Title: Bloodlines
Author: Lona Jennings
Category: Action/adventure
Characters: Phileas, Jules, Rebecca, Passepartout, Count
Gregory and several of my own
Rating: PG-13. A few swear words. Not too good at deciding ratings.
Archive: DO NOT ARCHIVE or otherwise display on any Web page without author's express permission. Do not forward to any other news group or mailing list. May be redistributed to individual readers as long as Lona Jennings is acknowledged as author and nothing of value is exchanged.
Spoilers: Brief mentions of events from In the Beginning and Southern Comfort. Story is not episode related.
Crossovers: Sort of, with Ian Fleming's James Bond (not an obsession of mine, so I may be off on the references.)
Summary: Count Gregory meddles in our heroes' sex lives.
Jules/non-cast character romance. Implied Phileas/Rebecca attraction. Implied m/f sexual activity with non-cast character.

*.*.*

Miss Moneypenny sighed blissfully. M had once more summoned double oh seven. Soon James would breeze through her office, lightly kiss her cheek and hoax her about her love life. Or at least she hoped he would soon arrive at British Secret Service headquarters. One could never tell how long double oh seven might take to come in from the cold.

In the meantime, one of W's inspirations had landed on Miss Moneypenny's desk in the shape of a small oak chest full of yellowed papers and journals recounting a mission almost a century and a half in the past. W wanted to clear out Secret Service dead storage, but Service policy dictated nothing could be tossed. So hundreds of chests, boxes and tins of very early Service documents had to be entered on the computer and indexed. Every secretary in the building had received a share.

The handwritten pages in Miss Moneypenny's particular chest would all have to be keyboarded into the database. It would be slow. Just reading the faded copperplate script took a while. Fortunately, the mission her chest contained seemed anything but tedious. In addition to a miscellany of Service documents, the wooden box held the personal papers of two of the Service's earliest agents, Rebecca and Phileas Fogg. Hmm, not husband and wife, at least not at the time of this mission, but cousins and related to the Secret Service's founder, Sir Boniface Fogg.

The chest also contained journals captured from something called the League of Darkness (now if that didn't sound familiar -- some things never change), a small collection of stiffly posed ferrotypes and, of all things, an unpublished journal of Jules Verne.

Miss Moneypenny had already sorted the papers by date into some semblance of order. "Let's see," she asked herself, "what comes first?" Well, chronologically that must be the League of Darkness journal entry by the Doctor Garridan bloke. A ferrotype of the doctor showed an ordinary looking man, with an unlined face and either ash blond or white hair. He stood with a definite stoop. Despite the bland face, Miss Moneypenny decided after reading ahead a few paragraphs, Doctor Garridan must have been an unpleasant sort.

She began typing.

*.*.*

Ten years have I survived as Count Gregory's chief scientist. Freedom to execute my theories has been worth the steep price of this subservience. Respecting knowledge, I now discern more universal truths than recorded in all scientific journals ever written, and may freely use this knowledge to explore further. What more could a true scientific mind request?

Life is a survival from moment to moment under the best conditions. I but use the Count's victims for the highest purpose - acquisition of knowledge, of which our chief endeavor bodes fair to create a whole new field, the study of breeding human excellence. Eugenics, we call it.

Perfection has proved hard to come by, although our many failures serve a purpose and the quasi-humans are well suited to crash testing. The lesser animals we eat from time to time. The hominids are particularly tasty.

Three weeks ago I was the unfortunate who must needs inform Count Gregory his seed produced not viable results. "Mutants?" he thundered. "I father naught but imperfection?" I thought he surely would take my head.

"We need a less venerable bloodline than yours," I suggested. "Perhaps we could study your enemies through their progeny, discover the weaknesses of their breed and what turns it from your path of truth." I know this plan appealed, as the Count now holds it as his own. He selected two enemies for test subjects and is quite enthralled with procuring their offspring as his pets.

The addition of the selected bloodlines should significantly enhance our breeding, adding cunning in the one line and brilliance in the other. I only grieve Mabius Bonander heads the project in the field. He tries the Count's patience and mine as well. Today, Bonander reported on status. That fool cannot condense a thought to less than a dozen sentences and with the Count verbosity is not a virtue.

