Both Gordie and Marie woke up from screaming, writhing nightmares that day. Neither of the children had been getting any sleep, and Mina was starting to count the days until the Nautilus returned. Everyone had been too on edge lately... even the children at the orphanage were starting to feel it. There were more fights than usual, or so Marie said. There was a great deal less laughter, less playing. Orlando and Charlotte helped as best they could, tending the children so that Marie could catch a few hours of sleep here and there. None of it seemed to help, though. The two survivors had become listless, depressed, enjoying neither food nor drink. Gordie in particular went around composing morbid poetry and then insisting on reading it to everyone aloud. This went on until Jemima finally took to suffering through it, for which Mina was profoundly grateful. Jemima Pitt seemed as indomitable as her mother, and certainly more stubborn than Gordie. If she was determined not to be drawn down by his poetry, it would be so.
"Do you think perhaps we should separate them?" Orlando asked late one evening, when the two young survivors had retired upstairs to their nightmares and the three women were sitting in the parlor.
"No..." Charlotte spoke up before Mina could, her voice positive and full of the rigors of experience. "They seem to be drawing strength from each other, and certainly none of us can have the slightest idea of what they truly went through. Let them have what comfort they can from each other, even if it gives them nightmares. With any luck, the Nautilus will be back soon..." there was more than a little wistfulness in her voice. She wondered if this was what Thomas felt like when she took trips to Paris, or Italy, or other far-away locations with her sister Emily.
Mina nodded, settling back in her chair and frowning. "I do wish it didn't give them nightmares, though. It's as though they were terrified for their lives... and Marie is just as terrified to tell us anything about it, which..."
"Puts a rather different spin on things." Mycroft Holmes waded into the parlor, drink already in hand. "Good evening, ladies."
There were nods of greeting all around, and Mycroft had settled his portly frame into a chair and taken another good sip before any of them ventured to ask the question.
"Is there any word from the Nautilus?" Charlotte, of course.
"Nothing out of the ordinary. Progress reports, of course: they are well and they have a veritable menagerie of scientists and brilliant minds aboard. As well as some truly disreputable characters, it seems. Some of the scientists have had as checkered a past as any of the League."
"And their estimated time of..."
"It has not been moved up from the current date, Mrs. Pitt, I am sorry."
Charlotte settled back into her chair with the not-unexpected feeling of loneliness and resignation. For a little while there was silence; no one seemed willing to take up a conversation in light of such gloomy goings-on in the house. Mycroft looked from face to quiet face, evaluating, guessing.
"How are the young ones?" he asked finally, and there was a slight collective sigh.
"No better. No worse, but no better..." Mina looked frustrated at her inability to alleviate their situation, her inability to offer any sort of comfort or help. "The nightmares continue, Marie doesn't eat, Gordie has his poetry, and if a day goes by without either of them bursting into tears at some point it will be a miracle."
"Their nerves are stressed," Orlando softened Mina's words, perhaps harsher than the woman had meant. "Quite likely they never expected to deal with these kidnappers again, and now they are struck with the fear that they might have to, or that they might have to recount what has happened to them."
"And there is still no reason we can discover for why they would be afraid to speak of it... at least, why they think that speaking of the attackers might bring them down on the orphanage." Charlotte looked to the others for confirmation, being as she was not very well versed in the extraordinary herself.
Mina shook her head. "I can't for the life of me figure that part of it out. There's no sense behind it... even ... even if they were being given some sort of mental command, there is no way it could stretch from Paris to here. No human being... even a vampire doesn't have that kind of strength."
"No human being or creature that you know of," Mycroft corrected. "Remember your own results. These creatures are not entirely human, nor of the Neanderthal or Cro Magnon line. They are nothing you have experienced before, and perhaps they have abilities you are not aware of."
Mina sighed, nodding. "They'd have to, in order to be able to cause this much chaos."
"You know, that's another thing I don't understand." Orlando leaned forward, drawing pictures in the air with slim and tapered fingers as though it would somehow make her understanding clearer. "Why children? Why are all of the victims of these abductions children? And more girls than boys, have you noticed that? There has to be some sort of underlying reason..."
"I had noticed that, yes." Mycroft finished his drink, set the tumbler down on the end table, and frowned thoughtfully. "I had not as yet come up with a theory that would account for the manner and choice of abductions, though. Perhaps girls are more pliable than boys."
The three women exchanged a glance and a chuckle.
"What?"
"Dear Mycroft..." Orlando smiled and patted his hand. "It is nothing, except that it is quite clear that you've never had or been a girl yourself."
