June 16, 1997
Unknown Location
Over the days of her captivity, Maggie ate and drank what was brought to her, only because she needed to think of her son, but she wouldn't cooperate in any other way. Every time Sevarius tried to go into her cell to take a blood sample or check on her vital signs, she would viciously try to attack him. Sevarius didn't want to use tranquilizers as much as possible in case they had an adverse effect on the baby.
On the fifth day, she woke up to cramping and bleeding that grew worse and worse throughout the day. She still only had her wedding dress to wear, and it was now grimy and blood stained. She never even got to be married in it, and now it was ruined.
She thought she was having Braxton Hicks contractions at first, but as they got worse, she knew this time it was different. These were the real deal, and they were getting closer and closer together and growing in intensity. She'd been trying to hide it, but twenty-four hours later, her labor had progressed significantly, and she could not hide the blood or control the feral screams and moans as each contraction gripped her.
The baby was coming.
As another contraction squeezed her abdomen like a vice and left her bellowing and howling like the animal she resembled, a man and a woman entered the room.
One was the reason she was no longer human, and the other, a woman with middle eastern features and kohl rimmed eyes, she had seen around the Labyrinth.
"We're going to have to surgically remove the baby. I can't risk losing it, and she's lost too much blood at this point," Sevarius stated.
"But you're a geneticist, not a surgeon," Shari said, alarmed.
Sevarius shrugged indifferently.
"I just need the baby. Not the mother," he said pragmatically.
Maggie's blood ran cold with fear. He was going to mutilate her, rip out her child, and leave her for dead if she didn't die in the process, she was certain of it.
"As you wish," Shari replied obediently. She had been given the task by her superiors to assist Thailog and Sevarius in their endeavors as they usually aligned, and though she had done many tasteless things over the years...this was a bridge too far for her.
Maggie wanted to fight Sevarius tooth and nail to save herself and her son, but the pain was too great, and she was too weak and tired from her laboring and the blood loss. She didn't even have enough energy to produce the tiniest static charge.
While she was incapacitated by another contraction, Sevarius gave her an injection, something to render her unconscious, and as her vision dimmed, she wished it was the face of her lover, the father of her child, and the man who would have been her husband that she last looked upon, and not this madman whom she loathed with every fiber of her being.
"Derek…" was the last thing she said before she slipped unwillingly into the darkness.
...
...
Xanatos requested the security video from the Labyrinth the day of the wedding. Using advanced A.I. facial recognition software that Xanatos Enterprises had been working on, he hoped to identify some of the mercenaries who had kidnapped Maggie
There was no hit on the mercenaries, there wasn't enough to go on, and even though they had a clear shot of Shari's face, nothing came up for her either.
"Unsurprisingly, the woman you call Shari is not coming up in any databases. She has no record at all. No driver's license, no passport, no arrest record, nothing. I've been able to find something on everyone in the Labyrinth so far, but for all intents and purposes, she doesn't exist."
"Then you've been absolutely no help. Thank you," Talon said sarcastically.
"Not completely," Xanatos replied, and he zoomed in on a still frame of the security footage. It was grainy, but he could make out a vague symbol of a pyramid, and an all seeing eye engraved upon a pendant she wore around her neck.
"The Illuminati emblem."
Goliath and Talon took a closer look at the screen.
"It would seem greater forces are at work here," Goliath said.
"Do you think Sevarius is still involved?" Talon asked.
"Oh, I don't doubt it," Xanatos said.
"Aren't you in league with them? Can't you find where they have her?" Goliath challenged.
"I've never met Shari, that I know of, and the Illuminati is a secret organization even to itself. I know very little about how it operates or even who are members. I'll need to reach out discreetly to my contacts. I can't tip them off that we're trying to get Maggie back. It could take time."
"But we're running out of time!" Talon growled. "We have to find her before—"
Owen interrupted them as he entered the room.
"Sir, there is a call for you on line one. Someone is claiming they know where Ms. Reed is being held. I'm attempting to trace the call."
Everyone paused and looked at each other with disbelief.
"Really? What incredible timing. Thank you, Owen," Xanatos said as he punched a button on his phone, picking up the line and putting it on speaker.
"This is David Xanatos. I am told you have information for me?" he said.
"The mutate is being held in an unnamed facility in Brooklyn on 1st Avenue. Gather your gargoyles. I'll make sure the security alarms are off. You must come now or she will not be alive for long," a distorted voice said.
"Wait. Who is this?" Xanatos asked.
There was silence and then a dial tone as the other end hung up.
"This sounds like a trap," Goliath growled.
"That's a given, but what choice do we have?" Talon argued.
Goliath nodded in agreement.
"Owen, did you get a trace on that call?" Xanatos asked his assistant.
Owen typed a few things into Xanatos's computer and a map pulled up on the monitor.
"The call came from inside a building on 1st in Brooklyn, just as the caller said," he informed them.
"I will gather my clan," Goliath said.
