Disclaimer: Fox logos, the LXG trademarks and characters do not belong to me. I make no profit from this venture, the folklore/ghosts stems from Black Hart Storytellers and Meercat Tours and of course Old Reekies' Terror Tour...
Author's Notes: I want to thank you all for your patience, and the wonderful, encouraging reviews—it's fantastic to come away from English Literature and not have to envelop my mind in any more confounding contradictions.
Anyway, individual shouts at the end.
Here's the penultimate chapter; only one more to go after this...
Shards
Chapter Seven: For I am every dead thing,
It's the stench and the cold and the quiet that makes it so harsh, so raw against his heart.
He is not hurting; he is the hurt. Deep inside him, beneath his breastbone, pressing against his ribcage he can feel the loss, It makes him ache every time he takes a breath; with each step forward his head pounds with a distant feeling, a terrible sense of bereavement.
He is alone; above him the buildings stretch upwards, almost toppling onto him with their height: their dizzy stretch into the blue light of the early morning sky. Not one lamp is lit; their windows are dark.
Somewhere, above him, round the corner of the hill a city clock strikes two.
His skin is crawling with the tightness of burns, of drying saltwater, and as he trudges upwards he feels the soles of his feet bruising on the paving stones. Skinner feels a deep cold within him and clutches at the remains of his coat, hands spasming in weak response at the effort, the remains of dried blood and faecal matter crumbling under his fingers.
The hill stretches; twisting round one long corner and it's so very steep. He's exhausted from the swim for the shoreline, the fight against the currents and then the inevitable trudge through the sewers he'd been sucked into, falling over what could only have been bodies; too dark to see if it's Sawyer, or Mina he's tripping over or stepping in.
His legs burn with a cold, tight pain and he crawls, stumbles, falls around the corner.
Ahead of him scaffolding laces the night sky, a barrier of wood at this level, the smell of chipped stone seeping around it; under the small cracks too small for him to slip through.
Dead end.
Skinner turns; and the downhill pathway reels, stretch, twists with hallucinogenic accuracy. He begins the slow steps downward, bare feet tightening for grip on the steep stones, the unevenness of the street exaggerated by the swimming sensation of his vision—the sense his body has suddenly been separated from his head.
Eleven steps later and he hears his name.
Just the once—enough to make him cast about, body reeling for balance, eyes, ears searching for the voice—the familiar voice calling for attention.
It is Mina.
To his right the arcade stretches; all gilt and long shadows, and at the end, blood matting her hair and clothes soaked, she leans.
The pain in his chest eases; stretches out into a spiral of relief. She sees him, he sees her and he knows he is no longer alone. He feels almost sick from the relief.
He takes two steps forward, into the arcade and the night air is suddenly colder, suddenly icy.
The windows are not windows—they are mirrors in the dark.
He can see himself, or rather his coat in their blackened reflection; and behind him an infinity curve of mirrors—an infinity curve of movement.
Mina is no longer ahead, and Skinner feels with the cold sense of realisation she never was, he is
Where we want you
And the glass behind him is coming to life with a voice, a shattering grind that reaches for him.
There's a moment, where everything slows, and for one, perfectly clear, crystal moment he can almost see the faces of these things behind the surge of glass.
And with this sight comes absolute terror.
He runs, stripping off, the coat almost torn from his grasp and he feels the blind panic, the urgency. No-one screams for him to run but he does—legs stretching desperately.
The glass is reaching for him, boiling with that purposeful movement he knows so well. And behind it he can hear the whispers, the sense of the darkness, the terror that comes creeping back when he thinks of the sense of Mina, struggling in the dark next to him.
But he's alone now.
And he realises with cold, clear accuracy that it doesn't matter he's lost his coat, the thin visibility of his skin means they—or rather it—can still see him.
And he stretches—reaching for that clear, cold square of night air. He feels burning on the back of his skin, the hot, breathing air of the things behind that still move.
That has a hold on him.
A sharp burning on the back of his neck that he flails against; toppling out, slamming onto the hard ground.
Grit burns across his knees and palms and he scrabbles, fast, moving away into the space, the freedom, looking behind to see the boiling retreating into fragments of shattered glass into a dark empty hole of an arcade.
And the world reels with the abandon of the cold night air, and he lies back; naked, visible skin cooling against the deserted pavements. He breathes; a slow deep inhalation as the early morning sky wheels overhead.
In the distance he can still hear the clang of the fire engines.
It's the fire bells that wake her, and the cold breeze against the crisping, tight skin on her face, and the flickering of candlelight on her inner eyelids.
There's almost something church-like about that purity of sound.
And almost god-like in the softness of the bed beneath her. She can feel the tickle of linen under her fingertips, the press of hot, tight wool against her skin, still damp.
