Chapter Twenty-Seven: Sex, Drugs, and Alien Parasites
Daria, Jekyll said in an anguished tone as the other two men joined Hyde in the containment room. It was a fairly large room, with the air of some sacrificial site to it. A stone table, topped with flat cushions, stood in the center. It was clearly designed to be the focal point of the otherwise sparse room.
On top of the table, eyes closed and face pale, lay Daria. She was almost like the sleeping maiden from a tale, but it wouldn't be a kiss that woke her.
Hyde approached the table, studying the unconscious Tau'ka. Still drugged. He waved Basil over, prompting the gray-eyed man to come over, drawing a hypodermic needle loaded with the sedative's antidote from an inside coat pocket. As Hyde nodded curtly for him to continue, he took Daria's wrist, placed pressure on the vein, and expertly injected the antidote into her arm.
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Daria stirred weakly, her consciousness finally called from where it had been drifting. Her eyes slowly flickered open to focus blearily on the face hovering near hers. A slight frown appeared on her face as she inhaled slowly, taking in the man's scent. It was oddly familiar… She studied his hawk-like features intently.
"Holmes?" she said, her voice a confused rasp. "What are you doing here?"
Sherlock Holmes smiled. "Coming to rescue you, Miss Noclaf," he said.
"Holmes?" Hyde growled, looking sharply at the man he had known as Basil. He thought he'd recognized his scent. "Sherlock Holmes?"
Sherlock Holmes?? Jekyll said, his 'voice' a thin squeak. Holmes, the detective- the detective who had tracked him and solved the mystery of Edward Hyde, who had been there that last awful evening when he'd run out of the formula and been so sure that Hyde would kill them both in order to avoid capture, who had managed to provide a substitute for the tainted salt that had made the elixir work in the first place... Jekyll had thought he was going to die that day… but Holmes had given him the alternate formula. The detective had wanted him to face charges for Hyde's murders in return for the 'rescue'.
But Jekyll couldn't bring himself to face the charges. Holmes had led him and Watson away from his laboratory as his friend Gabriel Utterson and his butler Poole had broken down the door to confront him… the three fleeing men had gotten only halfway to Whitehall when Jekyll drank the partial-dose of the altered elixir he'd held back to release Hyde… Hyde had come, with a ferocity he had never seen before, accompanied by agonizing pain unlike any that had gone with the earlier transformations… the changed formula had changed Hyde, for instead of the malignant dwarf he had been, he was now easily as tall as Jekyll himself, and more aggressive then he'd been before…
He'd turned on Holmes and Watson then, striking them both down. Then he'd fled for the dwelling Jekyll had provided his for alter-ego in Soho, taking only some money and the memory of the new elixir's components with him when he left, running now for Paris… Paris, where they had stayed for months, more or less in hiding… where Hyde's despicable acts had made him grow to his present size… where Jekyll had struggled day and night with both Hyde and that burning need to take the elixir and release his evil…
"I thought you were tramping around Europe." Daria's voice was slowly gaining strength as she struggled to sit up. She groaned and rubbed her head.
"I was," Holmes said. "A good thing for you one of my leads brought me here, now wasn't it?"
Nemo looked from one to the other. "Daria, how do you know Mr. B- Mr. Holmes?" he asked, correcting himself mid-word.
The Tau'ka managed a smile. "I worked with him because I had learned that the Hawks were working with Moriarty," she said.
"Dr. Watson's account of the events of Reichenbach Falls was not entirely accurate," Holmes explained as she slid off the table an on to her feet. "Not surprising, as he was not in attendance. But Miss Noclaf was, and she kindly prevented me from going over into the abyss."
"Unlike Moriarty," Nemo said wryly. "Though he managed to survive himself."
Holmes nodded, his face grim. "A grievous error on my part," he admitted. "I should have made sure of him myself." He looked up at Hyde, a cool, calculating expression on his hawklike face. "I perceive that you have been busy since last we met, Mr. Hyde."