" . . . and so we feel we can apply the lemur studies to . . ." Bonander's voice monotonously droned.

The Count's arms flailed upon their poles. "Enough of that," he said. "Have you arranged the pairings I specified? Are the females in place and the bait set?"

"One inamorata has long been established in Paris, Count. The other soon joins her. Good Doctor Garridan here warrants no human male can resist their attractant musk. I confess my belle-soeur even attracts me, although I well know her witchy temper. And of course, the medication that ensures impregnation we've administered the required days. They should both take upon their first bedding. If I may say so, I'm sure . . ."

"No, fool, you may not say another word that does not answer my question!" Count Gregory warned him.

Bonander had the good sense to cringe and bowed several times as he continued. "Forgive me, master, I beg you. British agents captured our baited courier last night. It should ensure the interest of the Service. In Paris arrangements will be completed this day. We shall have the two human specimens bred and immured at the Auvergne propagation site by the end of the month."

I made bold to query Bonander, "What guarantees the assignment of the Foggs to pursue your clue?"

Bonander's lips pursed and his plump cheeks puffed out, "Never fear, Doctor Garridan, our double agent is well placed to create that necessity." Mabius and I do not get on well. I'm sure he names me "hunchback freak" behind my back. But I shall prevail in the end. After Bonander departed, the Count ordered five vials of morphine, one for each of his sections. Agitation had torn a few of his small repairs loose. He sometimes suffers such setbacks. Underlings that cause them shortly disappear.

*.*.*

"Oh no, a mole!" Miss Moneypenny said aloud. The dread of every Secret Service employee! She flipped rapidly through the other papers. No, none of the chest's documents revealed the mole's name. Shaking her head in disappointment, she returned the Garridan journal to the chest. Making a decision she began entering the next document.

*.*.*

(Note scribbled at top of sheet.) Captured communiqué, forwarded to Secret Service headquarters maximum speed.

Agent's cover note: Dispatch acquired Austria by agent Keelan Norward from suspected League of Darkness courier. Courier dead, Agent Norward minor wound.

Communique, League code #16 (Broken): Mendel heredity studies confirm ours. Bonander arrives Paris to arrange details of next stage. Auvergne preparation nears completion.

*.*.*

Miss Moneypenny smiled in anticipation. Next should be this entry from Phileas Fogg's private journal. (A very private journal, if Moneypenny was any judge, and she was!) His picture showed a lean, dark man whose intense, thickly lashed eyes seemed to scorn the camera, the cameraman and everything in the room. Even through the hundred and forty years that lay between them she could feel his sexual charisma. Rather reminded one of double oh seven, in a top hat, of course. It seemed unlikely, but yes maybe it was . . . Jules Verne's hero of Around the World in 80 Days come to life. Miss Moneypenny again began to type.

*.*.*

My heart still beats rapidly. When I awoke I could not breathe. A pale horse has coursed my dreams again, the third night in a row. The stallion galloped through the daylight dappled woods of Shillingworth Magna and then into smothering, everlasting night. Death rode bareback upon it, and darkest Hell followed close behind. Or so it felt. Something ill shortly visits me and mine.

Damn these prophetic dreams. If I tell Passepartout, he will think his master invades the morphine supply. And yesterday I could not tell Rebecca. She seemed perturbed enough just at my gruff manner and during our passage from England exercised a motherly role, not in lecture but in sidewise looks and tiny twitches of that strong mouth. I suppose I did appear sadly put together. The dreams have robbed me of much sleep. She would have likely theorized delirium tremens hallucinations, although the phantasy has not that feel.

My thoughts are fixed on Rebecca's latest tasking. Upon our Paris landfall yester eve, she asked my aid saying, "My plot needs a clever man fit for romance." I'm sure she truly needs me not, but once more with labor seeks to save me from my demons, and I consent to join because she asks. Fiends will chase whither I go, so let it be for her.

Her present mission seems more outré than most, something involving heredity or monsters, very will-o'-the-wisp. Why Rebecca always receives the phantastical assignments I can only attribute to Jonathan's dread of defeat. Rebecca seldom fails. I shall never forgive Father for promoting to power that file clerk Chatsworth, for I have no doubt the man will eventually get Rebecca killed. If she would but hear me on this and be on her guard, it would greatly ease my mind, but childish she labels my concerns. And at Chatsworth's instigation Rebecca has sworn me to damnable secrecy, supposedly to prevent enemy discovery. Chatsworth sees double agents behind every door save his own, the more fool he.

