NOIR
by Jaded Faye
Thank you so much for all the kind reviews. I very much appreciate it. :) I am now completely vain, but luckily my ego wont be able to fit into these tiny chapters. I hope I can finish this as well as it seems to have started. Thanx!
Faye
Is there any way to indent? Mine seem to get erased?
That moment can never be accurately described.
The London streets slick and gleaming in the starlight, air thick with rain and dark. Silohettes of persons appeared as pieces of shadow that had broken away and now moved on their own. Was it dreary was it foreboding was it beautiful or magical? Did the city shimmer under the soft moon, or glow with as if some line had been crossed between where they had been standing and the netherworld?
Perspective.
Was it a miracle of mercy or the darkest of magics tapped for use in unnatural purpose? Who could say? But they all had their thoughts, even Edward Hyde, who was arguably only half a man had his own view of what transpired.
Tick, tick , tick. And the pocket watch snapped shut in the good Doctors hand, only to be opened again seconds later...tick tick-snap- and shut again.
It was the slightest feminine gasp that roused the others to attention. Mina Harker's unnaturally keen senses detected the presence first. A mere moment before Hyde smelled him.
One more shadow had broken off into the night and was approaching the rest. The outline of a long jacket, and hat lined here and there by the glow of whatever light reached the figure.
They were all on guard, alert. More prepared to fight - even in spite of all they'd seen, experienced, and learned - than to accept something that seemed far to good to be true. But in a low growl that manifested itself first in Henry Jeckyll's mind and then escaped his lips as barely more than a weak whisper they recieved a confirmation.
"It's him. I can smell it. It's him."
Subtle, simple words that called forth more raucous emotion in each of them than any one was willing to admit. Somewhere deep inside the good doctor Edward Hyde was feeling rather smug...and despite himself...pleased.
"Me too."
Mina spoke low and soft, as if the conversation were to be kept private.
The figure drew near, finally near enough to make out the features, the face, weather like old wood, and so damned beautiful that Rodney Skinner had to hold back from crying.
"Hello."
There was nothing Allan Quartermain could have said that would have been appropriate to the situation. He had been dead. They had buried him. After Recieving his letter they'd surely believed it a cruel trick, a trap of some sort.
"YOU BLOODY OLD BASTARD!" And suddenly the old man stumbled sideways very nearly losing his balance under the surprise of an invisible force barreling into him. "WE MISSED YOU BLOKE!"
Skinner was laughing and crying at once but he had never been one to care when making a spectacle of himself which...even being invisible...he did more so than anyone those in the league and those that had known him ever encountered.
"You Damned fool get OFF ME!" Quartermain roared to no avail.
Jeckyll snicked and then doubled over with, crashing to his knees in the dark, the booming laugh of Hyde burst from deep inside the meager looking man. It subsided before there was any time for panic or thought on the matter, and suddenly Jeckyll was standing straight and brushing off the front of his pants, polite and unimposing as ever.
Nemo extended his hand, and said with more meaning than could have been conveyed by any number of words:
"It is Good to have you with us a again Mr. Quartermain."