A/N: Okey dokey... many, MANY thanks for all the wonderful reviews. You guys are really great. Also, so far, MJ Rosemary is the only one on the update list; so they alone are receiving email updates... if you want to be added, let me know. Another note from me, I have started my own website, and here are featured some of my basis' for the original characters, including a couple from this piece. So if you're curious, feel free to take a peek. Hopefully this chapter will serve to make sense of the last few, hehehehe. Enjoy, and perhaps be stunned, I don't know. All depends how well I've done my job as the author.
With the three separate investigations having concluded in the early hours of the afternoon, everyone had returned to the Nautilus to report his or her findings. Skinner and Nemo took their turn first, the former eager to report they had found signs of extensive animal activity, almost like a fight by the docks not far from their position. Apparently, they had collected some hair and hoped Mina could identify what kind of animals had been fighting perhaps. They weren't certain what relevance this could possibly have to their investigation, but it seemed to warrant closer inspection.
The second to report were Jekyll and Sawyer, the latter of whom stated that two dead animals had been mysteriously removed from the scene of the previous night's encounter with Evans and his men. Jekyll seemed to think that owners may have partaken in the moving, but Sawyer was sceptical, claiming that they would move the other dogs from the area after such a killing. Jekyll however had found some blood samples that needed closer examination. There had been a shocking amount of it, and yet no bodies or signs of anyone dragging any.
Finally, Mina and Delacroix were forthcoming with their information that Evans and his men were apparently seen quite often in the city centre to buy goods and services. Unfortunately, those same people with the information had been most reluctant to reveal anything that would give away the whereabouts of these men.
"They are afraid," Mina concluded with a weary sigh.
"No shock there," Sawyer agreed, arms crossed pensively over his chest as he stood opposite her around the table. "He seems to have made quite an impression here."
"And I suppose you'd know, what, livin' here an all," Skinner offered earnestly, to which Sawyer nodded slowly.
"People aren't like this for no reason," Sawyer informed them. "It's unusual. It's like they're all on edge or something."
"Can you blame them?" Delacroix chimed up. "Evans is quite fond of ensuring people are afraid of him and his men. They will do anything to gain respect."
Nemo agreed with all of this, and started to collate it all in his mind. "And what of our findings? The hair and the blood samples. Dr Jekyll, I can assume that yourself and Mrs Harker will take care of this?"
Jekyll nodded in acknowledgement, and looked to Mrs Harker herself, who said, "Of course, Captain. We will begin immediately."
At that, the two left the room, doctor and chemist one after the other. Nemo looked to his other companions, all of them eyeing one another as if trying to decide what to do whilst they waited.
Mina Harker and Henry Jekyll had been working for quite some time, puzzling over test tubes and bubbling beakers, using various equipment to try and identify the owner of the animal hair, and a potential reason for the absence of bodies in the yard where they had clashed the night previous.
Mina's glasses were perched delicately on her nose, and she was deep in concentration. She was waiting for the results of her latest test on the blood samples to come through. She knew one to be from Mr Evans himself. So far, there was nothing unusual about his sample that concerned her.
The other however, was something else entirely. There was something about it that had intrigued her since she had first set eyes upon it, and when its scent had assaulted her. She had sensed that unmistakable hunger coursing through her veins at that moment, and had begun her tests at once. She did not want to give in to the urges. Not if she could help it.
There was nothing she hated more than her vampire-self sometimes. She disgusted herself even. Mina despised giving in to the thirst that gnawed at her sometimes, craved blood, and when nothing else would satisfy that urge, she had no choice. That was when she most hated herself and that monster for doing this to her.
Some time passed where she simply mused over her history, and how she had come to be what she now was, and where she simply listened to Jekyll's light humming as he worked quietly behind her, before her tests were complete.
Mina's blue eyes analysed her findings, and despite herself, a small growl rumbled in her throat. She was embarrassed at once, and stifled it before it crossed her lips.
Jekyll seemed to hear her nevertheless, or at least he sensed her tension, and he came over to her. "What is it? What did you find?"
"Alert the others. I need to speak with them at once."
The room that served as their collection point slowly filled with the six individuals. They filtered in with curious and overly pensive looks on their faces, trying to decipher the expression on Mina Harker's overcast features.
Tom entered with Anise at his side, as was expected lately it seemed. This surprised no one anymore. The two of them were in fact the last to arrive, and Nemo's men closed the doors behind them as if on some invisible cue.
"So what's going on?" Tom found himself asking as soon as the affirming final click of the doors was heard, and they were truly in private.
Mina's blue gaze fell upon him, and he shuddered slightly. She looked quite intimidating and colder all of a sudden, unexpectedly, and he furrowed his brow with worry. Surely, to have her in this sort of disposition, it was not going to be good news.
"I have discovered the reason for our friend Mr Evans having such feared accomplices." Her voice was edged as if in ice, and it sent a chill down Tom's spine with every word she spoke.
He threw a sideways glance to Anise, who was listening and watching the proceedings with intent.
The others were in the same way, even Dr Jekyll, who had supposedly been with Mina when she had made this apparent discovery.
"And what reason is that?" Skinner inquired impatiently when the silence became too much for him. His trilby shifted slightly as he tilted his head, the wide peak casting the substance on his otherwise intangible face into shadow.
Mina looked to the floor. "I have examined the blood from the scene at great length."
"Evans' blood?" Tom queried.
"No," Mina responded coolly and calmly, "Evans' blood is quite normal, I can assure you. This sample troubled me from the moment I saw it, from the second I first sampled its scent."
"You didn't drink any did you?"
