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Chapter 7: The Finder of Lost Things

Edinburgh, Scotland, 1828

Burke and Will were arguing. Their raised voices bounced in an angry staccato off the stone wall bordering the path they were currently walking, their legs stumbling, hindered, made clumsy by the drink. They had spent the better part of the evening together at Jameson's pub, enjoying steaming hot bowls of hearty victuals and drinking several drams of whisky, but as the evening progressed, the mood had gradually begun to change, to darken. An unacknowledged tension simmered in the air between them, a low flame that had started out with a slow, but steady heat. A heat which had gradually, imperceptibly, started to build its way toward an ominous impending explosion. An explosion which had finally occurred the moment Burke had asked Will to come down with him to one of the inns on the other side of the West Port, an invitation that Will had flat out refused.

"What is the matter with you, for God's sake?" Burke yelled from behind him. He had followed Will out of the pub, and now the two of them were heading in the general direction of Tanner's Close, fumbling mindlessly through an area known as the Shambles. A few feet in front of him, Will stumbled on a loose stone, catching himself on the wall.

"Nothing is wrong. Just leave me be." His voice was strained with the sound of alcohol and an indefinable desperation. Just go away. Just leave me alone...

But Burke wasn't put off so easily. "No. You've been acting peculiar lately, and I won't have it, Will. I won't-"

"-that's not true-"

"-oh, it's more than true. You been avoiding me for days. And I don't like it. We are partners, Will. Partners. And partners confide in each other."

"Perhaps I don't wish to be your partner," Will muttered into the craggy surface of the stone wall, too low to hear.

"What was that?" Suddenly, Burke's hands were on his shoulders, pulling him around. The shadow of oncoming twilight fell across the stone path, cloaking their forms in the deep blue shade of dusk. They were all alone by the wall. Burke's eyes, darkened by shadow, bored into Will's. "What was that?" he repeated in a threatening whisper, shaking Will so that his head lolled back and forth. He'd had too much whisky by far...

The next thing he knew, Burke's lips had found their home in the crook of his neck, and Will began to squirm drunkenly, like a cross, wiggly cat beneath his grip. The overwhelming smell of alcohol filled his nostrils as Burke began to work his way around to his mouth. And Will, in a sudden burst of panicked energy, pushed him back, shoved him away. He watched as Burke lost his footing and fell, sprawling like a neglected rag doll across the rocky path.

"Why, you little bastard!"

Will took off. He ran as fast as his intoxicated limbs would allow, ran toward the (falsely perceived) sanctuary of Tanner's Close. He rounded the corner onto the main street, the street that was lined on either side by the tall, familiarly slanting tenant buildings, and he stumbled, with his heart beating like a frantic bird's wings in his chest, towards the safety of home. He glanced over his shoulder to see a darkened figure rounding the corner just behind him, a figure moving with a steady, purposeful gait. Will felt a small tremor of fear pass through him as he realized how fast the figure was closing in, how quickly he would catch up to him.

Will had just reached the shallow staircase leading to the entrance of his own building, when he felt a violent tug on his jacket collar. "You no-good, lying, cheating little bastard," Burke hissed at the back of his head. He felt himself spinning, felt his head hit the brick wall behind him as he was pushed against it. "Who is he?" Burke demanded.

"What?"

"Don't lie to me! I know when someone else has been poaching on my territory, and I tell you, Will, I won't be made a fool of!"

"Your territory?" Will answered angrily. All his fear dissipated in the face of this new rising rage, a bitter, festering emotion that felt freeing, empowering. "Don't you dare refer to me as such, William Burke, or I swear-"

"-you swear what?" said Burke menacingly as he crowded into Will's space. The air was alive, crackling with the electrical charge of impending violence.

"Shut the hell up! What in the devil's name is the matter with the two of you?"

Will and Burke turned to stare, slack-jawed, at the figure of Ann Conway standing just a few steps away, her hands on her hips and an angry expression distorting her features. "The whole ruddy neighborhood can hear your God awful squawking! You both need to shut the hell up, before someone sends for the police!"

Burke instantly backed away from Will, backed away from him as if he were on fire. Will straightened, found his voice. "I'm sorry, Ann. I'm afraid that Mr. Burke and myself may have indulged a little too much this evening-"

"-that may very well be, but it's dark out, and the children can't sleep for the two of you caterwauling."

Burke bowed drunkenly. "My apologies, miss."

