Serpent

by Trish Heinrich

"Justine!" Zeke yelled.

  "Idiot!" Rebecca said behind him. "This is what he wants."

  She handed him the knife and she could see him recoil

  "I don't-"

  "Well today you do!" she said, forcing it into his hand. "It doesn't matter if you don't like weapons or fighting, these men don't care and they will use your hesitation against you."

  Justine's scream echoed in the warehouse, followed by a man's grunting curse.

  Rebecca and Zeke ran in the direction of the sounds and were confronted by three more men.

  "Go, I've got this," Rebecca said.

  One of the men tried to stop Zeke and Rebecca kneecapped him with the baton. The other two charged at her. She elbowed one in solar plexus and ducked down just in time to dodge the other's punch, which landed in his partner's chest.

  Rebecca drove the end of the baton into the man's groin then finished him off with an uppercut. She could see the man she'd hit in the solar plexus running off in the direction Zeke had gone.

  She followed him around a corner and to a back hallway that led to the basement stairs.

  I really hope those goons don't know about the tunnel, that will make our escape that much more difficult.

  Rebecca paused, waiting to see where the man went. She was relieved when he ducked into a room in the middle of the hall instead of going down the stairs.

  Creeping slowly down the hall, she could hear a woman crying the closer she got and clenched her jaw. If they harmed Justine and the baby, all bets were off.

  She was able to peer through the doorway while remaining in the shadows and saw Justine laying on the floor, her breathing fast. Zeke was doubled over as if he'd been hit, and as Rebecca watched someone brought a long baton down over his back. Justine cried and reached for Zeke as he fell forward, his face a mask of agony.

  Rebecca wasn't sure how many were there, she'd dispatched five but wasn't sure if Mr. Fry would have the remaining five with him or spread out around the perimeter.

  Only one way to find out.

  She ran into the room, baton at the ready. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another baton headed for her head and somersaulted under it. Coming up on the balls of her feet she swung her baton into the knee of one of the goons. As he fell, she stepped on him and launched herself at the next man, who just happened to be Mr. Fry.

  He was enormous compared to her, both in height and width. His fist came at her as she flew at him. She brought her arm up to block, but still felt the blow against her forearm and face. She fell hard on her back, the wind knocked out of her for a moment. Mr. Fry picked her up by the front of her suit and punched her again. Pain exploded from her eye.

  Rebecca still held onto her baton and she swung it at Mr. Fry's face. In order to block it, he had to drop her. When she landed, Rebecca drove both of her feet into Mr. Fry's shins and he fell back.

  Rolling onto her feet, Rebecca was barely able to catch the foot of the next goon as he tried to kick her in the face. She twisted and felt the ankle pop, then jumped up and hit him across the face.

  "The baton...a button on the end...push it," Justine yelled.

  Rebecca looked down and pushed it. She felt a tingle go up her arm and swung the baton at the last goon in the room. It hit him across the chest and he shook. After a moment, the smell of urine stung Rebecca's nose. She walked over to Mr. Fry, who was trying to get up, and struck him with the electrified baton as well, knocking him out.

  "Can you get up?" Rebecca asked Justine.

  She nodded. "Help...Zeke."

  "No," he said, his voice rough.

  Zeke got Justine to her feet and her eyes went wide.

  "What?" he asked.

  "I-I think I have to push!"

  "Not yet," Rebecca said, pushing them out the door. "The basement is there, and then the tunnel. Just hold on a little bit longer."

  Rebecca thought she heard Justine swear at her and smiled.

  When this is all over, I will have to get to know this woman.

  #

  It took both Rebecca and Zeke to get Justine down the stairs to the basement and then down the ladder that took them into the tunnels.

  Rebecca was relieved to see that the lights still worked, though there was a thick musty smell that had the distinct odor of animals and mold.

  I hope it's not mice, I hate mice.

  Justine started to cry, soft sobs full of pain.

  "I-I can't...I'm sorry..."