Mina's head snapped in Skinner's direction, and Tom even detected a snarl as she moved, her features sharp and fierce now. Her eyes visited a place between red and blue for a second, before Skinner backed down, and the woman composed herself once again.
"My apologies..."
"No, it's quite all right," Skinner mumbled, "I enjoy a good chill every now and again."
Even though it was very subtle, Tom identified the fear in Skinner's tone, and comprehended this sudden feeling. Mina was acting very strangely.
"The reason is one I should have known at once," Mina continued with a sense of longing in her voice, "one I should not have relied on science to grasp."
Nemo shifted slightly, and his sword clattered quietly against its ornamental scabbard at his hip. This was the only noise in the room other than Mina's words.
"Many years ago, my husband and I encountered many foul creatures, some too terrible to speak of," Mina reminisced, as though she was no longer in the company of the League, and quite alone with her thoughts, "but some horrors are too great to ignore."
She paused to take in the expressions on their faces, and then persisted, "One of these creatures troubled me greatly, for its power and malice were like no other, comparable only to Dracula himself..."
Mina had trailed off at the sound of her own voice speaking the vampire's name. Tom swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, and wished for nothing more than a drink to quench his mysterious thirst.
Mina took in a deep breath, and then continued with conviction, "Every full moon, certain individuals turn to their most bestial urges, and become something that I have come to both respect and fear. There are some selected few who seem not to need the moon, perhaps due to medicines or development in their condition... this I do not know. But I do know they are very dangerous, and they are not to be underestimated."
Tom cocked his head, and narrowed his eyes, his heart beating a little faster than it should have been. "Are you talking about what I think you're talking about?"
"Yes, Agent Sawyer, I am," Mina replied hastily, "lycanthropes."
"I beg your pardon?" Skinner questioned at once, glancing around for a sense of understanding from the others.
"Werewolves, Mr Skinner," Mina informed him none too hesitantly, "half man, half wolf. Monsters that become all too clear when the moon is at her most full."
"Ah," Skinner breathed quietly, "now I understand."
"There are, as I said, only a selected few in their number who can change their form at will," Mina explained. "There are many myths and rumours. I have heard them called many things. I have also heard stories of many who could partially change at will, some all the way into their most fierce and most dangerous shape. Many lycanthropes have no control over their actions when in their bestial form."
"Like yourself, Mrs Harker, and I mean no offence," Nemo offered impassively.
Mina nodded with a little shame marring her face. "Yes." She cleared her throat delicately, and explained further, "I have even heard horrific tales of naturally born werewolves. These are apparently rare, but the most skilled."
"You mean to tell me that New York is crawling with wolf-men?" Skinner blurted. Tom couldn't tell if the man was afraid. It was more than difficult to decipher sometimes what the man was thinking.
"I mean to tell you, gentlemen, that we need to have our wits about us at all times," Mina said back to him and the others with urgency, "these werewolves are extremely cunning and stealthy. In fact..." she trailed off for a moment, "I may have sensed one last night."
"What?" Tom uttered in disbelief, leaning on the table with his hands now, palms flat out on the surface.
"My sleep was most troubled," Mina said to him earnestly, their eyes locked across the room now.
"Now that you come to mention it," Jekyll practically whispered with fright from the window, "I could not shake the feeling I was being watched whilst I tried to sleep."
"There are no intruders aboard this vessel," Nemo told them all sternly then, "and it is impossible there ever will be. She is like a fortress. My men would see such an invasion; alert me at once. We would have known of their presence if this were true."
Tom glanced over his shoulder to Anise, who had her arms crossed very tightly over her chest as if she were frightened to let go. Tom stood, and moved over to her as the others argued at length, and asked, "You okay?"
Her brown eyes darted into his, and she shivered only for a moment as she said, "It is all this business with the supernatural... it only serves to unnerve me, Tom. I am just being silly."
"No," Tom corrected with a shake of his head, "it's not silly to be scared. This is more than I bargained for when I got outta bed this morning." He smiled to try and ease her, but it didn't seem to work. She looked deeply disturbed. He stroked his hand down her arm, trying to comfort her. "Don't worry, okay?"
Anise shook her head. "I don't know if I want this, Tom." She turned and walked out of the room, leaving him looking after her in shock. He hadn't expected her to depart like that, so suddenly and with such fright in her eyes.
"What happened? Where did she go?" came the sound of Skinner's questions from the room behind Tom as he stood staring out of the doorway, even as the sailors reached in and closed the doors once more.
"You terrified her," Tom said accusingly to Mina as he turned on her, not meaning to sound so harsh as he did in his words, but less than perturbed when he realised. "Why did you have to go into so much myth and legend about it? You could have just given us the facts instead of 'regaling' us with some horror story. The only thing you left out was their eating habits."
Mina glared. "What I mean to do is only prepare us for what we are facing, as you very well know. Your affection for Delacroix has only blinded you to the truth that there is great danger here, to everyone in this room."
"Oh, spare me the righteous speech," Tom retorted quickly, waving his hand at her as he narrowed his eyes with impatience. He was barely aware of the fact that all eyes in the room were now on their exchange.
"This is neither the time nor the place for such a debate," Mina said to him.
"I don't give a damn," Tom said to her. "You know what? I'll bet you exaggerated your story just to scare Anise. It's no secret you hate her..."
"Oh really," Mina snapped with a loud sigh, "you think my sole purpose for this gathering was to intimidate the girl?"
"She is not a girl."
"Woman, then... you think my intention was to frighten her away? Perhaps next you will accuse me of being jealous?" Mina raised a feminine eyebrow, possibly in ridicule.
Tom opened his mouth to retaliate, but simply exhaled loudly in disbelief at her accusation, and stormed from the room, not able to care less how juvenile they considered him.