Three Days Later

Basin City, Nevada

"Yeah, he came in here…" said Marv as he nursed a cold beer and then belched, "Sure. He came in and sat down right where you're sittin'. I didn't pay him much attention at first since he mostly kept to himself. Mostly I pegged him down for just another losers come to look up at Nancy and breathe heavy. Though I gotta say for a little guy he could hold his water.

"*errp*… Maybe half and hour or so later he left his seat and went to the other side of the bar, started hassling some dame, a pretty little thing… The type that wouldn't give most men in this joint the time of day, myself included… Anyway, turned out the dame was his wife and he started-"

"Did you say wife?

"Yeah."

"That's impossible." Said Mona, "He's not married."

"Hey, that's what he said. Anyway, she wants nothing to do with him but he won't have any of it. He won't take no for an answer. He started roughing her up. And that's when I got involved, I hate it when guys rough up dames. And I never liked that dickwipe since the war… Didn't I tell you that I knew him from somewhere? Yeah, I met him a long time ago in 'Nam, didn't like him then, either."

"What did you do to him?"

"I wiped the floor with him a bit then threw him out the door, got back in and had another beer. He never got back in after that."

"What about the woman?"

"I dunno… I don't think I saw her when I got back in."

"How's it going, Marv?"

Mona looked over her shoulder to see a man of forty approaching, shaved headed and with a camera bag hanging from his shoulder.

"Dwight!" hollered Marv, "Haven't seen you in a dog's age, buddy."

"Order us a round, Marv. I'll be back in a sec." said Dwight,

"I couldn't help but overhear what the two o you were talking about. May I have a word with you, ma'am?"

"Thanks for your time." Said Mona as she got off the stool and walked beyond an earshot from Marv with Dwight at her side.

"I'm sorry about Marv." Said Dwight, "He's not completely alright in the head. He has some kind of psychological condition, some people say he got from the war, it makes him confused sometimes. The gist of it is true. I saw your friend out on the sidewalk, and he didn't look like a guy who was around for Vietnam."

"Alright, so what really happened?"

"I don't know for sure, but I hear Marv got into a fight with some out-of-towner over a woman. I came in after the fact, when the man you're looking for, he was getting back on his feet."

"What about the woman, this supposed wife?"

"She was there too. Cute. Blond, medium height, early to mid-twenties. Whatever went on between then must not have been all that serious, 'cause they ended up leaving for the dinner down the street. Poppa's Olympian Palace."

"Thanks." Said Mona as she headed for the door.

"Again, sorry about Marv. He doesn't mean any harm, but he causes plenty. He can't help saving a damsel in distress, sometimes even if she's not really in distress. To tell you the truth, your friend is Lucky."

"How so?"

"Guys who get on Marv's bad side usually end up in St. Luke's or the friend was up and walking three minutes later."

"Did you have fun?" asked Mona as she stepped out of the bar. Lucy was waiting outside, burying her hands in hr coat pockets and slumping her shoulders.

"I want to get to the pearl as soon as possible." She said in disgust as she followed Mona.

"Hey, you're the one who didn't want to go inside the bar."

"What did you find out?"

"Apparently, Priest was here a three night ago. He got into a fight, there was a woman involved who may or may not be his wife."

"Wife?"

"He used to be married, I don't know… Anyway, the two of them left for a dinner down the road."

Mona and Lucy walked on down the street in silence as the sun sank behind the city skyline and darkness fell. A police car coasted in the opposite direction, slammed clumsily into another car before it sped away again.

"Are we going to find out what happened to Priest or not?" asked Mona.

"Isn't that what we're doing?"

"We're going through the motions, Lucy. You're a psychic, so tell me."

"That's not the way it works, I told you."

Both fell into brief silence again and walked.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Luce. But having a psychic for a partner isn't as useful as I thought it would be."

The Greek couple that ran the 'Palace' were reluctant to be of any help at first, even after Mona had offered the husband some money, it took Lucy to drop a few hints about a woman's name that was prominent in his mind, it was a name that the wife didn't know.

They pointed them to an apartment building where the wife had spied the strange couple from a few days ago walk into, a mere few minutes after they ejected them.

"Yes…They definitely came here." Said Lucy, gliding in the corridor outside an apartment on the ninth floor, "Corridors have a good memory."

"That's it." Said Lucy as she pointed at a door.

"Sure?"

"Certain."

Mona took her gun out of its holster and motioned for Lucy to give her some berth.

The lock shattered as Mona kicked the door in. She steadily stepped in, gun raised high, prepared for anything that might come her way.

"Is it safe?" asked Lucy, clinging to the corridor wall by the door outside, contented to allow Mona to deal with whatever that could come their way.

"There's no one here."

Lucy carefully walked in. The ample studio apartment seemed deserted, there were no sheets on the bed, the fridge door was wide open, revealing empty shelves, there was no phone to be seen anywhere.

"Dead end."

"It's alright," said Lucy as she sat down in the middle of the living room, "I can try to get a read on the apartment."

Mona didn't object or say anything, she went to the door and closed it as best she could.

"Here goes nothing." Mumbled Lucy as she settled into the lotus position, she closed her eyes and started taking deep rhythmic breaths.

As Lucy used her powers, Mona looked around the apartment. It had been stripped of almost everything in a hurry, quite possibly by looters. Electric wiring used to plug in home appliances were left lying around, an armoire's drawers were open and empty except for the odd sock or torn piece of undergarments.

But what most intrigued Mona was a dart she'd found lodged in the side of a nightstand, soldiered to a copper capacitor.

