The New Haven Incident - Part Thirty-six

Dr. Liu let out an involuntary shriek as he turned and started to run, slamming into the chest of a Dark One. It grabbed him and threw him to the ground. Lilith leapt forward and slammed into it with her knee as she unsheathed one of her short swords. They engaged, two more Dark Ones emerging from the shadows to join the fight. Mendez offered support, discharging his rifle to buy Lilith some space to fight. He turned and fired at his former unit members, watching them drop, only to pick themselves up again. Sebastian moved backwards, trusting Lilith to clear a path, firing only enough to create distance between his group and the Sigma unit. Every shot landed nearly perfectly between their eyes, dropping them every time. It should have been a kill shot. But they just kept rising again. The only one who would not go down was Harding.

“This isn’t working,” Mendez yelled.

Sebastian said nothing, he checked behind him. Lilith still contended with the Dark Ones. There had been more than three, Sebastian noted as he stumbled over the bodies of two in his slow retreat.

“This is getting tiresome,” Harding growled, he leapt forward, slamming into Sebastian before the agent had time to aim. Mendez turned to shoot.

“No,” Sebastian said, kicking Harding away. “Keep them back.”

“Fuck!” Mendez turned his rifle and fired on his unit once more, trying to keep them from tipping the scales of the fight happening around him; Lilith with the Dark Ones, Sebastian with the captain.

Harding’s speed was more than impressive. It was impossible. The same could be said of his strength, Sebastian noted as he narrowly missed his skull being crushed by the large man’s fist. The steel wall suffered the blow, denting while Harding’s fist remained intact. A strike like that should have broken every bone in the man’s hand. With Harding’s apparent lucidity compared to his team, there could really be only one explanation. He had the same alterations Lilith had been granted, though he acquired them late instead of at birth. It wasn’t Dr. Liu who gave them to him. That could mean only one thing. Harding and Reinhert were working together.

“I knew I didn’t like you for a reason,” Agent Connors growled as he dodged another strike, lashing out with his knife, feeling it hit and knowing the wound would seal in a matter of minutes.

Sebastian’s training kept him upright longer than he thought he would last against a super soldier, but he was tiring quickly. The fight, he knew, was futile. Whatever mark he made with his knife or his gun, it healed almost instantly. Captain Harding, a larger man than he, was much stronger now than he ordinarily would have been. Sebastian would not last much longer. He just needed to last long enough to enable Lilith, Dr. Liu and Mendez to escape.

A rapid flurry of attacks, and Sebastian lost his handgun. It hit the ground and spun away. Sebastian lashed out with a kick as Harding leapt at him, pushing the captain away long enough for him to turn and retrieve his weapon. He turned again, preparing for another exchange and was met instead with a gunshot. The bullet pierced his lower abdomen. For a moment, Sebastian lost the use of his legs and he fell to his knees with a grunt.

The sound turned Lilith’s head. She saw Sebastian fall. Not thinking, she started forward.

“Don’t,” Harding said, lifting his gun not to point at her, but at Dr. Liu, who had been shuffling along in between the fighters, trying to keep out of the way. Lilith stopped dead. Two Dark Ones from the swarm behind the group came forward, one claiming Dr. Liu, grabbing him by both arms. The other simply snapped a dark, clawed hand around Lilith’s forearm.

“Harding,” Mendez said, turning his rifle on his captain. It was meant to be a warning, but there was absolutely nothing Mendez could do against the man. Not now that Harding had become… whatever Reinhert had turned him into.

“Pull that trigger, Mendez,” Harding warned, “and you condemn the old man.”

Two more shots rang out, both piercing Harding’s head at the temple. Rolling his eyes in exacerbation, he turned to Sebastian.

Sebastian was still on his knees, the front of his shirt and pants saturated in blood, his handgun smoking slightly. Snarling, Harding leapt forward, crossing the distance to him with astonishing speed. But Sebastian was prepared. Despite the wound in his torso, he dodged and deflected Handing’s strikes until he missed a block, and Harding’s fist connected with the wound in his abdomen. Sebastian doubled over, his limbs temporarily useless, his vision a hazy grey. He blinked rapidly, trying to recover his sight.

