thecoldremembers:
An old, almost soothingly familiar focus takes hold of the Weapon, his awareness expanding to encompass every detail of his surroundings while it simultaneously contracts, targeting like a laser, locked on the woman-thing.
Target: acquired. Mission parameters: unknown. Awaiting orders.
(Orders from who? You walked away, sport, remember? Or did your addled brain forget that too?)
The Weapon hesitates, holding his position, a living, crouching statue. The man in the leather jacket is struggling to get up. Shouting. Pleading. He’s not leaving. Maybe he can’t.
Don’t hurt her! Please! She’s sick!
He looks at the woman-thing, hears the guttural snarl of her voice, sees the unsettling, insectile way she moves, a human body that was not born to move like this. A human being who was never meant to be this.
(It’s wrong, wrong, it’s fucking wrong, how can they do this, how can they scoop out everything I am, my mind, my soul, how can they steal my soul, I won’t let them I won’t let them I).
He looks at the woman-thing. He thinks, Not in control.
He thinks, Programming.
He hears the man in the leather jacket. He’s still not leaving (get out of here, you damned idiot, why won’t you listen?). He’s speaking, intoning, his voice rolling from his mouth like a rising tide, forceful, implacable. Holy Mother of God… Holy Virgin of virgins…
A shiver passes down the Weapon’s spine at the sound, and time seems to slow, a frozen moment. But a sudden surge of furious resentment shatters the moment, and he snorts and eyes the man incredulously, shaking his head. Sure. That’ll help. Blessed Virgin ain’t here, pal. Neither is God. He left the building a long time ago, left this shit world and its shit people to its own shit devices.
No, it’s going to take something a lot more tangible and real to handle this situation.
He rolls to his feet in one smooth, liquid motion, but he sheaths the knife as he moves. His eyes flick briefly to the praying man before turning back to the snarling woman-thing. Victim or no, she had displayed an immense amount of strength and bloodthirsty ferocity. He didn’t doubt that if left to her own devices, she could and would do unspeakable things. He could see it written in her eyes.
Mission parameters: Non-lethal neutralization. Relocation. Confinement.
Do-able.
He moves with speed born of the serum and long hours of training, and lashes out with his flesh arm, hand curled into a fist, aiming for the woman-thing’s jaw.
There is something unnaturally still, unnaturally controlled about the young man with the hard eyes and for a second, Marcus hones in on him.
Nothing.
There is not the same uncomfortable itch.
He’s human.
Or as close to as possible.
Marcus continues to pray.
“St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael, All holy angels and archangels, All holy orders of blessed ....”
The young man charges into action with the speed and agility Marcus has, so far, only seen of the condemned, but his movements are human. There is a weight behind the way he moves that is entirely, quintessentially earthly.
And then his fist connects with the possessed woman’s jaw with enough force Marcus can feel it across the space between them.
She goes down as if the life had been drained from her and barely half a breath later, she is restrained by the stranger’s bulk.
“Hold her down!” Marcus instructs right after his mind finishes the thought of ‘how the bloody hell...?’. “Hold her down, I can help her!”
Three steps is what it takes before he drops to his knees beside her and catches those haunted blue eyes. Marcus feels his heart clench with what he sees there, the pain and misery.
He’s seen soldiers with eyes like that.
“You don’t have to believe me.” he says, quiet and quick, but the crushing weight of conviction carries his voice clear in the space between them. “But please, let me ...”
He doesn’t get to finish his thought, because the demon wakes once more and swipes a clawed hand at it’s captor, raking sharp, broken nails along the young man’s cheek with inhuman speed and strength.
“Fuck this.” Marcus huffs, flicks his wrist and catches his rosary as it jumps up against his injured palm. He grips it tight and pushes it between the possessed woman and the young man just as she bares dirty, broken teeth and aims for his throat.
The crucifixion nails connect with her skin and it sizzles, nearly drowning out Marcus’ words: “ All holy angels and archangels, All holy orders of blessed spirits, St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, All holy patriarchs and prophets.”