"Hmmph," he muttered good-naturedly. "It's just as I've always said... women are irrational..."
There was most likely more to that prepared and comic diatribe, but he never got a chance to impart it. A commotion and a screaming came from upstairs, and in a few seconds Marie came flying into the room.
"They're coming!" She would have been shrieking except that she was trying not to be heard. "They're coming... Mina-mama, they're coming..." She flew into the vampiress's arms. Mina's eyes were already starting to change, knowing what had happened last time Marie had said that.
"Who's coming, Marie..." Charlotte asked. Orlando, Mina, and Mycroft exchanged looks of alarm... Charlotte had not been present the last time, and she was a most ordinary woman. If she were caught in the line of fire...
"Charlotte..." Mycroft started to say, and paused while Gordie came crashing into the room as fast as he could, still slower than Marie on his twisted leg. "Perhaps you had better stay inside, upstairs with the children. They'll be wondering what's been going on if they wake up due to the commotion, and most likely scared."
Charlotte looked around the room at the carefully blank faces and the two younger folk sobbing hysterically in various sets of arms. "Mr. Holmes, I don't like being managed..."
"And you will not be managed, dear lady," Mycroft said as placatingly as he could. "But the fact remains that you are... well, to put it quite honestly, ordinary. You have no defenses such as Orlando and Mina have, and if this building should come under attack you will be defenseless. And it would be easier for the rest of us if all such folk were in the same area."
"Attack?" Charlotte's eyes widened. "Do you really think it will come to..."
As though perfectly on cue, there was a high-pitched shriek.
Everyone sat in their chairs for the briefest of seconds that seemed to spin out into an hour, frozen. Even Marie and Gordie were utterly quiet, the whites of their eyes showing their animalistic fear. Then the second scream came, a different voice this time, and jolted everyone to action. Charlotte practically fled upstairs, already hearing the sound of children stirring. Orlando took Marie from Mina and herded both children into the corner by the fire. Mycroft picked up the decanter and an iron poker and quickly joined them.
Mina's eyes bled crimson, and it wasn't entirely clear whether she was stalking or floating towards the door.
"Stay in the corner," Mycroft said, rather unnecessarily but it seemed to give him some sort of feeling of control over the whole situation. Neither Orlando nor the youngers made any comment on it.
"I will take care of it," Mina replied, and her voice had already sharpened to a growl, a snarl that seemed to tear itself from her throat. Mycroft and Orlando's eyes widened slightly at the display of power; Gordie and Marie, for some peculiar reason, looked... relieved?
There was a pounding on the door. There was shrieking outside, the words themselves obstructed by the two layers of thick oak. Marie, however, pulled away from Orlando. "It's Artie!" she yelped, sounding startled. "It's Artie and Claire and John..."
The words could faintly be made out now as the three outside raised their voices, and as Mina and Mycroft now knew what to listen for. "Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!"
Marie didn't even wait for Mina, but ran to the doors and started pulling open both oak and gate, leaving them sprawling open behind her. Mina followed, eyes still blood red and mind still afire with the vampire's lust for blood. When Marie opened the outer door, three wet and bedraggled young men and women practically collapsed into her arms.
"Get them back into the room," Mina growled. "Orlando!"
"What happened?" The other woman came at a run, helping Marie to half drag, half carry the three bedraggled and soaked arrivals. "I didn't think it was raining outside."
"It's not," Marie said cryptically. "Get them in... we have to get them in, before..."
The low growl, not an animal sound but not human either, galvanized them all into action. Mina shouted a single word that might have been 'Go' or 'Run', no one could be sure. Orlando and Marie sped up as best they could, pulling the gate shut behind them, and then the solid inner oak door.
-
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-
Outside the orphanage Mina could allow her mind to be subsumed by the fierce hunger of her vampire blood. Outside the orphanage, with the newest three locked safe inside the triple doors, she could attack anything in sight and be certain it was an enemy. And attack she did, with a fury born of primal protective instinct.
There was no telling what these creatures were, she noted with the distant and much imprisoned part of her mind that could still think rationally. She analyzed and calculated even as she ravaged and fed, and was ravaged upon herself. The first wave (if three or four could be called a wave) came upon her so suddenly that they must have felt assured in their superiority of strength and numbers. She taught them otherwise, and quickly. The second wave hung back after she had four bodies piled around her, watching with a little more caution to see what this strange new creature would do. She had a little bit of time to calm herself, to regain control and examine the situation.
