CHAPTER 3: To See Her Suffer.
By ElementsOfSapphire
DISCLAIMER/Please Note: This/these stories are all purely for fan-fun purposes only; no copyright infringement intended. I own none of the rights relating to either The Avengers, nor The New Avengers; none of the characters, sets, the lot. I'm awfully sorry if posting such stories relating to the show is not allowed or is unwanted. In which case, please accept my every apology and inform me so I can take them down. Once again, I'm just a teen fan that wants to get their work shown and evaluated, so please tell me if its is wished for my story/stories to be taken down- or even my entire username. Thank you :)
"Purdey, Purdey, Purdey, Purdey, Purdey, Purdey, Pu-"
"WHAT?" hollered a tired, aggravated woman. It wasn't so much that Mike had broken in to her flat that had annoyed her so, nor was it because he wandered into her bedroom and pushed her off the bed. It wasn't even the fact that he had then proceeded to poke her repeatedly in the arm in order to gain her attention. It was simply the fact that he had decided to do all this at three o'clock in the morning. And on a Sunday, too. Gambit bent down beside her, slotting a small box into her purse as he did. Now probably wasn't the time to be thinking of birthday thank-yous, but he knew he should probably do something whilst he remembered...
"Purdey, are you awake?" he inquired rather desperately, leaning over to look at her face. She snarled as he came into focus, pulling up the duvet from the bed to cover herself once again.
"No, I'm fast asleep. Go away, Mike," she lied, shutting her eyes together so tight that even super glue would have been less useful.
"Purdey-girl, this is serious. Look!"
Mike pulled one of the small bottles Purdey had seen the previous day from his trouser pocket, shaking it urgently in her face. His unsteady movement not only made the poor woman dizzy, but also made the label completely illegible to his comrade.
"What does it say?" she yawned lazily, still not as interested as she probably should have been.
"Lead hydroxide!"
"Lead what? Where did you get it from, Gambit?"
"Lead hydroxide! I found it in Trisha's flat about an hour ago," he began. Purdey, interest piqued, pulled herself upright into a sitting position beside Mike. "Remember that nurse, and the way she just kept hovering about? I knew something wasn't quite right the second you left the hospital last night. As soon as you were gone, she quit fluttering around us. It was as though she had everything she needed. I went to Trisha's flat this morning to warn her that some strange things are going on, and she wasn't in again. These are lead, Purdey! Steed was poisoned with lead! And why did the nurse always stand so that we couldn't watch her draw Steed's blood? Because she was injecting him with the colourless lead solution first, then using the same syringe to take his blood."
"So he couldn't speak, but we'd stay on and discuss things between us," Purdey finished. What a truly despicable plan! She hoped for Steed's sake that they were missing something, that the nurse was truly just being diligent, but the plot made so much sense. There was only one question: "Why do they want to kill him, Mike?"
"I think you hit the nail on the head last night, Purdey-girl. 'Why would they get in a first year?'... Why indeed? Let's say you have a nurse and a first year... you kill off a senior, people are going to have to move up, aren't they. What if Trisha was promoted to our position, and we're moved up to Steed's?"
"Then we could be conveniently killed off and they would have high-ranking agents in the Ministry."
"Precisely, and what would be a better way to prove your worth than during an assignment involving national security?"
Purdey could feel her blood running cold as the ominous prospect lingered in her mind. How clever of them to use Trisha, the one woman the Ministry would be most likely to trust, knowing that THE John Steed had trusted her. Steed's judgement was considered to be one of the best, if not the best in the business, and no one would take it lightly. Using her would be the key to the conspirators working up the ladder, until they found a way to succeed both her AND Mike. It would be difficult to convince others of Trisha's involvement. How would anything Gambit or Purdey could say or do be worth more than what the legendary Steed had left behind? It was best for them to sort out the issues themselves, before Trisha and her co-conspirators took them out long before the job did.
"What are we going to do, Gambit?" she questioned, linking his arm in hers. Mike seemed to be glaring into the distance, his concentration focused upon a sweet photo Purdey had on one of her cream side boards. The picture was of the trio, Purdey and Mike arm in arm with a rather gentlemanly Steed leaning lightly upon his umbrella to the other side of the frame. No one takes our comrade, our tutor. No one is going to take our friend.
"We," he announced, his gaze unwavering, "are going to find, and save, Steed."
VVVV
"Hello, nurse. And how's the patient?" Mike inquired, following the woman hastily along the corridor to Kendrick's surgery, Purdey following inches behind.
"He's, um... bearing up very well thank you," the woman lied, keeping her head held low and her paces large and prompt.
"We'd like to check on him, please?"
"That's forbidden until Dr. Kendrick gets here."
"You're about to do another blood test. Why don't we come and watch?" The woman didn't answer. She simply kept her attention on the clipboard in front of her, pretending to be busy as she continued to rush along. "No? Purdey, it looks like we'll have to make our own way in."
Mike instinctively lunged forward, Purdey in hot pursuit. His foot sliced the air like a knife to water and seemed to be in line directly for the nurse's skull, a clean knock out. However, this woman was well trained, and hence ducked in a timely fashion, swirling around and dragging her fountain pen along Mike's arm. He cried in agony, falling to the floor, his leg still pointing out in a vain attempt to trip the woman. Purdey eyed her with sincere hatred, glaring with poisonous intent. First she'd hurt Steed, then Mike Gambit; now, she would pay. She ran forward, blocking a blow to her face with raised arms as the nurse grabbed a chair sitting in the corridor and swung it at her head. Panache training proved to be useful as Purdey jumped extraordinarily high into the air, her foot following the nurse's head to the floor as she fell. The chair had indeed hurt her arm, but the pain Purdey suffered was none to what the nurse felt.
