Still going...and going...and going...and going. I never write things this long. Too bad it's not even my own plot. *sigh* ;-) But, I promise, it will be over soon…soon!…
(Oh yes, and I've started to cheat—I'm not writing out every exact thing that happens in every scene…have you any idea how much effort and trouble that is? Yep, I'm a lazy sod…)
Part Five: Ups and Downs
I can't look.
The thought was cowardly. But Jules ducked his head anyway.
"Dammit," Fogg hissed, surprising Jules, and he raised his head hopefully. A servant had interrupted the scene in front of them, blocking Fogg's line of sight. Fogg dropped the gun but stared furiously, waiting. Jules looked between the Englishman next to him and the couple inside, trying to ignore the emotions that surged in him at the sight of Rebecca leaning against the duke so easily, as if it were the most natural position in the world for her to be in. The instant the servant disappeared from his view, Fogg raised his gun again. Jules was ready to start shouting, not caring if they heard him inside, not caring if they were all caught and the mission was ruined, so long as no one was hurt, not even that damned duke--and then he heard guards yelling instead. Outside, with running footsteps coming ever closer. They had been found out even before he'd had a chance to do anything. Oh God, can this get any worse? Jules asked himself frantically even as he turned to Phileas and said, "Come on Fogg, we have to get out of here!"
"Without Rebecca, are you mad?" The gun never wavered, even if the older man did glance at Jules quickly.
"Just till sunrise," Verne's voice was insistent and harsh in reply. "We're no use to her if we're dead." He was thoroughly sick of this gentleman, thoroughly sick of his violent, out of control reactions to everything.
"Dead, Verne? Would to God that death were all we have to worry about!" The passion in the plea to a higher power surprised Jules, but he didn't have time to worry about it; if he could just get out of here, force Fogg to run after him, perhaps he could save Rebecca from this madman—
"Will you come on?!"
It worked. Jules rushed to the wall, his heart rejoicing when he heard Fogg's sigh of exasperation and footsteps come running behind him. Verne would have lost his balance and fallen over the side of the battlement if not for the Englishman's negligent grab of his arm. They crawled over the side and down the thick stones a bit before scrambling into a window on a lower level that had been left open. The two glanced hurriedly around the room they found themselves in before slipping out and heading down the corridor beyond the door.
"I can't believe you were going to shoot your own cousin!" Jules strangled out as he stalked down the grand tapestried hallway.
"That is no longer my cousin," Fogg stated stubbornly in reply. "She has been taken over--"
"So the only answer is death?!" Verne stopped in the middle of the hall, staring up at the older man furiously. "The only thing you can do is shoot? Is that your answer to everything? The instant you even think it poses a threat, you have to hurt it?!" He was dimly aware that his voice was getting more and more out of his control, but he was beyond caring about that.
They stood glaring at each other, both breathing hard from stress, the physical exertion of the past hour at least. "Don't presume to understand me, Verne," Phileas answered at last, clipping his words off with knifelike precision. "And if you don't mind, I'd like to get out of this damned corridor. I don't want to be found out by one of the duke's servants."
He marched down the hall, forcing Jules to either follow or go off on his own. For a mad moment, Jules considered doing just that, but then he reconsidered his options practically. There was no way he could get away from this place without Fogg's help. He would have to stick it out. And anyway, perhaps somehow he could stop Fogg from doing anything...foolish. He had no idea anyone could be so blasted reckless--but perhaps he should have known better with Phileas Fogg.
They explored the wing of the castle in stormy silence, neither man quite yet willing to speak to the other. At last, Fogg glanced at Jules and said "It must be getting close to light soon," he whispered. "We haven't seen anyone prowling about lately."
"And look at this place," Jules replied wonderingly, running a hand along the frame of a painting of some forbidding old woman in medieval dress. It came away covered in grime and leaving a fingerprint in the thick layers of dust still on the portrait. "It's...dead again."
"Come on." Fogg abruptly turned around, heading for the nearest room. Jules threw his hands up in exasperation but followed. There was nothing else he could do.
Fogg ripped the covering away from a window to let sunlight into the room they had entered. "So it's true," he said, leaning against the wall next to the sunlit window and soaking in the light. Jules wilted in exhaustion and despondency (it had been a long time since sleep, and he hadn't been feeling up to par in a long time anyway) on the other side of the window. "They do vanish when the sun rises." Fogg leant over suddenly and breathed heavily, as if everything had just caught up with him. Jules gave him a strange look, concerned despite himself. It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps Fogg wasn't quite so sanguine about his planned actions as he'd appeared to be. "That Rebecca should be condemned to a living death."
At that, Jules looked up at him again quickly and answered tersely, "You don't know that." Adrenaline, sparked by fear and resentment, surged through him again, making his fatigue disappear once more.
Fogg walked over to the fireplace, ignoring Verne's words, perhaps in an effort to avoid another argument. "How did Passepartout say you kill them?"
Jules frowned in wary bemusement. "With a stake through the heart while they lie in their coffins, but--"
"I know what I have to do," Fogg replied, fingering the poker he had picked up.
