“Hoho, now that’s not true,” Genblade grinned, his fingers wriggling back and forth as though he could not contain the excitement coursing through his veins. “The real killer could stop this fairly quickly, don’t you think?”
Deep inside Xander, the Womb organ nudged itself against Xander’s gut, kicking in the same way an unborn child would. Already it started pumping to the beat of his heart, racing to get its black ooze through his veins. His head felt like it was going to explode.
“I mean, think of all that’s happened here. All that’s going to happen,” Genblade laughed, standing up and spinning around, thrusting out one of his legs straight from his body. It connected solid against Xander’s chest, making him stumble back and smash his head against the judge’s bench.
Xander’s head crashed into the fragile, thin wood that cracked into splinters, gouging the flesh off the side of Xander’s face before he could pull away. Warm liquid oozed out of Xander’s head, and he brought a hand to it immediately. His fingers were soaked almost instantly, but they were thankfully red rather than deep black. As he turned back to face Genblade, his vision became dark and hazy around the corners, closing in slowly like the black circle at the end of a cartoon before returning to normal. No, he thought to himself, swallowing back hard and feeling that taste of sour limes and copper travel down his throat. Not now.
Xander staggered slightly, one hand on his stomach. To most of the people watching at the edge of their seats, it looked as though Genblade’s blow had seriously injured him.
As Mike watched in horror, he realized that the Black Womb was fighting its way up into his friend’s throat. Slowly, he tore his gaze away from the fight and looked at all the people around. “He doesn’t want to kill us,” he said, so softly and with so much fear that only Cathy could hear.
“What?” she almost snapped, not looking away from Xander and Genblade to see how the color had drained from her lover’s face.
“He wants Xander to kill us,” he said, taking one more look at the crowd of mourners that had gathered in the gallery.
Cathy turned and looked at him, then at all the people around as well. “Oh my God,” she breathed, as she realized quickly what was about to happen.
Xander glared up at Genblade, who towered over him with a great, toothy grin pasted across his lips. The red had gushed down over the right side of Xander’s face, cutting it almost evenly down the middle.
Slowly, Genblade reached out and touched his cheek with the tip of his index finger, getting just the slightest dot of blood on its tip. He put his finger into his mouth until his lips touched the knuckle, swishing it around and coating as much of the inside of his mouth with it as he possibly could. He made a small, joyful sound in the back of his throat and then turned back toward the desk he’d sat behind a moment ago.
Natasha Mayer still stood behind it, stepping back in utter fright as Genblade locked eyes with her.
Genblade grinned, a deep pleasure in his eyes. “Now, Miss Mayer; now do you admire my work?” he said, snickering at his own joke.
She stepped back again, almost jumping out of her skin as her back touched the cold of the wooden bar. She shook all over like a tiny voice, letting out a small whimper as she turned away from him.
Suddenly Genblade broke out into a hysterical laughter, throwing his head back and then bringing his arm back to strike her. Before he could follow through with the blow, his entire body thrust itself to one side, his head slamming against the defense table. He went through it, sending splintered shards in all directions. One scraped the side of his face a little as all the air in his lungs forced its way out through his mouth.
“It wasn’t that funny!” Xander shouted, standing back up. Every word he spoke spat deep hatred. His fists clenched so tightly that the knuckles turned white, the veins in the back of each hand looking as though they were ready to pop out. Each of them was running black.
Genblade glared up at Xander, rubbing the back of his head with one palm. “Impudent little brat,” he grumbled harshly, the smile gone from his face for a moment. He reached back and ripped a long, pointed splinter off of the table, spinning it slightly in his hand until he found a good grip.
“What’s the matter?” Xander retorted, letting himself smirk. “You lose your sense of humor?”
Genblade lunged at Xander, the stake slashing at the air around him in a giant, sweeping cross as he went.
Xander leapt to one side, the weapon coming so close to his face that he felt the smooth finish of the varnish wipe against his temple. The makeshift blade continued down, digging into his leg.
