Jo Robertson - The Avenger

But even as fast as his reflexes were, he couldn't outrace the speed of a bullet. Livvie would be dead while his knife still flung through the air. His heart tripled-hammered in his chest, a fearful staccato wholly unfamiliar to him. He glanced once at her as her fingers dug into the powerful arms clutching her waist while rage flooded through him like the roar of a waterfall.

The risk was too great.

Slowly, he lowered the knife, crouched down, and laid it on the marbled floor.

"That's a good boy," Randolph taunted. "Are you wondering how I know who you are, Agent Holt? Wondering how I knew where you'd hidden her." He indicated Olivia with a jerking of his chin. "While you've followed me, I've followed you." He grinned. "And her, of course."

"I suppose you must be a very smart man, Randolph." Jack bared his teeth and growled quietly. "A computer search, an informant who knew, or you followed her. What does it matter?"

"It doesn't. My, look at you, Agent Holt dressed like a cast member of… what? The Lord of the Flies?" His shrill laugh revealed his disintegrating mind.

"Which character are you, I wonder?" he continued. "Are you Jack, Jack? Or Ralph? I'd have guessed Ralph when I saw you years ago, dressed so tidily in your federal costume of suit and white shirt. So sure that the rules would save everyone."

The gun wavered in Randolph's hand while Jack considered rushing him. A mere leap and he'd be on him, ripping his throat out with gnashing teeth.

"But now," Randolph continued, "seeing you in your primordial state, I realize you're not Jack. Not even Ralph. But Roger." He nodded as if answering his own question. "Yes, Roger of the simian brow and the jutting jaw. Man at his most primitive."

Jack thought of Roger Strong, Olivia's stepfather, and tamped down the fury. "Shut the fuck up." The words came with a calm and coldness he didn't feel. As if he were the one who held all the cards, but the emotion was that of a beast in pain.

Then the reflection of red and blue lights – from a patrol car, probably – flashed through the stained glass windows.

"Cops are here, Randolph," Jack snarled. "You'll never get out alive." And if you put down that gun, you'll be dead in less than a second. I'll gut you faster than a hog for slaughtering.

At Jack's warning, Livvie's expression changed and he imagined he saw revulsion fixed there, not for her captor, but for him, her would-be rescuer. The thought jarred him deeply.

Randolph's eyes darted to the vestibule. "She dies first," he threatened, digging the pistol harder into Olivia's temple. "Kick the knife this way," he ordered.

Jack heard the footsteps that crept through the vestibule into the church interior. Two men. He inhaled deeply and caught the familiar scent of his mentor and the steady odor of his old friend. The Judge and Slater.

Suddenly a white, hot pain jabbed his right eye and he felt the burning sensation in his kidney. He nearly gasped aloud. Oh shit! Now he knew why Warren had showed up. The overdose of lysergic was shutting down Jack's systems.

Not yet, he begged silently.

He shook his head and forced himself to focus. He needed a single swipe to topple his enemy, but he couldn't risk that Randolph's involuntary jerking would release the hair trigger of the gun and discharge the weapon. He nudged the knife closer to where the man stood, still shielding himself with Livvie's body.

Randolph crouched, dragging his captive down with him until they both squatted on the floor. "Get it," he ordered, shoving Olivia forward so that she could grasp the knife where it had landed mere inches from her feet.

Instinct shouted that this was the moment. Would Olivia know what to do? Jack caught her eye, gave her a silent message. Without considering the consequences, he leapt forward and caught Randolph under the chin. A sharp blow to the throat with an elbow toppled him.

Olivia flung herself flat on the floor while the gun discharged, loud as a cannon shot in the vast, vaulted room. The robe slid off her shoulders and fell to the ground. She lay on her stomach, knees curled up beneath her, arms straight out for balance. She stared at Jack over her arm, her face reflecting horror and shock.

That she witnessed him like this – carnal and primed for the kill – wounded him.

Jack's forearm pressed against Randolph's throat and he waited to hear the distinct crunch that signaled the crushing of the small bones of the neck. Her eyes wide with shock, Livvie stared as he tightened his strangle-hold on Howard Randolph.

Easing back, gazing into Olivia's stunned face, Jack wormed his way into her mind, and saw himself through her eyes. A wild brute, fierce, lustful, without reason or rationale. A creature driven by instincts and the basest desires. One which could kill without conscience or qualm.

The latest model of the Invictus soldier.

Jack remembered when Olivia had promised to love him no matter what. But how could she love a man like that? His heart thundered, the blood burned in his veins, and his muscles collapsed with fatigue. Loosening his grip on Howard Randolph, Jack rolled over onto his back.

The last thing he saw before his eyesight narrowed to a small, dark tunnel was the Judge's florid face hovering over him.

Slater slammed the suspect to the floor and jerked his hands behind him, kneeling hard with his right knee in the center of the man's back. He then tightened the cuffs in a vicious twist. The DLK suspect coughed and sputtered, his throat an angry red blotch.

Warren knelt over Jack, whose face and arms were clammy to the touch. His eyes rolled back in his head, and his body temperature had plummeted. Warren placed two fingers on the carotid artery and felt the pulse, erratic and faint.

From the corner of his eye, he assessed the situation inside the church. The Gant woman sprawled naked on the floor. The Sheriff grabbed the fallen robe, covered her, and gently led her to the row of hard wooden benches. Held her in his arms like she was crystal.

Warren checked Jack's eyes for mydriasis. His pupils were blown, a clear symptom of the overdose. He wasn't a doctor, but he'd seen enough men die that he knew Jack was in trouble. Any moment his internal organs would shut down one by one. The kidneys first, then the circulatory system, and finally cardiac arrest. The distant whine of the ambulance siren reached his ears and he estimated their ETA about five or six minutes.

Not soon enough.

"Bring the damn medeport," he yelled to Myron Higgins.

Higgins, who had hovered in the foyer, scurried over, opened the medical portage unit, and reached for the syringe and the first bottle of serum.

"Straight into the veins," the Judge instructed while Higgins filled the syringe and tapped the raised needle. "Use the neck."

Higgins injected the first vial into the vein at Jack's throat as the Judge prepared the second one. "We'll use the femoral artery for this one."

His assistant looked up in surprise. "Sir, that's a dangerous spot for the injection site."

"Hell, take a good look at him. He's no good to me if I can't bring him completely back. We don't want a goddamn vegetable. We don't have any choice."

Reaching into the medeport box, Higgins pulled out a length of rubber tubing which he wrapped around Jack's thigh, and quickly injected the second antidote. Temporary measure, Warren knew. If Jack didn't get a steady dose of specific drugs in a regimented order, he'd slip into a coma and no amount of miracle workers could bring him back. The third and final injection of this first series was administered into the vein of Jack's right arm.

Warren removed his jacket and tucked it under the unconscious man's head, sat back on his heels and waited. If the Judge was a praying man, he'd likely think of all sorts of fancy bargains to make with God. But sometimes life was a shitty little affair, so he reached for Jack's hand and clasped it firmly in his own.