almost lovingly, her eyes glowing despite the bright mid-day sun. “Swear to her, and she will accept you as a loving mother.”

“Fuck that,” Sam snarled, pulling his rifle up to his shoulder despite the flair of pain. “We’ve made it this far, a single gunfight ain’t gonna stop us!”

He leaned out from the right of one of the boulders, gun sweeping the gulch. Hostiles everywhere, firing from every direction. He sent two rounds into a man crossing the dry streambed. He stumbled and fell on his face.

‘Nice and clea-’

A round took him low in the leg, knocking him from cover. Another slammed into his lower right chest. He screamed in pain and collapsed to the ground. Crawling back to Ellie, who had a pool of violet blood spilling out from under her hip, he pulled himself next to her.

Suddenly, she leaned over, and wrapped her arms around him, pulling them both to the ground. She cupped a hand behind his head and pulled his face into her shoulder atop her.

“Offer your soul to her, Sam," she whispered gently into his ear There was an edge to her voice that sent chills up his spine. “Give yourself over, and you’ll never be alone again. You know where you’ll end up in your pantheon.

“It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve sat in confession, or the reasons why you’ve done what you have. The blood of dozens killed, maimed, and tortured lies on your palms. It stains your soul, and calls to my Goddess. Swear your soul to her, Sam, and you’ll never be alone again.”

By the end, her voice no longer came from her lips. Lifting his head, he saw her lifeless eyes, devoid of their previous glow staring to the sky as her hand limply fell from his shoulder.

“Ellie?” He croaked as tears began to fill his eyes. Somehow, in the single day since he’d met her, he’d come to care about her. She was a friend. The only real friend he’d made since his wife had met her awful fate rested limply in his arms, dead because of his own mistakes. “ELLIE!”

He’d failed her too.

"Call to her," the wind whispered, filling his ears from everywhere and nowhere. "Call to Senire."

He laid himself back atop Ellie as icey numbness began to spread throughout his chest. His ears began to ring, and footsteps crunched the ground nearby. His head swam as he pulled the singular grenade from its pouch on his belt and pulled the pin. Holding down the handle, he held it to his chest between them.

“Senire,” he gambled to the dirt as blood dribbled from his lips, “You there?”

“Do you accept the price?” a matronly voice echoed softly in his ears.

“Ugh,” spat Sam, clearing a wad of dust, blood, and saliva from his tongue and croaked, “my soul?”

“Yes.”

“I… I accept.” He whispered as he felt a pair of hands roughly grab the back of his chest rig.

“It is so,” the voice replied as Sam released the handle and was jerked onto his back.

Oblivion turned its blinding gaze upon him, and Sam knew no more.