Rescue, Part 1 (Thomas, Spectre, Peter, Saul, Jerome, Flynn and Night Watch)
The town of Mic Oraş in Romania was a pious little town, well out of the way of the beaten path. Or any path. It was a Romanian Catholic town in the midst of a country which was predominantly Romanian Orthodox, and the inhabitants tended to keep to themselves. The town itself was so pious, that after ten at night, no one wandered the streets, save for the Night Watch. The villagers slumbered, knowing their well-being was attended to. They would not be robbed or harmed in the night.
The Night Watch consisted of a group of young men from the village who left home early to train specifically for the purpose of maintaining the village’s safety. There were only eight of them, and they alternated nights and shifts so that each pair of men only had to watch half a night for half the week before the shift switched over. They were trained in combat though their roles were now largely ceremonial, like those of the Swiss Guard in Vatican City. The very presence of the Night Watch was enough to keep any would-be criminals in the village from infringing. They knew exactly what would come of them if they broke a law, so the villagers simply did not. One of the Night Watch members was also a Templar. For that very reason, and to honour the pious villagers, Spectre Mors had been gifted to Mic Oraş, and there he stood.
This knowledge, Saul was privy to, and it was this exact reason that the rescue attempt for Spectre Mors had to be undertaken by a small and very quiet group. The rescuers would only be fighting a pair of trained men if they managed to take care of the Night Watch quietly before the alarm was raised. If they made too much noise, the alarm would notify the remaining members of the Watch, and of course the citizens of the town would follow, rallying behind their brave and protective boys.
Flynn sat by Saul’s side, looking ridiculously dwarfed by the big man, even in the confined space of the Dead Meat helicopter they had all crowded into. Flynn was getting used to the weight of the tranq gun in his hand while Peter watched him nervously. “It’s okay, Peter. I am pretty good at this,” Flynn said, trying to be reassuring. Even if Flynn was likely to be distracted because he had left his recently recovered husband's side, he was disciplined enough not to let it get in his way while rescuing his best friend.
“I know, I just…I hope it’s enough.” It was uncharacteristic for Peter to wonder if a tranq weapon was enough, but Flynn looked back down at his weapon, clearly letting the issue go. He didn’t want to discuss doubts right now.
“We’ll get Spectre back,” he said simply. And his voice was as determined as it ever was.
“I just would have liked having Deirdre here,” Peter said regretfully. Of course Deirdre was not a quiet girl, and Saul specifically had banned her presence in the sleepy town, despite the fact that her demonic traits would have been very handy.
Thomas, who still didn’t look altogether well, was sitting back a ways, though still with Saul until the taller man put a tranq weapon in his hands as well. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Thomas whispered. “I might shoot myself. It’s my husband and I…I’m a little distracted…”
“You’ll handle it,” Saul said, inviting no arguments. “Alright people, stealth is key. Keep to the shadows and if you see a guy in a black robe, shoot him with your tranq gun. He’s a member of the Night Watch and you do not want to have to go up against him in combat. If we’re quiet, we should only have to face two. If we’re not, they’ll rouse the other six, not to mention the rest of the village. The Templar do not maintain a presence here beyond the one member of the Watch who is one. There will be no Templar resistance beyond that individual, if he is even on shift tonight. The Watch could be anywhere, so keep your eyes and ears open. They might not even be enough. They have the advantage of knowing the terrain and advanced training. You’ll have to think quickly if we come across them. Does everybody understand?” After a collective and terrified nod, Saul pointed to the door of the helicopter. “Then here we go. To the jeep.”
The helicopter landed well outside of town, as the noise of the thing would no doubt raise too much suspicion. The rescuers planned to drive up to the village’s outskirts and then make it the rest of the way on foot. That meant carrying Spectre back to the Jeep which was not ideal, but at least the man was small…
The drive was quiet; eerily so. When the Jeep pulled to a stop, it was kept running by Rain, in case a quick getaway was necessary. Jerome, Peter, Thomas, Flynn and Saul piled out of the van and they hiked the mile or so to the village with little occurrence. It wasn’t until the slipped into the village that things started to happen.