"I have," Hyde smirked, the playful expression all the more terrifying on his brutish face. "And all thanks to you."
Daria looked like she would like to ask more questions, but shook her head. She was feeling better by the minute, though most of her 'powers' were still not functioning. "Enough, you two," she said. "Where are the others?"
"They have gone to deal with the Goa'uld and cultists," Nemo explained. He unslung Daria's sheathed sword from across his shoulders and held the weapon out to her. "When you are ready."
The Tau'ka's hands closed over the walnut-colored leather. "How thoughtful of you, Captain," she said as she accepted it. Gray-green eyes narrowed speculatively. "Shall we all go dismantle something?
Hyde smirked again and cracked his knuckles. "It would be a pleasure."
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"Not good!"
Jason managed to get a shield up a mere moment before a bolt of sand-colored power slammed into it. The mage felt himself physically jarred as his protections spread out and absorbed the force of the attack.
His female comrade lunged forward to deal with a cultist attacking from the other side. Enemies were blocking both directions, trying to pin the League members down. Mina, however, was having none of it. She was in some sort of feral state where the lives of anything standing between her and Kheti was forfeit.
Quatermain left her to deal with attackers from that direction. He'd long since given up on arguing anything with Mina Harker. Actually, he'd given up trying to stand in the way of either of the League's female members. It just did not work. Mina always gave him looks better suited for a schoolteacher disciplining an unruly child and the one time he'd tried to stop Daria from coming along on a mission, she'd ignored him entirely and invited herself along anyway. Moriarty had had an eye for picking out difficult women…
He instead turned to give Jason support. The hunter raised his rifle to aim at the nearest of the two men coming from that direction and paused. Shapes were forming themselves out of the sand scattered liberally over the floor- long, dangerous-looking, serpentine shapes.
"What in God's name are those?" he demanded of Jason.
The mage blocked a second blast of power by deflecting it into the stone wall rather then by simply resisting it and looked at where Quatermain was pointing. "Sand Serpents, I believe," he said. "Shoot the mages please while I deal with them."
Quatermain nodded and fired. Judging by the sudden scream of the Egyptian mage, the magical shields he was using did not affect bullets the same way it did magic. The other mage shouted something and gestured, causing two of the Sand Snakes to break off of their attack on Jason and come towards him. The creatures were easily fifteen feet long, and had to be a good foot around the middle.
One reared up like a cobra, unfurling a vividly colored hood and swaying hypnotically. Quatermain found himself staring at the sand-made creature. Such sleek sinuous movements, back and forth… for a moment he felt himself slipping, starting to lower his rifle…
"Quatermain!" Mina shouted from behind him. The old hunter was jarred back into reality by her warning and shook his head to clear it of the odd fog that seemed to have settled in his brain. Raising the rifle once more, he aimed and fired at the nearest of the serpents.
With a ear-splitting shriek it collapsed into a pile of sand, the shockwave from the bullet having overcome whatever cohesive force that had been keeping it together.
Next to him, Jason was locked in a pitched battle with the mage commanding the Sand Serpents. Quatermain could dimly see a pulsing cloud of multicolored light in between them- blue-green on Jason's side, tawny on the Egyptian's. It wavered between the pair as the hunter ducked back into an alcove in the wall to reload his rifle.
Jason gritted his teeth as he strained against the Egyptian mage's magical attack. This kind of fight was, put simply, an arm-wrestling match waged with power rather than physical strength. However, that didn't keep it from being a drain on his resources. It was a definite mental strain, and he feared that if it went on too much longer, he wouldn't have enough strength left to face any other mages that the cult might have in its ranks. Behind him, Quatermain fired again, hitting the mage in the chest. The man screamed and fell, his magic evaporating.
On the temple floor, the Sand Serpents collapsed into piles of the sand they were created from. Jason stumbled forward as the force opposing him suddenly vanished, his breathing coming in ragged gasps as Mina joined them.
