Disclaimer: Fox logos, the LXG trademarks and characters do not belong to me. I make no profit from this venture, the folklore/ghosts stem from Black Hart Storytellers and Meercat Tours.
Author's Notes: Well, the second chapter is here! Thanks to Funyun and Keyanna for their thoroughly charming reviews and pointers. If anyone wants to read the trailer for this then it's an R rating- so you may have to change your page settings. Might give you an idea of where I'm heading with this, and hopefully keep you reading in the long pauses between updates- yes it's those exams again...
Shards
Chapter Two: And I am re-begot,
The portholes boiled.
The glass, gripped by bolts, strained against the walls, sinuously blistering and writhing blackly. Behind the glass the water in the firth drifted peacefully.
While the league sleeps, the windows on the Nautilus gain consciousness.
Hyde has been dealt an exceptionally good hand. Jekyll can see this from where he sits, and he can also see the chips mounting in the centre of the table.
"Do you think that's wise?" He asks as Edward pushes another hundred in.
"Shut up Jekyll," Hyde sneers, "You folded."
The other occupant of the table, hidden in shadow, every inch the Machiavellian villain laughs quietly shuffling his cards absently. "Where were we Edward?" he asks.
"End of the deal." Hyde replies, smiling at the shadow.
There is a perverse expectancy in the air. Jekyll can feel it creeping along his skin.
"And the angel said to the devil, I'll see your heart and raise you mine." The shadow comments, laying down a superb hand.
Hyde smiles and lays down his cards. Shooting a malicious grin at Jekyll, he pulls out a small mirror and lays it on top of the pile of winnings.
"You see Jekyll," He snarls, "It's not the winning or the losing; it's how you play the game."
He wakes to find himself on the floor, fully dressed, Edward's face grinning at him from the other side of the mirror.
"Bad dreams, Henry?" he asks.
Outside there is the sound of water and of running feet, shouts and in the distance Nemo's voice raised in anger. Jekyll aches, the stretched feeling of a transformation. He pales and shoots a sharp glance at Hyde.
"What have you done, Edward?"
"Nothing at all Henry. Nothing at all."
With a last frightened glance at the grinning face in the mirror Jekyll runs out of the door.
It's been two weeks since they agreed to transport the Wiccans from Edinburgh to America. Two weeks of waiting for the full coven to arrive and loading their secret packages on board. Secret until the cloth slipped off one Sawyer had been carrying revealing nothing more then an ornately carved wooden frame and mirror.
Two weeks of a pervading sense of unease. There was a palpable tension around the ship. Dorian's betrayal, Moriarty's games had thrown them back to a time when they were alone, no-one was to be trusted with their secrets. Skinner had taken to appearing fully clothed at every opportunity, flinching whenever someone lit a match. Sawyer kept to his room and when he ventured out for meals could not be engaged in conversation without resorting to monosyllabic answers. Mina and Nemo assumed the mantles of leadership and all the coldness and responsibility that came with it, Mina especially detached, avoiding any conversation that went beyond their standard greetings.
They couldn't see each other anymore for the smoke of mistrust and fear. Jekyll knew this; he also knew that Hyde's reflection became fainter and fainter in the mirror everyday.
Hyde was incredibly distant in the shards that covered the floor when he rounded the corner to find Nemo and the coven's bland spokesperson- Jacobs- arguing bitterly as around them the buckled metal groaned and water bled from the cracked porthole.
It looked like an explosion; in the room behind Jacobs the mirror's frame was intact, but the glass had shattered all over the floor and out the door. Two more mirrors stood forming a triangle with the empty frame, their reflections creating two infinity curves: endless corridors of mirrors. Water leaked in the corridor, Nemo's crew already hammering out the dents in the metal and soldering closed the cracks.
Jacobs was impassioned: "And I've told you, there was nothing here-"
"You will contain and control-"
"-to endanger you or your crew!"
"-this violence produced by your rituals."
Nemo waits for the response in a fighting stance- a perfectly calm, balanced stand filled with the hidden tension of his muscles.
Jacobs is red in the face, indignant; a bland little man in plain-tailored outfits. "I do not care for your insults and slurs on my religion, sir. I would have thought that with a background such as yours, you might have learnt to be a little more tolerant of other cultures!"
Nemo is impassive. "Not when they endanger the lives of my crew, sir" he rumbles. "I am not denying you the right to practice your beliefs- but if there are any more accidents, sir, you will be answerable to me."
