Storymania - In The Light Of A Shadow: Showdown In The House Of God by Robert G Hagans

In The Light Of A Shadow: Showdown In The House Of God
Robert G Hagans

She knew that he really couldn’t be trusted and would probably still come after her, because deep down he had no honor. Still she hoped it was over, and as she felt the soft rain begin to fall, she knew that these were not drops of rain pelting her from above, but the tears of happiness from a father who only wanted what was best for his daughter. Jessica smiled and rode her Kawasaki into the horizon, her destination: anywhere but here.

This is the ending that you know. Now, due to popular demand, I am releasing Part 2 of what actually happened to Jessica in the cemetery that day starting here:

Finally she careened onto the road where the two Suburbans were parked, screeching to a stop while she contemplated her next move. She eyed the Suburban closely. Then looked back at the steed she was already riding.
“The lady or the tiger?” she asked aloud. She almost didn’t notice Gelati until it was too late. She whirled, swinging her leg up and over the cycle and pulling her Beretta at the same time. Her leg connected with Gelati’s fat round face and sent him sprawling to the ground.
Pointing her gun at Gelati’s head, she looked down at the man she had once called her second father, her face an unreadable mask. Gelati’s eyes were wide open in fear.
“Don’t do it Jessy please!” he begged.
“Why not?” she asked, her face still unreadable. “You were going to kill me, YOU SENT THOSE MEN TO KILL ME GELATI!” her mask didn’t crack as she yelled at him, but Gelati could see the tear streaming down her face.
“You understand Jessy, it was business eh?” he scrambled. “How would it look if I just let any of my enforcers quit on me huh? How would it look?!”
“I don’t care.” She steadied her gun hand. “Consider this my final resignation.” She said and pulled the trigger, the gun sliding forward with a dry snap-click…empty. She tucked the empty gun in her waistband and got back on the still humming cycle. “You owe me Gelati.” Was all she said. The goons finally made their way out of the cemetery. They saw Gelati on the ground and pointed their guns at her. Jessica swung her bike around and hit the throttle, flying forward toward the exit. She heard no shots and cast a look back to see Gelati yelling at his men.
It caused her to miss the grenade flying through the window of the church as she neared it. Turning her head back, she saw the little green ball out of the corner of her eye and violently veered her motorcycle to avoid the blast, which she did….barely.
Jessica’s ears rang for the third time today as the fragment grenade went off and rocked everything around it, sending shrapnel back through the other windows of the church. Jessica’s last ditch turn kept her away from the fire and debris even though she still felt the heat from the blast. And her quick reflexes had saved her from the grenade but would not save her from the fact that she was now on a collision course with the church.
Hitting the breaks would throw her over the handlebars she knew, but she also reasoned that she had to stop the motorcycle…now. In the second that she hesitated, it became too late to do anything. Still she hit the brakes as hard as she dared, as the motorcycle began to ascend the church’s marble steps at 30 mph. Knowing she wouldn’t survive smashing into the large heavy wooden doors of the church, Jessica braced herself, the difference of a few milliseconds would mean her life.
At the last possible instant, Jessica let go of the motorcycle, falling forward and landing on her face and chest, smacking hard against the marble steps. The wind knocked from her and her sunglasses shattered into several pieces when she hit and bruised her head on the steps.
Though nearly knocked unconscious, Jessica was better off than if she’d stayed on the Kawasaki, which smashed through the church doors with a tremendous crash, splitting one door completely in half and knocking both doors off their hinges regardless.
“Papa” Leonardo Gelati grinned. He’d seen the explosion and the crash. He took one look at the seemingly helpless Jessica trying to crawl to safety from the steps. He reasoned this was probably the work of Skye, she never left a job unfinished and was probably still waiting in the church. His men stood next to him and suddenly his grin spread into a wicked smile.
“Finish her off.” He ordered quietly. 7-armed figures in black began to make their way steadily toward Jessica.
Pain was a relative term for Miss Wentling at this point and time. It did not accurately describe what her body was feeling as she lay on the cold marble steps. Agony was a better word. Excruciating pain was an even better term, like the kind she felt when she tried to get to her feet. Even breathing was a chore, she was sure one or two of her ribs were cracked and or broken. They were all at least severely bruised. Her head throbbed in pain and blood ran down the side of her face. She waited till her eyes refocused again before getting to her knees, another painful experience. As her vision restored itself, she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Actually several somethings. Turning her head, she recognized the 7 thugs she’d left behind earlier. “Chickens coming home to roost.” She thought.
Skye had thought at first that Jessica was still on the motorcycle when it hit the door. It was the only thing that had frightened her in a while, the door crashing in as violently as it had. Fear was her most hated emotion. Skye believed that in order to be good in this profession, that you couldn’t show or feel fear. Emotions themselves were a luxury, fear was a death sentence. So she did what she normally did, covered it with anger. It pissed her off that the crash had scared her so badly, and the roundabout way that Jessica was responsible for the crash only served to center her anger on something tangible….meaning something she could shoot at.