As my part in Rebecca's plan, I am to gain access to the Bonander household and eventually their estate in Auvergne, so tomorrow I have a baroness to romance. Fortunately there is no longer a husband, but from what I've heard of Cynara, I shall have sufficient challenge to require all my resources. The most enticing, lovely widow of the season, Monsieur Montrone named her last week. She has her choice of all Paris, as every man's heart swoons helpless at her feet. If I fix her interest, how long can I keep it?

In the meanwhile, Rebecca scouts Auvergne covertly, having taken the train today at noon. If there is trouble, only Passepartout shall watch my back. Despite the absurdity that often cloaks him, Jean is a good man, none better. He shall be more than enough, and after all, what harm can come from romance?

*.*.*

Apparently, I'm not the only one attracted to Phileas Fogg, Miss Moneypenny thought as she started another entry from a second League of Darkness journal, this one by a Baroness named Cynara Bonander.

*.*.*

Beautiful. Fogg is beautiful, a powerful stallion of a man, taunt with energy and passions that only the strongest hand shall control. Mabius told me to acquire his breeding, but nothing of his person. I feared he would be as my beau-frere, short, fat and a fool. But Fogg proved none of that. He measures a head taller than I, and a dark man, dark eyes, dark beard, dark soul. His presentation is the most fashionable, and his firm body fits ecstatically in my secret places.

He overwhelmed on first introduction. His smile melted this cold heart. The Russian Ambassador introduced him saying, "Baroness Bonander, I would like to present the chanciest man I know, Mr. Phileas Fogg." Looking down at me from his great height, Phileas's eyes locked mine. "Baroness," his voice hummed my title. Then he paid my fingertips attention of the most exquisite sort. Dropping my customary façade of cool reserve, I cried, "Oh, I have so longed to meet you! You possess that wondrous bateau de ciel we see so often over Paris, n'est pas?"

Since then Fogg believes he plies me for my secrets, and I make him pay with his body, a fair arrangement, pleasure for us both as the net result. I confess he has captured the brief remnant of my heart. Phileas is mine and I yield him to no other, until I am surely bred and we're compelled to put him down. And if that ill task must be done by me, I shall remember Fogg's life is worth the stability of the world.

I may already be gravid, as I have missed my time this month. As Mabius ordered I partake each day a medicine to guarantee this purpose and a fresh supply of that arrived yesterday when he delivered little Clarice.

Clarice, that is a pretty little problem. Mabius selected the little twit from his stable of nieces, probably for her air of virginity. Innocence for the innocent, Mabius said. A merry dance shall I perform to put her in Verne's path. And if she does not like him, it will be a chancy business. Even mesmerized, she is a willful little thing. Whatever I say, you may be sure she purposes something else. For example, I had to dissolve her fertility medication in this morning's tea. Mabius says she is already well primed with it, so perhaps that is good enough.

Last night Mabius mesmerized Clarice again and implanted certain key words I may use to unlock her will. "Verne is such a beauty," I say and then I may instruct her course. But Verne has yet to appear and I may not inquire as Fogg has not mentioned his name. I have asked Phileas to provide a suitable partner for Clarice at tonight's reception. Perhaps this will produce the elusive Verne.

I miss the services of my Phileas. I told him relatives visited, and he has stayed far back, sending only his manservant with brief notes. But tonight I see him and must soon begin to dress. The new blue gown, I think, and the blue diamonds. He shall compare me to the summer sky. Where is that scented water Mabius bids me wear for Fogg's delectation?

*.*.*

In her youth Miss Moneypenny had gone through a Jules Verne phase and had read every single one of his books still in print, so it was with some excitement that she began on her next selection, a portion of the Jules Verne journal. She thought, "No wonder Verne wrote such romantic stories! The man had the heart of a love poet!"

*.*.*

I am in love! I have met perfection and her name is Clarice. I believe I shall throw open the shutters of my humble garret and sing it out into the rouge and gold morning.

Ahh, that feels better.

