Also, this chapter is a little longer than my previous ones. Hope you don't mind.
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Hobbes looked into his partner's eyes and saw exactly what he had been fearing. Reaching into his inner jacket pocket, he grabbed the plunger to a syringe and pulled it out --
--Only to find that the needle part stayed in his pocket. "Broken," he spat as a curse.
At Bobby's now vehement insistence, the search for the dragon was put on hold while they rushed Darien back to The Lair. The three teens were confused with Hobbes' demanded urgency, but seeing Darien clutching his head in pain was enough to make them hurry. Tommy had noticed that while they had been invisible against the wall, Darien's body had started to tense up, but the boy had only attributed that to fear, not pain.
By the time they reached Merton's home, Darien was nearly convulsing with pain. They burst into The Lair, and Bobby placed Fawkes on Merton's bed. Darien instantly curled into the fetal position, clutching the back of his head and twitching occasionally.
"We need some way to restrain him until I can make a call," Hobbes stated.
"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Tommy insisted.
"Look, I think I know what I'm talking about," the agent shot back.
"What's wrong with him?" Lori inquired loudly.
With the commotion of the other three practically yelling at each other, only Merton noticed when Darien went completely slack. Taking a couple steps toward the bed, Merton saw that the man's eyes were completely shut, but the rest of him looked relaxed.
Concerned, the goth placed his hand on the man's shoulder. "Darien, are you okay?"
A smile played on Darien's lips. "Oh yeah, kid. I'm just fine." Suddenly, Darien's hand shot out and grasped Merton's wrist violently, and his eyes snapped open.
Merton found himself staring into solid crimson eyes. Any semblance of humanity was gone from Darien's previously brown puppy-dog eyes. These orbs screamed anger and harshness.
In shock and pain, Merton cried out, grabbing Hobbes' attention. Bobby ran over to the bed and started trying to pry Darien's fingers off of Merton's wrist. "Damn it Fawkes, let go!"
Tommy also rushed over and tried to pull his friend out of the madman's grip. Lori, on the other hand, pulled a small vial from her pocket, emptied some of the contents into her hand and then threw it into Darien's face. The man sneezed once and then suddenly fell unconscious.
With Darien out cold, Merton was easily able to pull himself free. "Thanks Lori."
"No prob. It's your sleeping sand anyway."
Tommy looked at his friends, then at Bobby, and finally at the sleeping Darien. "What just happened?"
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"Ok, wait," Lori paused. "You're telling me that this thing in his head makes him go crazy if he uses it too long?"
It was five minutes later, and Hobbes was telling the teenagers about the gland and its basic functions, so that some of the confusion would be wiped away.
"Yes. The quicksilver saturates his blood stream, causing him to go insane if too much gets to his brain. He is usually given a counteragent that lowers the concentration of quicksilver in his blood, but as you can see, that's somewhat impossible right now." Hobbes pulled out the pieces of the broken syringe which still had some remnants of a blue liquid. "I need to call his doctor and get another shot here as soon as possible."
Merton pointed to his desk. "My phone's right there. Feel free."
Bobby walked over to the phone and was about to dial the number to The Agency, when a slight motion caught his eye. He looked at the bed and saw Darien roll over in his sleep so that he was now facing them all. Hobbes took a brief moment's pause to make sure nothing was going to happen, and then turned his attention back to the phone and dialing the number on the calling card that his boss had so *generously* provided.
Meanwhile, Tommy, Lori and Merton were all just staring at Darien. It was such a change: the sweet guy who had helped save Merton from the Eckerts was now a raving psychotic. Merton still was not over the shock of looking straight into those crimson eyes, and so he was subconsciously keeping away from grabbing distance.
Tommy, on the other hand, was now really curious. He had just spent a terror-filled thirty minutes with this man, who had saved his life from untimely flaming death, and now he was supposed to keep away from Darien because the agent had turned into some insane freak. "It's like that whole Dr. Jackal and Mr. Clyde thing."
"Tommy, that's Jekyll and Hyde," Merton corrected with a sigh. He watched as Tommy leaned a little closer to Darien, trying to get a better look. Darien appeared completely normal, with the exception that he was now shackled to the bed with chains that Merton had "just lying around."
While Tommy was staring at Darien, the agent's voice rasped in, "Take a picture. It will last longer." Darien's eyes then opened and bore straight into Tommy's, causing the jock to take a couple steps backward.
The agent thrashed against the chain restraints holding him down. When this proved useless, he started looking around. Hobbes, though still on the phone, noticed his partner's activity. "Make sure he doesn't get a hold of any pens," he told the kids. When met with confused looks, he explained, "He's really good at picking locks with pen pieces." Instantly, Merton grabbed his backpack that was by the bed and pulled it toward himself.
Darien noticed this, and decided to play on it. "Oh, what's the matter? Scrawny little goth afraid of the big, bad scary man?"
Merton was determined not to let Darien's taunting get to him. "So, you're a government experiment who goes insane and homicidal when worked too hard...what's that like?"
"Undo the restraints and I'll show you."
"Ummm, I don't think so, Darien."
The agent sank back into the bed, causing the chains to slacken. "Goth freak," Fawkes mumbled just loud enough for everyone to hear.
Merton was taken aback. "Government pawn."
"Grade school loser!"
"Geriatric gun-toting geek!"
"God da--" Darien was cut off when Tommy's hand suddenly covered his mouth.
"I don't think we need to finish this display of alliteration," Lori said for Tommy. However, while preoccupied with the verbal fight, no one noticed that Darien had loosened his feet free of the chains, causing the rest of the coiled chain around his body to loosen as well.
Their attention did catch the end of Hobbes' conversation on the phone. "Okay Claire, just get here soon. I can't fly back there with him like this, and he's gone a little too cookoo for Cocoa Puffs, if you know what I mean." A brief silence. "All right, I'll find some way to meet you. See you soon." Then, he hung up the phone and turned to Darien. "Good news, my friend. The Keep is on her way. You'll be back to sanity in no time."
Darien smiled. "Been there, done that. Deja vu isn't what it used to be." With that, Darien tore away what was left of his restraints, pushed Tommy away from him, and started to go invisible. As the quicksilver covered his body, Darien saw Tommy wolf out. Instead of battling the werewolf, Darien decided that the best plan would be to run away and live to fight another day, so all that the rest of the group saw was the back door open by itself.
Tommy growled in frustration, and Hobbes cursed aloud.
Lori sighed. "So, now we have a fire-breathing dragon AND an invisible madman to find. And who says that Pleasantville has no nightlife?"