Chapter Text
Taggart was a scary man when he smiled. And now, he was grinning down at Congressman Faraday.
“How many are you?” Taggart tapped his forehead gently. “We know what you are. We know where you’re from. And believe me, by the time I’m done with you, We’ll know everything else.”
Faraday flinched back into the specimen table when another one of his attackers surged forward.
“Have you come to harm us?” Fargo twitched, waving the gun unsteadily.
“What do you people want?” The Congressman's eyes flickered from one of his captors to another, looking for a flicker of compassion.
Deputy Lupo stepped closer. “We want answers.” She gestured up the stairs. “But first, tell your people to lay down their weapons.”
He struggled harder, trying desparately to wrench his wrists free. “I don’t have any people!”
They looked down at the man they had captured, and any other time they might have put it down to a trick of the light, but for a second his eyes seemed to glow.
“He’s right.” Taggart wondered casually over to his work surface. “He’s just the host. The creature is protected inside.”
Fargo lent close. “How do we get it out?” he whispered.
Taggart’s eyes glinted as steely as the blade of the circular saw he held up to the light. “We cut it out.”
He worked quickly, walking round so he was standing behind the congressman's head and holding down the saws trigger down. “Gag him.”
Deputy Lupo unclipped the strap from her MP4 and tied it round his head, pulling it tight so he couldn’t spit it out.
The blade cut through flesh and bone like it was meant to, slicing away the top of the congressman’s skull. Taggart slipped his hand under the mans neck and lifted, only for the loose section to fall away and skitter across the ground.
*****
Sheriff Carter Jogged round the little hut Taggart worked from and hoped to hell he wasn’t too late. He pressed the buzzer by the door and waited.
“Who is it?” Taggart’s voice crackled over the speakers.
They could see him, Carter knew. He looked up at the small camera, beseeching. “It’s Carter. I’m unarmed; open the door.”
“What is this in reference to?”
Jack groaned. “I know you have the congressman in there.”
The door opened inward and he was greeted by the barrel of a gun, Lupo’s sharp eyes regarding him from over the top.
“You alone?” She scanned the horizon behind him.
“Oh yeah.”
She scowled and started running her hands over him, brisk and military. Once she was satisfied, she nodded. “Come in.”
He stepped past her and started down the steps. “Jo, any minute this place is going to be swarmed by the oh my god…” He trailed to a stop as he took in the room. Fargo and Vincent were both armed, looking unnatural in their army getups, and Taggart, standing in the middle, grinning. He was still holding the circular saw, and blood was pooling at his feet.
Carter stepped forward in a daze. “What did you do?”
“It’s great, isn’t it?” Taggart said, looking like a child at Christmas. “They didn’t count on us, did they Carter?”
Jack edged closer, covering his mouth as he lent down to examine the wound. “Oh, god. What did you do?” In all his time as a Marshal, and then as a Sheriff, he’d never seen anything like it.
Then it twitched.
Carter leapt back, crashing into Taggart as the… thing slipped out of the Congressman’s head. The creature, some kind of snake with vicious looking mandibles and frills around it’s neck like a lizard. It reared up at him and squeaked.
Lupo swept in wearing a pair of animal wrangling gloves and grabbed the snake… thing by the neck.
“Fargo, get a jar!”
It took some flailing and faffing, but between the two of them Jo and Fargo managed to get the whatever it was stuffed into a mason jar.
Carter watched the creature squirm before slapping his head in realization. “Oh, god, the soldiers!” He took the stairs two at a time. “I need to go tell them about this before they come in and shoot us all.” He looked over the room again, searching for words, then sighed, waved at them like he was batting a fly, and left to try and figure out how the hell he was gonna explain this.