There is a horrible civility in his tone that Jekyll recognises, Control your evil doctor. Mina is walking from the other end of the corridor towards them. I will not have the brute free on my ship. Must I take drastic steps? Eyes roaming restlessly around the damage.
She pauses to run her fingers across a soldered crack. "What has happened?" she asks all calm cold concern as she looks to Jekyll, to Jacobs, to Nemo.
"An accident." He replies.
"It would appear their ritual had an unexpected effect."
Sawyer frowns at this comment but makes no move. His arms are wound tightly around his ribcage, holding in any comments he might have made. Jekyll would hazard that Skinner would be bleary-eyed if his eyes could be seen; he is holding his head in such a way that it makes it very obvious he has been drinking. Mina is as pokerfaced as ever. Hyde is worryingly silent. Nemo holds the cards, but not all of the information; the briefing table has something of a tense atmosphere as a result, it is a poker game with shifting glances and a faint jitter of distrust.
"But why?" Asks Jekyll, "We're not talking about anything more than a complex religion. They have belief in the magic of nature, but I highly doubt there's any real potency in that."
"Enough potency, however, to deal the ship some damage." Mina muses.
"Perhaps the amount of damage possible is something we ought to be considering." Murmurs Skinner and there is an edge and a worry in his voice.
Sawyer shifts uncomfortably and glances towards the door.
"The potency is created if the ritual is performed incorrectly." Nemo states.
"When our cagey friends up there balls it up, you mean." Skinner gripes and Jekyll knows from his tone that he has been drinking. "Perhaps we should just lock them away until we get to America..."
Nemo and Mina shoot him frowns of disapproval.
"...It's the safest way to guarantee no more trouble."
There is a complete silence. Sawyer glances towards the door once again; Skinner slumps and folds his arms tightly. Jekyll feels them disconnecting, moving as far away as they can.
"So," begins Jekyll, trying to bring focus, if not harmony back to the table, "What exactly was the problem?"
Focus is gone however and it was probably never here. But his powerlessness to ease the atmosphere reinforces the ineptitude that creeps up when he contemplates that all he brings to the league is Hyde- something which fades and slips out of his control every time he looks in the mirror.
Nemo is now the only one who responds. "It would seem they used a door instead of a mirror- the belief being that an object retains its functions even if it is not physically performing them- and so the door opened to let this potency out, damaging the Nautilus."
"So just tell them not to use a door." States Tom abruptly, standing. "If you'll excuse me..." He leaves, sentence trailing off in his wake.
Jekyll tries to make eye contact with anyone, feeling suddenly cut of in the abruptness of this departure.
"Yeah, g'night all." Skinner states, gathering himself slowly together, the greasepaint seeming more haggard than ever.
Mina seems absorbed in her own thoughts. Nemo watches Skinner leave.
"That's not all though, is it?" Mina questions, eyes fixing abruptly on Nemo. Jekyll's eyes dart between the two.
"No," He replies, "Even though the door shattered, whatever it was came through it. It may still be here."
Jekyll suddenly feels very cold.
Skinner burned. Literally.
His lungs hurt with a deep-down insistent ache and each time he swallowed his throat rasped, tightening like steel coils.
Around him he was aware of hundreds of warm bodies: people, but in the blackness he was unable to see them. They moved as a flowing mass, a pliable ragged crowd.
His skin dripped with sweat but he was bone dry on the inside.
Behind him was the harsh feel of stone, an acrid tug on his clothes, he could feel heat through this; an itching which expanded to a burning to a scalding to a searing. He launched himself into the centre of the crowd moving with them into a tight huddle.
The dryness inside was slowly replaced with the feeling of his gut bubbling, a boiling that spread to the fat under his skin.
They were moving together, slippery with sweat, hands grasping, and hair rustling. They were backing away as tightly as they could away from the walls that enclosed them- the room that had turned into a furnace; a mass of groaning, shifting humans in the dark, the acerbic smell of bile sliding over them.
His skin tightened, his skin split slowly, his skin began to char.
He could smell burning flesh, singed hair. Next to him a child began to cry.
He tried to open his eyes and mouth to clear the oppressive heat, but they seared.
A woman began to scream, children to wail. Next to him a male voice groaned and gasped and retched.
He tried to move but each motion brought an agony and dizziness.
The crying grew louder. Abandoned screaming and the sound of crisping skin.