Yesterday morn, Fogg sent Passepartout round to my garret with an invitation to partner him at a British embassy social evening for Monsieur de Lessup, the famous Suez Canal architect. Rebecca was away on an undercover mission, Jean explained and, "Master think you admire de Lessup, no?"

"So I would be unlikely to embarrass anyone?" I rejoined, but grinned. My maladroit social skills are often a great trial to Fogg.

"No, no," Passepartout answered, "master know this beautiful ladle, Baroness Bonander. She have niece. You and master square them, have good time."

And that we did. Baroness Cynara Bonander has the look of all Fogg's light-of-loves, that is, tall and slender with dark eyes and hair. Fogg paid particular attention to her every word at the de Lessup gathering. He imagines himself in love again, I'm sure. I cannot say I liked the Baroness over much, as when I made my bow to her, she turned to Clarice and said, "That Verne, he is such a beauty. Spend your evening with him, Clarice. You will be rewarded." It seemed overly familiar. I smiled and bowed again to cover my confusion.

But the niece, Miss Clarice Bonander, that beautiful, petite creature. I swear when we first met, she gasped and trembled. I myself forgot to breathe. And when our hands touched, we seemed two sundered halves, re-embodied. The source of this magic I analyze not. It is too sweet.

As to her person, Clarice has the same Titian hair as Rebecca, and much of that same vigorous self-reliance, but with a less boisterous air. She possesses a brilliant mind. We enjoyed a lively discussion on the scientific subject of geology, in which she is a scholar. And like me, she is an ardent admirer of de Lessup. Unfortunately the great man failed to attend the reception, although we waited late for him to appear.

At a very late hour the four of us left the party and retired to the Aurora for a promised "grand tour." There Clarice's discomfiture at being in a single man's private abode could easily be read. After a brief visit to each of Aurora's cabins, except that of sleeping Passepartout, we arrived in the salon. Cynara's manner with Fogg became more intimate, and he addressed me while looking deeply into the Baroness's eyes. "Verne," he said, "Cynara and I plan to take the Aurora up at sunrise. I'm sure Miss Clarice would appreciate your protection on the way home. Do you mind?" Really, the man can be quite insensitive. He plainly wanted solitude with his paramour. However, since we two young people were decidedly de trop, I agreed to this graceless plan; and offering Miss Clarice my arm, departed.

I lit the interior lamp of the Baroness's plush carriage in deference to the awkwardness of our circumstance, and as the coachman whipped up his horses, Miss Clarice broke silence, "Mr. Verne, I fear what you will conceive of me and my family. My Aunt Cynara is a Bonander by marriage. I have been sent to Paris for my debut this season, such as it may be, and Uncle Mabius requires her to tolerate me to retain the townhouse."

"No, Miss Bonander. I must apologize for Mr. Fogg. He's seldom so cavalier to beautiful ladies such as yourself." I lied regarding Fogg's behavior, of course, although not egregiously. Generally, he pays scant heed to others.

"Why, Mr. Verne, what a lovely compliment," Miss Clarice smiled, "but when I look in a mirror, I am aware I am not beautiful. I possess the Bonander family curse of red hair, you see."

"I disagree, mademoiselle," I said. "I have spent many hours in the Louvre before my favorite Titian painting, the Woman with a Mirror. You could be her sister. The same hair, the same sweet face. I have long been in love with her." As I am not usually eloquent with ladies, I attribute last night's fluency to an excess of champagne.

I captured Clarice's hand and boldly kissed it, one finger at a time as I have seen Fogg do. Clarice turned to me and searched my face. The flame of the carriage lamp flickered in her eyes and highlighted her ringletted hair. Many reflected sparks of fire drew me to her, and I gently touched a curl that lay against her soft shoulder. Our lips came together and she did not pull away. For a long moment my tongue savored her inimitable female flavor then the carriage jolted on a high cobble and I awoke to what I did. Instantly I sprang away. We both breathed quickly. But after a few moments my courage revived. My hand stole out and once more took hers. "Coachman! Coachman!" I shouted. "Take us by the Seine." There we considered the shimmer of the full moon upon the water and the mysteries of each other until the stars began to fade and I took her home.

I know not what Clarice thinks of me, but I remain in love. At last in Paris, the city of love, I love.