  Her legs started to give out and Rebecca ducked under one of her arms while Zeke did the same on the other side.

  "You're so strong," Zeke said. "You can do this. Two more steps...good, now just a few more...."

  They made it several feet before Justine began to panic.

  "Stop, stop!"

  "What's wrong?" Zeke asked.

  "I have to push! Now!"

  "Now?"

  Justine gave Zeke a look that could curdle milk and Rebecca knew that there was no stalling her this time.

  For all his supposed medical training, Zeke stood there staring at Justine as she laid down and pulled up on her knees.

  "Zeke, maybe you should..." Rebecca gestured toward Justine.

  "What...? Oh, yes!"

  He knelt down and pushed Justine's skirt up so he could see.

  "That's it, the head's out..." Zeke said. "One or two more pushes, c'mon sweetheart."

  Justine pushed again and the shoulders came out, followed by the rest of the baby.

  Rebecca stared in awe at the slippery, squalling bundle. She wasn't at all surprised to feel tears on her cheeks.

  Zeke and Justine both began to cry as he handed the baby to Justine.

  "It's a girl," he said, laughing through his tears.

  "She's so beautiful. I've never seen anything so beautiful," Justine said, caressing the still screaming baby.

  "What about...?" Rebecca gestured to the long gray cord that stretched from the baby's stomach.

  Zeke pulled the knife he'd been hesitant to take from his back pocket. "Good thing I thought to grab this."

  For all that Rebecca had seen her share of bloody, gruesome things, she couldn't bring herself to watch Zeke cut the cord. Instead, she tried to think of what to wrap the baby in.

  "Zeke, give me your suit coat."

  He frowned up at her and then realized why she might want it.

  With great care, he wrapped his daughter in the thin, patched coat.

  "Hi there," Zeke said, kissing her forehead.

  The baby's cries died down and she frowned up at Zeke with the precious confusion only a baby can manage.

  "I'm...I'm your father," Zeke said.

  Rebecca felt like an outsider, watching Zeke gaze at his daughter a moment more before handing her back to Justine. In spite of the dire situation, the two of them sitting on the cold cement, crying as they looked at their newborn daughter seemed to Rebecca to be the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

  She was so wrapped up in it, that she didn't hear the hatch leading from the basement to the tunnel open, or the soft footsteps of the men descending the ladder.

  CHAPTER NINE

  8

  Zeke felt like his heart was bursting inside of him. In this moment, there was nothing but the three of them, as if time had stopped and they were alone in the world.

  He looked up at Justine who was about to say something to Serpent when her eyes went wide with fear, and the moment was shattered

  Zeke looked behind Serpent and screamed, "Look out!"

  Serpent turned just in time to block the baton that was swinging toward her head. She punched the man in the face then pivoted to kick him in the chest.

  "Get them out of here," Serpent said as three more came toward them.

  Zeke helped Justine to her feet and grabbed the knife he'd used to cut the baby's cord. He knew that Serpent was likely sacrificing herself for them, and something about that didn't set right.

  I should stay and help her, it's my job to protect my fami
ly, not hers.

  "Serpent-" Zeke said.

  "Go!" she said.

  Justine began to walk as quickly as she could with Zeke following. They didn't get far before one of the men had slipped past Serpent and yanked on Zeke's arm to stop him. He turned and tried to stab the man with the knife. The man simply batted Zeke's hand away, the knife falling to the cement floor.

  "Go!" Zeke yelled just before he got a punched in the gut.

  Justine picked up the knife and threw it at the man attacking Zeke. The knife wasn't weighted for throwing, even Zeke knew that. The knife, which he was sure Justine had aimed for the man's head, plunged into his shoulder instead. The man let out a cry of pain and shock. Zeke pulled the knife out and hit the man in the head with the end of the thick handle. The man went down like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

  Zeke was about to run with Justine when more men joined the fight. Serpent was flying through punches and kicks in the narrow tunnel, but two more men slipped past her and came at Zeke and Justine.

