Disclaimer: 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' movie is copyright of 20th Century Fox. No infringement is intended.
PICKING UP THE PIECES
By Etcetera Kit
Chapter Eleven: On the Road
Mina watched the country roll by in the carriage, almost unwilling to believe that this nightmare had really started. On the Nautilus, it was easy enough to pretend that the day as still far away. Skinner was booby trapping Sawyer's room, Sawyer was running around the ship brooding, Nemo was trying to keep order while Hasaan was chasing people with rolling pins behind the captain's back and Henry could be found in the library, his room or on the deck, trying to avoid all the chaos that inevitably would happen.
And her? What she doing while all of them were on the Nautilus? She would have been avoiding Skinner, having run-ins with Sawyer and trying to find a quiet moment to spend with Henry or by herself. Their faces as the carriage pulled away would be scorched into her memory forever. Sawyer trying to look as though he really did not care, Skinner looking at the ground and Nemo with obvious tears in his eyes. Who would have ever known that leaving the people she used to find intolerable would be so hard? And what had happened to Quartermain? He had not been around too terribly much in the past two days?
She drew in a breath and held Henry's hand a little tighter. He smiled at her. It was supposed to be a reassuring smile, but she could see the tension behind it. They were both probably thinking the same thing, 'Oh my God, what are we doing here?'
"It will be all right," he said softly.
"I hope so," she replied, watching the green countryside roll past. The hotel they were supposed to be headed for was called the Hotel Royale in Klausenburgh. According to the driver, they would arrive after nightfall sometime.
The driver had not asked many questions and Mina supposed that the people at the hotel would be the same way. Anywhere Nemo arranged for them to stay would probably be question free. On the other hand, any place they chose for themselves would warrant many questions and they would probably have to lie about who they really were. It was not proper for a widow and a respectable single doctor to traipse across an unknown country together. They could always lie and say they were married or claim they were siblings.
And she had not spoken German in a long time- the language they needed to communicate with the people in this country. She only hoped she remembered enough to get what they needed. Henry knew French from his flight to Paris, but no German. Last time she had been here, Jonathan and Van Helsing spoke to the people at the hotels- she had not actually had to communicate in German to anyone. The men had been too concerned with keeping her safe and destroying the Count to undo what he had done. And look what had happened to them…
The sun began to sink beyond the horizon, tinting the sky shades of orange and red. What had possessed the Count to try to hold Jonathan prisoner anyways? If Mr. Hawkins, Jonathan's employer, had not been too ill to make the initial trip to Transylvania, none of this would ever have happened. Jonathan would probably still be alive. But then, she would never have been recruited to the League or met Henry or Sawyer or anyone in the League. Perhaps there really was a reason for things happening the way they did.
"We'll be at the hotel in about an hour," the driver called to them.
Mina sighed. Once they were at the hotel, it just meant they were closer to the Count and closer to trying to accomplish the impossible. She used to be afraid of death. Now, she would gladly welcome it if it would end this hellish life as a part-vampire.
Henry looked out the window, watching the moderately sized village approach. It was dark out and the houses were light up, looking almost merry. He shivered involuntarily. Fall was coming and it would probably be cooler once they got out into the open country near the Castle Dracula. Well, for now he would welcome a hot supper at the hotel and a chance to stretch his legs after being in the carriage all day.
"Here we are!" the driver called, pulling the carriage to a stop in front of a small hotel with a neat brass plaque reading 'Hotel Royale.' The driver opened the carriage door and Henry hopped out, turning to help Mina out of the carriage. He looked up at the place. It was almost as if it marked the first step in their journey. The driver was scrambling with the bags as he and Mina walked into the hotel.
The lobby was small, yet neat and well-furnished. A short round woman stood behind the front desk. She looked like she could be jolly or wrathful at any given time. She gave them a warm smile as they walked in.
"You must be the ones the Captain wired us about! Welcome!"
Henry exchanged a glance with Mina. The only person he supposed she could be referring to would be Nemo. And she spoke English with a thick Cockney accent. The woman bustled around underneath the desk and pulled out a large black ledger, presumably where the guests signed in.