There's whispering in the room with her; a deep undercurrent that rushes against her ears.
And she opens her eyes, knowing the voice, praying that it's not, that she's still alone.
Jekyll sits at a dressing table, quietly conversing with the black glass of the mirror.
She must inhale too quickly, or the bed sheets rustle when she sits up, but he breaks off, and looks at her; and in the wave of sickness and dizziness that follows all she can see is the cold, calculating look of his eyes.
"Mrs Harker." He states, and the voice, while Jekyll's has none of his inflection. This is someone else, she realises; someone she knows. His eyes are so very familiar—their burn and shadowed coyness, but the skin is so very different.
"Mr Hyde." She responds in the same measured tone of a formal greeting; all the while, watching him, calculating.
He laughs, loud and clear, mouth curling in pleasure. "Oh yes," he responds, "I wondered how long it would take you to realise Henry's not at home." His smile is knowing and his eyes flick over her quickly, something of which she is uncomfortably aware.
His smile widens as he moves towards her, and then fades as she moves, fast as she can, away, in to the corner of the room. Her eyes flick over his shoulder, twice to the door, once to the window, he could easily take her before she reached either.
"You know, I would have expected a less terrified reaction—I saved your bloody life after all." He's watching her with a snarl, and she realises how very dangerous this is; he is no longer Henry Jekyll for all appearances. She wonders distantly how much of Edward's strength he has in this form.
He takes another step towards her, and the urge to bolt, to run is almost overpowering; she feels her skin itch in fear with a cold, tightening shiver.
"Why?" She questions, voice swallowed up in the shadowed corners of the room.
"Simple, Mina, repayment." He smiles again, eyes skimming over her. "A deal's a deal. I give you this; you give me that—simple really."
"I made no deal—"
"The moment you reached for me, you made this deal." He leers now, moving closer, too close, with a snarl in his eyes; Jekyll's face, but Hyde hiding behind the veneer of respectability.
"You can't tell me it offends your 'delicate sensibilities'; you were so willing with Dorian. You looked at me that first time, and I knew, and deep down Jekyll knew it would come to this eventually."
He's close enough for her to smell.
She runs.
Every nerve in her body screams that she needs to get out now! But she knows, she knows she won't make it.
And she doesn't; he has a hold on her that no matter how much she flails against she cannot fight.
He throws her backwards onto the bed, and its softness is a sickening counterpoint to the violence. She is kicking, clawing; muscles weak and distant, and she could bite, but it wouldn't hurt him.
His hands are tight around her wrists, and his skin burns with its heat. Her arms are trapped above her head, and her legs are trapped beneath his.
She manages to scratch him, blood welling up beneath the wound in an angry path of fire.
He just leans in close.
Close enough for her to feel his breath on her neck.
"Go on Mrs Harker; add to the illusion; make Henry feel like he's worth something in your estimation: Tell me you love me." He's smiling with Jekyll's face, but there's no kindness or respite in that smile.
She turns her head away and begins to cry as he lifts her skirts.
"He loves you, you know, watches your every move—he wants this just as much as-"
And abruptly a release: Hyde is reeling away from her, staggering backwards, clutching his head, bellowing wordless pain.
Back towards the dressing table, where in the mirror a bloodied face is watching his every move.
Mina scrabbles, moving quickly, knowing this is her chance.
The room seems to shroud itself in a dizzy murk, and she lunges for the first available weapon: a display sword from off the wall above the fireplace.
Her muscles are shaking, and her skin is crawling, and the sword is too heavy. She is staggering under its weight, dragging it as she moves towards Hyde who is curled on the floor; Jekyll's skin seemingly boiling under the gaze of the thing in the mirror.
She steels herself.
She heaves the sword and swings it.
"Skinner."
Nemo's face above him, swimming in the night sky.
"Nemo," He responds, voice thick with exhaustion, "Didn't expect to see you here."
It's a lucky coincidence, he thinks, rationale dim behind the pain; perhaps too lucky.
"Are you here to finish me off?" He questions, voice slurring, recalling drunken nights where he'd return to the Nautilus beneath Nemo's disapproving gaze—jovial, brazen; even now, knowing that the thing is here, to do what it didn't manage in the arcade.
The thing frowns.
"Mr Skinner, you are unclothed, visible and burnt. I can only summarise this rather unusual greeting is the result of your injuries." He reaches down, hands warm, and real and comforting. "Nevertheless, it is more of a relief than I would like to see you here."
He feels the warmth of a coat—woollen, heavy with softness, and brandy in his throat, that brings everything back into focus.
Nemo: real and close and a formal, comforting respite against the solitude and bereavement.
Behind him, Jacobs—wet, bloodied and curled around the weight of a door.
Skinner, sensation creeping back into his limbs, knows he is no longer alone.