He lunged for a way out
And woke to the sound of screaming...
TBC...
Author's Notes: Well, the second chapter is here! Thanks to Funyun and Keyanna for their thoroughly charming reviews and pointers. If anyone wants to read the trailer for this then it's an R rating- so you may have to change your page settings. Might give you an idea of where I'm heading with this, and hopefully keep you reading in the long pauses between updates- yes it's those exams again...
Shards
Chapter Two: And I am re-begot,
The portholes boiled.
The glass, gripped by bolts, strained against the walls, sinuously blistering and writhing blackly. Behind the glass the water in the firth drifted peacefully.
While the league sleeps, the windows on the Nautilus gain consciousness.
Hyde has been dealt an exceptionally good hand. Jekyll can see this from where he sits, and he can also see the chips mounting in the centre of the table.
"Do you think that's wise?" He asks as Edward pushes another hundred in.
"Shut up Jekyll," Hyde sneers, "You folded."
The other occupant of the table, hidden in shadow, every inch the Machiavellian villain laughs quietly shuffling his cards absently. "Where were we Edward?" he asks.
"End of the deal." Hyde replies, smiling at the shadow.
There is a perverse expectancy in the air. Jekyll can feel it creeping along his skin.
"And the angel said to the devil, I'll see your heart and raise you mine." The shadow comments, laying down a superb hand.
Hyde smiles and lays down his cards. Shooting a malicious grin at Jekyll, he pulls out a small mirror and lays it on top of the pile of winnings.
"You see Jekyll," He snarls, "It's not the winning or the losing; it's how you play the game."
He wakes to find himself on the floor, fully dressed, Edward's face grinning at him from the other side of the mirror.
"Bad dreams, Henry?" he asks.
Outside there is the sound of water and of running feet, shouts and in the distance Nemo's voice raised in anger. Jekyll aches, the stretched feeling of a transformation. He pales and shoots a sharp glance at Hyde.
"What have you done, Edward?"
"Nothing at all Henry. Nothing at all."
With a last frightened glance at the grinning face in the mirror Jekyll runs out of the door.
It's been two weeks since they agreed to transport the Wiccans from Edinburgh to America. Two weeks of waiting for the full coven to arrive and loading their secret packages on board. Secret until the cloth slipped off one Sawyer had been carrying revealing nothing more then an ornately carved wooden frame and mirror.
Two weeks of a pervading sense of unease. There was a palpable tension around the ship. Dorian's betrayal, Moriarty's games had thrown them back to a time when they were alone, no-one was to be trusted with their secrets. Skinner had taken to appearing fully clothed at every opportunity, flinching whenever someone lit a match. Sawyer kept to his room and when he ventured out for meals could not be engaged in conversation without resorting to monosyllabic answers. Mina and Nemo assumed the mantles of leadership and all the coldness and responsibility that came with it, Mina especially detached, avoiding any conversation that went beyond their standard greetings.
They couldn't see each other anymore for the smoke of mistrust and fear. Jekyll knew this; he also knew that Hyde's reflection became fainter and fainter in the mirror everyday.
Hyde was incredibly distant in the shards that covered the floor when he rounded the corner to find Nemo and the coven's bland spokesperson- Jacobs- arguing bitterly as around them the buckled metal groaned and water bled from the cracked porthole.
It looked like an explosion; in the room behind Jacobs the mirror's frame was intact, but the glass had shattered all over the floor and out the door. Two more mirrors stood forming a triangle with the empty frame, their reflections creating two infinity curves: endless corridors of mirrors. Water leaked in the corridor, Nemo's crew already hammering out the dents in the metal and soldering closed the cracks.
Jacobs was impassioned: "And I've told you, there was nothing here-"
"You will contain and control-"
"-to endanger you or your crew!"
"-this violence produced by your rituals."
Nemo waits for the response in a fighting stance- a perfectly calm, balanced stand filled with the hidden tension of his muscles.
Jacobs is red in the face, indignant; a bland little man in plain-tailored outfits. "I do not care for your insults and slurs on my religion, sir. I would have thought that with a background such as yours, you might have learnt to be a little more tolerant of other cultures!"
Nemo is impassive. "Not when they endanger the lives of my crew, sir" he rumbles. "I am not denying you the right to practice your beliefs- but if there are any more accidents, sir, you will be answerable to me."