When the smoke and dust cleared and she saw Jessica struggling to her feet (slower than normal she noticed) holding her chest, and bleeding from her head, she did what any self-respecting killer would do: She stood up and pulled both Glock 19’s from her shoulder harness and waited for Wentling to cross the threshold.
Sometimes falling is a good thing. For example: In her hurry to find cover from Gelati’s men Jessica tripped over a large section of the former chapel door blocking the entrance. Falling over the large wooden board was unexpected, but not as unexpected as the bullet that streaked by the position that her head had been in a second before. Instinct took over, Jessica unconsciously turned the fall into a graceful roll, which brought her behind one of the large round stone support columns spaced around the chapel.
The shooter continued to fire slow, deliberate shots as she moved, but Jessica stood behind the column unharmed, save for her previous injuries. Chest heaving, she pulled her Beretta from her waistband and reloaded pulling a clip from her pocket. She only had two left in her inside jacket pocket. She then pulled her other from its holster and cocked both hammers, the safeties were not on.
“Skye,” she called. “You don’t seem to be on your game today.”
“Oh really Jessica,” Skye yelled back from across the church. “One could say the same thing about you. The Jessica I know wouldn’t be caught in a mess like this. Gelati’s goons outside, and us in here….You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
Jessica’s chest was burning now. Every breath was a searing pain. Still she smiled as she said: “Maybe I am, but at least I didn’t miss two perfectly good shots on someone I was paid to kill.”
“Oh you bitch!” Skye screamed and at the same time popped up from behind the front pew just as Jessica spun from behind her own column. They opened fire, the deadly thunder of 9mm shells filling the silence. Jessica’s labored breathing was all but forgotten as adrenaline took over as she dived sideways to the ground to avoid her opponents hair of fire, continuing to squeeze her own triggers. There was a slight pain when she hit the ground on her side but the adrenaline muted most of it. On the ground, Jessica rotated her body to get a better angle at Skye; once she had it, she pulled the triggers on her Berettas until her fingers were numb. Skye retreated however and the bullets checkered the wooden pews instead.
Jessica growled her rage as she and Skye began a deadly game of cat and mouse, firing and using the quickly shredding pews for cover.
Bullets streaked. Splinters flew everywhere, teaming with the empty bullet casings and thus littering the floor. Jessica’s guns clicked dry and she hit the magazine releases to reload. Dropping the empty clips on the floor, she reached into her inside jacket pocket and pulled one of the two clips she had left and slapped it into one of her 92C’s. It was one of her extended clips that were supposed to be used for the larger Beretta but that fit her compact model. Armed with a 15 round clip, she tossed her other gun to the side to use just the one. Jessica listened. Her eardrums were severely bruised from all the explosions and gunfire, so she had to concentrate to really hear. Skye had stopped shooting as well, but she doubted to reload. Jessica counted her opponent’s shots. Skye wasn’t out of ammo yet..
Then she saw her, sneaking around the pews to get a better shot. Jessica spun her legs around as if she were break dancing, using her momentum to swing her body around in Skye’s direction. From her sitting position she fired 3 shots as she used her legs to push her backwards and out of Skye’s line of fire.
It was Skye’s turn to scream in rage this time a she was forced to duck back, then return fire as she watched Jessica push herself out of harms way. Then she too was forced to reload. Crouched, she thought to put the brief silence to good use this time; to taunt the Wentling some more in hopes that it would cause her to slip up. Meanwhile…
Tony Alba almost pissed his pants when he heard Gelati’s order. For the last half-hour he thought and felt like he’d been in some sort of watered down war zone. So much shit had happened today. First Gelati sends Berlett and Skye after Wentling and she kills Berlett and gets away from Skye. Then Gelati had sent Tony and his men after Wentling to do the job. Instead, Jessica ends up whackin 5 of Tony’s men, including Brian Finn, who had been a good buddy of his, and all but shattering Casey’s arm when she had tried to get away on the motorcycle. Tony had loved Brian like a brother, the guy had wanted to be an enforcer. He’d always kidded Brian about that. He was a good guy but a horrible shot. He couldn’t hit the broad side of Delta Burke’s ass. Still, Tony would be damned if he were going into that church to avenge him like some trigger-happy dumbass with a deathwish. Which is why he couldn’t believe the words that he’d just heard come out of Gelati’s mouth. So he asked in a questioning tone.
“Sir?”
“You heard me Tony! Get in there and take dat bitch down!”
Fuck that, Tony thought. He wasn’t a coward, but he wasn’t stupid either. It had sounded like WW III in there. He didn’t care how quiet it was in there now, the amount of muzzle flashes alone that he’d seen alone had looked like a million cameras going off at timed intervals for the last 10 minutes, and there were only two of them in there. Now that it was silent, it was even worse. You didn’t know if they stopped to reload or if one had killed the other, or (best case scenario) they killed each other. In any case, Tony wasn’t going out like that. So he said:
“Papa Gelati, Wentling’s already taken out almost 6 of my men, and there’s no tellin where she’ll be hiding or if she’s already dead or anything. Plus how do we know Skye won’t shoot us by accident (or on purpose he left out) when we walk in?”
“If you gotta better idea Tony, then I wanna hear it.”
Tony held out his arm, “Well what I had in mind was this sir.” Gelati turned to him; when he saw the object outstretched in Tony’s palm, all he did was smile again.