He grins freely, skin stretching painfully.
"Jesus, Nemo—you're alive—I didn't think anyone else had made it..." and the relief, the unbearable lightness, even as he looks at Jacobs.
Nemo smiles softly, and Skinner knows he's not alone in this relief, this small victory.
"We need to move..." Jacobs whines, and Skinner sees he's sweating beneath the weight of the door.
Let him sweat, he thinks, let him bleed.
Nemo acknowledges this statement with a small nod. Behind him, the hill leads straight onto the darkness of the Royal Mile. Beneath his feet Skinner can hear the crunch of glass.
Nemo's eyes darken as he looks to Jacobs. "Where is it?" He snaps, coldly. Skinner is suddenly glad for his terrifying formality.
He turns back to Skinner, even as Jacobs responds: "Niddry Street."
The flicker of recognition in Skinner's mind; he looks to Nemo for some sign of what 'it' is, what they are going to do now.
And the relief in his face, the joy that ripples through him when Nemo responds:
"We are finishing this. We are exorcising this demon."
"Oh god, oh god..." A running mantra, weak, is wavering under her shock even as she drops the sword and collapses back, sitting on the edge of the bed.
He's flayed.
Standing before her, bloodied, towering, panting with the effort of a transformation, Hyde's body, but Jekyll's eyes; kind, reaching out for her.
"Mina, Mina—are you all right?"
She's completely disconnected, she feels herself falling away, faster than she can hold onto the reality.
"Yes—" She responds thickly, "How—what—" something needs to click in her understanding, she's almost too dizzy to take it all in.
But it's all right; he holds her hands almost reverentially, and he's so gentle that the shadows, the room suddenly seem less threatening.
"He made a deal with these things—if he weakens the league, stops you from destroying them, then he gets complete freedom—gets control of what he can see in the mirror." His voice is urgent, concerned.
She looks at the skin, completely damaged. "So why not just let him out in full?" She asks. The full story, the understanding will help she thinks.
"They couldn't—they're not strong enough—mirrors are both a blessing and a curse, we're not in them long enough for them to have full control over us.
"That's why Skinner's only partially visible; and they couldn't let Hyde free fully; and they could only take away your vampirism—they couldn't destroy you fully they're so limited, they're so weak—their energy comes from us, one glimpse feeds them, but once that energy is used up..."
She reaches out to touch his arm and her fingers come away bloodied.
"They have this form when Hyde's out—they feed off it." He explains, eyes sad, smile pained. "They want to stop us—just us for the moment. The Wiccans let them out, they feed off us, and once we're destroyed, or too weak to fight back, they'll start feeding off others."
She's so weak, so tired, and fighting against the shock desperately.
"We've got to stop them—we've got to—" she begins to swoon, even as she feels him picking her up, cradling her as they leave.
All around him he can smell the rankness of freshly rotting bodies, the scent of human excrement and the copper of blood.
The final lurch sends him flying—down on to his back, where he lies, sprawled in the mud.
Tom moves, and hears the sigh of a bullet.
The pain splits his thigh in two.
He wants to scream or groan, but a cold hand clamps over his mouth and the smell of rotting flesh creeps strongly into his nose.
"Don't move" it whispers in the voice of a girl; quietly, breathily in the pitch blackness.
"You move, and they'll shoot you." Her smell of decomposition is strong, and mixed with the scent of his blood makes him want to retch.
He doesn't move, he cannot move.
In the dark he feels his body begin to decompose.
He can feel acid trickling down his stomach walls, and his muscles relaxing, spreading like oil across water.
There is the prickle of something growing across his skin, splitting it in a smooth, crawling motion. Beneath him he can feel worms crawling upwards, burrowing into his skin.
His skin begins to peel back, curling away in rotten clumps from his muscles; which, in turn begin to decay.
He is rotting alive.
They stand on top of the South Bridge, Jacobs sweating freely, Skinner clutching the coat to him and Nemo looking down, over the wall to the Cowgate below.
Scaffolding had forced the detour—blocking their route into Niddry Street. Here, up high Nemo can smell the shit, hear the beery roar of the pubs below, see the other unblocked entrance to Niddry Street below him.
Skinner moves to stand beside him.
"It's at least a four-story drop." He states, eyes looking to Nemo, wide in the half-light. "Are you going to do this?"
Nemo steps up, feet firm, balance impeccable.
He jumps off.
The warmth through the glass is almost comforting; people move freely behind it—warped in the irregular panes.
In front of him stands Nemo, imposing, regal, watching Jacobs unlock the door with something akin to fury. The door clicks, swings back into a hallway, dark, cold with the smell of disuse.
A man staggers from the pub next door, coughing freely, warbling his way down the street away from them, and Skinner envies his normality. The need for drink almost burns in his mouth.
