text: Hikaru blinked in disbelief at the carnage ahead. There was a pitched battle at the intersection of Pacific Avenue, the main street that ran through Parkland, and 112th Street, the one she was driving down. Police cars, their lights strobing and flashing, barricade the street as the officers used them as cover. Muzzles flashed and gunfire cracked through the night, pouring lead into the flood of Lemures racing towards them.
  
  "Where are we supposed to go, Rochelle?" she demanded. "The Church is through that mess." She let the van slow. "Rochelle?"
  
  "She's futuring," Juanita answered.
  
  "That's not a word!" Hikaru groaned again. She was starting to wonder if coming back to Bill instead of fleeing home to Japan had really been a good idea. No. It was the right choice. And things would be even worse if I hadn't shown up. Right?
  
  "You're not going to like it," Rochelle muttered, sitting up.
  
  "What am I not going to like?" she asked as Rochelle climbed up and plopped in the passenger seat next to her.
  
  Rochelle's face, surrounded by fiery hair, was grim. "We're going through it. Just gun it and we should make it." Then she buckled her seatbelt.
  
  "We should make it?" Hikaru did not like the sound of that.
  
  "I'm running out of prescience," Rochelle muttered. "And the Lemures are flooding the streets. The cops are holding, for now, but they're spilling into the side streets. We're just going to have to power through it."
  
  "But the cops are shooting across the intersection, we'll be in their line of fire."
  
  "The Lemures are flanking them now," Rochelle muttered.
  
  Hikaru peered ahead, trying to see past the gray haze of gunsmoke. "Are you sure?"
  
  "Yeah. There cutting through the QFC parking lot and hitting the cops from the side and behind, now."
  
  The gunfire seemed just as fierce, and Hikaru really didn't want to do this.
  
  Rochelle's hand touched hers. "Trust me. You're one of Master's loves. I wouldn't put you in any more harm than was necessary."
  
  Her hand was warm, and a flush shuddered through Hikaru. Bill's slave-wife was oddly comforting, and her touch felt so familiar, like Hikaru had experienced it in a dream before. Certainty filled her — Rochelle would never harm me, she loves me. The thought brought a flush of warmth through Hikaru, and the Japanese coed knew one day she would love Rochelle as fiercely as she had come to love Bill.
  
  But only if she acted.
  
  Hikaru gunned the van.
  
  "Brace yourselves back there!" Rochelle shouted.
  
  "Woo-hoo!" Reggie shouted. "Drive over those bastards, Hikaru!"
  
  "Let's show them why you don't mess with the PLU Lions!" Bev roared.
  
  "Lions!" the other Lacrosse players shouted.
  
  "Bonsai!" Hikaru shouted.
  
  The van rocketed to 30 mph, then 40, 50, 60. The engine whined, protesting the strain. Hikaru felt as fearless as a samurai charging into battle on her mighty steed. The blue-gray gunsmoke drew closer and closer, swarming with black shapes. Here we go!
  
  "Brace!" Rochelle screamed.
  
  The van barreled into the gunsmoke and slammed into the small Lemures. Black bodies flew before the van like water spraying before the bow of a ship. Bones crunched, metal groaned, and the van bounced out of control over their bodies. Everyone in the van roared and shouted as they were tossed about.
  
  They burst out of the smoke, Hikaru struggling with the steering wheel, and raced down the hill on the other side of Pacific Avenue. More Lemures were racing up the hill from C Street at the bottom, howling in surprise and diving out of the way of the van hurtling down the road like a shooting star. Those Lemures that didn't leap clear crunched beneath the tires or thudded against the van's grill. White smoke poured out of the engine.
  
  The light was red at C Street. The van was going far too fast to stop.
  
  "Just go, we'll be fine!" screeched Rochelle as the intersection raced up at them.
  
  Hikaru trusted her and gunned it.
  
