Harem Apocalypse: My Seed is the Cure?!

I gasped for breath as I stared at Maribel.

She had just shot the man who had been about to put a bullet in my head.

The Time Freeze had finally recovered. I had felt it there, ready beneath the tattoo on my hand, but I was grateful I had not needed to use it. Every time I did, it took too much out of me afterward. More than I wanted anyone to notice.

"Thanks," I managed, my voice hoarse.

Then I covered my mouth as a cough tore through me.

When I pulled my hand away, blood covered my palm.

My vision blurred around the edges for a second.

I closed my hand hard.

What was the point of having all these powers if I could barely use them without wrecking myself afterward?

I was bonded with a Symbiote. Dullahan was powerful, probably far more powerful than I even understood yet, but my body was still human beneath all of it. Enhanced, sure. Stronger, faster, tougher than before.

Still human.

Maybe it simply was not enough to carry something like Dullahan properly.

No.

I shook my head, forcing the thought away.

I had just fought two Hybrids. I had taken hits that would have killed a normal person. I had pushed the wind blades over and over until my right arm had nearly stopped responding. Of course I was strained. Of course my body was punishing me now.

That did not make the frustration disappear.

Starakians could create Hybrids whenever they wanted. Zakthar had said his people had conquered worlds before, and now I had seen why. One of those things was already bad enough. Ten of them sent into a place like this could tear through all of us. An army of them instead of ordinary Infected—

The thought put a chill through me despite the blood and sweat soaking my clothes.

Time Freeze would not be enough against that.

"You’re bleeding."

Maribel’s voice cut through the spiral.

"Yeah," I said, looking down at the dead Hybrid in the crater. "I had a rough encounter."

Maribel followed my gaze.

Her expression tightened at the sight of it. The thing’s body was crushed into the pavement, head severed, dark blood spreading through the broken ground around it. Nobody looking at that corpse would mistake it for an ordinary Infected.

"The fight doesn’t sound over," I said.

Gunfire was still breaking through the night from the front of the hotel. Short bursts. Longer exchanges. Men shouting over each other.

"We’re ending it," Maribel replied. She turned toward the building and started moving. "We already pushed inside. Now we clean the place out."

I dragged in another breath and followed.

We circled around the hotel at a fast pace, keeping close to the walls where the darkness gave us some cover. Bodies were scattered across the grounds. Some wore Callighan’s gear. Some wore Marlon’s colors. Others were Infected, lying in twisted heaps near shattered windows, cars, and overturned barricades.

I recognized a few faces among Marlon’s people.

I did not stop.

There was nothing I could do for them while bullets were still flying.

The closer we got to the main entrance, the louder the fight became.

"Get them back!"

"Move, move!"

"Cover the door!"

A group of Marlon’s men were dragging wounded fighters away from the entrance. Five of them, maybe more. One man clutched his stomach while blood spilled between his fingers. Another had been shot in the shoulder and was barely conscious as two people hauled him back. A third was pressed against the side of a car while someone wrapped cloth around his thigh with shaking hands.

It was ugly.

But it was coordinated.

Marlon had people covering the injured, pulling them away before they got left in the open. Others stepped into their place immediately, firing from behind vehicles, broken planters, and chunks of fallen concrete. Nobody was standing around screaming uselessly. They were scared, obviously, but they were still moving.

I spotted a rifle lying beside one of the fallen men and picked it up as we passed.

Maribel glanced at me once, saw I could still hold it, and kept going.

We crossed the entrance and entered the hotel.

The lobby looked like hell.

Furniture had been ripped apart and piled into makeshift cover. Sofas were overturned. Tables lay split down the middle. Bullet holes covered the walls in clusters, tearing through decorative panels and throwing white dust from the concrete beneath. The air was thick with smoke, plaster, burnt powder, and the sharp metallic smell of blood.

Gunfire erupted from deeper inside.

Rounds snapped through the lobby and struck a pillar near us, chipping stone across the floor.

Maribel and I slowed at once.

Near the center of the lobby, Marlon was crouched behind a thick pillar with several of his men. Others hid behind overturned furniture and broken counters, firing toward the far side of the room whenever they got an opening.

Marlon looked over when he heard us approach.

His eyes landed on me, covered in blood, limping slightly, rifle in hand.

Then he looked at me.