Man-apes indeed, she thought with a frown. These creatures resembled human beings in that they were bipedal and had the right number of limbs, digits, and opposable thumbs. But their faces, their grayish bodies and their white eyes... these were hideous and different. Their talons, which had raked her without effect, seemed to be secreting some sort of strange... she didn't know what to call it. It was so different here from in the lab.
The second wave advanced, of course, as soon as they sensed her attention wandering. Her gaze snapped back up to the living monsters instead of the dead ones, and the fight was on again.
This time there were some changes. She could hear the crack of pistol fire and see the muzzle of a rifle poking from the window out of the corner of her eye. Mycroft, at least, she knew. She didn't know who the pistol had been. Her teeth sank into the veins of one of the creatures. Ironically the thought struck her that if she didn't watch herself she was going to be lethargic and slow from the sheer amount of blood she was consuming.
As it turned out, she didn't need to worry. Between the support fire, her own abilities, and the sound of constables running up the street and whistling for all they were worth, the area was clear of the strange creatures almost faster than she had time to think. Mina composed herself quickly, retreating up to the steps of the townhouse and scrubbing at her face to make sure all traces of blood were lost, or at least shifted into a position to where it could be accounted for by the violence.
"Miss..." one of the constables ran up to her while the others clustered around the corpses, looking for all the world as though Martians had descended from the sky to attack. And maybe, Mina thought wearily, they have.
"I'm all right," she waved them off. "I'm all right. This..." Damn. The biggest problem, she decided then, with being a member of the British Secret Service (or a branch therein) was that it was secret. "Is a matter of international security. Your timeliness is appreciated but your services are not required any longer, thank you... sir!" Dammit. They were poking around at the bodies. "Sir, those are evidence, would you please step away."
"It's all right." Mycroft. His voice, though occasionally heralding the onset of obnoxious male patronizing attitude, was a welcome sound to Mina's ears in the current situation. "It's all right, gentlemen. You've performed your duty admirably, but it's time for the rest of us to take over..."
Thank God, Mina murmured, retreating further into the now-open doorway as Mycroft explained to the nice gentlemen very carefully, in the strange words of the law enforcement language, that they should kindly bugger off right now. Orlando, Charlotte, and Marie (to Mina's surprise) appeared in the doorway shortly after they'd left. It had been Marie who had fired the pistol, and Mina had no idea where she'd picked up that skill.
"Rodney," Marie said shyly as they started to heave the bodies through the house and into the cellar, which was the best place everyone could think of to put them for now. "He thought it might help me to feel safer if I learned how to shoot a pistol, so he taught me to shoot at pieces of wood. Didn't help. But..."
"Well, it helped tonight," Mina dumped her side of the body onto the floor, with Orlando following suit, and went over to wrap Marie up in a heartfelt and grateful embrace. "You did brilliantly."
"Do you think perhaps we should separate them?" Orlando asked late one evening, when the two young survivors had retired upstairs to their nightmares and the three women were sitting in the parlor.
"No..." Charlotte spoke up before Mina could, her voice positive and full of the rigors of experience. "They seem to be drawing strength from each other, and certainly none of us can have the slightest idea of what they truly went through. Let them have what comfort they can from each other, even if it gives them nightmares. With any luck, the Nautilus will be back soon..." there was more than a little wistfulness in her voice. She wondered if this was what Thomas felt like when she took trips to Paris, or Italy, or other far-away locations with her sister Emily.
Mina nodded, settling back in her chair and frowning. "I do wish it didn't give them nightmares, though. It's as though they were terrified for their lives... and Marie is just as terrified to tell us anything about it, which..."
"Puts a rather different spin on things." Mycroft Holmes waded into the parlor, drink already in hand. "Good evening, ladies."
There were nods of greeting all around, and Mycroft had settled his portly frame into a chair and taken another good sip before any of them ventured to ask the question.
"Is there any word from the Nautilus?" Charlotte, of course.
"Nothing out of the ordinary. Progress reports, of course: they are well and they have a veritable menagerie of scientists and brilliant minds aboard. As well as some truly disreputable characters, it seems. Some of the scientists have had as checkered a past as any of the League."
"And their estimated time of..."
"It has not been moved up from the current date, Mrs. Pitt, I am sorry."
Charlotte settled back into her chair with the not-unexpected feeling of loneliness and resignation. For a little while there was silence; no one seemed willing to take up a conversation in light of such gloomy goings-on in the house. Mycroft looked from face to quiet face, evaluating, guessing.
"How are the young ones?" he asked finally, and there was a slight collective sigh.