"I'm going with," Xanatos said as he hit a button on his desk, and a wall retracted, revealing his exosuit.
Goliath and Talon began to protest.
"This isn't up for discussion. I'm going," Xanatos said as he pushed a few more buttons that opened up the battle armor so that he could put it on.
Goliath furrowed his brow, concerned.
"If you do anything to betray us—"
"You'll rip out my spine or my still beating heart, crush my skull, et cetera, et cetera. Can we skip the barbarism and just get straight to the rescue effort?" Xanatos said in his usual nonchalant tone.
Goliath and Talon exchanged another glance, both knowing they'd lost the argument.
"Fine," Goliath growled.
"Then let's go," Xanatos said as he slipped out of his suit jacket.
...
...
"Is this the place?" Goliath asked as they swooped down over the building in Brooklyn and landed on a rooftop across the street from it.
"It's where we traced the call, and it's the only building that is unmarked like the caller said. It has to be it." Xanatos replied, his voice projected from his helmet.
Goliath had contacted Elisa at work and she and Matt were on their way to join them.
"If there are any alarms, I can bypass them," Coldstone offered.
"I can as well," Xanatos replied.
Coldstone and Coldfire looked uneasily at him. There was a lot of mistrust with Xanatos which made Goliath nervous. When it came to battle, you needed to be able to trust your allies to have your back, and no one fully trusted the man.
Goliath thought his brother and sister would want to stay at the castle to protect it while everyone else contributed in the rescue effort, but they insisted on coming. He suspected they felt guilty about their standoffishness. If they had come to the wedding, they would have been immune to the smoke bomb that had left everyone else temporarily incapacitated, and then perhaps Maggie wouldn't have been abducted. Goliath didn't like to dwell on what ifs, but he was glad to have their help tonight.
"Do we just…go in through the front door?" Broadway said skeptically.
"I think that would be unwise. Our contact stated that the security alarms would be turned off, but we do not know how much we can trust them, and walking in through the entrance seems fool hardy. We should find an alternative entrance out of caution," Goliath replied.
"Or, that's exactly what they want us to think because they know we won't trust them," Broadway countered.
"Or that...could also be a possibility," Goliath agreed, a little dumbfounded that Broadway had thought of it first.
"There is a fire exit in the back as well as access from the roof," Xanatos said.
"We should split up into teams then. Brooklyn, Katana, Nashville, and Lexington, you take the roof. Broadway, Angela, Hudson, Coldstone and Coldfire, you take the fire exit, Xanatos and Talon...you're with me. We'll take the front."
...
...
One of the mercenaries burst into the room Sevarius was using as a makeshift operating room. The doctor was just making the initial cut into Maggie's uterus when he interrupted him.
"Sir, we are under attack!" he shouted.
"I need you to suction the amniotic fluid," Sevarius instructed Shari calmly, ignoring the man and focusing on his work.
"I am not getting paid enough for this," she grumbled under her breath as she did what he asked. Shari was not a trained medical professional, but even she knew they were clearly doing it wrong. Was there supposed to be this much blood?
The help she had called in arrived faster than she thought they would. She needed to go. She needed to get out of there before Xanatos and his entourage got to her.
"Sevarius, there are gargoyles in the building!" the head mercenary stated.
"Then take care of it! It's what I hired you for, isn't it?!" Sevarius snapped. "How did they get inside? Where were the alarms?!"
The mercenary left the room, and shortly after, Shari could hear weapon fire outside, and then the soft mewl of an infant soon after Sevarius extracted the baby from the warmth of its mother's womb.
"Stunning, absolutely perfect!" Sevarius said as he tied off the umbilical cord and cut it, severing the final physical tie between mother and child. An honor that should have been Talon's. He held up the infant and inspected him. "I don't think I could have done better if I created him myself, though I suppose I had a hand in it," he said with a chuckle.
He rubbed down the baby, clearing away the vernix and blood, revealing downy gray fur. Then he swaddled the crying infant and headed for the nearest exit.
"What about the mother?" Shari said, alarmed.
"What about her? I only need the offspring," Sevarius said, his tone clinical and emotionless. "Besides, I don't want to be here when Talon or Goliath comes crashing through that door, do you?"
Shari glanced at Maggie, who lay prone on the table, in a mess of her own blood, her now flabby belly sliced open and devoid of the life that just moments ago inhabited it.
At that moment the mercenary who had told them earlier that they were under attack, burst through the door, flying through the air as if he had been hit by a truck, and arcing with electricity. He hit the wall opposite of the door, and lay motionless on the ground, smoking slightly. A low, ominous growl emitted from the hallway he had come flying from.
"Time to go," Sevarius said as he fled through a back door with the child, and Shari quickly followed.
...
...
"Where is Maggie?!" Talon roared at the mercenary. The man refused to speak, and in his anger, Talon blasted the mercenary with a full charge of electricity that sent him sailing down the hall and through the doors at the end of it. He charged into the room after him.
What he found was his worst nightmares made real.