"Sorry, Ann," Will repeated shakily. At that moment, a light, like a small fiery sun, fell across the stair. Will turned to see his wife, Madge, coming up the steps, with a small lantern in hand. "What's all this?" she asked dumbly.

"Your husband and his friend here-they were waking up the whole neighborhood with their drunken ranting," said Ann. Satisfied that all would now be quiet, she lifted her chin in a righteous manner, turned, and walked back across to her own stoop.

"Idiot," spat Madge, and she grabbed Will by the arm and began to haul him down the stairs, as if he were her unruly child, and not, in fact, her husband. Over her shoulder she called, "You come along, too, Mr. Burke. I've been waiting for the two of you to come home-"

"-oh, is that so?" said Burke distractedly.

"Yes, indeed, Mr. Burke," said Madge. Will watched her lips split into a demonic grin beneath the lantern light as she said:

"You see, I have a very special guest here that I need you both to attend to..." With that, Madge turned in a manic whirl of skirts, her heels clicking bluntly across the stones as she made her way back into the house. Will and Burke glanced questioningly at each other before reluctantly following her inside.

"You see, darlin'? I found Mr. Hare for you, it weren't no trouble at all..."

Will froze in the doorway, staring at his wife's back as she bent over the kitchen table, her falsely cooing voice slithering like a snake through the room. From behind her, Will could hear the soft sounds of crying. Then Madge stepped away from the table, revealing the other person who was seated there.

"Jamie?"

Daft Jamie sat at the table, a folded handkerchief crumpled in his hand and his face streaked with tears. "Oh, Mr. Hare," he said glumly. "I've gone and lost my pocket watch, my nice, gold pocket watch, and my ma will have a fit if I come home without it-"

Will turned away. He stopped listening. "We cannot do this," he whispered to Burke, who stood just a few feet away.

Burke merely smirked in response, his face twisting into a nasty, calculating expression. He was looking at Jamie, considering, and Will could practically see the tally of figures above Burke's head as he thought about the number of pounds he could get for the body. Will reached out, grabbed Burke's arm. "We cannot..." he repeated insistently.

But Burke shook him off.

"I've given the poor thing a drink or two to calm his nerves, but he's fairly distraught," said Madge insinuatingly. Will glared at his wife, glared at the falsely concerned expression she wore, and he wished her nothing but ill. Vile, cold-hearted witch...

We cannot do this...

Jamie daubed drunkenly, uselessly, at a trail of snot that was making its way down his face. "My poor watch," he muttered, the sentence punctuated by a fit of hiccups. "Oh, Mr. Hare," he continued to moan pathetically, before laying his head down on the table, next to his high hat with the colorful feathers.

"Jamie, darlin', I think you should have a lie-down while Mr. Hare looks for the watch," soothed Madge, the words a signal for Burke to come forward.

Will was rooted to the spot, fixed by the grim specter of indecision. Fixed by his own desperately warring conscience. He watched as Burke went to pull Jamie up by the arm, watched the young man loll gracelessly in Burke's unwanted embrace. "My hat..." Jamie flailed, reached out for it, but it toppled and fell to the floor, the feathers waving like sea anemones beneath the water. Jamie's bare feet scrapped the floorboards as Burke angled him towards the stair.

"Well now, that would be that," whispered Madge with a twisted grin of satisfaction. There was a loud bump from overhead, the sound of a groan, all of which she blithely ignored. In a silken swish of skirts, she made to retreat to the sanctity of her sewing room, saying to Will cheerily as she went:

"Oh, and don't forget to bring me my pound on the morrow..."

Edinburgh, Scotland, Present Day

Darkness. Silence.

It was as if the world had emptied itself of all sight, all sound, all feeling. There was just blank nothingness. A silent void. And then slowly, gradually, an awareness of things began to return. Yes, there was nothing but blackness. Yes, there was no sound. But there was...there was the cold, damp hardness of the earth, an absolute certainty beneath him. And there was also the light gossamer touch of fabric, of warm cashmere, as soft as a whisper against the side of his face. His scarf. Ianto carefully, experimentally moved his fingers, slowly reached out to touch it. Real. His scarf was real, the ground was real, and he was awake, and he was alive.

Alive!