"No better. No worse, but no better..." Mina looked frustrated at her inability to alleviate their situation, her inability to offer any sort of comfort or help. "The nightmares continue, Marie doesn't eat, Gordie has his poetry, and if a day goes by without either of them bursting into tears at some point it will be a miracle."
"Their nerves are stressed," Orlando softened Mina's words, perhaps harsher than the woman had meant. "Quite likely they never expected to deal with these kidnappers again, and now they are struck with the fear that they might have to, or that they might have to recount what has happened to them."
"And there is still no reason we can discover for why they would be afraid to speak of it... at least, why they think that speaking of the attackers might bring them down on the orphanage." Charlotte looked to the others for confirmation, being as she was not very well versed in the extraordinary herself.
Mina shook her head. "I can't for the life of me figure that part of it out. There's no sense behind it... even ... even if they were being given some sort of mental command, there is no way it could stretch from Paris to here. No human being... even a vampire doesn't have that kind of strength."
"No human being or creature that you know of," Mycroft corrected. "Remember your own results. These creatures are not entirely human, nor of the Neanderthal or Cro Magnon line. They are nothing you have experienced before, and perhaps they have abilities you are not aware of."
Mina sighed, nodding. "They'd have to, in order to be able to cause this much chaos."
"You know, that's another thing I don't understand." Orlando leaned forward, drawing pictures in the air with slim and tapered fingers as though it would somehow make her understanding clearer. "Why children? Why are all of the victims of these abductions children? And more girls than boys, have you noticed that? There has to be some sort of underlying reason..."
"I had noticed that, yes." Mycroft finished his drink, set the tumbler down on the end table, and frowned thoughtfully. "I had not as yet come up with a theory that would account for the manner and choice of abductions, though. Perhaps girls are more pliable than boys."
The three women exchanged a glance and a chuckle.
"What?"
"Dear Mycroft..." Orlando smiled and patted his hand. "It is nothing, except that it is quite clear that you've never had or been a girl yourself."
"Hmmph," he muttered good-naturedly. "It's just as I've always said... women are irrational..."
There was most likely more to that prepared and comic diatribe, but he never got a chance to impart it. A commotion and a screaming came from upstairs, and in a few seconds Marie came flying into the room.
"They're coming!" She would have been shrieking except that she was trying not to be heard. "They're coming... Mina-mama, they're coming..." She flew into the vampiress's arms. Mina's eyes were already starting to change, knowing what had happened last time Marie had said that.
"Who's coming, Marie..." Charlotte asked. Orlando, Mina, and Mycroft exchanged looks of alarm... Charlotte had not been present the last time, and she was a most ordinary woman. If she were caught in the line of fire...
"Charlotte..." Mycroft started to say, and paused while Gordie came crashing into the room as fast as he could, still slower than Marie on his twisted leg. "Perhaps you had better stay inside, upstairs with the children. They'll be wondering what's been going on if they wake up due to the commotion, and most likely scared."
Charlotte looked around the room at the carefully blank faces and the two younger folk sobbing hysterically in various sets of arms. "Mr. Holmes, I don't like being managed..."
"And you will not be managed, dear lady," Mycroft said as placatingly as he could. "But the fact remains that you are... well, to put it quite honestly, ordinary. You have no defenses such as Orlando and Mina have, and if this building should come under attack you will be defenseless. And it would be easier for the rest of us if all such folk were in the same area."
"Attack?" Charlotte's eyes widened. "Do you really think it will come to..."
As though perfectly on cue, there was a high-pitched shriek.
Everyone sat in their chairs for the briefest of seconds that seemed to spin out into an hour, frozen. Even Marie and Gordie were utterly quiet, the whites of their eyes showing their animalistic fear. Then the second scream came, a different voice this time, and jolted everyone to action. Charlotte practically fled upstairs, already hearing the sound of children stirring. Orlando took Marie from Mina and herded both children into the corner by the fire. Mycroft picked up the decanter and an iron poker and quickly joined them.
Mina's eyes bled crimson, and it wasn't entirely clear whether she was stalking or floating towards the door.
"Stay in the corner," Mycroft said, rather unnecessarily but it seemed to give him some sort of feeling of control over the whole situation. Neither Orlando nor the youngers made any comment on it.
"I will take care of it," Mina replied, and her voice had already sharpened to a growl, a snarl that seemed to tear itself from her throat. Mycroft and Orlando's eyes widened slightly at the display of power; Gordie and Marie, for some peculiar reason, looked... relieved?
There was a pounding on the door. There was shrieking outside, the words themselves obstructed by the two layers of thick oak. Marie, however, pulled away from Orlando. "It's Artie!" she yelped, sounding startled. "It's Artie and Claire and John..."