Jacobs steps in, turns and accepts the door from Nemo.
"We need candles—there should be some in that box." Jacobs states, voice quiet in the small confines as he shuts the door behind them.
Skinner bends down and picks it up, the smell of wax reaching out with the wetness of cardboard beneath his fingertips.
Jacobs is already climbing the set of stairs ahead, up to the floor above, the squeak of wood beneath his feet almost unnatural in the quiet.
Nemo looks to Skinner, who nods, acknowledging that he is ready for this; they begin to climb.
The draft is icy, and as he reaches the landing and sees the open hole in the wall Skinner knows this is the last place in the world he wants to enter. It's pitch black, even when Jacobs takes a candle from the box and lights it, using a guttering match.
The light barely catches the scratchy of stone in the gloom, the arch of vault ceilings above him. The distance of the tunnel, a long street, terrifying in its displaced normality—it could exist outside, but it's hidden away, here.
To their left: cold, black doorways, voids in the gloom, containing nothing but this terrifying emptiness. Until there is a glint from one about halfway down—a sliver of movement in the blackness.
It's this one that Jacobs enters; suddenly multiplied by mirrors, hundreds of them.
He stops, feeling the sweat beginning to break out; cold across his skin. Skinner recognises the feel of stone behind him, the oppression of the blackness: he's been here before, when the air was thick with screams, and the walls were an unbearable, heated barrier.
Skinner waits outside, and he knows his heart is beating loud enough for everyone to hear; the nightmare of being trapped in a room filled with mirrors looming before him.
Jacobs turns, looks directly at him, and gestures to the circle of salt on the floor.
"Its fine," He states, voice bouncing off the walls, "we're protected, this is our temple."
Nemo looks to Skinner, calm, implacable and it's that moment of assurance that allows Skinner to step into the circle.
His skin still itches with the need to run, to get out, and he feels his heart pressing against his lungs—to big suddenly for his ribcage.
"It's simple," begins Jacobs, blood trickling in a thin stream from his brow, "all we need to do is light these candles—I'll chant a little, and then we destroy the doorway this thing entered by."
He seems too calm, too centred for this, and Skinner wonders for a moment if it really is Jacobs, if this isn't some other trick, some other reflection to confuse them.
His heart expands painfully.
Nemo hands him a candle, waxy, like melting flesh beneath his fingers. He lights it from the flickering match Jacobs hands out to him, and in the brief flare of light he sees movement in the corner.
There's nothing there.
Or that's what he tells himself, even when he sees it again and again; each time he lights a candle.
Just a flutter, something in the corner of his vision.
He feels his lungs begin to burn in the cloying smoke from the candles—light hurting his eyes as it rebounds from mirror to mirror.
"We're ready." Jacobs states—the same flat dead voice.
And the darkness moves—people come from the blackness, shapes pouring from the corners of the room.
And Skinner knows them.
They're the ones he burns with, the ones whose flesh melts with his; whose lungs boil in the hell the vaults become at night.
Their flesh is black; their eyes bleed; their melting arms reach for him.
And he feels the heat crawling across his skin, searing his mouth, his nose with every breath.
He flails—backwards, away from the illuminated forms, glowing in the candlelight; he feels Nemo's arms around him and can hear someone asking him what's happening, what's the matter?
The pain blisters through him; his fat boiling, his skin charring, his blood seeping through pores in hot waves of sweat that blister the tender flesh.
They come for him still.
He begins to scream.
TBC...
Funky in Fishnet: Oh my god! You complete angel! I can't believe you credit me at the start of a story! So, so happy! I love it... Beautiful feeling of constriction, suspicion and a lovely sinister tone...
Willow, Lady Thief: "Mudblood." / "Eunuch." Ha! :-D Lovely to receive your thoroughly charming email by the way.
Sirhcvuli: Well, someone else has pleaded with me not to kill characters; you might be in luck...
Funyun: Oh goodness indeed! Anyway, Rounders is a cross between cricket and baseball and AS-level, well, there are 3 main exam stages in England: GCSEs at 16, AS at 17 and A-level at 18: AS constitutes half of the marks for your A-level. Now to the chapter: How do you know its Skinner on the floor? All I said was a hat and coat; Why? Perhaps he's been to this very hot place before... As for your other questions: let's hope this chapter sorts some of that out... ;-)
Crystal Nox: Happiness is: Skinner tied up and comparisons to Henry James!
Keyanna: Oh yes, constant updates, even though I should have been revising! Sorry this one took so long, but it is longer than any of the others, wanted to make it good. Thank you once again for your thoughts; they're a guide for me whenever I write, and I love receiving them. Nice story plan by the way! When on earth will you write something for this fandom? If your stories are as wonderful as your reviews I couldn't wait for the outcome...
Beautiful Immortal: As requested...