  One of the men punched Zeke, who felt pain explode across his jaw. This one didn't even use his baton, and Zeke realized that his reputation for not being aggressive was what they were counting on.

  He tightened his grip on the knife and ducked under the next punch, stabbing the man in the thigh. The man screamed and stared down in shock. Zeke pulled the knife out with some effort and went to stab the man again, but he was ready for it. He punched Zeke in the stomach and then across the face.

  A memory popped into Zeke's head. He and another boy fighting, and someone telling him that if you're shorter than your opponent, try knocking him down and wrestling him.

  Zeke ducked down and drove his shoulder into the man's solar plexus with as much force as he could muster. The man stumbled back into the wall, but he didn't fall completely.

  Miraculously, the baby hadn't cried the entire fight, until now. It's sharp wails began to fill the narrow tunnel.

  "No! No!" Justine screamed.

  Zeke turned just in time to see one of the dark-clad men holding the baby. Zeke lunged toward him, but the man he'd been fighting grabbed Zeke's collar and pulled him back.

  With a yell of anger, Zeke elbowed the man in the face and then punched him. The man fell to the floor, blood beginning to flow from his broken nose.

  Zeke turned back toward his daughter's cries in time to see Justine throw herself at the man in an attempt to get the baby back. The dull flash of a knife shone in the tunnel's low light, and Zeke shouted at Justine to stop.

  Everything slowed, and he felt like his limbs were half frozen. Nothing was fast enough to stop the man holding his daughter from stabbing Justine. As his fingers grazed the man's sleeve, the knife found it's target in Justine's chest. Her eyes went wide with shock and she fell to the floor.

  Zeke screamed and yanked on the man's arm, who was now pulling the knife out. The man shifted the knife in his hand and backhanded Zeke. He felt a flash of pain in his face that could've been his own nose breaking.

  The pain blinded him for a moment, his eyes watering. He heard the sound of running feet and the cries of his daughter getting further away.

  When he could focus his eyes, he saw Justine laying on the cement floor, her eyes looking in the direction the baby had gone. Her dirty blouse was covered in blood now, and her mouth kept opening and closing, but no sound came out.

  "No, no, no!" Zeke said, picking her up and laying her across his lap.

  He closed his eyes and let his power flood Justine's body. Every instinct told him to slow down, that he was giving her too much, but Zeke couldn't stop the panic rushing through him. He could see the wound in her heart, the irregular pumping of the blood. Shards of bone floated around and he had to prevent a few from being sucked into one of her heart valves. For the first time in a while, he felt like he didn't have full control of his powers. Usually, healing was a delicate art, a balancing of the elements in the body. But in this moment he couldn't pull all those threads together, everything kept unraveling and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't keep her blood pumping properly while also healing her heart.

  Zeke felt a hand on his face and opened his eyes.

  Justine gave him a ghostly, beautiful smile.

  "Hold on baby! Give me another second to...please don't!"

  His powers were still connected to her just enough to feel her heart stop, the flow of oxygen begin to cease.

  He dived back in, desperate to restart her heart. But nothing he did worked and Zeke began to feel as if his heart were slowing.

  Something hard crashed into him and he fell over, his connection with Justine's body broken.

  When he opened his eyes, he could see Serpent kneeling beside him. There was blood on her forehead and her lip had been split, but Zeke didn't care about that.

  "What did you do? I was trying to save her!" he crawled back to Justine.

  "She's gone," Serpent said, her voice low.

  "No, no I can restart her heart."

  "Zeke stop," she held onto his arm.

  He jerked it free. "Leave me alone!"

  "You can't bring her back!"

  "You don't know what I can do!"

  Serpent stopped. "You're right, I don't. But can you bring back the dead?"

  Zeke's mind was a jumble of emotions and thoughts. He'd brought people back from the brink, he'd healed injuries that would've killed or maimed. But someone who'd died?

  "No," he said, his voice breaking. "I can't do that."