"Boy," he called, keeping his voice low enough to avoid drawing fire. "You look like shit."

A burst of gunfire answered from the far end of the lobby.

Marlon leaned out, fired twice, and ducked back behind the pillar.

"Callighan’s remaining men are dug in around the reception hall," he said. "They’ve got the upper angles and they’re not giving us a clean push."

Another bullet punched into the pillar beside his head.

He glanced toward the wounded near the entrance, then back toward the enemy position.

"We need to break their line before they start picking off more of my people."

I tightened my grip on the rifle and looked toward the wrecked reception hall, where muzzle flashes kept flickering through dust and broken furniture.

I quickly joined the others, dropping behind an old arcade machine near the edge of the lobby. Its glass front was already cracked and its painted sides were chipped from gunfire, but it was solid enough to hide behind for the moment.

Maribel slid behind another machine a few feet away and checked her rifle.

"How many are left?" I asked.

"Most of them ran," Marlon replied from behind the thick pillar near the center of the lobby. "Maybe ten still inside. They’re trapped. We’ve surrounded the hotel, and they know it. But they won’t go down without making us work for it."

"How brave," Rico snorted from behind a toppled reception desk.

He leaned out, fired a short burst, and ducked as return fire chewed into the wall where his head had been.

"Right," Molly said with a dry laugh from behind another pillar. "I’m almost crying for them."

As expected, Rico, Molly, and Marlon were carrying most of the group. Rico kept shifting positions whenever the shots gave him an opening. Molly was calm behind her cover, firing only when she had a proper target. Marlon moved between directing the others and taking shots himself, never exposing more of his body than necessary.

"There are another three or four bastards above us," Marlon added. "Don’t step into the open like an idiot. They’ve got the second-floor balcony covered. First head they see, they’ll put a bullet through it."

I looked up.

The reception hall was large, with the ruined lobby acting as the near side of it. The men directly ahead had dug in at the far end behind the reception counters and broken furniture. If we could close the distance, we would have better angles to take them out.

But the balcony above us made that almost impossible.

Anyone moving too far out from cover would leave the protection of the lobby ceiling and step into open sight from the floor above. The gunmen there had the perfect high ground. That was why Marlon’s people were stuck trading shots from a distance instead of rushing the reception line.

The enemy could not push toward us without getting caught in our fire.

We could not push toward them without getting shot from above.

"I sent people around through another entrance," Marlon said. "They’ll get behind them eventually, but it’ll take time. Until then, we wait."

"So they really are the last ones?" I asked.

Marlon looked over at me.

"Yeah, brat." A rough smile crossed his face. "After this, the hotel is ours."

I looked at the far end of the hall again.

At the muzzle flashes.

At the balcony above.

At the men who thought the angle kept them safe.

Then I rose from behind the arcade machine and brought the rifle up.

"W...What are you doing?" Maribel asked sharply from beside me.

I did not answer.

I broke into a run.

"Hey!" Marlon shouted.

I ignored him.

The moment I entered the open, the men at the far end saw me. Rifles came up behind the reception desk. Above, shapes moved along the balcony rail, preparing to fire down.

I activated Time Freeze.

Everything stopped.

The muzzle flashes froze before they could bloom. Dust hung motionless above the carpet. A man on the balcony stood with his rifle halfway raised, his face still tightening into the expression he had made when he saw me leave cover.

Ten seconds.

I ran across the open hall, passing the men directly ahead without wasting time on them. They were pinned behind cover and would still be there when time resumed.

The balcony shooters mattered first.

I reached the side staircase, took the steps quickly, and climbed just high enough to get the angle I needed. From there, I could see five men positioned along the upper floor.

They had been set up perfectly.

One watched the main entrance. One had the pillar line covered. Two were angled toward the open center of the lobby. The last stood farther back, probably watching the stairs and the opposite hallway.

All of them had been waiting for Marlon’s people to make the wrong move.

I raised the rifle.

The first shot hit the closest man in the forehead.

The sound was strange in frozen time, too sharp, too loud, as if the silence had nowhere else for it to go. His head snapped back, blood and fragments suspended around him.

I moved to the next target.

Second shot.

Third.

Fourth.

Fifth.

Each man dropped before he understood I was there.

The countdown reached its end.

Time resumed.

Five bodies collapsed at once along the balcony above.