The gentleman in the chair drew the poker between his fingers in his very best version of seduction until the metal neared the reddened end, causing him to hiss and return it to the fireside.
Helen approached her desk cautiously, mouth slightly agape. "What happened to your face, Nikola?"
Tesla, smartly dressed in his best 19th Century suit, ignored the mystified woman, determined to control the topic of conversation.
"So," he began, folding his hands into his lap, "I was prowling through the train tunnels, minding my own business when –"
"How did you get into my house?" she interrupted him. Helen's stern expression hadn't cracked under his pert mood. It was an acquired ability.
Nikola Tesla's eyebrows lowered themselves into a disapproving grimace. "This was my house, remember?"
"I bought it," Helen made it to her desk but was forced to sit in her guests' seat when Tesla gave no indication that he would move. "Paid real money for it and everything."
"Yes well," it was clearly a sore topic, "you can't be famous and live forever. People, nosy creatures that they are, ask too many questions. Now," he leant forward over the table causing Helen to retreat to the cushy back of her chair. "Do you want to hear my story or not?"
"I just hope you locked the door behind you," she muttered. Any number of things could wander in off the street. This house was like bait for cockroaches, even the well dressed ones.
An unopened note on the desk caught Tesla's attention. He could have sworn that it was in old Nigel's cursive. Ever inquisitive of other peoples' business, he went to possess it but Helen swiped it from under his hand and a moment later it had vanished into one of her lab coat pockets. Short of undressing her, he would never see it again.
His eyebrows returned to their preferred lofty positions, slightly independent of each other. "Whoever said I use doors?" he quipped, instead choosing to finish off a glass of port that he'd poured himself from her private stash.
"God, you're exhausting."
"I'll take that as my cue to kiss you," he leant forward like a flash of lightening across the turbulent atmosphere, but she was too fast for him, ducking out of his reach.
"Uh ah... once is quite enough for this century."
"Remind me to book you in for the next one."
"You said something about a story?" Helen eyed him impatiently. Running from Nikola's left ear and across his cheek were a series of gashes. The doctor in her wanted to stitch his skin back into place but she knew that he would heal on his own – quickly too. She could already see the edges of the cuts closing, healing themselves. He was in pain though but doing a reasonable job of concealing it.
"As I said," Nikola was serious now, a rare condition for him, "you have a problem."
"I have many problems, could you be more specific?"
"You're in an atrocious mood," he quipped, but was undeterred and perhaps even a little amused. "If you insist though, I had a bit of a run in with ... something. Ah!" he raised his hand just in time to stop Helen from flinging a snide remark in his direction, "before you ask me to be more specific, I can't because I'm not sure what it was. Tell you something for free, it had to be pretty game to try something on me considering my, well, night-time demeanour..."
"Is it dead?"
There was a gleam in Tesla's eyes. She'd answered his question without knowing it. "So you do know what it is then," he grinned. Craning his neck around to the point where Helen though it might snap. He shut his eyes as the electric lights in the room flickered. "Care to share?"
"Perhaps, but how do I know that you're here for good?"
"I don't understand the question," replied Tesla. "Do I translate 'good' as 'forever' because I believe we've already sorted that out but if –"
"I don't have time for your games," she snapped, her patience for his charms wearing thing. "If you're going to help us, then stay. If not – well, you're in my chair."
*~*~*
"There's only one way to turn the virus back on itself," Tesla refilled both of their glasses with the crimson liquid. They had relocated to the couch behind the double arched windows - a more comfortable position with a pleasant view of the floor to ceiling bookshelf.
To Nikola's dismay, Helen had drawn the curtains open to reveal the moonlight. Sometimes she was afraid of the outside world, and liked to keep herself boxed in the safety of her manor but on nights like these Helen Magnus wanted the world to know that she was watching it.
Helen wove herself into the far end of the couch, well out of the scientist's reach should he choose to try something. There was a knife under her cushion and a gun taped to the underside of the coffee table. Plenty, she hoped, to handle an old friend.
"My research – which, I realise you deplore but in this instance you will find quite useful – indicates that a pure sample of vampire blood will stave off, maybe even cure the virus. DNA records taken from the Ramesses tomb show immunity to the virus after it spread through the ancient city before the great culling."
"Wait, you knew about this group of vampires?"
Tesla lifted his hands above his head, surprised by Helen's lack of faith in his ability. "I've devoted my pleasingly long life to this topic, of course I knew. I didn't tell you because I thought they were all long dead – and even if they weren't, there're useless to me."
"I don't know, you could have your army of vampires. Isn't that what you want? Indeed, is it why you're here?"
"My my, how you misunderstand me. I feel like that homeless child begging with my bowl, but all I want is a little trust."
"That was deep."
"Okay, put it this way, the vampires this virus creates are animals compared to what I'm after. They lack, fineness. Still, it disappoints me that you found an ancient colony of vampires in the desert and didn't bother to call."
"You don't own a phone."
"Fact," he sipped his port. "Listen, I can't help you with what's-his-name..."
"Will..." she corrected him.
Tesla waved his free hand, "Whatever. But I might be able to get that little problem back for you, if you ask me nicely."
"I don't know if I need your help with that. Ashley's already out there."
"Take a look at my face, Helen." Nikola shuffled forward over the couch until he was right next to her. He caught her hand reaching for the knife and instead lifted it to his face so that she could feel the depth of the wound in his skin. "Do you really want her out there alone?"
