A/N Thank you all for the feedback, it truly makes one's day!
What happens now that Tesla's involved in the game? Oooooh...
NINE
"John, can you read me?"
Nikola snorted. "Of course he can, we're operating on a channel organically linked to me. There's no possibility of interference."
"I'm going to kill you, old boy," came the static growl over the headset.
"Ever the height of gentlemanly etiquette and courtesy," Nikola drawled. Helen covered her hand over the mouthpiece of her headset to spare John the sarcasm. Their bickering could take all night.
John sat in a rickety, wooden chair in the middle of the attic of an abandoned tenement. The building was condemned, but had been declared a heritage sight for being over a hundred years old. Unsure of what to do with it the city had left it lying in ruin, and John Druitt had slept here many nights to escape the law.
He felt uneasy, and stiflingly bored. He didn't know how long he was supposed to be here, but expected to stay for a few nights. Not knowing when their assailant would make their appearance, however, kept him on edge so much that he couldn't relax even an inch to read a book. The team back at Old City were taking shifts to monitor the microphone that had been surgically implanted just beneath the skin of his clavicle. So far their only tasks had been to keep him company and stop the boredom from driving him insane.
Even listening to Tesla ramble on was better than staring at an empty room.
"You're worried," Nikola said, noting how Helen bit and worried at her lower lip. "Stop worrying, he'll be fine."
Helen said nothing but stopped biting her lip. She had been living with the tension of this game, this twisted war for too long and had forgotten what peaceful sleep was like. Better that she be awake and able to do something, anything, to bring an end to all of this.
"I hear footsteps," John suddenly said.
Helen looked wide-eyed at Nikola. They had been hoping for an encounter, but she hadn't expected one so soon.
"Hello, boss."
John looked up to see a man wearing dark glasses and shabby, unassuming clothing. He was nondescript, plain-faced, plain brown hair, and average stature; the perfect candidate for anonymity as it were. John remained seated, merely lifting an eyebrow in acknowledgement.
"A good evening to you."
The man grinned back, holding his hands open to show that he was unarmed. "I'm just the messenger boy."
"So you have a message for me? I've enjoyed your 'cute' little notes." John's voice was even and light, but underneath the silky tone was the scent of danger. The man seemed unfazed, but John noted how his feet pointed towards the doorway, the only exit.
"If you come with me, my employer will reward you handsomely."
John scoffed. "Oh you can do better than that, young man. You don't expect me to actually go anywhere with you given that paltry offer?"
The man licked his lips nervously. "That's true, but my employer is offering you something much more valuable than money."
"Go on," came the low growl.
"Freedom. From that thing inside you."
Nikola's hackles suddenly rose and he urgently said, "Get him out, get him out now!"
"Why? What's happening?"
"He has an EM shield on his person somewhere, and he's been stalling for time so it can build up a charge!"
John looked back at the messenger, mildly stunned. In me? So they knew of the energy elemental … but they still thought it controlled him.
He heard the flurry of activity from inside his ear and heard the words "EM shield". Something on his face must have betrayed him for the plain man suddenly reached into his coat pocket and drew out a gun. John disappeared in a flash of orange light a split second after the gun fired and a bullet grazed his arm.
He reappeared in the main laboratory of the Sanctuary, still reeling back from the impact of the shot. He stumbled a few steps and Helen rushed up to grab his arms and steady him. The wound was superficial, but he still felt his heart pounding on how close he had been to being trapped.
"You heard all of that, right?" Helen motioned for him to stop talking, and sat him down in a chair. She examined the wound on his shoulder, and pulled out a bottle of disinfectant.
The gears were already turning in Nikola's head as he paced the room. "They want the elemental … and they say they have a way to separate it from your person. Who … who has that kind of technology?"
John snorted. "You mean you don't?"
"No." Nikola's frank response cut the mockery short and John grew somber. If even the vampire wasn't boasting or showing off, then they were in trouble.
"It's imperative that we continue to let them believe the elemental is still present. That is our only bargaining chip. If we lose that, then John becomes expendable."
Helen cleaned the bloody scrape on John's shoulder, her lips pursed tightly as she thought in silence. "But what are we bargaining for?"
"Time. We need time to find out who they are, where they are and stop them. And they've just revealed a bit of their identity by letting us know the kind of toys they have to play with."
Helen looked through her desk for some bandage wrappings, and quirked an eyebrow at Nikola. "The only person I know who has that kind of ability is you, frankly." She didn't understand the dark look that passed over his face and pressed on. "Maybe you should look through your records of who's bought some of your licenses."
"Of course…" he whispered, and turned smartly on his heel and left the room.
John was staring at the floor, lost in his own thoughts as she saw to his wound. "That was close, John."
"Indeed."
"Don't try to do anything noble."
He looked up at her puzzled. "What do you mean by that?"
"Noble men die far too early in wars."
Nikola handed the Sybarites a fresh set of fake passports and then busily programmed new codes into their tablets. "The plane will send you to New York first. If that comes out clean, then you'll take a flight to Berlin."
"Will the Doctor notice our absence for so long?" Aurelian asked, discreetly pocketing the documents into his coat.
"I'll make up some excuse for you. But it is paramount that we work quickly now."
Ylerin took her tablet back after he was done loading the new Sanctuary floor plans and security protocols and gave him a pointed look. "If we do encounter the one you're looking for at either of these Sanctuaries … what do you want us to do?"
"Kill them. Kill them quietly." Nikola's expression didn't change a hair. He could have been talking about what to order for breakfast. They nodded in understanding, and left.
He turned the lights off in the room and made his way down to the wine cellar. It was better they all thought he wasted his time and theirs down amongst the vintages.
He drank a few bottles every night to keep up appearances. It didn't matter to him, of course, seeing as the wine had no effect on his mental capacities. He sat down and thought, pulling out a bottle of red at random.
Damned as he was to admit it, even he didn't have the ability to remove the elemental on his own. So what on earth did their faceless adversary know or have access to that they could make such an offer? In the time he had disappeared in South America he hadn't thought once of what happened to the cursed thing once it fled John's body. Now, it sent a chill down his spine.
It was still alive somewhere … he had no doubt of that. Had it entered a new host? Was it roaming somewhere in the ether of electrical currents … hiding in a nuclear reactor where it could feed off such vast amounts of fuel? Had he damned someone to John's former fate?
And now, how were they going to find the damned thing? And what would they do if they could? He would have to find a way to contain it, seeing as they could not destroy it. Or perhaps they could divert it somehow, or maybe diffuse its effects. It was energy after all – this was something he should be able to figure out.
Above all, he had to come up with the solution, he was the only one who could, without revealing what he knew of its escape to Helen. That would be a victory at too high a cost to him.