Accendo Caliendrum: Oh yes, complete sicko; twisted, and psychologically damaged—it's those exams...
Author's Notes: I want to thank you all for your patience, and the wonderful, encouraging reviews—it's fantastic to come away from English Literature and not have to envelop my mind in any more confounding contradictions.
Anyway, individual shouts at the end.
Here's the penultimate chapter; only one more to go after this...
Shards
Chapter Seven: For I am every dead thing,
It's the stench and the cold and the quiet that makes it so harsh, so raw against his heart.
He is not hurting; he is the hurt. Deep inside him, beneath his breastbone, pressing against his ribcage he can feel the loss, It makes him ache every time he takes a breath; with each step forward his head pounds with a distant feeling, a terrible sense of bereavement.
He is alone; above him the buildings stretch upwards, almost toppling onto him with their height: their dizzy stretch into the blue light of the early morning sky. Not one lamp is lit; their windows are dark.
Somewhere, above him, round the corner of the hill a city clock strikes two.
His skin is crawling with the tightness of burns, of drying saltwater, and as he trudges upwards he feels the soles of his feet bruising on the paving stones. Skinner feels a deep cold within him and clutches at the remains of his coat, hands spasming in weak response at the effort, the remains of dried blood and faecal matter crumbling under his fingers.
The hill stretches; twisting round one long corner and it's so very steep. He's exhausted from the swim for the shoreline, the fight against the currents and then the inevitable trudge through the sewers he'd been sucked into, falling over what could only have been bodies; too dark to see if it's Sawyer, or Mina he's tripping over or stepping in.
His legs burn with a cold, tight pain and he crawls, stumbles, falls around the corner.
Ahead of him scaffolding laces the night sky, a barrier of wood at this level, the smell of chipped stone seeping around it; under the small cracks too small for him to slip through.
Dead end.
Skinner turns; and the downhill pathway reels, stretch, twists with hallucinogenic accuracy. He begins the slow steps downward, bare feet tightening for grip on the steep stones, the unevenness of the street exaggerated by the swimming sensation of his vision—the sense his body has suddenly been separated from his head.
Eleven steps later and he hears his name.
Just the once—enough to make him cast about, body reeling for balance, eyes, ears searching for the voice—the familiar voice calling for attention.
It is Mina.
To his right the arcade stretches; all gilt and long shadows, and at the end, blood matting her hair and clothes soaked, she leans.
The pain in his chest eases; stretches out into a spiral of relief. She sees him, he sees her and he knows he is no longer alone. He feels almost sick from the relief.
He takes two steps forward, into the arcade and the night air is suddenly colder, suddenly icy.
The windows are not windows—they are mirrors in the dark.
He can see himself, or rather his coat in their blackened reflection; and behind him an infinity curve of mirrors—an infinity curve of movement.
Mina is no longer ahead, and Skinner feels with the cold sense of realisation she never was, he is
Where we want you
And the glass behind him is coming to life with a voice, a shattering grind that reaches for him.
There's a moment, where everything slows, and for one, perfectly clear, crystal moment he can almost see the faces of these things behind the surge of glass.
And with this sight comes absolute terror.
He runs, stripping off, the coat almost torn from his grasp and he feels the blind panic, the urgency. No-one screams for him to run but he does—legs stretching desperately.
The glass is reaching for him, boiling with that purposeful movement he knows so well. And behind it he can hear the whispers, the sense of the darkness, the terror that comes creeping back when he thinks of the sense of Mina, struggling in the dark next to him.
But he's alone now.
And he realises with cold, clear accuracy that it doesn't matter he's lost his coat, the thin visibility of his skin means they—or rather it—can still see him.
And he stretches—reaching for that clear, cold square of night air. He feels burning on the back of his skin, the hot, breathing air of the things behind that still move.
That has a hold on him.
A sharp burning on the back of his neck that he flails against; toppling out, slamming onto the hard ground.
Grit burns across his knees and palms and he scrabbles, fast, moving away into the space, the freedom, looking behind to see the boiling retreating into fragments of shattered glass into a dark empty hole of an arcade.
And the world reels with the abandon of the cold night air, and he lies back; naked, visible skin cooling against the deserted pavements. He breathes; a slow deep inhalation as the early morning sky wheels overhead.
In the distance he can still hear the clang of the fire engines.
It's the fire bells that wake her, and the cold breeze against the crisping, tight skin on her face, and the flickering of candlelight on her inner eyelids.
There's almost something church-like about that purity of sound.
And almost god-like in the softness of the bed beneath her. She can feel the tickle of linen under her fingertips, the press of hot, tight wool against her skin, still damp.
There's whispering in the room with her; a deep undercurrent that rushes against her ears.
And she opens her eyes, knowing the voice, praying that it's not, that she's still alone.
