They carried Sofia the last mile through the tunnels.
Diego took her under the arms, Father Elijah her feet. The shotgun was slung across the priest's back now; he hadn't needed it since the crypt.
The bodies of the freed enforcers had been left breathing peacefully in the dust, Marks cold and black on their hands like dead tattoos. None had woken yet.
Sofia drifted in and out.
Every time she surfaced, she felt the faint pressure of the Host still resting against her heart (not physical anymore, but real).
She heard bells that weren't ringing anywhere on earth.
At 5:47 a.m., they climbed a rusted ladder under St. Rita's parish in Gary, Indiana.
Father Elijah pushed the manhole cover aside and whispered, "Clear."
They emerged into the church basement: concrete floors, folding chairs, the faint smell of coffee from last Sunday's doughnut hour.
Everything looked normal. Too normal.
Sister Mary Grace was waiting.
Fifty-eight years old, crew-cut gray hair, Marine Corps tattoo on her forearm half-hidden by her habit sleeve. She held an AR-15 like it was a breviary.
She took one look at Sofia limp in their arms, saw the faint glow still leaking from under Sofia's hoodie, and crossed herself with the rifle muzzle.
"Mother of God," she breathed. "You brought me the little Fatima girl."
Father Elijah laid Sofia gently on a cot. "She just prayed four sets of mysteries in a crypt full of possessed GEA. The Host came to her. Literally."
Sister Mary Grace's eyes filled. "Then the rumors are true. The sealed are waking up."
She knelt, pressed two fingers to Sofia's carotid, then placed her weathered hand over the invisible Host-print on Sofia's chest.
"She's burning up with grace. Let her sleep. Heaven's using her like a furnace right now."
Diego collapsed into a plastic chair, head in his hands. "We were supposed to be safe here."
Sister Mary Grace's face hardened. "We bought twelve hours. Maybe less."
She gestured to a laptop on a folding table. The screen showed four drone feeds circling the block.
"GEA declared martial law at 5:00 a.m. central. Anyone without a Mark after sunset tonight is 'non-essential biomass.' Their words."
She clicked a key. A new image: Prince Alessandro on every channel, serene as an angel, announcing the "Compassionate Compliance Initiative."
Translation: door-to-door teams starting at dusk.
Father Elijah rubbed his unshaven jaw. "How many sealed do we have here?"
"Seven confirmed," Sister said. "Two little girls from the school, ages eight and ten. A widowed grandfather. An entire family of nine from the 8 a.m. Spanish Mass. And now you three."
She paused. "Plus one more who showed up an hour ago begging sanctuary."
She opened the door to the furnace room.
A man stepped out, hands raised.
Early thirties, expensive suit torn at the knees, GEA badge dangling from his neck on a broken chain. His right hand was wrapped in bloody gauze—the Mark hastily cut away.
"My name is Special Agent Marcus Ruiz," he said, voice shaking. "I was on the team that hit St. Philomena's. I woke up in that tunnel ten minutes ago with no memory of the last four hours and this—"
He lifted the gauze. Raw, empty skin where the Mark had been. "Your sister's prayer burned it off me. I'm not asking forgiveness. I'm asking to help."
Diego was on his feet in a second, fists clenched. "You pointed a gun at my sister!"
Marcus dropped to his knees. "Yes. And I'll carry that the rest of my life. But I know their patrol schedules, their comms frequencies, where they're keeping the kids they're planning to Mark first."
He looked at Sofia's sleeping form. "Let me get you out of Gary before they turn this place into a furnace."
Sister Mary Grace studied him for a long moment, then handed him a brown scapular from a box on the shelf.
"Put this on. If it burns you, I shoot you. If it doesn't, you're provisionally one of us."
Marcus slipped it over his neck. The wool rested cool against his skin.
Father Elijah exhaled. "Looks like Heaven's recruiting."
A sudden pounding on the upstairs church doors—metal on wood, rhythmic, official.
A voice amplified through a bullhorn:
"St. Rita Parish! This is the Global Enforcement Agency. Open immediately for compliance screening. You have sixty seconds."
Sister Mary Grace's smile was small and terrible. "They're early."
She hit a red button on the wall.
Steel shutters slammed down over every basement window. The lights switched to blood-red emergency bulbs.
She turned to the group. "Safe house is compromised. We leave through the old coal tunnel to the rectory garage. Two vans, full tanks, blessed oil in the crankcase. We drive north until we hit the Upper Peninsula. There's a monastery up there that went off-grid years ago."
She looked at Sofia, still unconscious on the cot.
"We carry her. No one gets left behind."
Father Elijah scooped Sofia into his arms like she weighed nothing. Her head lolled against his shoulder; the faint glow from her seal lit his face like candlelight.
Marcus was already moving, grabbing keys from a board. "I'll drive the lead van. I still have my badge; might buy us thirty seconds at the checkpoint."
Diego snatched a shotgun from the wall rack. "I ride shotgun. Literally."
Sister Mary Grace slung her AR-15 and pulled a green scapular from her pocket, pressing it into Sofia's hand even while unconscious.
"Conversion of sinners," she muttered. "Starting tonight."
The pounding upstairs became a rhythmic battering ram.
Father Elijah looked at the ceiling as dust sifted down.
"How long do we have?"
"Long enough for one decade," Sister said. "On your knees, children."
They dropped as one.
Sister Mary Grace began in a voice that could have commanded Marines:
"Our Father, who art in heaven…"
And as the first ten Hail Marys rose toward the shuddering ceiling, every lightbulb in the basement flickered gold for one heartbeat.
Upstairs, the battering ram stopped mid-swing.
A different voice—confused, almost human—shouted, "Hold! Something's wrong with the Mark readers!"
Sister finished the Glory Be and stood.
"Time to move."
Father Elijah adjusted Sofia in his arms and met the others' eyes.
"This is what the sealed do now," he said quietly. "We run. We pray. We fight. And we never, ever take the Mark."
The basement door at the top of the stairs began to glow red-hot.
Marcus flung open the coal-tunnel hatch.
One by one they descended into darkness again—seven sealed from St. Rita's, two little girls holding hands, the grandfather carrying a crucifix like a rifle, and Sofia Morales sleeping in a sinful priest's arms with the Host still burning invisibly against her heart.
Behind them, St. Rita's church exploded into flame as the first GEA incendiary round punched through the roof.
But the basement was already empty.
And somewhere on the Indiana Toll Road, two white vans with Michigan plates were already doing ninety miles an hour toward the north star, carrying the first seeds of the remnant that would one day be called the Rosary Army.
To be continued…