Disclaimer: I don't own the LXG or any of the characters in it. The characters that doesn't originally belong to the LXG are mine and mine alone.
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Night. The fog lay heavily on the streets of London. A carrion came, slowly making its way towards a specific house. It looked like a castle out of a child's nightmares in the thick mist.
The carrion stopped outside of the large foreboding house. A tall man stepped out of it and said something to the coachman before entering the house. A man came to greet him.
"Good evening sir. Are you Mr. Jones?"
"Yes, I am. But I never got to know your name."
"Oh, just call me Charlie."
Mr. Jones took off his coat and hung it on a rack by the door while Charlie took up a ring full of keys.
"I have been told that you are here to see Talley." He said while looking for the right key.
"That's right."
Charlie looked up on Jones while taking out the key.
"Are you sure about that? Talley can be very... unpredictable at nights. Especially nights like these. Perhaps you would like to wait until..."
"Until morning?" Jones interrupted him. He gave Charlie a cold look. "Wait until he's half asleep and much too tired to talk? No, this is the only time I can talk to him. Now that he is..."
He was in turn interrupted by a loud scream that cut through the air like a knife. This scream made others in the insane asylum scream and howl out of fear. Jones smiled.
"Alert."
Charlie was used to the madness around him, to screams in the middle of night. But he wasn't used to any man that could listen to their screams and smile like that. With an uneasy feeling, he opened the large barred door and lead Jones down a long, dank hallway.
He ignored all the voices around him and headed towards the isolation cell. There stood two heavily armed guards and stared out into nothing, too occupied with their own thoughts to mind the other patients.
They glared suspicially at Jones and Charlie, but stepped aside when they recognized Charlie. He unlocked the door and stepped aside.
"When you're done, just tell me. If he does anything, just scream. The boys will help you."
Jones stepped into the cell. It smelled heavily of sweat and had a hint of blood.
Jones looked at the figure in the other end of the room and smiled again. The figure, Talley, wandered restlessly back and forth, mumbling and growling to himself. The chains that kept him held in that end of the room played their melody as he wandered.
"Gregory Talley." Jones said calmly. He saw a pair of eyes in the dark.
"What?" Talley growled at him. "I don't want visitors. Leave the way you came in."
Jones didn't move.
"I have an offer that you might find interesting." He said. He listened to the long stream of curses that Talley snarled and spat.
"To hell with your offers! I'm not interested!"
"I offer you freedom."
For once, Talley was silent.
"What?" he whispered.
"I offer you freedom, and another thing you've been wishing for in all these years, in exchange for your help with a small matter."
Talley's voice was forced, as if he had to put much energy in controlling it.
"Hrrm... what matter...?"
Jones smiled to himself again.
"I think you've heard of someone called Allan Quatermain?"
Talley's eyes glimmered evilly in the dark. He growled.
"Quatermain...?"
"You recognize that name, don't you?"
"Of course... what about him?"
"I want him dead."
They were both silent for a while.
"So... I kill him and you set me free?"
"Yes."
Talley said nothing, he didn't even move. Jones began to worry. Maybe he already knew about Quatermain's... sad passing.
"Say nothing more. I'm with you."
Jones quietly sighed in relief as he said this. He looked at the eyes that shone in the dark.
"Excellent."
Jones turned around and smiled again. After all, Talley didn't have to know about Quatermain's death. He opened the door and put his hands to his neck. He stepped out and looked at the guards. He then unsheathed his hidden knives and buried them deep in their chests. They fell to the ground with gurgling sounds. The patients in the cells around him started to scream again. Charlie came running.
"What's going on? What do you think you're doing?" he shouted.
Jones took another of his knives, balanced it in his hand and finally threw it at Charlie before he could call for help. Charlie stumbled forwards and fell. There was a sickening sound as the knife embedded itself deeper in him when he landed. His body writhed spasmically on the floor before it was finally still.
Jones walked up to him, put a foot on his arm and pushed him over. He took the ring of keys and went back to the cell to unlock the chains that kept Talley in his cell. Talley didn't look away from Jones, not even to rub his wrists when he was free.
"Are you ready to begin?" Jones asked him while retrieving and cleaning his knives. Talley grinned.
"Just tell me when."