The town was deadly quiet. It was eerie just how silent a place could be when no one worked past dark and everything simply shut down. The men kept to the shadows, and Thomas felt those shadows were moving, though he kept his mouth shut. Even a whisper would shatter the silence here, something akin to shouting in the middle of church. He didn’t feel like focusing the attention on himself.
As the group continued on, sticking to alleyways and well-sheltered places, Thomas was sure he wasn’t hallucinating. The shadows werechanging. As they walked, a tall shadow cast by a dim street light seemed to elongate and then disappear entirely. Thomas blinked, but the group didn’t seem to notice. They carried on.
The centre of the village housed their greatest treasure. In the circular market area, Thomas turned a corner to crouch in the last shadow they would have for shelter. It was then he first caught sight of his husband, propped up on a cross which was, itself, propped up in a dias high above the centre of the market. The center of the village was lit up like a Sunday afternoon. Lights aimed at Spectre, serving to both block his view of the villagers, and to show him off to any who gathered to pray to him or seek comfort in his presence. He looked terrible. His skin had gone a horrible kind of gray, and for a moment Thomas panicked and thought his husband had died. If the pain had been too much, perhaps Spectre had simply let go. And then Spectre moved. The movement itself was almost imperceptible, but the look of anguish it caused to appear on the face of the man Thomas loved was obvious to every single man crouching there in the shadow of the wall, and they gave a collective wince of sympathy.
Thomas had to swallow his vocal reaction to the state his husband was being kept in, and he felt his heart rebel against his chest as he choked down swear words and sobs and a little bit of bile. His stomach twisted in anger, and he felt the calming hand of Peter on his back. Thomas knew Peter’s thoughts without having to hear them spoken.
‘I know it’s horrible, Thomas." Peter's voice, even when it was practically inaudible, stayed Thomas' rage. "We will have him back soon and then he will be safe. You have to stay calm until then."
Thomas turned to look at Peter, his face half-hidden in darkness, and Thomas nodded at him. Flynn looked like he was struggling with much the same feeling, though Jerome and Saul looked fairly neutral. Saul, because he was a seasoned rescuer who was adept at putting personal feelings behind him, and Jerome because he had no personal feelings for Spectre whatsoever. It helped Thomas regain his calm, even as his eyes travelled to Spectre’s wrists, nailed and barbwired and cut to ribbons. His ankles the same. His soiled clothes and hair. The guitar which had been cruelly nailed to him. Oh, someone would pay for this. For now, he just had to stop it.
Saul and Jerome did a visual sweep of the area and then they signaled to the others to that it was safe to approach the dias Spectre was propped up on. Thomas worried that they had not yet met this Night Watch, though he was far more concerned about Spectre than he was about the Watch. The group neared the dias and Thomas replaced his weapon on his belt, instead drawing out his metal cutters. He climbed right up onto the platform and he put his hand on his husband’s face while the others kept watch. No one noticed that Flynn had disappeared without a sound.
“Oh, Babe,” Thomas whispered. “Just you wait, okay, I’ll get you down.”
Consciousness was a fleeting thing for Spectre now, but awareness was a constant. He was always aware of the pain which seemed to be just like the Hellfire his father had described to him as a child. The barbed wire lashing his arms to the cross, the slowly rusting nails in his wrists and ankles. There was bound to be infection. The worst, however, were the nails through his chest and shoulder, pinning the guitar to his body. The neck was splintered, and most of the strings broken, but it hung there day and night to remind him when consciousness did return, just why he was here.
Awareness of the pain was Spectre's world now, interspersed with fitful almost-memories, dreamlike, sometimes nightmarish. He had lost track of time and space. It seemed like he had been here forever. Would be here forever.
