Chapter Text
“How much longer?” demanded the man as he stepped onto the bridge, the darkness from beneath the ice concealing everything from view beyond the ship’s hull. The lamps inside the room illuminated the space perfectly for anyone to see, Quatermain included. Nemo turned to him. He had been wondering when the man would reach the end of his tether.
“We are approaching our destination, but the ice is thick. We must find a suitable point for the tower to break through if we are to disembark. Have patience.”
“I’ve had enough of patience,” Quatermain growled irritably, fussing around in the general area of the maps that had plotted out their course. Nemo watched the man carefully.
“Skinner would have contacted us had anything changed, Mr. Quatermain. Our enemy is not going anywhere without us knowing.”
Quatermain’s wise eyes rose, a dark glint in them that made the captain rethink his momentary optimism. “And what if something’s happened to Skinner, ‘eh?”
Nemo had to admit – at least to himself – that he had failed to consider this prospect; a very ominous one indeed. What if, as Quatermain suggested, something had happened to the thief? They would be none the wiser is the Fantom had left Mongolia. They would lose him.
They could not let this happen. To lose their quarry would be to condemn the world to war. Millions would perish, and Nemo would not allow that.
To his crew he ordered in his native tongue that they make haste, and then he looked to Quatermain, bowing his head halfway to communicate that he was right. The hunter nodded thankfully, and once again took his leave.
Allan put one of his hands in his pocket as he walked away from the bridge, not liking having nothing to do but wait: it made him feel useless and small and he had always hated that feeling. He despised feeling powerless.
He needed to be occupied, keep himself busy. He couldn’t look over the papers anymore, having already stared at them for the last three hours, and he couldn’t go up to practise with Matilda. They were below the water, under several feet of ice, or so he had been told. To surface now would be impossible, he knew.
He didn’t have science or medicine to occupy his time, such as with Mrs. Harker or Doctor Jekyll, and he was not responsible for the running of the Nautilus, as with Nemo. He was wandering, aimlessly, and he was going more than a little stir crazy. The more he let his mind roam, the more he thought about Sawyer. And Harry.
Grumbling under his breath, he found himself entering the room where he and Mrs. Harker had set up the small memorial and stood regarding it. The candle was nearly burned right down and he furrowed his brow. It had been burning for a while; he was impressed it hadn’t gone out already. The Winchester stood, untouched, at Kali’s feet, just as he had left it.
Allan would avenge his death: he had promised that to himself from the moment Mrs. Harker had given him that rifle at the site of the crash. Though the Fantom hadn’t been directly responsible, he had been the cause for the daredevil mission in the first place. If it hadn’t been for him, Sawyer never would have had to step foot in that infernal automobile. So it was that Allan blamed their villain. And himself. As was the way of things, heroes died and the villain was to blame, without fail. And yet it was never that simple, never that black and white. There was enough blame for some to be spared and laid at his own feet.
Sighing, Allan stared down at the flickering flame.
They were going to need a new candle.
“Why?” Dorian repeated.
“Why?” Sawyer growled, giving another tug on his left wrist, anger in his eyes at the fact that the chain and the manacle holding him back showed no signs of giving to his feeble attempts. “We trusted you!”
Dorian stared down at the chained boy, cocked his head just slightly, and revealed, “Then you’re all fools.”
With one last thrash against his restraints Sawyer exhausted himself, and with agony clear on his face he bowed his head to the ground, touching it down lightly so that his messy hair toppled around his face to conceal it from view. He panted, shown clearly by the exaggerated movements of his back and sides. Clearly he was in pain.
Of course this was no surprise to Dorian, who had watched Dante amuse himself by tormenting the spy with that blade of his. As he stood he took his eyes away from the suffering form and meticulously removed his sword from its cane-scabbard. He admired it in the light, turning it this way and that, before twirling it nonchalantly around his wrist, even as Sawyer propped himself back up against the wall, an irritating fire still evident in those somewhat clouded eyes. He was still fighting; Dorian had expected there to be less resistance now.
“Why don’t you use it, Gray?”
Dorian looked down on him with a quirked brow and huffed quietly. “Don’t tempt me.”