Jekyll sits at a dressing table, quietly conversing with the black glass of the mirror.
She must inhale too quickly, or the bed sheets rustle when she sits up, but he breaks off, and looks at her; and in the wave of sickness and dizziness that follows all she can see is the cold, calculating look of his eyes.
"Mrs Harker." He states, and the voice, while Jekyll's has none of his inflection. This is someone else, she realises; someone she knows. His eyes are so very familiar—their burn and shadowed coyness, but the skin is so very different.
"Mr Hyde." She responds in the same measured tone of a formal greeting; all the while, watching him, calculating.
He laughs, loud and clear, mouth curling in pleasure. "Oh yes," he responds, "I wondered how long it would take you to realise Henry's not at home." His smile is knowing and his eyes flick over her quickly, something of which she is uncomfortably aware.
His smile widens as he moves towards her, and then fades as she moves, fast as she can, away, in to the corner of the room. Her eyes flick over his shoulder, twice to the door, once to the window, he could easily take her before she reached either.
"You know, I would have expected a less terrified reaction—I saved your bloody life after all." He's watching her with a snarl, and she realises how very dangerous this is; he is no longer Henry Jekyll for all appearances. She wonders distantly how much of Edward's strength he has in this form.
He takes another step towards her, and the urge to bolt, to run is almost overpowering; she feels her skin itch in fear with a cold, tightening shiver.
"Why?" She questions, voice swallowed up in the shadowed corners of the room.
"Simple, Mina, repayment." He smiles again, eyes skimming over her. "A deal's a deal. I give you this; you give me that—simple really."
"I made no deal—"
"The moment you reached for me, you made this deal." He leers now, moving closer, too close, with a snarl in his eyes; Jekyll's face, but Hyde hiding behind the veneer of respectability.
"You can't tell me it offends your 'delicate sensibilities'; you were so willing with Dorian. You looked at me that first time, and I knew, and deep down Jekyll knew it would come to this eventually."
He's close enough for her to smell.
She runs.
Every nerve in her body screams that she needs to get out now! But she knows, she knows she won't make it.
And she doesn't; he has a hold on her that no matter how much she flails against she cannot fight.
He throws her backwards onto the bed, and its softness is a sickening counterpoint to the violence. She is kicking, clawing; muscles weak and distant, and she could bite, but it wouldn't hurt him.
His hands are tight around her wrists, and his skin burns with its heat. Her arms are trapped above her head, and her legs are trapped beneath his.
She manages to scratch him, blood welling up beneath the wound in an angry path of fire.
He just leans in close.
Close enough for her to feel his breath on her neck.
"Go on Mrs Harker; add to the illusion; make Henry feel like he's worth something in your estimation: Tell me you love me." He's smiling with Jekyll's face, but there's no kindness or respite in that smile.
She turns her head away and begins to cry as he lifts her skirts.
"He loves you, you know, watches your every move—he wants this just as much as-"
And abruptly a release: Hyde is reeling away from her, staggering backwards, clutching his head, bellowing wordless pain.
Back towards the dressing table, where in the mirror a bloodied face is watching his every move.
Mina scrabbles, moving quickly, knowing this is her chance.
The room seems to shroud itself in a dizzy murk, and she lunges for the first available weapon: a display sword from off the wall above the fireplace.
Her muscles are shaking, and her skin is crawling, and the sword is too heavy. She is staggering under its weight, dragging it as she moves towards Hyde who is curled on the floor; Jekyll's skin seemingly boiling under the gaze of the thing in the mirror.
She steels herself.
She heaves the sword and swings it.
"Skinner."
Nemo's face above him, swimming in the night sky.
"Nemo," He responds, voice thick with exhaustion, "Didn't expect to see you here."
It's a lucky coincidence, he thinks, rationale dim behind the pain; perhaps too lucky.
"Are you here to finish me off?" He questions, voice slurring, recalling drunken nights where he'd return to the Nautilus beneath Nemo's disapproving gaze—jovial, brazen; even now, knowing that the thing is here, to do what it didn't manage in the arcade.
The thing frowns.
"Mr Skinner, you are unclothed, visible and burnt. I can only summarise this rather unusual greeting is the result of your injuries." He reaches down, hands warm, and real and comforting. "Nevertheless, it is more of a relief than I would like to see you here."
He feels the warmth of a coat—woollen, heavy with softness, and brandy in his throat, that brings everything back into focus.
Nemo: real and close and a formal, comforting respite against the solitude and bereavement.
Behind him, Jacobs—wet, bloodied and curled around the weight of a door.
Skinner, sensation creeping back into his limbs, knows he is no longer alone.
He grins freely, skin stretching painfully.
"Jesus, Nemo—you're alive—I didn't think anyone else had made it..." and the relief, the unbearable lightness, even as he looks at Jacobs.