There is a horrible civility in his tone that Jekyll recognises, Control your evil doctor. Mina is walking from the other end of the corridor towards them. I will not have the brute free on my ship. Must I take drastic steps? Eyes roaming restlessly around the damage.
She pauses to run her fingers across a soldered crack. "What has happened?" she asks all calm cold concern as she looks to Jekyll, to Jacobs, to Nemo.
"An accident." He replies.
"It would appear their ritual had an unexpected effect."
Sawyer frowns at this comment but makes no move. His arms are wound tightly around his ribcage, holding in any comments he might have made. Jekyll would hazard that Skinner would be bleary-eyed if his eyes could be seen; he is holding his head in such a way that it makes it very obvious he has been drinking. Mina is as pokerfaced as ever. Hyde is worryingly silent. Nemo holds the cards, but not all of the information; the briefing table has something of a tense atmosphere as a result, it is a poker game with shifting glances and a faint jitter of distrust.
"But why?" Asks Jekyll, "We're not talking about anything more than a complex religion. They have belief in the magic of nature, but I highly doubt there's any real potency in that."
"Enough potency, however, to deal the ship some damage." Mina muses.
"Perhaps the amount of damage possible is something we ought to be considering." Murmurs Skinner and there is an edge and a worry in his voice.
Sawyer shifts uncomfortably and glances towards the door.
"The potency is created if the ritual is performed incorrectly." Nemo states.
"When our cagey friends up there balls it up, you mean." Skinner gripes and Jekyll knows from his tone that he has been drinking. "Perhaps we should just lock them away until we get to America..."
Nemo and Mina shoot him frowns of disapproval.
"...It's the safest way to guarantee no more trouble."
There is a complete silence. Sawyer glances towards the door once again; Skinner slumps and folds his arms tightly. Jekyll feels them disconnecting, moving as far away as they can.
"So," begins Jekyll, trying to bring focus, if not harmony back to the table, "What exactly was the problem?"
Focus is gone however and it was probably never here. But his powerlessness to ease the atmosphere reinforces the ineptitude that creeps up when he contemplates that all he brings to the league is Hyde- something which fades and slips out of his control every time he looks in the mirror.
Nemo is now the only one who responds. "It would seem they used a door instead of a mirror- the belief being that an object retains its functions even if it is not physically performing them- and so the door opened to let this potency out, damaging the Nautilus."
"So just tell them not to use a door." States Tom abruptly, standing. "If you'll excuse me..." He leaves, sentence trailing off in his wake.
Jekyll tries to make eye contact with anyone, feeling suddenly cut of in the abruptness of this departure.
"Yeah, g'night all." Skinner states, gathering himself slowly together, the greasepaint seeming more haggard than ever.
Mina seems absorbed in her own thoughts. Nemo watches Skinner leave.
"That's not all though, is it?" Mina questions, eyes fixing abruptly on Nemo. Jekyll's eyes dart between the two.
"No," He replies, "Even though the door shattered, whatever it was came through it. It may still be here."
Jekyll suddenly feels very cold.
Skinner burned. Literally.
His lungs hurt with a deep-down insistent ache and each time he swallowed his throat rasped, tightening like steel coils.
Around him he was aware of hundreds of warm bodies: people, but in the blackness he was unable to see them. They moved as a flowing mass, a pliable ragged crowd.
His skin dripped with sweat but he was bone dry on the inside.
Behind him was the harsh feel of stone, an acrid tug on his clothes, he could feel heat through this; an itching which expanded to a burning to a scalding to a searing. He launched himself into the centre of the crowd moving with them into a tight huddle.
The dryness inside was slowly replaced with the feeling of his gut bubbling, a boiling that spread to the fat under his skin.
They were moving together, slippery with sweat, hands grasping, and hair rustling. They were backing away as tightly as they could away from the walls that enclosed them- the room that had turned into a furnace; a mass of groaning, shifting humans in the dark, the acerbic smell of bile sliding over them.
His skin tightened, his skin split slowly, his skin began to char.
He could smell burning flesh, singed hair. Next to him a child began to cry.
He tried to open his eyes and mouth to clear the oppressive heat, but they seared.
A woman began to scream, children to wail. Next to him a male voice groaned and gasped and retched.
He tried to move but each motion brought an agony and dizziness.
The crying grew louder. Abandoned screaming and the sound of crisping skin.
He lunged for a way out
And woke to the sound of screaming...
TBC...