“I know you want to. You never did take kindly to my joining the League. Now I know why.” Sawyer shook his head, as if realising things. “I was a loose end, one that you didn’t plan on having to deal with. That’s what made you say you’d join so quickly: you were worried I’d mess things up for you.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, boy,” Dorian drawled, rolling his eyes. The American really was rather arrogant if he thought the immortal had ever been at all worried about his inclusion in matters. It had just taken a slight rearrangement of things, that was all. “You were never any real concern. If you had come too close to anything – something I doubt; you were all so clueless – I would have simply killed you and blamed the thief.”
Sawyer’s glare was not lost on Dorian, who smiled.
“I do wonder what became of him though,” he admitted curiously. “He simply vanished. Though I suppose it is quite possible that the combination of that serum and his fear of being caught could have driven him over the edge. Perhaps he tossed himself off the tower.” The thought made the immortal laugh quietly to himself as he eyed the blade of his delicate but deadly sword. “A shame: it would have been most satisfying to run him through for myself.”
“You’re a sick son of a bitch, Gray.”
“I know that, thank you,” he agreed with a subtle shrug of his shoulders, looking down at the captive American with a degree of contempt in his eyes. “But what you have to remember is… I’m not the one chained to the wall now, am I?” He had crouched as he’d said this, staring the boy in the eyes intently. A cruel smile tugged at his lips as he held that defiant gaze, right up until the moment Sawyer spat in his face.
With a sigh Dorian pulled the handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his face with it, looking to Sawyer almost in disappointment. “Americans really are quite crude, aren’t they?”
In a flash the blade of his sword was at Sawyer’s throat, pressing his head back against the wall forcefully lest it cut him. The spy closed his eyes but did not seem panicked by the threat at all. “It would be so easy,” he hissed at the boy, bringing his face just that little bit closer. He held himself perfectly still for a number of moments, hearing Sawyer’s ragged, almost struggled breathing, before he pulled away, removing his blade from its dangerous position. “Sadly… it would be too easy; there’s no challenge.”
Opening his eyes as Dorian stood, Sawyer scowled up at the immortal with disgust on his bloodied features. “Coward.”
With a growl of his own Dorian moved forward and lunged with the sword, blade aimed for Sawyer’s head or neck. He wasn’t surprised however when the spy ducked under the weapon with a gasp of alarm, barely missing the sharp edge by a hair’s breadth.
Dorian snatched down and grabbed a handful of blonde hair, saying sharply into the boy’s ear, “See? You do want to live.” Throwing the head down again, and standing, wiping his hand on his jacket laconically, he shook his head. “You really are quite pathetic, ‘Agent’ Sawyer. Honestly, what have you ever accomplished of merit in your short and insignificant lifetime? Hmm?” Taking up the scabbard from the ground Dorian quickly slipped the blade inside with only a whisper of metal as testament to its moving at all. “Apart from getting your partner killed, and yourself captured, that is.”
Sawyer stared up at Dorian hatefully but the immortal saw the signs in that beaten body that told him what effect his words had truly had. There was an unmistakable sag in the shoulders and a dimming in the eyes, which were somewhat moist with tears of either anger or pain. After a moment the spy’s head lowered once more.
“You’re brash, arrogant, stubborn and unwelcome, Sawyer… and that is why no one cares if you suffer. Remember that as they torture you to death, won’t you?”
With that, lifting his chin slightly with his small victory, Dorian turned on his heel and left the cell and the room beyond.
Practically collapsing against the wall, now more or less lying on his side after Dorian’s swipe at his head, Tom frowned miserably, wiping the back of one hand across his eyes angrily.
No. Don’t you dare think that bastard is right! You do that, and they’re one step closer to winning; one step closer to breaking you.
Sucking in a harsh breath Tom lowered himself to the ground, covering his head with one of his arms. After Dorian had forced him to move so suddenly to save his own neck he had started to ache fiercely and it was all he could do not to groan loudly in discomfort. He wanted to keep the sounds to himself. He didn’t want anyone to hear.
Where’s the League? he thought with a hidden frown. What’s taking them so long? He couldn’t remember how long he’d been here, in this place, but he knew it had to be over a day, at least. Two? More?
But what if M was right? What if they thought he was dead? He remembered Skinner telling him not to believe M for a second in what he claimed, but as much as he hated to admit it, he did have a point. What reason did they have to think him alive? He had crashed the automobile into that old theatre and only just managed to escape himself before it exploded. And then Dante had found him, knocked him out. The Winchester had probably been left behind, but who was to say it hadn’t been blown from the car in the explosion? Perhaps Dante had destroyed it.