Xander screamed, his mouth open wide as he felt the wooden spike connect with his bone, ripping away flesh from it as it did. The sound it made was like pulling meat from the leg of a chicken, that long slurp followed by a small, polite snap.
Genblade slammed Xander in the face with his elbow, the force on the open jaw making it snap to one side as the rest of his head stayed put.
He felt the joint on the side of his face shatter like a plate as he hit the floor, rolling away from Genblade with the impact and sending him crashing into a row of chairs that shattered under his weight. He groaned, looking down at his leg. It had a large chunk of wood sticking out near the kneecap, making it impossible to bend. Biting his lip, he wrapped his fingers around it and pulled up hard. There was a sick, sucking sound as the wet, supple meat of his leg clung to the wood. He almost bit his lip off between his teeth as he watched clear, viscous juice come out of the wound from around the spike. He felt the womb organ surge inside his side, then stopped. He couldn’t take it out without setting it off. Fuck.
Genblade glowered at Xander from across the room, bringing the remaining sharp stake to his lips and licking a bit of Xander’s blood off of it. “Revenge is a dish that tastes good,” he smiled.
Xander scowled, trying his best to climb to his feet and slipping in his own blood, crashing back into the chairs.
Bringing the stake up to a striking position, Genblade started to march toward Xander.
“Stop!” came a loud, booming voice.
Genblade turned just in time to see one of the guards finally gain control of their senses and began pumping off a hail of bullets at Genblade. He leapt and twisted, letting the ammunition whizz past him before he landed and then leapt again.
“Bout damn time,” Xander mumbled under his breath, glancing around to see where everyone was. Megan Greene and her associates were cowering under the table, but while her associates kept their heads between their arms, Megan seemed to be taking it all in, unable to tear her eyes away from the swarm of shots and blood drops that seemed to hang in the air forever before splashing to the floor. “Bet this’ll help your case,” he grumbled, shifting his gaze to Natasha. She seemed to be all right, still shaking from her confrontation with Genblade. Her eyes were wide but weren’t seeing anything that was happening around her, just staring off into nothing and wondering what she’d done to him to deserve this. Cursing, Xander turned and searched for Mike and Cathy. The crowd was flowing this way and that, like water tossed about in a glass jar, trying to escape both the line of fire and Genblade himself. Through all the motion, Xander had lost track of Mike and Cathy.
The bullet fire continued, as now both officers tried in vain to force Genblade into the corner of the courtroom and pin him. Neither had yet to land a shot. He kept his eyes trained on the barrels of each gun so he knew exactly where each slug was headed, twisting and contorting in ways no human should have been able to do to avoid being there when the bullet sped past. He jumped and flipped until he heard the sound he’d come to love more than anything else in this world.
-click-
The sharp, fast sound of metal tapping against metal as the hammer of the guns came down and connected with nothing but an empty shell case. He smiled, his feet landing solid against the floor for the first time since the barrage of metal had begun. He smiled at them both of them, showing off his long row of po
inted teeth.
The guard that had begun firing lowered his weapon now, staring up at Genblade with pure terror as the monster loomed ever closer until all he could see were the stark shadows of his backlit face. Suddenly, something else flashed into his field of vision as the light behind Genblade blinked away and a chair smashed into the side of his head, its leg creating a loud crack against Genblade’s skull.
“Fuck!” Genblade screamed, spinning around as he fell to the floor.
Quickly, the second guard raised his weapon and fired the three remaining shots that waited in his chamber.
Genblade’s eyes went wide as three bullets burrowed holes into his side.
He hit the floor hard, his blood already soaking into the creases of the hardwood. His hands pressed against the holes to try and stop the blood. He turned his head as his vision throbbed in and out and saliva drooled from his mouth, and looked up into the crowd to find the face of the person who’d done this to him. He found the clenched jaw of Mike Harris, still holding the broken leg on the chair, with Cathy Kennessy standing behind him. His eyes rolled back to see the guards reloading their weapons and Xander finally climb to his feet. Finally, he cast his gaze towards Natasha.