"You could never hurt Rebecca," Jules's heart was beating as he realized again he couldn't let Fogg do this. He might have to actually stop the man--how in the hell do I get into these situations?!
"That isn't Rebecca," was the cold, calm reply once more.
"Yes it is Rebecca!" Verne shouted with a traumatized look on his face, ignoring the warning bells in his mind that those vampires might not actually be sleeping at this very moment, that Fogg might just decide Jules's interference was suspicious. He couldn't believe any of this was real; he was caught up in a nightmare, in the plot for one of his plays. It simply could not be real.
"Some vile parasite has comandeered her body." Jules looked on at the Englishman in horror. Fogg actually looked regretful, for the first time since he'd started in on this mad plan. Regretful but determined. "And I can only free her by killing it." He strode away; Verne followed in determined trepidation, looking at Phileas's back with the coldest, angriest look that had ever crossed his face. He'd never despised someone so much in his life. One thought was overwhelming in his mind. I hope that after all this is over I never see you again.
***
The door creaked open and there were two pairs of footsteps, one of which was definitely Phileas's--she'd know that boot heel anywhere--and that must be Verne, as it certainly didn't sound like Passepartout. Oh God. Verne. Rebecca sunk further into her strange sleeping chamber, letting out a deep and silent breath. I promised nothing would happen this time. I promised myself, and Jules, and Phileas he would be safe. That poor boy...
"My God!" Fogg's voice hissed in desolation over her. "Undead!"
Rebecca cracked one eyelid open; she's been dying to play a good trick on Phileas for ages. Anyway, he deserved a bit of punishment, she firmly believed, for the way he'd been acting the past few weeks. "Not entirely, Phileas."
Both men draw back in unison--oh dear. Poor Verne yet again. Still, he appeared to be holding up well, even if he looked a bit shaken--and not just because of the scare she'd just given him. He looked away, releasing a deep breath slowly. "Rebecca?" Fogg breathed in disbelief, staring down at her with the most shocked look she'd seen on his face in a long time.
She gave him a direct look, glancing sideways quickly to give Jules the tiniest smile she could afford, just to reassure him. "I must say, you took your time getting here." She sat up and noted with mild interest the poker aimed directly at her chest. "And, um...what were you thinking of doing with that?" she asked her cousin lightly.
Jules looked down at the weapon in the gentleman's hand, then glanced at Fogg's face with a decidedly peculiar look in his eyes that Rebecca didn't care for. "This?" Phileas started to answer her, but Jules interrupted, placing a firm hand over the poker and forcing it downwards.
"Just a precaution," the Frenchman stated with a nervous, delightful little smile aimed at her. He snatched his hand away from the poker as if it burned him, and then held out the brown appendage when Rebecca raised her own for help out of the coffin--a much more gentlemanlike offer than Phileas offered, immediately holding the poker up to her neck again. She took Verne's hand, stepping daintily and gracefully out and directly into the tip of the sharp instrument, holding Phileas's gaze the entire time. She loved these dangerous little games they played, a sweet rush she couldn't get with anyone else, and she just knew Jules was watching behind them in absolute horror. He still didn't understand them yet, didn't know their rules. But he would learn. She knew it. She was determined he would. "He hasn't..." Phileas said hoarsely, containing his voice and emotion with great effort she could tell, staring directly back at her. "You're not..."
"I am," she said, raising her chin regally, "unbitten." She changed her tone and attitude, allowing it to become light and almost playful, in order to diffuse the tension that had been congealing in the room ever since these two had arrived. "See?" She raised her curls on both sides of her neck to show the lack of bite marks.
"Oh God. Thank God," Phileas dropped the poker, real relief on his face. Rebecca grinned and laughed in reply, seeing with her peripheral vision the unrestrained smile flood Verne's face. She noticed, intrigued, that he leant in closer to her as she shifted position. She leant back against the coffin, instantly sobering. "No, he wants me to give myself to him of my own free will."
The look on Jules's face changed and he exclaimed in disgust, "He's a beast!"
"He's a very attractive man," Rebecca instantly shot back at him, not about to take any sanctimonious naïveté from an innocent young man, no matter how sweet and intelligent he was. He needed to learn things weren't always black and white, and they most certainly weren't always what they appeared. His look of prim disbelief showed he wasn't yet ready to think about that, but any more argument from him was stopped by Phileas.
"He is not a man, he's a mon--"
"Shh! Shh shh," Rebecca instantly reminded him of where they were and who they could very well be surrounded by. "I'm pretty sure they sleep during the day, but I wouldn't want to underestimate them."
"Let's go back to the Aurora," Fogg almost begged.
"Not until I find out what he's up to!" Rebecca retorted.
"Don't be ridiculous, Rebecca," he put on that cajoling tone on her name that merely irritated her right now, "we're leaving." He gestured with his head, communicating to her with his eyes, the only person in the world with whom she could do that. But even he didn't understand.