"Are you alright?" she asked, the red light fading a little from her eyes.
Jason nodded and shoved his spectacles up higher on his sweaty nose. "Yes, thank you," he said to the vampiress.
"Let's get moving," Quatermain ordered. "We need to see what other surprises they have in store for us."
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All good rituals included wine. Therefore, every religion and cult needed someone in charge of the blessed beverage. And implied with that task was that of ensuring the sacred wine was… well, up to scratch, so to speak.
The 'priest' who held that glorious post sat under a table in the secondary worship chamber, currently sampling from one of five jugs of consecrated wine. Yes, that seemed to be nicely up to standard… wouldn't want to displease the goddess Nebthet by serving an inferior product at her rebirthing ceremony, after all…
He eyed the jug in his hand, then checked the others. Oh dear, now that would never do… all the jugs had different amounts of wine left in them… Someone needed to make sure they were even…
He splashed a little more wine into his cup and raised it to his lips.
Then he set it down, staring as what appeared to be a box and several bundles of cylindrical objects floated up to him and hovered in midair. Next thing he knew, an unseen force had plucked the cup of wine from his nerveless hand. The cup floated upwards, then a stream of the dark red liquid flowed down an invisible throat and vanished into thin air.
The priest found himself with the empty cup in his hand a moment later. "Thanks mate," an amused voice said, as the box and cylinders picked themselves off the floor and floated off.
He stared as they rounded a corner and vanished. Looking at the jugs of wine, he hurriedly corked them and put them back into their cabinet. That was quite enough alcohol for him…
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"We need to regroup with the others," Nemo said as he led his three companions down the stone corridor. Dark eyes scanned their surroundings ahead automatically as he trusted the others to keep up. He would prefer not to get separated in a place like this- if one of them got lost in the maze, they might not get out again before Skinner's explosives brought the entire place down on their heads. If that happened, whoever was trapped inside would either be killed outright by the falling rubble or would suffocate slowly in an air pocket. Neither fate was a pleasant one to contemplate.
Daria shook off the last of her drug-induced haze as she walked. The four of them were arranged in a diamond pattern with Nemo on point, Hyde taking up the rear, and her and Holmes in the middle.
It was understandable then that Hyde- whose attention was more on what was behind them (or possibly behind her) than where he was going- nearly tripped over the Tau'ka as she stopped dead in her tracks, her very veins humming with a familiar and very unwelcome sensation.
"What is it?" Holmes asked, watching as she turned her head intently towards one door in particular.
There was a peculiar expression on her sharp-featured face, a combination of pure hatred and loathing, tinged with disgust. She didn't answer, instead pushing her way through the door and into the chamber beyond.
What is it? Jekyll asked. Daria?
The three men cautiously followed their alien counterpart. She stood just inside, gazing at what appeared to be rows of… tanks. Glass tanks, each a yard high and several long, filled with a murky green liquid. There were six in all, arranged in pairs, while three smaller tanks sat in niches carved into the back wall.
"It… looks like a fish hatchery," Holmes said, stepping towards the nearest tank to inspect its contents. "But that does not make sense- what are they raising?"
"It's not a hatchery," Daria said as the surface of the liquid inside several tanks began to roil, as if innumerable creatures had suddenly started swimming agitatedly. Her voice carried the same combination of hatred and loathing as her face had. "It's a nursery. Nebthet is a queen Goa'uld- these are her…" she glanced towards Nemo. "What's the word for large numbers of offspring? You use it for fish mostly, I think…"
"Spawn?" he suggested. The Tau'ka nodded.
"Her spawn."
"A queen Goa'uld?" Holmes asked curiously. "You mean- she is like a queen bee- all of these are hers?"