"Now, all I'll need is your name," the lady continued. "You and your wife," she added looking at Mina with a smile. Henry raised an eyebrow and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Nemo had probably made up an entire story about them that conveniently left out their names. He sighed, resigned to the fact that he would have to make up a name since this lady was staring at him expectantly. He took a fountain pen from its holder on the desk and quickly signed two names in the ledger.
The woman studied the names, still beaming. "Welcome Mr. and Mrs. Snodgrass."
Mina gave him a look that clearly said 'Where in the world did you get that name from?'
"You'll be room twelve," the woman continued. "My name is Mrs. O'Malley." She pulled a key from the box labeled twelve and gave them quick instructions on how to find the room.
"I think Nemo put us in a hotel where English thieves hide out," Mina whispered to him as they walked down the dim hallway. Henry nodded, knowing that estimation was about the most correct they were probably going to run across. The driver had given the bags to a bellhop and the boy was now following them with the luggage.
Once they were safely in their room with their luggage and the bellhop left, Mina began to laugh. Henry gave her a mild look.
"What's so funny?"
"Snodgrass?" She continued laughed. "God forbid you have to hide out anywhere. The police would find you in two minutes just following the ridiculous British last names."
He shrugged. "I'm glad you find it so amusing Petunia," he replied using the name he had signed in the ledger as hers.
She abruptly stopped laughing. "You did not."
"Oh but I did." He sat down in one of the two small armchairs in the room.
"And what did you tell her your name was?"
"Vernon."
Mina rolled her eyes and sat down in the other armchair. "We need to have a talk about using aliases here because I do not want to be known as Petunia at every place we stop."
There was a knock on the door followed by, "Do you dears want some tea?"
"Mrs. O'Malley," Henry muttered.
"Yes, just a minute," Mina called and then whispered to Henry. "Do you want some tea, Vernon dear?"
"Why yes please Petunia."
Mina playfully glared at him and went to open the door. Mrs. O'Malley entered with a tray containing a tea service and a plate full of cookies. The portly landlady then stayed to have tea with them chattering inanely about her deceased husband, her children and her cats that lived in her apartment. Henry just smiled and sipped his tea, glad they had someone like Mrs. O'Malley around to keep their minds off of what was yet to come on this trip.
Sawyer looked absently at one spot on the floor of the lounge he was in. He had been staring at that same spot for the past hour and, for some reason, could not will himself to look anywhere else or to get up and move. As soon as Henry and Mina's carriage was out of sight, Nemo had the crew get the ship ready to sail and, in half an hour, they were back on the high sea with a course for England. He was not sure what they were going to do in England, but he assumed that Nemo had business to take care of.
Dinner had been a quiet affair. Not the noisy, rowdy happy hour that it had been most recently. And they still had not been able to locate Allan on the ship. Tom strongly suspected that he was just no longer on the ship. He had said he would not be with them much longer to both him and Jekyll. It had been almost two days since anyone had seen him. And it was not like Allan to hole up somewhere away from the rest of them.
"So they're gone." It was not a question, but a statement. Skinner was standing in the doorway of the lounge. Sawyer tore his gaze from the inane spot on the floor and fixed it on Skinner. The invisible man was clothed and had the white greasepaint on.
"You were there," Sawyer replied. Skinner came in and sat on the sofa across from the one that Sawyer occupied.
"It's a little depressing, isn't it? With them gone and all."
Sawyer smiled. "If you had told me a month ago that I was going to miss Jekyll, I wouldn't have believed you."
"Isn't that the truth," Skinner replied. "We've all grown accustomed to each other."
"And now we have to redefine our roles in the group," he finished. "I would never have thought I'd be staying here with you guys. I thought I'd be going back to America the moment it was over."
"And no one planned on M betraying us."
Sawyer looked at Skinner. "How did you figure out before the rest of us that M had betrayed us? That he was phony."
Skinner shrugged. "I knew someone was trying to pin something on me that I didn't do. They wouldn't have been trying to do that unless it was a cover-up from something bigger." He paused. "So I just laid low until I figured out who it really was."
Sawyer shook his head. "I wouldn't have seen that and I'm supposed to be the spy."
"We all have our cross to bear," Skinner replied flippantly. "Besides, I think you were way too busy ogling Mina."