Nemo smiles softly, and Skinner knows he's not alone in this relief, this small victory.
"We need to move..." Jacobs whines, and Skinner sees he's sweating beneath the weight of the door.
Let him sweat, he thinks, let him bleed.
Nemo acknowledges this statement with a small nod. Behind him, the hill leads straight onto the darkness of the Royal Mile. Beneath his feet Skinner can hear the crunch of glass.
Nemo's eyes darken as he looks to Jacobs. "Where is it?" He snaps, coldly. Skinner is suddenly glad for his terrifying formality.
He turns back to Skinner, even as Jacobs responds: "Niddry Street."
The flicker of recognition in Skinner's mind; he looks to Nemo for some sign of what 'it' is, what they are going to do now.
And the relief in his face, the joy that ripples through him when Nemo responds:
"We are finishing this. We are exorcising this demon."
"Oh god, oh god..." A running mantra, weak, is wavering under her shock even as she drops the sword and collapses back, sitting on the edge of the bed.
He's flayed.
Standing before her, bloodied, towering, panting with the effort of a transformation, Hyde's body, but Jekyll's eyes; kind, reaching out for her.
"Mina, Mina—are you all right?"
She's completely disconnected, she feels herself falling away, faster than she can hold onto the reality.
"Yes—" She responds thickly, "How—what—" something needs to click in her understanding, she's almost too dizzy to take it all in.
But it's all right; he holds her hands almost reverentially, and he's so gentle that the shadows, the room suddenly seem less threatening.
"He made a deal with these things—if he weakens the league, stops you from destroying them, then he gets complete freedom—gets control of what he can see in the mirror." His voice is urgent, concerned.
She looks at the skin, completely damaged. "So why not just let him out in full?" She asks. The full story, the understanding will help she thinks.
"They couldn't—they're not strong enough—mirrors are both a blessing and a curse, we're not in them long enough for them to have full control over us.
"That's why Skinner's only partially visible; and they couldn't let Hyde free fully; and they could only take away your vampirism—they couldn't destroy you fully they're so limited, they're so weak—their energy comes from us, one glimpse feeds them, but once that energy is used up..."
She reaches out to touch his arm and her fingers come away bloodied.
"They have this form when Hyde's out—they feed off it." He explains, eyes sad, smile pained. "They want to stop us—just us for the moment. The Wiccans let them out, they feed off us, and once we're destroyed, or too weak to fight back, they'll start feeding off others."
She's so weak, so tired, and fighting against the shock desperately.
"We've got to stop them—we've got to—" she begins to swoon, even as she feels him picking her up, cradling her as they leave.
All around him he can smell the rankness of freshly rotting bodies, the scent of human excrement and the copper of blood.
The final lurch sends him flying—down on to his back, where he lies, sprawled in the mud.
Tom moves, and hears the sigh of a bullet.
The pain splits his thigh in two.
He wants to scream or groan, but a cold hand clamps over his mouth and the smell of rotting flesh creeps strongly into his nose.
"Don't move" it whispers in the voice of a girl; quietly, breathily in the pitch blackness.
"You move, and they'll shoot you." Her smell of decomposition is strong, and mixed with the scent of his blood makes him want to retch.
He doesn't move, he cannot move.
In the dark he feels his body begin to decompose.
He can feel acid trickling down his stomach walls, and his muscles relaxing, spreading like oil across water.
There is the prickle of something growing across his skin, splitting it in a smooth, crawling motion. Beneath him he can feel worms crawling upwards, burrowing into his skin.
His skin begins to peel back, curling away in rotten clumps from his muscles; which, in turn begin to decay.
He is rotting alive.
They stand on top of the South Bridge, Jacobs sweating freely, Skinner clutching the coat to him and Nemo looking down, over the wall to the Cowgate below.
Scaffolding had forced the detour—blocking their route into Niddry Street. Here, up high Nemo can smell the shit, hear the beery roar of the pubs below, see the other unblocked entrance to Niddry Street below him.
Skinner moves to stand beside him.
"It's at least a four-story drop." He states, eyes looking to Nemo, wide in the half-light. "Are you going to do this?"
Nemo steps up, feet firm, balance impeccable.
He jumps off.
The warmth through the glass is almost comforting; people move freely behind it—warped in the irregular panes.
In front of him stands Nemo, imposing, regal, watching Jacobs unlock the door with something akin to fury. The door clicks, swings back into a hallway, dark, cold with the smell of disuse.
A man staggers from the pub next door, coughing freely, warbling his way down the street away from them, and Skinner envies his normality. The need for drink almost burns in his mouth.
Jacobs steps in, turns and accepts the door from Nemo.
"We need candles—there should be some in that box." Jacobs states, voice quiet in the small confines as he shuts the door behind them.