*~*~*
A train rumbled in the distance, grinding through one of the hundred tunnels beneath the streets of London. Ashley was black from the grime which had slathered itself onto her hands so thick that she had to wipe them on her jacket just to keep a hold of her guns.
She didn't use her torch. Sticking out like a sugar coated treat wasn't a good plan so she kept her back against the wall of the tunnel, using it to guide her while her ears picked out faint sounds scattering into the passage.
Ashley was excellent at this kind of thing. The years spent playing hide and seek with first her mother and later, Bigfoot had been excellent training. Mind you, she was infinitely better at the seeking part. Hiding was more of her mother's speciality.
It was definitely down here. There was an occasion smear across the gravel floor – a few bloodied rocks only just lit by the weak tunnel lighting. Mostly it was dark, especially where side tunnels dug away at the walls. A freaking maze was what she had down here, a cumbersome network that had been added to and re-ordered so many times that no-one had the faintest idea what was going on.
The blood belonged to the detective – at least, that was its most likely origin. The sand creature could have taken another victim on its way down but she doubted it. This thing was using Joe as bait. Something it knew the Sanctuary would come after.
She jolted, training her guns on the roof. The milieu shuddered, a mixture of the lights failing and a hot wind kicking down the tunnel.
"Relax," she whispered to herself. "You're the one doing the hunting, remember?"
But Ashley wasn't the only one hunting. Nikola had been following her footsteps for more than an hour, cautiously gaining ground on her until he decided that he better announce his presence or risk getting shot. It might not kill him, but a bullet through the heart still hurt.
"Hold up..." Tesla took a hold of his overly long trench coat, preventing it from flapping around in stray air currents so that his silhouette was less bat-like.
Ashley almost lost her footing in shock, flicking on her torch and pointing it at the approaching figure. It was that man her mother used to know, crazy scientist. Great, that was just what she needed – another vampire to deal with.
"How long have you been there?" she kept her weapon trained on him as he came to a stop at her feet looking terribly pleased with himself.
Nikola shrugged, "A while. Lady of the house sent me."
That sounded exactly like something Helen would do. Send in the cavalry. "Mum needs to put a bell around your neck or something."
"And take all the pleasure out of sneaking? Any luck with your own project?"
Ashley rolled her eyes and pointed her torchlight at the ground where it caught a blood covered stone.
"I see," Nikola knelt down, dabbing his finger in it. "Don't worry," he added, when Ashley's nose crinkled, "I'm not going to lick it or anything." He rubbed the substance between his fingers until there was nothing left of it but a brownish smudge. "This is close to the place where I had my little run in earlier," Tesla pointed to his face as Ashley flicked off the light.
"You better be quiet then," she turned away from him and continued hunting.
"I'm quieter than you," he reassured her.
After several minutes of traipsing through the tunnel, Ashley pulled up to a halt. Tesla nearly ran into her, hopping to the side just in time to avoid her loaded weapon. She had a growl on her face.
"I can still hear you!" she shushed him irritably.
They stood their collective ground, eyeing each other suspiciously for a moment until they both realised that the noise they could hear was coming from further in the tunnel.
"You know," Tesla murmured, redirecting Ashley's gun toward the dark passageway in front, "I thought it'd be quieter than that."
The owner of the noise emerged into the semidarkness, a grin spread across his face. John's hands were clutched behind his back and his boots allowed to drag in the gravel. "Believe me," he began at the pair, one of whom exhaled in disbelief, "if I didn't want you to hear me, you wouldn't have."
"Oh wonderful," Tesla had never particularly liked John, and now he remembered why. "The father of convenience. Mr. Druitt, let me introduce you to your daughter..." he theatrically presented Ashley.
"Quiet Nikola, why don't crawl back down into that cave you call home?"
"Charming as always," Nikola clicked Ashley's light back on so that he could get a better look at his old rival. "If you don't mind, we're a little busy at the moment doing, 'work stuff'."
A spark shot across John's shoulder. He bent over, grimacing in pain. It was clear that though he could tear the fabric of time, sometimes it turned and snarled at him, ripping away the layers of his soul. His little trip back into the 1800's had done a lot of damage. John had to believe that it was worth it.
"You just can't stop can you?" Tesla showed no sympathy as the tall man was reduced to a groaning mound on the floor. "Helen told you not to keep jumping about the universe."
"She. Told. You." John grunted, lifting himself back to his feet. "Not to be such an arse but since when did either of us start listening to Helen?"
"'scuse me?" Ashley swiped Nikola across the back of her head with the butt of the gun causing him to yelp. "Could the both of you just get over it."
"What was that?" Tesla narrowed his eyes at her jacket, tilting his head suspiciously.
"What was what?"
He'd definitely heard something clink together inside her jacket pocket. It didn't take the genius long to piece all the fragments together. Indeed, Watson would be proud of him.
Tesla went for Ashley's jacket but John was there, gripping onto Tesla's wrist no doubt hoping to crush it.
"Don't touch her..."
"I suppose," his slippery voice pondered, "it was you who got her into this mess. I can smell it-" he lowered his eyes to Ashley's pocket. "Yesss... I should have noticed it before but there's so little of it left. It was more like a memory on the air, difficult to place." Tesla had wondered what had happened all those years ago. It was lifetime away but the mystery of Dr. Magnus's departure from the world had ripped the five apart. "You obviously didn't tell your mother that you shot poor old Gregory. I can't see her taking that too well."