Author's Note: Sorry for the delay! I really am! OK, here it is, Part 3 of In The Depths of the Night. Over the last few weeks I've worked out a basic chapter plan … before I knew where I wanted to end up – i.e., what characters and their "condition" at the end – but didn't have a clue how to get there … now I do :-) Now that I have finished my troublesome Xmen fic, hopefully I'll be able to devote more time to this and to Sullied Waters, as well as my SWAT fic What Was Once.

**Warning** This chapter contains some descriptions of some rather violent stuff … if you don't like it, don't read it.

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Chapter 3 : Terror Strikes

It was a clear, sunny day in New York city when the Nautilus docked on the western side of Manhatten Island, and the League disembarked.

Skinner looked around curiously. The rest of the League seemed spellbound by the bustling city in front of them. "Well," he said at last, "it's not that big."

Sawyer rolled his eyes. His mood had improved significantly since the incident at dinner a week before, but he still brooded over it, and Mina was sure that he saw it as a sign that the League had no faith in his strength.

Jekyll noticed a thin, tired-looking man walking towards them, and alerted the rest of the League to his presence. Tom's eyes widened in shock. "Alan Mortimer," he said slowly, a look of surprise and confusion on his face.

"Hello Tom," Mortimer said, greeting the agent with obvious pleasure. "Great to see you again."

"Yeah, uh … great to see you too, but … didn't you …"

The think man's eyes twinkled as he watched Sawyer. "Retire?" he finished helpfully.

"Yeah," Tom said.

Alan smiled. "I returned to work a few weeks after you left to follow the Fantom." He lowered his voice, and leaned close to Sawyer. "You get him?"

Tom nodded. "Yeah."

Mortimer nodded, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Well done." He stepped back and looked at the rest of the League.

"Are you going to introduce me?"

Sawyer smiled, and obligied. "Alan Mortimer, this is Dr Henry Jekyll, Mr Rodney Skinner, Captain Nemo, and Mrs Wilhemina Harker."

"I'm with the Secret Service," Alan explained. "Agent Sawyer and I worked together before I retired. I was reinstated a week ago. Well – if you'd like to follow me, I will take you to our headquarters and fill you in on the details." He gestured towards the carriage behind him.

The League got into the coach, and Alan began to explain.

"The attacks started a week ago. 48 people died in that attack. It occurred at night, in some of the back alleys of the city. They were – horrific." He licked his ashen lips at the remembrace. "People stabbed and mutilated. And they have been getting worse over the last week. Sometimes … the corpses are cut into pieces and the pieces scattered.

"We do not know who is behind these attacks, or what their purpose is. No demands have been made, no one has claimed responsibility. The attacks have not happened near any major sites. No robberies have been reported. Only civilians have been killed; no political, religious, or social leaders.

"This is where you come in. The government hopes that with your – singular abilities you will be able to find those responsible for the attacks and bring them to a halt."

"And how far is the Government willling to support us?" Mina asked softly. "In my experience, Governments often expect others to solve their problems but turn on them in the aftermath."

"What she means," Nemo said, picking up seamlessly where Mina had ended, and not giving Mortimer a chance to reply, "is, will the Government authorise us to harm or kill those responsible and anyone found to be related to these attacks?"

"The government will support your efforts as long as innocent blood is not shed by you," Mortimer said, a flash of fire in his eyes. "They want this threat dealt with. We do not have the expertise or manpower. Therefore, we require assistance. You – as the League – are the best 'solution'. The American government will not condemn you for killing the miscreants who have been plaguing the streets, I can assure you of that."

There was an uncomfortable silence following Mortimer's angry words. The young man was the first to break it.

"I'm sorry for loosing my temper at you like that, ma'am," he said apologetically to Mina. "You had every right to ask that question. I apologise to you too, Captain."

"No apology is necessary, Mr Mortimer," Captain Nemo told him gravely. "We understand that the last week must have been very hard on you."

Mortimer nodded, trying to throw off his gloom with a brittle laugh. "It certainly has been."

Tom leant over, and touched his friend on the shoulder. "Alan? How bad is it?"