“You’re doing well Jessica,” Skye taunted. “For someone as busted and bruised as you are, one would think you’d be dead by now.”
“That’s because I’ve got more skill than you.” Jessica wheezed.
“Oh really?” Skye asked in disbelief.
“Doesn’t the fact that we’re evenly matched, even though I can barely stand on two feet mean anything to you?” Jessica was incredulous. Skye’s face darkened, she hated when people made her feel stupid, especially when that person was Jessica Wentling.
“You know what Jess, let’s stop all this fake-ass bitchin and hide and seek bullshit. You game?”
Jessica stood behind a pillar once more holding her gun with both hands. “What’d you have in mind Skye?” She breathed, the pain coming back as the adrenaline wore off. Jessica thought she would pass out.
“On the count of three we both step out into the open. Either one of us or neither of us walks out of here alive.”
“Playing for keeps?” Wentling asked.
“Always.” Skye said leaning against her own column.
“I’m game if you are. No fair cheating though.” Jessica tried to slow her breathing but it did her no good, every breath was fire, her body ached and threatened to give out.
“Killer’s honor.” Was Skye’s reply.
“1,” called Jessica after a moment.
“2,” Skye called back. A pause. The two women readied themselves. Deep breaths taken; a hammer cocked.
“3.”
Two of the greatest female killers that ever lived emerged from their cover at the same time. Weapons raised they took aim on one another.
4 feet were planted on the floor.
3 semi-automatic pistols stood at the ready.
2 sets of eyes locked on the other.
One state of mind. And in that instant, time came to a screeching halt. The entire world, holding their breath, stopped….And then it exploded.

End Part 2. “Fade to Light,” part three, is now available on Storymania. Thanks for all the feedback. I really appreciate it. I’d like it if you could get as many people as you can to read this story and it’s predecessor and drop me some feedback. I’d really be grateful. Also don't be shy, please review it. Thanks!