Maggie was laid out on a table, lifeless, and covered in blood.
"No," Talon wailed as he ran to her.
He took her limp hand in his and sank to his knees.
He was too late.
"Oh, God, Maggie," he sobbed in anguish as he pressed her still warm hand against his face.
Goliath and Xanatos entered shortly after. They stopped in their tracks at the sight before them, of Maggie...and Talon mourning over her.
"There are heat signatures in a passageway past that door," Xanatos said. "It's probably Sevarius."
"I won't let him get away with this," Goliath growled, and he swiftly went in pursuit of the geneticist. Xanatos was about to join him, when he heard Talon's cry for help.
"She's alive!" he yelled out.
Talon had been so lost in his grief, that he hadn't noticed at first, but then her hand had twitched ever so slightly against his, and when he felt for a pulse, it was there. So very faint and weak, but there.
"We need Dr. Sato, now!"
"I'm calling him," Xanatos said, and after a silent moment, "He's in surgery. I've left him an urgent message."
"I don't know how long Maggie is going to last!" Talon cried out dismayed.
Elisa and Matt had arrived at that point and they entered the room, having followed the sound of the gunfire which gave them probable cause to enter the building.
"Oh, god, Derek," Elisa cried out and she ran to her brother.
"She's alive, but barely. She needs help, and Dr. Sato is in surgery," he lamented.
Elisa thought for a second, and then made a decision.
"I have an idea," she said, and she fled the room.
...
...
Elisa retrieved the number she had shoved into the glove compartment of her car. She'd found it tucked into her old bomber jacket pocket before she threw it away. Isaac must have put it there without her noticing the night they'd stopped The Pack in Times Square, and Elisa had saved Katana and Egwardo from Hyena.
She'd hung onto it. She wasn't sure why. She had no interest in him, but he had seemed open to the concept of gargoyles not being villains, and she wanted to keep track of anyone who could be a potential ally, so she kept the number and stashed it in her glove box in case of an emergency.
She retrieved the number and called it.
...
...
Goliath charged down the hallway after Sevarius, but it came to a dead end. He stared at it confused for half a second, until he heard movement on the other side. Without thinking too long about it, he reeled back and punched his fist into the wall, but his fist met resistance as he realized he had just punched into a concealed steel door. He struck it again, and the metal yielded enough that he could gouge it with his talons and tear it open. There was a horrible screech as the metal rent between his hands.
On the other side, Sevarius and Shari looked back over their shoulders as a powerful behemoth practically exploded through the wall behind them. His enraged roar, and the preternatural glow of his eyes momentarily caused a visceral and instinctive reaction, and they froze in their steps.
"Sevarius," Goliath snarled, his voice dripping with venom as he bore down upon them.
Shari had seen Thailog in a rage before, but this was the original, not the copy. A gargoyle who had faced vikings in the 10th century, the king and queen of the fae, and even Odin himself, and still lived, and she felt terror she'd never felt before in her life.
A small bundle in Sevarius's arms let out a weak mewling cry.
"The child," Goliath said as he honed in on the sound. The baby lived, but not his mother all because of the man who stood before him, and his eyes flashed an even more brilliant white, like the hottest part of a flame. "Give him to me," he snarled, and Sevarius and Shari took a step back.
"No!" Sevarius snapped, finding a backbone he rarely exhibited as he pressed the infant tightly to his chest, and he inched further back towards the exit. "He is the pinnacle of my life's work! You'll have to pry him from my cold dead hands!"
"That…can be arranged," Goliath growled as he stalked towards them.
"You took Maggie," he snarled and he took another step closer, his eyes casting long shadows behind the two of them. "You hurt her and stole her child."
He bore down on them, growling menacingly as they cowered. "Talon vowed that he would kill you for the things you have done...and I'm inclined to do it for him."
Sevarius finally panicked and turned to run, and as he did Goliath lunged forward and grabbed him by the neck, his large talons wrapped around his throat. Shari backed further towards the exit.
"Give me the child, or I'll take him from your corpse." He tightened his grip and his talons pressed into his flesh, drawing blood. Sevarius made a panicked choking sound, but he did not hand over the baby, so Goliath continued to squeeze until Sevarius's arms began to go slack as he started to lose consciousness, and Goliath gently took the baby from him.
Shari knew the Illuminati would not be pleased if they lost an asset like Sevarius, and though every instinct within her screamed at her to flee, to save herself, she knew she had to save the doctor.
She grabbed one of the necklaces she wore around her neck and threw it to the ground, and something, a small bead or such, began smoking, quickly filling the small space.
Fearing for the safety of the tiny new life he held, Goliath backed away from the spreading cloud, and his grip loosened enough on Sevarius that he was able to catch his breath and wrench free of his grip. By the time the smoke had cleared, both Sevarius and Shari were gone.
Goliath warred with his desire to pursue them and make them pay for the things they'd done, but he glanced down at the tiny baby in his arms, and knew he had something far more important to do.