Spectre’s eyelids fluttered but they didn’t open. He let out a little groan, his head moving slightly to the left in the direction of Thomas. He looked asleep even despite the look of pain he had just had when he moved, and Thomas was loathe to wake him. He had to, unfortunately. They couldn’t risk Spectre waking while they were taking him down, and making some kind of terrible noise. Thomas touched his husband's cheek, and he shuddered at how cold Spectre's wet skin was. God, how long had he been left in the rain...? “Babe, I’m here. Come on.” Thomas lifted Spectre’s head a little and he wondered if shaking his husband was a bad idea. It probably was. The need diminished however, when Spectre’s eyes fluttered again, this time reluctantly remaining open.
The sound of Thomas' voice awakened Spectre much more than anything else ever could, and consciousness and brought life rushing back. The first part of that oncoming train was the spike of pain suddenly made much more acute and real. It served to bring Spectre out of his nightmares and into the present which was undoubtedly worse than any nightmare could ever be because it was real. Thomas could see the pain which made its way into his husband’s expression, even as Spectre opened his mouth in wonder then, his eyes widening in disbelief and he whispered, "Thom's... you came..." His lips seemed to wanted to smile despite everything, but they didn't quite make it. Still, Spectre fought to lift his head towards Thomas to show that he was ready. That trust and hope were already flowing through him again, pulsing through his body, in his blood. And then he frowned as something clicked inside his muddled head. “You’re sick.” Thomas wasn't supposed to be here. Thomas could die. Spectre couldn't stand it if Thomas died again. Not again.
“Shhh. I’m here, Babe. And I’m okay. We have to be quiet.” They were risking enough just whispering. They needed to be careful. “I’m going to get you down, but it’s going to hurt… I’m sorry for that.”
Spectre, who hadn’t eaten since being taken weeks before, and had suffered a very great deal since then, was not strictly able to hold up his end of an intelligent conversation. He did, however, blink at his husband and then he said shakily, “hurts, Thom’s.” That had seemed important to get across.
“I know it hurts, Baby,” Thomas felt his voice waver, and he swallowed his emotion again. He signaled to Peter who climbed up on the platform with him. Thomas motioned to Peter to hold Spectre up, and Peter did so while Thomas did something he never thought he would ever do. "I'm so sorry..." He clamped his hands over the angel’s mouth so that his screams would be muffled, which shocked and scared Spectre. Spectre looked at his husband, his eyes showing his panic and disbelief and Thomas was sure Spectre felt Thomas and Peter were hallucinations now. Perhaps he thought they had been sent to torture him; who had sent them hardly mattering. “It’s okay, Honey, I promise,” Thomas whispered in panic and then Jerome climbed up beside the pair.
“Give me the cutters, Thomas. Unless you want to damage him further.”
Thomas nodded and he felt Peter take the wire cutters from his belt. Then Peter held Spectre up while Jerome went about first cutting the barbed wire away, and then pulling each rusted nail roughly out of Spectre’s broken body. Spectre couldn’t hold any sounds of pain back even if he was too weak to scream, but Thomas did his best to silence the sounds with his hands, an act he was clearly having issues with. His husband was in pain, screaming against his hands, and Thomas was both assisting in causing the pain and quelling Spectre’s understandable response. Thomas felt he was betraying his husband, but he continued doing it, even as Spectre’s eyes accused him of hurt and tears streamed down the angel’s face, matching the blood streaming from his reopening wounds.
The last nails, the ones attaching the guitar to Spectre, were the worst. When Jerome pulled those free, Spectre howled against Thomas’ hands, causing a terrible growling deep in his throat. The amount of pain caused him to vomit up bile, even though there was nothing in his stomach. Thomas’s hands blocked the vomit from escaping, and soon enough, Spectre was choking on it.
“Shit,” Thomas whispered, as Spectre’s eyes started to widen from suffocation now, instead of fear. Thomas dropped his hands and he moved to take Spectre out of Peter’s arms. “Peter, let go!” At the same time as Thomas moved to give his broken and now freed husband the Heimlich maneuver, Saul glanced worriedly up at the rest of them.
“Where is Flynn?” he whispered desperately. And how had he not noticed the man's absence before?