"Hey!" He swatted at Skinner who good-naturedly ducked the blows.
"Hay nothing, oats are cheaper!"
"And grass is more expensive."
"How did you know that?"
"My uncle used to say that all the time. He did live on a farm."
Skinner shook his head. "I keep forgetting that." He paused. "Did you have a girl back in America?"
"I thought I did. I'd known her since I was a kid, but she didn't want me to join the Secret Service and then she didn't want me to go overseas." He trailed off and took a deep breath. "But I didn't want to be what she wanted me to be. I did have a huge imagination as a kid and she thought that I would outgrow it. She thought the Secret Service was just an adult version of that imagination."
Skinner nodded. "I had a girl before I went invisible. She worked at my favorite tavern and could always tell you what the best beer was. She couldn't quite believe the fact that I really was invisible. She thought I was a dead spirit. She thought I died." He shrugged. "I still go to the tavern where she works when I can, just to see her."
"What was her name?" Sawyer asked softly.
"Tell me the name of your girl and I'll tell you the name of mine."
Sawyer glared at him. "All right. Fine. Her name was Becky."
Skinner nodded. "Mine's name was Abby." He paused. "Short for Abigail," he conceded. "But she hated to be called that. She wanted everyone to call her Abby."
Sawyer nodded. He and Skinner really did have more in common than they liked to believe that they did.
"I'd go back to her if there was an antidote. I'd marry her," Skinner said more to himself than to Sawyer.
"Isn't there one?" Sawyer asked. He remembered somewhere at the beginning of their voyage, learning that Skinner was in the League so he could get the antidote to the invisibility.
"No," Skinner shook his. "M lied about that. The only way I can become visible is to die and I don't want to die just yet, so I'm stuck invisible."
Sawyer nodded sympathetically. "Well, if you can come to terms with it."
"Oh yes," Skinner grinned wickedly. "I can nick food more easily from the kitchen and the cook has really bad aim with the frying pan and hardly ever actually hits me." He paused. "Why are we sitting here feeling sorry for ourselves? We should be finding Nemo's room and booby trapping it!"
Sawyer laughed. "Yeah. Then, he'd throw you overboard!"
Skinner thought for a moment. "Good point. Getting myself thrown overboard would probably not be a perspicacious thing for me to do. Then again, he might throw a life jacket over the side too and I could float to shore and settle in some pagan town." He paused and then added, "Where they've never heard of me or played a note of my music!"
"Your music? I didn't know you played the piano."
"I don't. But Richard Wagner did."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"I don't know, maybe I could convince the villagers that I'm Richard Wagner."
Sawyer just laughed. "Do you have any idea in hell what Richard Wagner actually looks like or what any of his music sounds like?"
"No. I'm pretty sure he was German and Franz Liszt became his father-in-law eventually because he married his daughter."
"Who is Franz Liszt?"
"A Hungarian pianist. Wagner is a German pianist." Skinner paused. "And that is about the extent of my knowledge of either one of them."
Sawyer shook his head. "How is any of this relevant to the fact that you want to booby trap Nemo's room and he would consequently throw you overboard?"
"Not a damn thing!" Skinner declared cheerfully. "I'm just trying to impress you with how smart and cultured I am because I know about famous pianists."
"It's not working," Sawyer muttered.
"Oh well," Skinner shrugged.
Sawyer laughed, feeling the dark cloud that had settled over him lifting. Skinner may be irrelevant and complete flippant- all the time, but he did have a way of cheering people up by talking about obscure German and Hungarian pianists. The invisible man had taken a deck of cards out of his pocket and was shuffling them. Sawyer watched him shuffle the deck expertly. He assumed he might have picked that up, playing cards in some tavern where they bet with the birds they had shot and things of that nature. Sawyer's uncle used to go to a place like that. He took him and Huck once…
Skinner began to deal the cards, once more in an expert style. Sawyer was quite impressed and chose to keep his mind on the cards and not what had happened to Huck, although Huck would have liked Skinner…
"What's on your mind?" Skinner asked.
Tom shook his head. "Nothing. What are we playing?"
Skinner picked up his cards and grinned wickedly once more.
"Poker…"To Be Continued...