Harding snapped a hand around Sebastian’s throat and squeezed.

Without thinking, Mendez moved to lift his rifle. It was snatched from him and he was restrained by yet another Dark One. He struggled uselessly for a moment, before movement turned his head to Harding and Sebastian again.

The captain had lifted Sebastian off the ground. Despite the futility of it all, Sebastian still fought. He lifted up his leg and brought it down hard on Harding’s face, breaking the man’s nose and jaw. Not immune to pain, Harding grunted, dropped Sebastian and stumbled backwards. He reached up and pushed his broken face back together, holding it in place as the bones knit beneath his hands. Sebastian, thrown to his hands and knees coughed, wheezing through a partially collapsed trachea.

“You,” Harding growled at him, “are starting to piss me off.”

“Just now?” Sebastian answered, his voice cracking as he forced the air out. “I’m losing my touch.” He offered a sardonic smile.

Harding snarled, attacking again. Mendez couldn’t follow their movements at all. The engagement didn’t last long before Harding had Sebastian by the throat again, his back slammed against the hall wall.

“You’d have made a fine drone for our army,” Harding said. He barely got the words out before he jolted in pain. He looked down to find Sebastian’s fighting knife buried to the hilt in his chest, between the fourth and fifth rib, angled up.

“Fuck. You,” Sebastian hissed.

Harding issued a single, surprised laugh. He could tell from Sebastian’s grimace that the agent did not hope that this would kill him. It was nothing more than an expression of Sebastian’s contrary nature. An act of pure, petty spite. The last bite of a dying mongrel. Harding lifted his handgun, placing the barrel against Sebastian’s chest.

“Pity.”

He pulled the trigger.

Lilith gasped as the gun went off. She stared a moment as Sebastian slid down to sit against the wall, a thick streak of blood tracking his progress. A scream erupted from her throat; raw and savage. She broke free from her captor and rushed forward to Sebastian, placing her hands on his shoulders and shaking him, imploring him to look at her. But Sebastian’s striking blue eyes saw nothing. They stared straight ahead as his body slowly toppled sideways. Lilith keened, pulling his body to hers, wrapping her arms around him.

Mendez froze, unable to move, when he heard the shot. He watched Sebastian slide down the corridor wall, a thick trail of blood marking his route down. Numbness flooded through him. Lilith’s scream sounded distant, as if issued underwater or heard through a stone wall. Mendez watched as she pulled the corpse of the agent close, her anguish given voice.

He turned his gaze to Harding, who had stumbled back, gripping the hilt of Sebastian’s blade still embedded in his chest. Had this been anyone other man, removing that knife would mean instant death. The thing he had become, however, could not die. So, Harding lowered himself to one knee, drew in two short breaths to prepare himself for the pain, then pulled the blade free.

For a long moment, it appeared Harding miscalculated. He stopped breathing, his head dropping to his chest. The Dark Ones and the rest of Sigma Team Two became still as stone, standing like so many mannequins, though their grips did not loosen. Then, killing what little hope had bloomed in Mendez’s mind, Harding drew in a long, sharp, shaking breath. He remained on one knee for a few more breaths before rising to his feet. He inspected the knife. “This is a fine blade,” he mused to himself.

“That belongs to Sebastian,” Mendez said, bringing Harding’s attention back to the present. Mendez castigated himself quietly. It had been an inane thing to say.

“Sebastian is dead,” Harding noted. The blunt impassivity in his voice made Mendez shudder. The captain slid the blade into the top of his boot and straightened.

“Bring them,” he commanded, before turning and walking away.

Mendez was pushed forward. He resisted, but only a little. Lilith’s captor walked forward and grabbed her, dragging her away from Sebastian’s body. She resisted, weeping, until Harding, growling his displeasure, pulled out a tranquiliser from one of his pockets and stabbed her hard in the neck. She fought until her body went limp. The Dark One holding her wordlessly lifted her onto its shoulder, and the group vanished into the gloom at the end of the corridor.

Previous Part                                                                                                                                                                           Next Part