Peter jumped down from the dias and he drew his weapon the very second an arrow whizzed through the air, burying itself in his shoulder. His gun fell from his hands, clattering to the stone below with such noise it echoed off the stone buildings surrounding the town centre. And if that wasn't enough to wake up the entire town, the alarm that reverberated through the streets at that moment surely would.
Flynn emerged from the dark, a thin metal strand being held tightly around his throat by a black robed man, nearly strangling him. Another man was with them and he held a crossbow in his hands, aimed straight at Peter. “Put our angel down!” one of the Watch screamed in perfect English and then he turned the crossbow on Flynn.
Several things happened at once. Thomas managed to free Spectre’s airway, and though the angel gasped for breath, Thomas had heard one of his ribs snap, and he had felt it under his arms. Thomas had broken one of his husband's ribs. Thomas had injured someone he loved. Peter, despite his injured shoulder, dropped to the ground and retrieved his weapon, swung it around and sent two darts at the man who held Flynn. The darts lodged in the man’s neck and as he fell, Flynn grabbed the garotte and then he pushed himself forward, never hesitating to regain his composure. His momentum managed to knock the crossbow out of the second Watchman’s hands. The Watchman was only deterred for a moment, and he retaliated by slamming Flynn into the wall behind him, the garotte clattering to the ground. Flynn’s head cracked against the stone as Jerome shot another volley of darts into the second Watchmen.
Lights all around them started to flicker on in the windows of the village. The villagers were waking up and soon the rest of the Watch would be upon them. Saul grabbed Flynn and Thomas grabbed Spectre while Jerome helped Peter and collectively the group of them ran as quickly as they could towards the jeep, hoping they would reach it in time.
They were pursued the entire way. Arrows flew past them, one burying itself in Thomas' arm and another in Jerome's side. Thomas felt Spectre shaking in his arms the entire way. And still they ran. When they could, the rescuers who still had darts aimed them back at the mob of people on their tails, but they could only fell a few. The crowd was huge, though it's sheer size did slow it down. And that was the reason the men managed to make it to the jeep.
The jeep was waiting, running as it was supposed to be. The rescuers jumped in, and just as the villagers swarmed the jeep, Rain sped off, leaving them behind choking on exhaust. It wasn’t until they reached the helicopter and took off that any of them released the breath they had been holding since setting foot in the village. They were safe, though they did wonder what the repercussions would be.
The Night Watch consisted of a group of young men from the village who left home early to train specifically for the purpose of maintaining the village’s safety. There were only eight of them, and they alternated nights and shifts so that each pair of men only had to watch half a night for half the week before the shift switched over. They were trained in combat though their roles were now largely ceremonial, like those of the Swiss Guard in Vatican City. The very presence of the Night Watch was enough to keep any would-be criminals in the village from infringing. They knew exactly what would come of them if they broke a law, so the villagers simply did not. One of the Night Watch members was also a Templar. For that very reason, and to honour the pious villagers, Spectre Mors had been gifted to Mic Oraş, and there he stood.
This knowledge, Saul was privy to, and it was this exact reason that the rescue attempt for Spectre Mors had to be undertaken by a small and very quiet group. The rescuers would only be fighting a pair of trained men if they managed to take care of the Night Watch quietly before the alarm was raised. If they made too much noise, the alarm would notify the remaining members of the Watch, and of course the citizens of the town would follow, rallying behind their brave and protective boys.
Flynn sat by Saul’s side, looking ridiculously dwarfed by the big man, even in the confined space of the Dead Meat helicopter they had all crowded into. Flynn was getting used to the weight of the tranq gun in his hand while Peter watched him nervously. “It’s okay, Peter. I am pretty good at this,” Flynn said, trying to be reassuring. Even if Flynn was likely to be distracted because he had left his recently recovered husband's side, he was disciplined enough not to let it get in his way while rescuing his best friend.
“I know, I just…I hope it’s enough.” It was uncharacteristic for Peter to wonder if a tranq weapon was enough, but Flynn looked back down at his weapon, clearly letting the issue go. He didn’t want to discuss doubts right now.
“We’ll get Spectre back,” he said simply. And his voice was as determined as it ever was.