The words could faintly be made out now as the three outside raised their voices, and as Mina and Mycroft now knew what to listen for. "Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!"
Marie didn't even wait for Mina, but ran to the doors and started pulling open both oak and gate, leaving them sprawling open behind her. Mina followed, eyes still blood red and mind still afire with the vampire's lust for blood. When Marie opened the outer door, three wet and bedraggled young men and women practically collapsed into her arms.
"Get them back into the room," Mina growled. "Orlando!"
"What happened?" The other woman came at a run, helping Marie to half drag, half carry the three bedraggled and soaked arrivals. "I didn't think it was raining outside."
"It's not," Marie said cryptically. "Get them in... we have to get them in, before..."
The low growl, not an animal sound but not human either, galvanized them all into action. Mina shouted a single word that might have been 'Go' or 'Run', no one could be sure. Orlando and Marie sped up as best they could, pulling the gate shut behind them, and then the solid inner oak door.
-
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-
Outside the orphanage Mina could allow her mind to be subsumed by the fierce hunger of her vampire blood. Outside the orphanage, with the newest three locked safe inside the triple doors, she could attack anything in sight and be certain it was an enemy. And attack she did, with a fury born of primal protective instinct.
There was no telling what these creatures were, she noted with the distant and much imprisoned part of her mind that could still think rationally. She analyzed and calculated even as she ravaged and fed, and was ravaged upon herself. The first wave (if three or four could be called a wave) came upon her so suddenly that they must have felt assured in their superiority of strength and numbers. She taught them otherwise, and quickly. The second wave hung back after she had four bodies piled around her, watching with a little more caution to see what this strange new creature would do. She had a little bit of time to calm herself, to regain control and examine the situation.
Man-apes indeed, she thought with a frown. These creatures resembled human beings in that they were bipedal and had the right number of limbs, digits, and opposable thumbs. But their faces, their grayish bodies and their white eyes... these were hideous and different. Their talons, which had raked her without effect, seemed to be secreting some sort of strange... she didn't know what to call it. It was so different here from in the lab.
The second wave advanced, of course, as soon as they sensed her attention wandering. Her gaze snapped back up to the living monsters instead of the dead ones, and the fight was on again.
This time there were some changes. She could hear the crack of pistol fire and see the muzzle of a rifle poking from the window out of the corner of her eye. Mycroft, at least, she knew. She didn't know who the pistol had been. Her teeth sank into the veins of one of the creatures. Ironically the thought struck her that if she didn't watch herself she was going to be lethargic and slow from the sheer amount of blood she was consuming.
As it turned out, she didn't need to worry. Between the support fire, her own abilities, and the sound of constables running up the street and whistling for all they were worth, the area was clear of the strange creatures almost faster than she had time to think. Mina composed herself quickly, retreating up to the steps of the townhouse and scrubbing at her face to make sure all traces of blood were lost, or at least shifted into a position to where it could be accounted for by the violence.
"Miss..." one of the constables ran up to her while the others clustered around the corpses, looking for all the world as though Martians had descended from the sky to attack. And maybe, Mina thought wearily, they have.
"I'm all right," she waved them off. "I'm all right. This..." Damn. The biggest problem, she decided then, with being a member of the British Secret Service (or a branch therein) was that it was secret. "Is a matter of international security. Your timeliness is appreciated but your services are not required any longer, thank you... sir!" Dammit. They were poking around at the bodies. "Sir, those are evidence, would you please step away."
"It's all right." Mycroft. His voice, though occasionally heralding the onset of obnoxious male patronizing attitude, was a welcome sound to Mina's ears in the current situation. "It's all right, gentlemen. You've performed your duty admirably, but it's time for the rest of us to take over..."
Thank God, Mina murmured, retreating further into the now-open doorway as Mycroft explained to the nice gentlemen very carefully, in the strange words of the law enforcement language, that they should kindly bugger off right now. Orlando, Charlotte, and Marie (to Mina's surprise) appeared in the doorway shortly after they'd left. It had been Marie who had fired the pistol, and Mina had no idea where she'd picked up that skill.
"Rodney," Marie said shyly as they started to heave the bodies through the house and into the cellar, which was the best place everyone could think of to put them for now. "He thought it might help me to feel safer if I learned how to shoot a pistol, so he taught me to shoot at pieces of wood. Didn't help. But..."
"Well, it helped tonight," Mina dumped her side of the body onto the floor, with Orlando following suit, and went over to wrap Marie up in a heartfelt and grateful embrace. "You did brilliantly."