"Phileas, I've been entrusted with a mission." It's quite simple, you bloody fool, she told him with her own eyes. "And I'm not leaving until I've done it. Now, you can either stay here and help me...or you can let me finish it on my own."
"Fogg," Verne immediately added, obviously on Rebecca's side. It also obviously irritated the hell out of the Englishman. Rebecca gave him a cheeky smirk, even though one part of her mind busily wondered what the hell had been going on while she'd been…entertained…by the duke. There was more tension between these two than there had been even in London.
"Oh God..." Phileas groaned, throwing the poker out of his hand in a fit of pique as he turned around and went for the door. Rebecca knew that would be the only physical reaction out of him. He'd probably complain every chance he got, but he would go through with it because he was damned if he'd let her finish this alone. She'd learned long ago not to resent his overprotectiveness. For the most part anyway.
She overtook him quite cheerfully and led the other two to the room in which she'd spent much of her time with the duke, determined to find out how the devil that servant had appeared suddenly in the room with them the other night. Jules and Phileas weren't averse to the plan; they thought they'd find Rimini's sleeping coffin. She doubted it, but she didn't argue with them. Anything to keep them focused--they both appeared set to constantly squabble with each other, judging by the snarky comments each had made while working their way from one end of the wing to the other. And for once, it wasn't entirely Fogg's fault. She had the feeling some of Jules's anger stemmed from the callous way he believed Phileas had been behaving, and probably some other part of it from his own stress. But there was nothing she could do for him. Only experience could help him learn.
"Must be somewhere," Verne said when they entered the room, looking around at the giant cobwebs and thick layers of dust with a slight wrinkling of his brow in puzzlement. She was sure he was trying to understand how this could happen when just last night the castle had appeared utterly normal and inhabited. She didn't understand it herself. She paid him no attention, though, looking at the wall instead, the objects along the wall, trying to find some secret catch to open a door.
"There has to be a hidden door. The first night I was here one of them walked straight through this wall," she told the others, dimly aware of where they were situated in relation to herself in the room.
"You know," Phileas said in such a tone that he roused her from what she was doing, "not only is this chap a vampire, he's also a raging egomaniac." Phileas had opened one of the cabinet doors and was leaning against it in his elegantly posed way. Jules was immediately interested and went over to investigate. Rebecca smiled, grateful he was still capable of that insatiable curiosity at least, and turned away to investigate some more.
The whirring, whining sound distracted her, and she turned around to find Jules playing with a part of the statue he'd taken out of the cabinet, Phileas looking on in another of his insufferably relaxed-while-tense poses. She answered Verne's questions, explaining Rimini's plan. He was shocked and dismayed, of course--he was so very young and naïve--and even Phileas was mildly surprised. She went back to her wall, certain she was almost there--ah! Yes, there was the perfect thing to hide a trip for a hidden door, an ugly little wall decoration. She turned back to give Phileas a bright grin after she opened the secret entrance. When she entered the doorway, she paused only long enough to look back again and ask, "Shall we?"
Fogg waved a magnanimous hand. "After you," he said lightly and Verne, apparently forgetting for the moment his argument with Phileas, grinned with the other two. Rebecca slipped lightly into the secret staircase, leading the other two down its slimy, dripping corridor.
What they saw at the end of it was incredible. A strange sort of laboratory, vampires lying down on cots around the edges of the room. It was vile. Even Phileas looked unnerved. Rebecca headed for the lab equipment while her cousin went to the other side of the room to get a closer look at one of the vampires, apparently. She looked warily at the undead man lying unconscious to her side and picked up a small rocket, sniffing the explosive mixture inside.
"Rockets?" Verne had naturally followed her—he would be interested in the lab equipment—and looked at what she held. She held her finger out to him so that he could see the compound on it, nodding. They continued their discussion, Rebecca filling in the new pieces of information for her own sake that she'd just gained from Phileas as they explored the castle. And then Phileas distracted them both by his soft exclamation--and they saw the entire damn army of vampires lying in that vast cavern beyond the laboratory. It was horrifying. But Rebecca wasn't one to let horror easily overwhelm her.
The men rushed off to get a closer look at the vampires, and Rebecca was about to follow when a cold wind seemed to rush up her back and--she knew he was there. Rimini. She'd firmly been trying to keep him out of her mind for the past hour or more, ever since Phileas and Jules had entered her room. She immediately schooled her expression into one of welcome, gliding up to him with as seductive a look as she could manage while still maintaining at least some of her dignity. She played up to him in exactly the way he wanted, ignoring the niggling little worry that it was really quite too easy to play this role. She managed to stop him before he kissed her however, not at all trusting her cousin to react to that sight in a sensible manner—or Jules, for that matter, in his current apparently reckless mood. She'd been keeping track of the time; Rimini was up; obviously the sun was falling and they were out of time, and she had to get the duke out of there as soon as possible, let the other two get away. She invented the quite truthful excuse of feeling a little shy in public (in this public in any case), and he, in his Old World gentlemanly way, led her out of the laboratory.
She only hoped Jules and Phileas could behave civilly around each other long enough for her to fix everything.