He took a step forward.
Staggering, Xander lunged at Genblade, his fingers outstretched trying to grab at the orange jumpsuit. His vision was almost black now, the tunnel he seemed to be looking through getting smaller and smaller with every beat of his heart. He saw his hand touch Genblade’s shoulder... but felt it pass through the air and continue downward. He blinked once, and Genblade instantly seemed an extra foot away, his legs curling and letting go as he dove at Natasha, snagging her neck with his hand and wrapping his fingers around it.
She let out a small yelp of fright, like the squeak of a terrified little mouse. He looked at her, panic-stricken beyond human comprehension and probably on the verge of a heart attack. He breathed in through his nose, smelling the fear off of her. It made him smile.
The guards retrained their weapons of him, the soft click of the shells being loaded into their chambers bringing him back to the battle he’d lost to Xander at Alpha Quadrant. His light blue eyes circled around his surroundings, shifting from the exit, to the guard, to Xander and then finally back to Natasha.
As the guards raised their guns again, he jumped backwards, taking Natasha with him as he sliced the stake through the air in front of him again, letting go halfway and hurling it towards one of the two remaining guards. It spun through the air spinning from sharp end to dull and back again before connecting and embedding itself into the guard’s lower chest. It all seemed to happen in slow motion until the sound of snapping ribs filled the air, speeding everything into fast forward.
Genblade threw Natasha to the floor and then dove after her, her body sliding to a stop next to the first guard, still gasping for breath as glass made its way closer and closer to his windpipe. He landed almost on top of her, knocking her head back as she let out a wet yelp, the blood from the bullet holes in his side cascading down her face and into her nose and mouth. He reached for the dying guard’s gun, his hands slippery and wet on the grip before standing and turning just as the last guard was putting first pressure on his own trigger to take Genblade down.
-BANG!-
Both the guard and Genblade stood still for a moment. After what felt like an eternity, Xander watched a wave of blood splash out from the side of the guard’s throat as he brought his hands up to try and stop it. He feinted after only a moment, and was dead before he hit the ground. Xander’s eyes narrowed across the room as Genblade pulled Natasha in close to his chest, smiling at him. “Let me go before I kill the girl, Womby. I would if I were you.”
Xander just glowered in response, not giving Genblade the satisfaction of replying. His feet tipped back and forth, wanting so badly to just jump at Genblade but forcing himself to hold back.
“You ever wonder what life would be like if we were in each other’s place?” he asked, stroking the tender flesh of Natasha’s neck, making her yelp softly as he smelt her hair.
“No,” Xander said, never breaking the steely gaze between them.
“Oh, I do,” he hissed through clenched teeth, pulling Natasha even closer to him as he inched his way toward the door. “Got all the time in the world up in that cell, and I think of nothing but that. You know what I figured out?”
Xander did not respond, and in fact could barely even hear Genblade over the roar of his own veins.
“It wouldn’t be no different,” he snarled, throwing Natasha at Xander with such force that she rose up off the ground. He turned and bolted toward the courtroom’s exit, the crowd parting for him as he went as if through Devine intervention.
Xander eyes went wide as he lunged forward to catch Natasha, his eyes breaking from Genblade for the first time in what seemed like forever. He felt his hands connect with her armpits as the force of her weight made his leg want to buckle and snap all over again, but did not.
Their faces within inches of each other, Natasha looked at him and almost smiled as their forward momentum finally stopped and she heard the sound of the large wooden doors of the courtroom opening. “Well, that was--”
-BANG!-
Xander felt the bullet rip through him and out the other side, jolting forward from the sudden impact and sending him into the crook of Natasha’s neck. He didn’t see the look on her face, but her felt the tiny pat of two tears as they hit his shoulder almost simultaneously, and he saw her blood force its way out through the hole that had been torn in the dark blue suit that her daughter had said looked perfect on her that morning. He felt her entire body shudder as her last breath shook its way from her lungs, her body not fighting death as it barreled down and overtook her.