Ianto woke to find himself sprawled across a lumpy floor of packed earth at the bottom of a shallow staircase. With effort, with a creaky protest of aching limbs, he managed to push himself up onto his knees, his right hand fumbling against some unseen object as he did so. Ianto groped at the floor around him, his hand encountering the unnatural smoothness of cool plastic. His fingers found the shape of a handle, and he knew instantly what it was: his torch. His hand scraped at the switch, flipped it on. A hazy beam of light shot through the darkness, alighting on a-

Ianto gasped and jerked back, falling back on his haunches.

The torch illuminated the pale, ghostly face of a doll, sitting upright in the middle of the floor, large and blonde-haired with round blue eyes that were gazing blankly off into space. Ianto swallowed and stared back at the doll. There was nothing, nothing but an overwhelming, impenetrable silence as he sat on the damp earth, frozen with indecision. And then he noticed something, something there with the doll. He raised his torch and leaned forward, carefully examining the ground.

There, in the dirt next to the doll, was an arrow scratched neatly into the earth. Ianto felt his pulse quicken as he crawled forward, playing the beam of light over the floor.

Yes! There! Another arrow drawn on the ground, just a few feet away...

Ianto stood. He stared at the doll, lying like a child's offering by his feet. He stepped over the doll, following the direction of the arrows, fear and uncertainty lending a careful slowness to his steps. What if it was some kind of trap? The narrow shaft of light slid across the ground of the chamber before him, outlining another arrow scratched neatly in the dirt. Ianto moved beyond that chamber, into another, his own steps as light and as silent as a moth's wings.

But where was Jack?

Fear of unseen things kept him from shouting, kept him from calling out. Inside his own head, Ianto's voice was loud and frantic: Jack, where are you? Please be alright. Don't leave me alone in this place. Please find your way back soon... The voice inside his head pleaded and prayed, over and over again, as Ianto silently, carefully, crept through the crazed maze of catacombs.

A rush of cold air hit Ianto's face as he entered another long hallway. At the opposite end, another orange bulb dimmed and flared in its wire sconce, revealing the base of a worn staircase. Ianto approached the stair with hesitation, his senses on high alert, his nerves prickling, reacting to every tiny bit of stimuli that came his way. At the bottom of the stair he found another neatly drawn arrow. Ianto stood beneath the bulb, his skin bathed in blood, his torch beam illuminating the narrow tunnel of stairs. He could just see something, something white lying near the top...

Ianto mounted the staircase and began to climb. His head was still woozy, and his hands followed the stone wall for support. He kept his torch beam firmly before him. As he grew closer to the head of the stair, Ianto saw what the white object was: a jump rope. And just beyond the jump rope, there was another heavy wooden door, just like the first door that had led him and Jack into the vaults. A door with a rusty metal grill set in the top of it, a grill which had the pale light of dusk filtering through it.

Dusk! Light from the outside!

Ianto released a deep sigh of relief, released breath that he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the wooden door, his hand clawing blindly for the flaking iron handle. And in a low, almost inaudible voice, Ianto said:

"Thank you, little girl."

And from the darkness , Ianto thought he heard a response, an imagined whisper:

Annie. My name's Annie...

"Thank you, Annie."

Suddenly, the wooden door flew open, knocking Ianto back. "Jesus!" he shrieked, rubbing at his head that was now smarting, stinging with what would soon be a nice, hardy lump. A figure outlined in black filled the doorway.

"Squealing like a little girl, Jones?" came the rough voice of Albert Ferguson. "That's not very Torchwood..."

"Albert? What are you doing here?"

"What do you mean, 'what am I doing here'? I received a text saying to meet you at the east side entrance of the vaults. I assumed it was from Captain Harkness." A small pause, then: "Where is Captain Harkness?"

An expression of deep-seated despair flitted across Ianto's face. Despair, combined with a sense of guilt. Ianto looked at Ferguson and whispered sullenly: "I...I don't know. He's still down there, lost in the vaults with that thing..." Ianto turned reluctantly to stare at the gaping mouth of the staircase, staring at it like it was the mouth of hell...

"We have to go back in and find him-" Ianto felt Albert's hand grab his shoulder, felt the other man dragging him back into the safety net of the Scottish twilight. Ferguson said, stoically, firmly:

"I don't think so, Mr. Jones. The second set of instructions from that text was quite clear. And it said this:

Under no circumstances am I to allow you to go back down into the vaults..."

End Chapter 7.

A quick note about the vaults' ghosts: Mr. Boots was a violent, greedy slum lord, and Annie one of his tenants. Again, I didn't make them up, I just borrowed them...

Oh, and hey, it's my birthday!..:)