“I just would have liked having Deirdre here,” Peter said regretfully. Of course Deirdre was not a quiet girl, and Saul specifically had banned her presence in the sleepy town, despite the fact that her demonic traits would have been very handy.
Thomas, who still didn’t look altogether well, was sitting back a ways, though still with Saul until the taller man put a tranq weapon in his hands as well. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Thomas whispered. “I might shoot myself. It’s my husband and I…I’m a little distracted…”
“You’ll handle it,” Saul said, inviting no arguments. “Alright people, stealth is key. Keep to the shadows and if you see a guy in a black robe, shoot him with your tranq gun. He’s a member of the Night Watch and you do not want to have to go up against him in combat. If we’re quiet, we should only have to face two. If we’re not, they’ll rouse the other six, not to mention the rest of the village. The Templar do not maintain a presence here beyond the one member of the Watch who is one. There will be no Templar resistance beyond that individual, if he is even on shift tonight. The Watch could be anywhere, so keep your eyes and ears open. They might not even be enough. They have the advantage of knowing the terrain and advanced training. You’ll have to think quickly if we come across them. Does everybody understand?” After a collective and terrified nod, Saul pointed to the door of the helicopter. “Then here we go. To the jeep.”
The helicopter landed well outside of town, as the noise of the thing would no doubt raise too much suspicion. The rescuers planned to drive up to the village’s outskirts and then make it the rest of the way on foot. That meant carrying Spectre back to the Jeep which was not ideal, but at least the man was small…
The drive was quiet; eerily so. When the Jeep pulled to a stop, it was kept running by Rain, in case a quick getaway was necessary. Jerome, Peter, Thomas, Flynn and Saul piled out of the van and they hiked the mile or so to the village with little occurrence. It wasn’t until the slipped into the village that things started to happen.
The town was deadly quiet. It was eerie just how silent a place could be when no one worked past dark and everything simply shut down. The men kept to the shadows, and Thomas felt those shadows were moving, though he kept his mouth shut. Even a whisper would shatter the silence here, something akin to shouting in the middle of church. He didn’t feel like focusing the attention on himself.
As the group continued on, sticking to alleyways and well-sheltered places, Thomas was sure he wasn’t hallucinating. The shadows werechanging. As they walked, a tall shadow cast by a dim street light seemed to elongate and then disappear entirely. Thomas blinked, but the group didn’t seem to notice. They carried on.
The centre of the village housed their greatest treasure. In the circular market area, Thomas turned a corner to crouch in the last shadow they would have for shelter. It was then he first caught sight of his husband, propped up on a cross which was, itself, propped up in a dias high above the centre of the market. The center of the village was lit up like a Sunday afternoon. Lights aimed at Spectre, serving to both block his view of the villagers, and to show him off to any who gathered to pray to him or seek comfort in his presence. He looked terrible. His skin had gone a horrible kind of gray, and for a moment Thomas panicked and thought his husband had died. If the pain had been too much, perhaps Spectre had simply let go. And then Spectre moved. The movement itself was almost imperceptible, but the look of anguish it caused to appear on the face of the man Thomas loved was obvious to every single man crouching there in the shadow of the wall, and they gave a collective wince of sympathy.
Thomas had to swallow his vocal reaction to the state his husband was being kept in, and he felt his heart rebel against his chest as he choked down swear words and sobs and a little bit of bile. His stomach twisted in anger, and he felt the calming hand of Peter on his back. Thomas knew Peter’s thoughts without having to hear them spoken.
‘I know it’s horrible, Thomas." Peter's voice, even when it was practically inaudible, stayed Thomas' rage. "We will have him back soon and then he will be safe. You have to stay calm until then."
Thomas turned to look at Peter, his face half-hidden in darkness, and Thomas nodded at him. Flynn looked like he was struggling with much the same feeling, though Jerome and Saul looked fairly neutral. Saul, because he was a seasoned rescuer who was adept at putting personal feelings behind him, and Jerome because he had no personal feelings for Spectre whatsoever. It helped Thomas regain his calm, even as his eyes travelled to Spectre’s wrists, nailed and barbwired and cut to ribbons. His ankles the same. His soiled clothes and hair. The guitar which had been cruelly nailed to him. Oh, someone would pay for this. For now, he just had to stop it.