  The van hit the bottom of the hill fast, the shocks squeaking and metal scraped as the front bumper struck the asphalt. They flew through the intersection as the temperature light came on the dashboard. The sickly-sweet scent of radiator fluid filled the air as the van's mangled radiator spewed out the coolant.
  
  "Just punch it," Rochelle shouted. "Don't let the engine vaporlock on us!"
  
  "Right!" Hikaru answered — not sure what a "vaporlock" was, but it sounded bad — and flew down 112th Street.
  
  The Lemures were loping after them, howling for blood. They only had a few blocks to go. The engine chugged and whined even louder, sounding like an animal dying, begging to be put out of its misery. Hikaru didn't care.
  
  "There's the turn!" Rochelle screamed and pointed.
  
  She braked. Tires squealed and the van fishtailed. She worked the steering wheel, turning into the slide, and regained control of the van, taking the sharp left into the driveway of Our Lady of Angels. The engine shuddered, groaned, and died, the van rolling to a stop on the gravel driveway.
  
  "Fuck!" Rochelle cursed.
  
  Hikaru looked in her side mirror. "We need to run! Everyone out of the van! Lemures!"
  
  112th Street was awash in a black tide of Demons howling for their blood. The van doors ripped open, and the women piled out, running for the church. The Lacrosse players all out distanced Hikaru, Rochelle, and Juanita, sprinting like it was the championship game. Hikaru wished she had taken more PE classes as her sides quickly ached.
  
  "Run faster!" Mindy screamed, bringing up the rear.
  
  "Kill! Feast! Fuck!"
  
  The terrible chittering of the Lemures, so close, spurred Hikaru on. I'm not letting them touch me! She ignored the burning in her legs and pushed her body past her limits. Why did the church have to be built so far back? It loomed closer and closer, the doors thrown open by the Lacrosse players who waited before it, their weapons readied.
  
  "So young! So fresh!"
  
  "Faster! Faster!" Mindy screamed.
  
  Hikaru wanted to yell she was running as fast as she could, but that would take too much energy, and she needed every last drop to reach the Church. They passed the pickup truck and the body of the man who tried to kill her, still impaled by the sword, passed Mindy's squad car, and —
  
  The sword.
  
  She skidded to a stop.
  
  "What are you doing!" screamed Mindy.
  
  "We need Sophia's sword!"
  
  The black tide was so close, but she turned and sprinted back toward the dead security guard, Sophia's sword buried through his chest. Hikaru had used her telekinetic abilities to lift that blade and kill the man when he had attacked her earlier today.
  
  "Fuck!" Mindy swore.
  
  Hikaru reached the body, grasped the blade, and pulled it out of the man's body. It slid out easier than she would have figured, the blade gleaming clean, no trace of his blood. She glanced at the horde of Lemures. They were upon her. I'm dead.
  
  The first shadowy Demon leaped. A gun cracked, and the Lemure toppled in a heap at her feet. "Run!" Mindy shouted, her gun cracking, felling more Lemures.
  
  Hikaru ran, the sword light as a feather in her hand. Mindy emptied her clip into the horde, buying her time, and they raced to the church, the Lemures nipping at their heels. Hikaru could almost feel their foul breath on the back of her neck, and forced her legs to run even faster.
  
  "You can do it!" Rochelle shouted.
  
  "You're so close!" Juanita cheered.
  
  They reached the steps, passing through something warm and loving, reminding her of Bill's embrace. Silver, pure light exploded and the Lemures screamed in agony. Hikaru turned, her knees buckling with exhaustion, and she sank to the ground and watched as the shadowy Lemures were consumed by the light warding the church.
  
  "We're safe," she gasped.
  
  Rochelle hugged her and kissed her, and Juanita fell on her from the other side, embracing them both, her lips warm on Hikaru's cheeks.
  
  "You saved us," Juanita smiled, tears running down her cheeks. "We all forgot about the sword, but you didn't."
  
  Hikaru beamed at them, and realized that she had always loved both of these women, but until now she had only known this in her dreams.