She nodded again. "There must be hundreds of them- that means hundreds of humans she can enslave." Peering at the nearest tank- and carefully keeping a conspicuous distance from it, she added, "These look to be larval- too young to be implanted in a Jaffa. If we smash the tanks, they won't survive for long." She didn't seem fazed in the least about proposing what was essentially infanticide- young Goa'uld were the sole exception to the Tau'ka's fierce parental protection instincts. Every Goa'uld carried within it the memories of all its maternal ancestors- these would be no better than their parent. It would be best for everyone if they destroyed the parasites now.
Hyde smiled, showing cracked, rather pointed teeth. "It would be my pleasure," he growled. "I'll take care of this." Finally, something other than snapping a few necks- while he would never say no to a good murder, variety was the spice of life. And he didn't much fancy the idea of letting these little worms get big enough to take someone over. That thought- of having one of those things in his head, controlling him in a way Jekyll never could- disgusted him.
"I believe we had best let Hyde take care of this," Nemo told Daria quietly, gesturing for her to step back and out of range of the destruction that was about to take place. His dark face was unreadable, but he was not any happier with the idea of an army of Goa'uld hosts serving Nebthet's will than Hyde or Daria was.
Daria nodded and went to join Nemo and Holmes, pausing only to murmur a brief "Be careful, Edward," as she passed the beast-man.
"Don't worry about me, sweetheart," he chuckled, cracking his knuckles and striding forward to get to work.
Will you stop calling her that? Jekyll said, sounding somewhat irritated as Hyde swung a massive fist into the first tank, sending a tidal wave of greenish water and small, pale, worm-like things crashing to the stone floor.
No, Hyde replied smugly. It annoys you. Besides, I thought you would be grateful I'm not visiting my usual attentions on her. I'm leaving that to you for once, you bloody ponce.
She'd probably kill us both if you tried.
Sucks to be you then doesn't it, eh Jekyll? Not that you'll ever have the guts to do it anyway. She's a tenacious little thing, I'll give you that, but the tenacious ones are always the hardest to satisfy. She might get bored and leave before you ever mustered the nerve to do anything with her. He strolled over to the next tank, deliberately stepping on as many of the larval Goa'uld as he could, smirking at their thin squeals as they were crushed beneath his feet. 'Course, you might get lucky tonight- she could be VERY grateful to her 'rescuer'… if you live, that is. And if she doesn't decide to thank her real rescuer, he added, snatching up one of the little parasites as he passed and biting down on it. He spat it out a moment later- the Goa'uld's flesh was extremely bitter. Hyde didn't mind sampling 'odd cuisine' if it made Jekyll ill later, but he had to be able to palate it long enough to swallow it…
Jekyll didn't respond- both because he wasn't sure how to respond to a comment like that, and because he wasn't sure exactly how much of this conversation Daria was hearing. He was rather grateful that his alter-ego had decided not to snack on the parasites- he did not look forward to being sick to his stomach after a transformation again, and he knew his stomach would have rebelled the moment his body was his own again if Hyde had eaten it.
Hyde gave a mental smirk and entertained himself with smashing the rest of the tanks. The three lining the wall had larger 'snakes' in them, but that was the only difference between them and the half-dozen large ones that he could see. Shaking out his fist after dealing with the last tank- and blatantly ignoring the cuts in the back of his hand from the broken glass- he rejoined the others.
"You're welcome," he said to Daria with a leer. "Got any more fun for me?"
She surveyed the damage with a satisfied expression and looked up at Hyde. "Not at the moment, thank you." That was one threat taken care of- and preemptively, which she liked. Always best to take care of problems before they became major issues.
"If we are finished," Nemo cut in, nodding to his oversized counterpart, "We need to find Quatermain and the others. Let us go now." He turned and led the way out of the room, Daria and Hyde following.
They hadn't gone ten paces when there came the unmistakable sound of a revolver being cocked for firing.
"Stop right there, Mister Hyde," Sherlock Holmes said calmly, his gun aimed directly at Hyde's head.