Chapter 82: The Beast in the Robes

The Bishop—or the thing that used to be the Bishop—lunged.

He moved with terrifying speed for a creature of that size. His grey, stone-like fist smashed into the pillar where Jackson had been standing a millisecond ago.

CRACK!

The marble pillar shattered like glass. Dust rained down.

Jackson rolled across the floor, coming up to a kneeling position. He double-tapped the trigger.

Bang! Bang!

Two bullets struck Lazarus squarely in the chest. They sparked against his hardened skin and fell to the floor, flattened and useless.

"Is that all you have, Prince?" Lazarus roared, his voice distorted and guttural. "Your lead toys cannot hurt a god!"

He swung his massive arm, backhanding a heavy laboratory table aside as if it were made of cardboard. It flew across the room and crashed into the wall, narrowly missing Serenity.

"Serenity, get to the exit!" Jackson yelled, reloading his magazine. "Sebastian, cover her!"

"I'm not leaving you!" Serenity shouted back, gripping her own pistol. She fired at the Bishop, but her bullets were just annoyances to him.

Luke tried to flank the beast with his assault rifle. "Eat this, you ugly—"

Lazarus spun around and grabbed Luke by the throat. He lifted the grown man into the air with one hand.

"Insects," Lazarus sneered. He prepared to crush Luke's windpipe.

"HEY!" Jackson screamed, grabbing a heavy chemical canister from a shelf and hurling it at the Bishop's head.

The canister exploded on impact, covering Lazarus in white powder.

It distracted him. Lazarus dropped Luke and turned his rage back to Jackson. His eyes were glowing a sickening neon green. His skin was steaming.

"Dad! Listen to me!" Alex’s voice crackled frantically in Jackson’s earpiece. "I’m reading his vitals through the lab sensors! He is overheating!"

"Tell me something I don't know!" Jackson ducked under a swinging claw that could have decapitated him.

"No, I mean literally!" Alex shouted. "The serum increases metabolic rate by 1000%. His internal temperature is over 200 degrees Fahrenheit. He needs to cool down, or he burns up!"

"He's a walking furnace," Margaret’s voice chimed in. "Jackson! Thermal shock! Use the coolant!"

Jackson scanned the room frantically while dodging another lethal blow.

His eyes locked onto the large pipes running along the ceiling. They were marked with blue warning stripes: LIQUID NITROGEN - CRYOGENIC SUPPLY.

It was the cooling system for the failed incubators.

Jackson smiled grimly. "Time to cool off, Bishop."

Lazarus charged again, like a bull seeing red.

"Die, Sterling!"

Jackson stood his ground. He didn't run. He aimed his gun not at the monster, but at the ceiling directly above him.

"You preach about hell," Jackson whispered. "But let me show you what winter feels like."

He pulled the trigger.

Ping!

The bullet pierced the main pressure valve of the liquid nitrogen pipe.

HISSSSSS!

A jet of freezing white mist exploded downwards at immense pressure. It hit Lazarus dead on.

"ARRRGH!"

The Bishop screamed—not in anger, but in agony.

The -200 degree liquid nitrogen hit his super-heated skin. The physical reaction was immediate and catastrophic. The rapid cooling caused his hardened skin to crack and shatter like porcelain.

His movements slowed. The green light in his eyes flickered.

"Cold... so cold..." Lazarus stumbled, his legs turning into ice statues.

He froze in mid-step, his arm reached out in a final attempt to grab Jackson. Frost covered his entire body, encasing him in a prison of ice.

The lab fell silent, save for the hissing of the leaking pipe.

Jackson stepped back, shivering from the residual cold. He checked on Luke, who was gasping for air on the floor.

"Everyone okay?" Jackson asked, panting.

Serenity ran to him, checking him for broken bones. "You... you crazy man. You blew up the ceiling."

"Science," Jackson smirked, winking at the security camera where Alex was watching. "It beats brute force every time."

He walked up to the frozen statue of the Bishop. He looked closer.

In the Bishop's frozen hand, clutching a rosary, there was something else. A small, black data drive.

Jackson pried it loose from the ice fingers.

"He was trying to protect this," Jackson examined the drive. "Whatever is on here... it's the next clue."

"Or a trap," Sebastian warned.

"Let's get out of here," Jackson put the drive in his pocket. "This place is a graveyard."

They climbed out of the crypts, leaving the frozen monster in the dark.

But as they walked into the cool night air of the city square, Jackson’s phone buzzed.

He didn't need to look. He knew.

The drive he just took? It just sent a signal.

He didn't catch the Bishop.
The Bishop was just the delivery boy.

The package had been delivered. And the Master was watching.