Saul and Jerome did a visual sweep of the area and then they signaled to the others to that it was safe to approach the dias Spectre was propped up on. Thomas worried that they had not yet met this Night Watch, though he was far more concerned about Spectre than he was about the Watch. The group neared the dias and Thomas replaced his weapon on his belt, instead drawing out his metal cutters. He climbed right up onto the platform and he put his hand on his husband’s face while the others kept watch. No one noticed that Flynn had disappeared without a sound.
“Oh, Babe,” Thomas whispered. “Just you wait, okay, I’ll get you down.”
Consciousness was a fleeting thing for Spectre now, but awareness was a constant. He was always aware of the pain which seemed to be just like the Hellfire his father had described to him as a child. The barbed wire lashing his arms to the cross, the slowly rusting nails in his wrists and ankles. There was bound to be infection. The worst, however, were the nails through his chest and shoulder, pinning the guitar to his body. The neck was splintered, and most of the strings broken, but it hung there day and night to remind him when consciousness did return, just why he was here.
Awareness of the pain was Spectre's world now, interspersed with fitful almost-memories, dreamlike, sometimes nightmarish. He had lost track of time and space. It seemed like he had been here forever. Would be here forever.
Spectre’s eyelids fluttered but they didn’t open. He let out a little groan, his head moving slightly to the left in the direction of Thomas. He looked asleep even despite the look of pain he had just had when he moved, and Thomas was loathe to wake him. He had to, unfortunately. They couldn’t risk Spectre waking while they were taking him down, and making some kind of terrible noise. Thomas touched his husband's cheek, and he shuddered at how cold Spectre's wet skin was. God, how long had he been left in the rain...? “Babe, I’m here. Come on.” Thomas lifted Spectre’s head a little and he wondered if shaking his husband was a bad idea. It probably was. The need diminished however, when Spectre’s eyes fluttered again, this time reluctantly remaining open.
The sound of Thomas' voice awakened Spectre much more than anything else ever could, and consciousness and brought life rushing back. The first part of that oncoming train was the spike of pain suddenly made much more acute and real. It served to bring Spectre out of his nightmares and into the present which was undoubtedly worse than any nightmare could ever be because it was real. Thomas could see the pain which made its way into his husband’s expression, even as Spectre opened his mouth in wonder then, his eyes widening in disbelief and he whispered, "Thom's... you came..." His lips seemed to wanted to smile despite everything, but they didn't quite make it. Still, Spectre fought to lift his head towards Thomas to show that he was ready. That trust and hope were already flowing through him again, pulsing through his body, in his blood. And then he frowned as something clicked inside his muddled head. “You’re sick.” Thomas wasn't supposed to be here. Thomas could die. Spectre couldn't stand it if Thomas died again. Not again.
“Shhh. I’m here, Babe. And I’m okay. We have to be quiet.” They were risking enough just whispering. They needed to be careful. “I’m going to get you down, but it’s going to hurt… I’m sorry for that.”
Spectre, who hadn’t eaten since being taken weeks before, and had suffered a very great deal since then, was not strictly able to hold up his end of an intelligent conversation. He did, however, blink at his husband and then he said shakily, “hurts, Thom’s.” That had seemed important to get across.
“I know it hurts, Baby,” Thomas felt his voice waver, and he swallowed his emotion again. He signaled to Peter who climbed up on the platform with him. Thomas motioned to Peter to hold Spectre up, and Peter did so while Thomas did something he never thought he would ever do. "I'm so sorry..." He clamped his hands over the angel’s mouth so that his screams would be muffled, which shocked and scared Spectre. Spectre looked at his husband, his eyes showing his panic and disbelief and Thomas was sure Spectre felt Thomas and Peter were hallucinations now. Perhaps he thought they had been sent to torture him; who had sent them hardly mattering. “It’s okay, Honey, I promise,” Thomas whispered in panic and then Jerome climbed up beside the pair.