Skinner bends down and picks it up, the smell of wax reaching out with the wetness of cardboard beneath his fingertips.
Jacobs is already climbing the set of stairs ahead, up to the floor above, the squeak of wood beneath his feet almost unnatural in the quiet.
Nemo looks to Skinner, who nods, acknowledging that he is ready for this; they begin to climb.
The draft is icy, and as he reaches the landing and sees the open hole in the wall Skinner knows this is the last place in the world he wants to enter. It's pitch black, even when Jacobs takes a candle from the box and lights it, using a guttering match.
The light barely catches the scratchy of stone in the gloom, the arch of vault ceilings above him. The distance of the tunnel, a long street, terrifying in its displaced normality—it could exist outside, but it's hidden away, here.
To their left: cold, black doorways, voids in the gloom, containing nothing but this terrifying emptiness. Until there is a glint from one about halfway down—a sliver of movement in the blackness.
It's this one that Jacobs enters; suddenly multiplied by mirrors, hundreds of them.
He stops, feeling the sweat beginning to break out; cold across his skin. Skinner recognises the feel of stone behind him, the oppression of the blackness: he's been here before, when the air was thick with screams, and the walls were an unbearable, heated barrier.
Skinner waits outside, and he knows his heart is beating loud enough for everyone to hear; the nightmare of being trapped in a room filled with mirrors looming before him.
Jacobs turns, looks directly at him, and gestures to the circle of salt on the floor.
"Its fine," He states, voice bouncing off the walls, "we're protected, this is our temple."
Nemo looks to Skinner, calm, implacable and it's that moment of assurance that allows Skinner to step into the circle.
His skin still itches with the need to run, to get out, and he feels his heart pressing against his lungs—to big suddenly for his ribcage.
"It's simple," begins Jacobs, blood trickling in a thin stream from his brow, "all we need to do is light these candles—I'll chant a little, and then we destroy the doorway this thing entered by."
He seems too calm, too centred for this, and Skinner wonders for a moment if it really is Jacobs, if this isn't some other trick, some other reflection to confuse them.
His heart expands painfully.
Nemo hands him a candle, waxy, like melting flesh beneath his fingers. He lights it from the flickering match Jacobs hands out to him, and in the brief flare of light he sees movement in the corner.
There's nothing there.
Or that's what he tells himself, even when he sees it again and again; each time he lights a candle.
Just a flutter, something in the corner of his vision.
He feels his lungs begin to burn in the cloying smoke from the candles—light hurting his eyes as it rebounds from mirror to mirror.
"We're ready." Jacobs states—the same flat dead voice.
And the darkness moves—people come from the blackness, shapes pouring from the corners of the room.
And Skinner knows them.
They're the ones he burns with, the ones whose flesh melts with his; whose lungs boil in the hell the vaults become at night.
Their flesh is black; their eyes bleed; their melting arms reach for him.
And he feels the heat crawling across his skin, searing his mouth, his nose with every breath.
He flails—backwards, away from the illuminated forms, glowing in the candlelight; he feels Nemo's arms around him and can hear someone asking him what's happening, what's the matter?
The pain blisters through him; his fat boiling, his skin charring, his blood seeping through pores in hot waves of sweat that blister the tender flesh.
They come for him still.
He begins to scream.
TBC...
Funky in Fishnet: Oh my god! You complete angel! I can't believe you credit me at the start of a story! So, so happy! I love it... Beautiful feeling of constriction, suspicion and a lovely sinister tone...
Willow, Lady Thief: "Mudblood." / "Eunuch." Ha! :-D Lovely to receive your thoroughly charming email by the way.
Sirhcvuli: Well, someone else has pleaded with me not to kill characters; you might be in luck...
Funyun: Oh goodness indeed! Anyway, Rounders is a cross between cricket and baseball and AS-level, well, there are 3 main exam stages in England: GCSEs at 16, AS at 17 and A-level at 18: AS constitutes half of the marks for your A-level. Now to the chapter: How do you know its Skinner on the floor? All I said was a hat and coat; Why? Perhaps he's been to this very hot place before... As for your other questions: let's hope this chapter sorts some of that out... ;-)
Crystal Nox: Happiness is: Skinner tied up and comparisons to Henry James!
Keyanna: Oh yes, constant updates, even though I should have been revising! Sorry this one took so long, but it is longer than any of the others, wanted to make it good. Thank you once again for your thoughts; they're a guide for me whenever I write, and I love receiving them. Nice story plan by the way! When on earth will you write something for this fandom? If your stories are as wonderful as your reviews I couldn't wait for the outcome...
Beautiful Immortal: As requested...
Accendo Caliendrum: Oh yes, complete sicko; twisted, and psychologically damaged—it's those exams...