Sethoz – Thanks a lot! I'm so happy now!
Clez – Here you go J
- - -
Tom scratched his head. He had been all over the Nautilus, but Mina hadn't been anywhere to be found. He wondered how many times he had missed her by a second. He saw that he was close to the control room and stepped in, thinking that Nemo might have seen her.
"Captain Nemo?" he asked loudly. He saw him in the other side of the room, looking out of a window, probably deep in thought.
"Agent Sawyer?" he said without looking back. Tom squirmed a bit. Being around Nemo always made him feel like he was back in school, in front of the most imposing teacher.
"I just came to ask if you have seen Mina around. I have something to tell her."
"I believe Mrs. Harker left some time ago." Nemo replied.
"Oh… how long has she been gone then?"
Nemo glanced at Tom over his shoulder and said something to one of his crewmembers. He quickly replied to his captain's question. Nemo looked at Tom with a strange glint in his eyes.
"For hours." He said, simply and calm as usual. Tom, on the other hand, seemed frightened by this information.
"Hours…? Something must've happened!"
"I can send out a group of my men to search for her, if that would make you feel better, Agent Sawyer."
Tom shook his head.
"I can go look for her."
Nemo didn't reply for a while, just looked at Tom. Again, Tom got that feeling of school.
"That would be most unwise."
"But who knows what trouble she…"
"If she has problems and you go out there alone, Agent Sawyer, you will just get into the very same trouble."
Tom glared at Nemo for a while before deciding that he was right.
"Alright, send some of your men then, but…"
"Captain!" the same man as Nemo had talked to before called. He had a strange expression on his face.
"I think you need to hear this…"
- - -
The man in front of Mina put some pressure on the knife. She felt a small drop of her blood trickle down her throat. She glared at the man with her teeth tightly clenched so she wouldn't unwillingly make a sound of pain. She tried to focus all her willpower on healing the wound in her stomach.
"Seems like someone got just a bit too cocky…" the man scoffed. Mina slowly reached for her knives but found nothing where they should be. She realized that the man must've taken them and snarled at him. The man leaned a bit closer, probably to get a better look on her.
"Vampire, eh? Seems like you never know what you can find in London these days. Oh my, aren't you pretty? I mean it, I've never seen a corpse so… well preserved." He told her and then chuckled, apparently happy with his joke.
This infuriated Mina. Pictures of his death wandered trough her mind. And, while she wasn't ready for it, she felt a light tingle in her stomach. She knew that he would notice that she was healing unless she kept him busy with something else. She relaxed and pressed herself against the street, trying to give him the impression that she gave up.
"What do you want from me?" she said in a almost depressed way.
"I want to know where your kin hides!" the man growled with a new shimmer of rage in his eyes. "I want you to tell exactly where it is and how to get in, and you'll damn better do it happily!"
The pain was as good as gone. Mina kept her act up and tried to put an expression of fear on her face now.
"I… I…" she stuttered and let her eyes dart from side to side, as if looking for help, while she carefully slid her hand towards his knife.
"I… I can't!"
The man rolled his eyes.
"Oh please. Like they wouldn't betray you! Now tell me!"
Mina got a feeling he wasn't talking about the League at all, but she couldn't drop the act now. She sobbed loudly and shook her head. He mumbled a curse. While he was busy with that, she snatched the knife from him and quickly sliced two long wounds in an X across his stomach. He screamed, most likely more out of surprise than pain. Mina got up on her feet and looked at him, wanting nothing but continue slicing until he was no longer recognizable. Instead, Mina kneeled down beside him, took his gun and put the edge of the knife against his throat while gently pressing down on one of his wounds. He gave a short yelp that she guessed was the beginning on a cry.
"This wound is not at all deep enough to be fatal." Mina stated calmly. "I could make it fatal, however, simply for revenge. You should be very grateful that I don't plan to."
"Just kill me and get it over with, vampire!"
Mina leaned on another wound on purpose. She didn't put much weight on it, still he clamped his eyes shut and gritted his teeth.
"No."
The man slowly opened his eyes again. He looked at Mina for a while before he relaxed; apparently realizing that he was beaten.
"What do you want then, vampire? An easy meal?"
Mina caught herself thinking it was a good idea. She wondered if she would just drain him right there and then.
"I want to know what you meant, why you tried to kill me and what you were hunting."
The man either chuckled or coughed, she didn't know.
"You really don't know much about your kin, do you?"
"I guess not." Mina said with perfect control of her voice while pressing down with her thumb. After a short shriek of pain, the man gave her a dark glare and began to talk again.
"I thought you were a vampire in their service. I've seen a few of them around when I hunted."
"'Their'?"
"The lycanthropes."
Mina didn't understand at first, and then it hit her. The creature she just saw, the creature outside the hotel, Adria's smell…
Adria's smell…
"Werewolves…?" she whispered, staring out in the darkness ahead of her.
"Yeah… werewolves, a few vampires and God know what… I've killed a couple of them for fun until I get enough cash to get back to Africa again."
"So you're the silver murderer." Mina said without actually caring. One thought kept passing through her mind.
We might have a werewolf on board.
"I guess." The man said before his head snapped backwards and he breathed in with a sharp gasp. Mina realized that he was bleeding. She could hardly leave the help she'd been looking for bleeding on a cold street. She helped him up on his feet, trying not to look at his bloody shirt.
"You can help me with something and then I will let you go. Acceptable?"
"Help you with what…?" he asked, with an almost nauseous look on his face. Mina guessed he found her touch repulsive.
"I believe we have someone infected onboard. You have to take a look at her, and if that is the case, tell us what to do." Mina explained while leading him towards the Nautilus.