“Give me the cutters, Thomas. Unless you want to damage him further.”
Thomas nodded and he felt Peter take the wire cutters from his belt. Then Peter held Spectre up while Jerome went about first cutting the barbed wire away, and then pulling each rusted nail roughly out of Spectre’s broken body. Spectre couldn’t hold any sounds of pain back even if he was too weak to scream, but Thomas did his best to silence the sounds with his hands, an act he was clearly having issues with. His husband was in pain, screaming against his hands, and Thomas was both assisting in causing the pain and quelling Spectre’s understandable response. Thomas felt he was betraying his husband, but he continued doing it, even as Spectre’s eyes accused him of hurt and tears streamed down the angel’s face, matching the blood streaming from his reopening wounds.
The last nails, the ones attaching the guitar to Spectre, were the worst. When Jerome pulled those free, Spectre howled against Thomas’ hands, causing a terrible growling deep in his throat. The amount of pain caused him to vomit up bile, even though there was nothing in his stomach. Thomas’s hands blocked the vomit from escaping, and soon enough, Spectre was choking on it.
“Shit,” Thomas whispered, as Spectre’s eyes started to widen from suffocation now, instead of fear. Thomas dropped his hands and he moved to take Spectre out of Peter’s arms. “Peter, let go!” At the same time as Thomas moved to give his broken and now freed husband the Heimlich maneuver, Saul glanced worriedly up at the rest of them.
“Where is Flynn?” he whispered desperately. And how had he not noticed the man's absence before?
Peter jumped down from the dias and he drew his weapon the very second an arrow whizzed through the air, burying itself in his shoulder. His gun fell from his hands, clattering to the stone below with such noise it echoed off the stone buildings surrounding the town centre. And if that wasn't enough to wake up the entire town, the alarm that reverberated through the streets at that moment surely would.
Flynn emerged from the dark, a thin metal strand being held tightly around his throat by a black robed man, nearly strangling him. Another man was with them and he held a crossbow in his hands, aimed straight at Peter. “Put our angel down!” one of the Watch screamed in perfect English and then he turned the crossbow on Flynn.
Several things happened at once. Thomas managed to free Spectre’s airway, and though the angel gasped for breath, Thomas had heard one of his ribs snap, and he had felt it under his arms. Thomas had broken one of his husband's ribs. Thomas had injured someone he loved. Peter, despite his injured shoulder, dropped to the ground and retrieved his weapon, swung it around and sent two darts at the man who held Flynn. The darts lodged in the man’s neck and as he fell, Flynn grabbed the garotte and then he pushed himself forward, never hesitating to regain his composure. His momentum managed to knock the crossbow out of the second Watchman’s hands. The Watchman was only deterred for a moment, and he retaliated by slamming Flynn into the wall behind him, the garotte clattering to the ground. Flynn’s head cracked against the stone as Jerome shot another volley of darts into the second Watchmen.
Lights all around them started to flicker on in the windows of the village. The villagers were waking up and soon the rest of the Watch would be upon them. Saul grabbed Flynn and Thomas grabbed Spectre while Jerome helped Peter and collectively the group of them ran as quickly as they could towards the jeep, hoping they would reach it in time.
They were pursued the entire way. Arrows flew past them, one burying itself in Thomas' arm and another in Jerome's side. Thomas felt Spectre shaking in his arms the entire way. And still they ran. When they could, the rescuers who still had darts aimed them back at the mob of people on their tails, but they could only fell a few. The crowd was huge, though it's sheer size did slow it down. And that was the reason the men managed to make it to the jeep.
The jeep was waiting, running as it was supposed to be. The rescuers jumped in, and just as the villagers swarmed the jeep, Rain sped off, leaving them behind choking on exhaust. It wasn’t until they reached the helicopter and took off that any of them released the breath they had been holding since setting foot in the village. They were safe, though they did wonder what the repercussions would be.