  Grief broke over him in a crashing wave, wiping out everything. He picked up Justine and held her, covering her face with kisses and tears.

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he sobbed.

  CHAPTER TEN

  9

  Rebecca felt her eyes sting with tears as she watched Zeke sob over his wife's body. It brought up painful memories that she'd become an expert at burying. She pressed a hand to her chest, where a hollow ache began to throb, just like it had every day since Emily's death.

  Later. I'll think of all that later.

  "But you never do."

  Rebecca closed her eyes against the growing pain in her heart. It was true. She never let herself remember Emily, really, truly remember. All the days of love and life, the nights of passion, the way they'd known each others soul. To have been so completely embraced by someone that good and strong, it was a once in a lifetime gift. To loose that gift when Rebecca had only started to experience it had been the cruelest kind of joke.

  So she'd buried it all, deep and dark inside of herself. And until now, she'd been very good at keeping it that way.

  With a deep breath and the greatest of struggles, Rebecca pushed it all away one last time. She knew that after tonight, those memories would no longer sit contentedly in the dark. If they ever really had.

  Right now, I need to save that baby.

  She stood up and jogged to the entrance to the tunnel.

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "Getting your daughter back."

  "Not without me."

  He laid Justine down with the greatest care, closing her eyes with a broken sob.

  "You don't have to-" Rebecca began to say.

  "Yes I do," he said, his voice rough.

  She was about to argue with him with she saw the hard glint in his brown eyes, how tight he held the knife he'd picked up.

  Without a word, they climbed the ladder and ran up the basement stairs. Rebecca was worried that Mr. Fry would've already left the warehouse, after all, he accomplished at least one thing he wanted.

  But then she heard the sharp cry of a baby, echoing through the dark warehouse like a ghost. It made the hair on her arms stand on end, and a shiver run down her spine.

  "Mr. Germaine," said a chillingly familiar voice. "Would you be so kind as to come to the main warehouse and talk?"

  Zeke let out a low, feral growl. The look on his face was like that of a different man and Rebecca had a sudden, sinking feeling that she knew what Zeke
would do if given the chance.

  She also knew that she had to stop him.

  "I'm sorry about this," she said, hitting him over the head with her baton.

  Zeke went down in a heap. Rebecca took a moment to make sure he was breathing alright before walking into the main room of the warehouse.

  The towering machines looked even more menacing with the sound of the child crying, and the knowledge that someone was waiting, like a vengeful spirit, to attack.

  "Zeke just can't fight his own battles can he?" said Mr. Fry.

  "He wanted to, but this is more my department."

  Mr. Fry's laugh echoed through the room, and Rebecca tried to see into the shadows to find him.

  "Ah yes, the righteous vigilante," his voice moved around the room. "Who killed two men not so long ago, isn't that right?"

  Rebecca swallowed. "Nothing compared to your body count."

  "That's true."

  The voice sounded closer, as if he were circling behind her.

  Rebecca didn't react, not wanting to spook him. Her body began to hum with adrenaline and readiness.

  "Where's the baby?" she asked.

  "Don't worry, she's wrapped up safe and sound. I have one of my best men watching her."

  "Keeping her fresh until getting her to the lab?"

  Mr. Fry chuckled again, it was even closer.

  Just a few feet to the right.

  "So self-righteous. But I know you've done things others would think despicable for the greater good, just as I have."

  "The greater good?"

  "There's a war in Europe. And though some think we are immune to its effects, I know differently. I know that this war is just like one that happened in my time. And I've seen the effects of warfare like that, up close and personal. If there was a way to stop thousands or millions of people from dying, but in order to do that you had to sacrifice a few hundred, wouldn't you? Haven't you?"

  Rebecca thought about those two men she'd killed, how it had saved the lives of those six women. How many times had she told herself that it was justified? That she had no other choice?

  It's different, it has to be.

  "Made you think, didn't I?" Mr. Fry said, stepping out of the shadows in front of her.