Alan looked at him, pain and fear in his eyes. He swallowed nervously. "It's getting worse, Tom. Every night … sometimes I can hear the screams of the dying. I can't go out to help them because then I would be killed too. Last night – last night they killed a four month old baby. Tore her throat out and trampled on her. I heard them do it. I couldn't do a thing. Her mother bleed to death a few metres from her baby." He passed a hand over his eyes and forced himself to breathe deeply in an effort to compose himself. "Tom … you have to stop this. People are starting to flee the city. These – monsters are now breaking into people's houses. You have to stop this, and soon."

Tom put one hand on Alan's shoulder in an attempt at reassurance. "We'll find them," he vowed, his voice hard as stone, "and when we do … They won't be coming back."

The carriage continued on through the streets …

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Their visit to the headquarters was swift and succinct. In fifteen minutes they had been briefed on the situation, before being once again assured of the Government's complete faith in and support of them, and then they were returned to the Nautilus.

An emergency meeting was begun in the dining room to discuss the information they had received and their plan of attack.

"I believe a brief synopis of the information received from the Secret Service is in order," Nemo stated, "to make sure that we all had the same understanding."

He glanced around the table, and upon seeing no signs of dissent, began his synopis.

"To the best of our knowledge, no one knows exactly who these attackers are," Nemo began.

"Well," Skinner said, with a wry grin, "no one who's talking, anyway. Afterall, dead bodies don't exactly –"

"And no one," Nemo continued loudly with a glare at Skinner, "knows what is motivating them to carry out these attacks. Their headquarters is unknown, their leaders are unknown. We cannot even be certain it is knives they are using."

"You want to get to the positive points some time this year, mate?" Skinner said, with a laugh that he hoped disguised the nervous edge to his voice.

"All that we do know is that they attack brutally and unmercifully," Mina said. "They do not appear to be vampiric, as the corpses show no signs of blood-sucking. The marks indicate use of knives, teeth, and – other instruments. Possibly claws."

She let the implication of her words sink in.

"Meaning we could be dealing with …" Jekyll let his voice trail off as he considered the possibility in front of him.

"What?" asked Sawyer abruptly. He didn't have the faintest idea what Mina and Jekyll were talking about, and from the sounds he was making, neither did Skinner. Even Nemo appeared non-plused, stating quietly:

"What does this mean, Mrs Harker? What creatures could we be dealing with."

"A creature so foul it pollutes the very ground it stands on."

"A werewolf?" Sawyer guessed. He didn't relaly believe in them, but … he reminded himself sharply that he was sitting at a table with an invisible man, a vampire, and a man-turned-monster. Suddenly, he relflected, werewolves didn't sound quite so unlikely.

Mina shook her head. "No. These creatures are … they are rejects. Failures of an experiment so dangerous governments round the world spurned its use." She turned away, her face pale.

Jekyll took up the story. "The story goes that fifty years ago, a French nobleman started to experiment with immortality. He had heard the stories of men like Dorian Gray, and decided to see if they could be true. His methods of experimentation have never been documented, though they are supposed to have been particulary gruesome, but he discovered that for those compatible, immortality was possible. However, for those not compatible, the Change brought about deformation of the body and spirit resulting in half-men." He cleared his throat. "Mina and I believe that these attacks were commited by half-men. The Eternal Damned, they are called. They are immortal, to be sure, but … the price for them is the loss of their soul. They are hardened killing machines, with a sadistic streak born of their maker. They have claws – another part of the Change." He sat down with a sigh. "This is what we are up against."

The silence weighted heavily on them all. Sawyer felt nauseated and horrified at the threat facing them. He wondered who could possibly do something like that to another person.

"Well," Skinner said, attempting to lighten the mood, "anyone else wishing we'd stayed on the sight-seeing trip? I know," he continued hastily as Mina opened her mouth to rebuke him, "bad Mr Skinner, you shouldn't joke about this. Mina love, I hate this as much as you do, and I'm just as determined to find these – these half-men, and send 'em into the oblivion they belong in."