Thoroughly dejected now, Tom slumped against the floor and wall, head covered to hide his misery, as the potential truth in M’s words hit home in their full harshness.
The League had to think he was dead.
Skinner knew there wasn’t much time left, and as such, he was taking another look around M’s vast fortress-turned-factory. It was gigantic, and it was all he could do not to sit down and take a break. But he was running on a tight schedule and he had to rendezvous with the League in the morning if they were to keep to their arrangement that he’d laid out over a Morse message.
He was staring out over the dry-dock, shaking his head back and forth as a conning tower was winched high across the room, destined for being grafted to one of the shells of the recreated Nautilus. Or rather, Nautiloi. There were eight under construction at the moment, from what he could see, but he knew there would be more to come. Glancing over his shoulder to the secondary factory floor, he gave an involuntary shudder at the armour casings that would house soldiers in the war to come, or rather, the war that M hoped would come. They had an assortment of attachments, from Gatling guns to flame-propelling arms. Pulling a face he looked back to the dry-dock one last time before rising to his feet. He had been crouched so far, though he wasn’t sure why. Skinner could very well have simply stood there and waved his arms back and forth and no one would have seen him.
Eva had offered him some of her rations when he’d followed her back to her room, just to memorise where it was. He had declined, having – in the past – learned the hard way that it was best to eat when one knew nothing was on the agenda for a few hours at least; it took food a while to digest enough to disappear within his frame. Food and drink could be seen on the way down, and once he had been spotted simply by resembling a floating mash of consumed matter. He had told himself never to do that again. That probably explained why he was so thin.
Turning back on himself he jogged between the lines of empty armour cases, feeling slightly nervous around them regardless of the fact that there was no one inside. He felt like they were watching him all the same.
After observing the main factory floor for a few minutes from up above he endeavoured to head down to that level. Carefully, he found the steps and descended them, padding softly on bare feet lest he make too much noise as they slapped against the cold stone. Hard, harsh surfaces underfoot barely fazed him anymore but more than once he’d stepped on sharp objects. If the scars on his feet could be seen it would be testament to that; all part of the bane of being an invisible man: it required nudity to really have any effect.
Pacing cautiously down between the double line of heavy-duty ‘tanks’ – as he had heard someone call them in passing – Skinner kept silent, but shocked nevertheless. To set these loose on any country would be to spell their doom, regardless of their own army. A fleet of Nautiloi; ranks of armoured, armed men; a convoy of tanks… it was madness: pure unadulterated evil.
Beyond the tanks were the furnaces, down below, with a drop that would surely kill any man unlucky enough to fall or be thrown. If the landing didn’t kill them, having the misfortune of a poor aim and hitting the furnace innards themselves certainly would. They were glowing white hot with molten metal to be shaped for building M’s weapons of destruction.
Furrowing his brow he realised just how much damage explosives would make if placed near the vats. Quite a bang, in fact. Quite a big bang, at that. He made a mental note to suggest this to the others when they rendezvoused.
It was getting late. He’d promised to return to Eva to perhaps go with her to see Tom if it was what M ordered. Maybe he’d accompany her to the bastard’s room. He might be able to save her from having to ‘entertain’ him again. He’d try at least, so long as it didn’t mean his getting caught; he’d promised Eva he would be careful, and he would.
So it was that he retraced his steps, working his way back to Eva’s drab room on the other side of the fortress.
Though she was worried, Eva trusted Rodney Skinner not to get himself into too much trouble. He had made a promise to her in the corridor earlier and she believed he would keep to it so long as he could.
She was waiting for the Professor to call for her again. It was getting close to the time when he would. Not that she was eager to be near him again, the vile creature that he was. She didn’t know who she despised more: the Professor or his hideous lieutenant, who seemed to take so much joy in causing others physical harm. The rather strange Mr. Reed had vanished; she had not seen him in some time. And as for the mysterious Mr. Gray? She shuddered. He unnerved her in a way she could not understand. She simply did her best to keep from having to go near any of them.
Looking to her small clock, she frowned.
Skinner certainly was taking his time.