"Nothing," Purdey spat toward the nurse, "Is forbidden to me."
Kendrick wandered from the safety of surgery, clearly drawn by the noise in the corridor. He regarded the couple sitting on the floor; one with a significant cut, the other what appeared to be a nicely bruising arm. They were lucky that he was on an early shift that morning compared to his usual six o'clock start. The doctor was able to bandage them up with sincere care, sending them home with the promise that he would indeed look after Steed until their return. He saw to the nurse being escorted far from the scene and to questionings with help from McKay, biding a rather nervous-to-know-what-was-happening pair away and to their beds. Kendrick was a good man, a true good egg, unlikely to be working with Trisha or the nurse, and the pair knew that they could trust him to look out for Steed's welfare in the interim.
But it doesn't matter how good an egg any doctor is, not if he needs to nip out for fresh supplies, and all of Kendrick's syringes were in a cupboard in the next room. He knew he wouldn't be long, a few minutes at the most, but if he was going to properly care for Steed, it was vital that he had the correct equipment. And what if the others on the ward were as corrupt as the previous nurse he'd encountered? What if there was more than just her after Steed? No, sending anyone else would be foolish. He wouldn't be long, anyway.
"I'll be two minutes, Steed. Just fetching some new needles from the cupboard. I won't be long..."
VVVV
"Where are they, Trisha? Steed was meant to be here half an hour ago."
"Perhaps it was Purdey and Gambit, sir. They're awfully protective of their friend."
"But the nurse had her orders. No, she wouldn't have failed me. She knows how I long for my revenge. She'd never let me down."
"Sir, they're top agents. What if they've found the nurse out? You know how well-trained they are. They've been under Steed's guidance for a few years now."
"What do you suggest, Trisha?"
"Shouldn't we... check?"
"Very well. We'll collect the body ourselves."
VVVV
When Purdey awoke once more in her flat, she knew something wasn't right. The clock beside her told her it was only four in the morning, but even though she was tired, and her brain probably wasn't functioning properly, she could sense that something was very wrong, though she didn't know what. She reached across the bed to the phone, groaning as the stitches in her arm stretched with the movement. She dialled the number for Kendrick's surgery several times, as well as the one for the Stud farm, but there was no answer... why would there be, he was supposed to be in hospital? It was just as she feared, something was wrong, and she had an awful feeling it involved Steed.
"Mike, it's Purdey. Kendrick isn't answering. He promised he'd stay with Steed, and I know there's a phone in that room. Get round to Trisha's flat now. I'll check Steed's in case he's been released, and then I'll join you at her flat. Right?" Purdey went to place the receiver down, but then remembered something extra... Oh, and Mike? Thanks for the chocolates- they were good."
VVVV
"Steed!" called Mike, bursting through the flat door to see his comrade both ill and tired, propped up awkwardly in an under-padded chair. He strode over to be beside the man, tapping his face lightly to see if there was any chance he was awake, or, on the more depressing side of the spectrum, whether he was alive at all. Steed was breathing, that was for sure, but his heart rate was awfully erratic.
"Standing there won't save him, Mr Gambit," bellowed a voice from the darker depths of the room. Out of the shadows came a large man, cloaked in what appeared to be a teal coloured wrap, finely embroidered with little dragons and lucky cats. He wore a hat too, black at the base but predominantly made red by the peak that stuck up in the middle. This was a man that Mike had seen before, but had hoped so keenly he'd never see again.
"Soo Choy. What a lovely surprise. Come for round two, have you?" he snarled, keeping a hand on Steed as he kept his eyes transfixed on the new-found threat.
"No, Mr Gambit. Not round two: but hopefully many successful rounds to my favour. Honour, Mr Gambit, is a treasured thing where I am from, and that, you took from me. To see you suffer, would bring all that plus more back to me. So no, this is not round two, but merely the beginnings to a whole, new biased match."
Out from the shadows came a slimmer figure, that of a woman. She was thin and elegant. She had a gun in a holster attached to her belt. Her smile was cruel and unforgiving, and she was clutching a rather evil looking syringe. Mike couldn't see her; how could he see anything from behind? But feel her- that he could; the smoky warmth of her breath on his neck. He hadn't sensed her arrival and felt a fool. A complete and utter fool.
He hadn't long to think, however as Trisha sunk the needle deep into Mike's neck, making certain that the entire dose of the lead hydroxide entered his blood stream. Any less and he could possibly totter on back to Purdey, but anymore and he would be lying cold and dead on the floor within minutes. This wasn't child's play. This was about precision, and, ultimately, exacting the perfect revenge.
"It's only a low dose; you'll go to sleep for a few hours, just like your colleague, Mr Gambit," Trisha said with a smirk, before walking back to stand beside Soo Choy, pride written across her features, still brandishing the steel metal needle and syringe.
"Why aren't you going to kill us?" breathed Gambit as the overwhelming tiredness began to swamp his every muscle. His instincts were yelling at him to move, to stand and defend both himself and his colleague. But he was poisoned now, sickly and weakened.
"Like I said, Mr Gambit, I want to see you suffer. Why would I kill you now when I can kill her first? All alone, completely reliant on that little, yellow car of hers. Think how you'll suffer Mr Gambit, think of the pain. Think, my friend, of the revenge"