Sawyer looked up, smiling despite himself at Skinner's impassioned speech. "Well," Jekyll remarked, "our thief has a conscience."

"Yeah," Skinner said, a faint note of antagonism in his voice, "don't you forget it."

Sawyer wasn't surprised. Before the attack on M's "summer retreat", Tom had thought of Skinner as a selfish, arrogant man with no regard for anything other than the safety of his own skin. However, after Skinner had taken out the flame thrower who had been about to reduce Tom to ashes, Sawyer's estimation of the man had changed drastically. He realised that Skinner really did care about the rest of the League, he just didn't know how to show it – so he resorted to his usual stratagem of joking and making light of every situation. He cared deeply for Mina – more than she would ever know. Tom had sat with Skinner while he was gripped by delirium in the aftermath of the attack, and had heard Skinner pour out his secrets, unable to leave due to the tight grip the invalid had on Tom's wrist.

He liked and respected Nemo. He had respected Quartermain. He saw Jekyll as a friend. He loved Mina.

He was human, and possessed human emotions. He had locked them away in a corner of his mind because he could not handle them, he was unused to them. Sawyer suspected that he would always act like this – joking, laughing, teasing – because he knew no other way to act.

"So," Tom said, "how do we stop them?"

Mina smiled briefly at the American's enthusiasm. "They can only be destroyed when their leader – who they have bound their life and soul to – is destroyed. When that happens, they drop dead. Their leader will be a genuine immortal, not a half-man."

"So how do we destroy a genuine immortal?" Nemo asked.

"I don't know," Mina replied. "No one does."

There was a moment's heavy silence, before Tom spoke slowly: "So the way I see it is – we are up against an army of monster-like creatures that are immortal but can be killed. The only way to kill them is to kill their leader, but no one knows how to do this. Correct?"

"It would appear that way, Mr Sawyer," Mina affirmed.

Tom sat back. Remind me why I signed up for this, he thought wryly. "So what do we do?"

"We track them," Jekyll replied. "We follow them to their base and from there attempt to find their leader."

"And find out how to kill him, right?" Skinner said.

Mina nodded. "Yes. Tonight."

Tom looked up in surprise, then nodded. "Yes … this terror has gone on long enough."

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Night fell over the city, blanketing it in a layer of blackness. The streets were deserted; the only people out were the League. A few of Nemo's crewmen had come with them.

They headed towards the area where most of the attacks had been centred, figuring that the attackers were likely to return there.

The League as a whole was on the alert. None of them knew where attack might come from next.

Sawyer – walking at the back of the group – stumbled occasionally over his feet. He had a bad headache; he had a feeling that it was connected with the nightmares he had again suffered from the previous night. Suddenly the world about him span dizzyingly, and he sank to his knees with a hoarse cry, head in his hands.

The rest of the League turned in alarm to see their young friend crouched on the ground, clutching his head, and evidently in pain. Mina walked quickly to his side with Jekyll; they crouched on either side of him.

"Tom?" Mina said. "What is it?"

There was no response from the stricken young agent. Jekyll put his arm against Tom's forehead. "He's not feverish," he reported. "Nemo – can some of your men take him back to the Nautilus?"

Nemo nodded, and gave orders to his crewmen.

"Tell me to put him to bed in the medical bay, and give him some laudanum. Watch him, and if he has a seizure stop him hurting himself, but don't hold him down." For a second Jekyll considered going back with Tom, but then realised that the League would need Hyde.

The crewmen moved off into the night carrying Sawyer, back towards the Nautilus.

The rest of the League patrolled the area for two hours, before hearing screaming. As one, they ran towards the origin of the sound. Rounding a corner they came face-to-face with the half-men.

They were truly horrific, bodies deformed, claws instead of hands. Fifteen of them stood in the alley. They had found three young prostitutes, and were in the process of ripping their bodies apart. The road and walls of surrounding building were coveredin the blood of the three girls.

The half-men looked up as the League rounded the corner. One – their leader – snarled at the League, and motioned his soldiers forward.

The battle began.

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Author's Note: I'll update again in a few days, I promise!

Review!! Please :-)