He looked up and saw Genblade standing with his hand on the door, the smoking gun still pointed at the spot where Natasha had been. “Lied,” he said simply, before disappearing outside. The door slammed shut behind him, its sound echoing throughout the courtroom.
Xander lay Natasha down on the floor before him, the weight off his leg a welcome relief. Her brown eyes stared up at him lifelessly, blood spatter covering her face. The exit would on her chest was massive and had showered his shirt and neck in thousands of tiny droplets of blood, bone and pieces of her lung. For a brief second, she almost looked like she was still alive... but then that was gone too, and there was nothing but her and the hole in her that didn’t even look real under the harsh incandescent lights.
“Xander?” Mike called out from across the courtroom, Cathy standing beside him but turned away from the grisly sight.
Xander stood up, shaking his head slightly as he started walking toward the door, his leg pulsating with pain and making him limp, though not as badly as he had been.
“Where do you think you’re - -” Mike started, then stopped when Xander turned to glare at him.
His eyes were completely black, so much that they looked like dark holes in his face instead of gel-filled balls. The womb pumped with such ferociousness that he cried black tar, making his face look like his mother’s did when she cried with mascara on. He didn’t stop walking, brushing past people as he headed for the doors.
Mike stepped back and watched his friend go, then turned and looked at the still-warm body of Natasha Mayer. After a moment, Megan Greene popped up from behind the bar and into his field of vision, rubbing her fingers through her curly red hair.
“What the hell happened?” she asked, unable to turn away from the corpse.
“What always happens when people get too interested in death,” Mike said, turning just in time to see the door close behind Xander. “They find it.”
The courtroom doors slammed behind Xander, the sound echoing off the empty marble floors and stone walls until it felt like it was coming at him from all directions. The halls seemed to stretch on forever in front and behind him, with nothing in sight but eerie reflections and shadows.
“I know you’re here,
” Xander breathed, his eyes darting one way and then the other, always seeing something in his peripheral vision. “Come out and face me, you coward.”
“Coward?” came Genblade’s voice from somewhere in front of him, though with all the echoing it was impossible to tell from where. “What makes me a coward?”
Xander raised an eyebrow slightly, then started walking down the corridor in the direction of the voice. He stepped lightly, trying to make as little sound as possible for Genblade to hear. As he looked around, the gothic mouldings and images that danced along the ceiling of the courthouse mocked him now, like grinning gargoyles laughing at his efforts. Though he tried to fight it, the feeling of the cold floor beneath his feet couldn’t help but remind him of their fight at Engen. “You said you wouldn’t kill Natasha,” he answered finally, keeping his eyes peeled for any movement. “You’re a liar, Genblade.”
“Said no such thing,” the voice chuckled. “Said you should let me go before I killed her, and that’s the order it happened in.”
Xander growled deep in the back of his throat, but did not respond as Genblade’s laughter filled the hall. He stepped out into the main foyer now, with its gaping stone pillars and magnificent statues. There was a painting on the wall he hadn’t noticed before of Judge Pike that now had blood smeared over her neck and eyes, making her appear ghostly and as dead as the bodies back in the courtroom.
-BANG!-
A bullet ricocheted off the metal frame of the painting, making it fall to the floor. Xander backed up quickly to avoid being hit by it as it fell forward onto its face, showing the grey-brown matting behind it. The wall was discoloured around the area where the painting had hung, the rest of it faded from years of sun exposure.
“You think you’ll ever be rid of this?” the voice came again, as Xander spun around looking for its source and finding nothing. “You think that if you save enough, if you forgive enough, that maybe someone will save and forgive you?”
Habeas Corpus: Black Womb (Black Womb Collection Book 1) Page 57