Suddenly, Lucy came out of her trance with a heart gasp.

"What happened?" asked Mona as she rushed to her side.

"There's something wrong." Said Lucy, using Mona's hands to pull herself up, "This place's memory, it's distorted. There's bits and pieces missing, and it's not in continuity. It's like the ethereal space was hacked apart with a chainsaw and then pieces together in wrong order with rope and a few pieces missing."

"What can do that?"

"Magical rituals, radiation, some forms of electrical activity maybe."

"So did you see anything?"

"Priest and Erica… His wife, that's her name…" said Lucy, "They came here. She was upset with him at first but they made love, there wasn't too much in the way of arguments after that. But then something happened, and that's where it starts to fall apart. I'm not sure what happened, but there were people who came here, and Priest was threatened and angry, very angry."

"You don't say." Said Mona as she let Lucy stand on her own, then looked at the dart in her hand before tossing it away.

"What's on your mind?"

"The obvious, really. Priest's wife didn't just run into him, she brought him back home because someone wanted her to. The League, no doubt. Maybe they were hoping she'd get information out of him, maybe Priest caught on and the League moved in to capture him."

Lucy bolted out the door, Mona followed her.

"He fell here." Said Lucy as she raced down the last few steps to the bottom of the spiral staircase, "Fell from up top all the way to the bottom. He hurt himself, that's when the League team got their advantage."

Lucy kneeled down and graced the floor of the foyer with her hand.

"They beat him up for a while but he fought back, and then… A blank."

Later

The Black Pearl

Seven gloomy men and women gathered around the meeting table, the minutemen, Barbossa, Jenny and Al-Sheikh. Lucy had filled everybody in what she'd found. Not one of them tried to speak. Just days ago the minutemen had celebrated the most recent in a string of successes, and now everything had gone bad, so none really knew what to say that could change anything.

In the end, it was O'Brien who spoke.

"Look, I don't like to be the first to talk at these things. But I gotta do it, are we or aren't we going to save Priest?"

"We are. No question." Said Mona. Some stared at her, while others did their best to look away.

"That's not for you to decide." Said Jenny..

"Excuse me? You want to leave Priest to the wolves?"

"We have no choice." Said Al-Sheikh as he stood up.

"You saved Aladdin Sane, didn't you?"

"After several months of investigation," said Barbossa, "Under a completely different set of circumstances."

"Why was it different?"

"Sane wasn't the same kind of captive that Priest is. He's likely held at a much more secure facility than Sane was, not to mention that at this point I'm not sure if he's alive or not."

"What are you talking about?

"Priest is what you'd call a fairly insurmountable adversary, and he'd fight tooth and nail to escape capture. I envision any attempt to arrest him would end in his escape or his demise."

"You'e giving him too much credit, the Gotham mob once managed to drug Priest and force him into helping them last year."

"Be that as it may. There's another issues to consider." Said Al-Sheikh, "Sane wouldn't have been of much concern to the directors. But Priest? Priest dismembered Felix Leiter's forty years ago, and dealt Mina Jekyll enough insults for her to develop a grudge, he threw her out a window. Those two would trip over each other to make sure he never has the slightest chance of escape.

"Secondly, it happened in Basin City, where finding a witness who even noticed what went on is going to impossible."

"So after all he's done to you, finding out who Josephine is, finding MacGuffin, you're just going to let him spend his last ninety days in a cell?" asked Mona.

"Priest knew the risks;" said Jenny sternly, "He knew them when he joined the opposition, he knew them when joined the minutemen, he knew them when he jumped out of a helicopter. Yes, we won't try to help him."

Mona stared Jenny down in cold disbelief. She found herself instinctively make a gesture to reach her gone, a gesture she stopped early, though didn't go unnoticed.

"We'll vote." She said in contained anger.

"There is nothing to vote about." Said Barbossa.

"The Cairo cell decided they were going to save Aladdin Sane, so we're going to vote whether or not the minutemen are going to save Jude Priest."

"Out of the question."

"If the others disagree, I'll drop it." Said Mona, her voice beginning to rise, "Otherwise, we'll do it. Refuse andI swear on my sister'a grave, I will walk out, and then you can try your chances at finding someone else to kill the League for you."

"You're way out of line, Sax." Barked Jenny.

"So you refuse?"

"There's only four of you." Said Al-Sheikh.

"Fine, if the vote is split halfway, then we won't do it."

"'You want to walk away, go ahead and do it." Said Jenny, "We've-"

"Fine." Said Barbossa, who had been quiet for the most part. All eyes turned toward him.

"Go ahead." Said Barbossa, sounding more like he was challenging Mona rather than granting permission.

"I'm in." Mona said. Jenny rolled her eyes.

There was a long pause as the others weighed how much they liked Priest against the undeniable risk. Once again, it was O'Brien who spoke first.

"It's my own damn fault we got caught," said O'Brien, "And Priest is my friend. I'm in."

"I'm not." Said Shaun, rather quickly.

"Shaun…"

"I'm out, Mona."

"Priest was your teacher, he was your friend! Don't tell me you still blame him for what happened to Liz!"

"My own feelings for Priest notwithstanding," said Shaun calmly, "He wouldn't want us to come after him. You know it."

Mona looked at Shaun incredulously for a moment, before she removed her gaze from him, and placing it at Lucy, who sat one end of the table, lost in her own thoughts.

"Fine, Lucy?"

For a moment, Lucy didn't seem to notice any of what was going on.

"He was going to die." Lucy finally said as she stared into space.

"What?"

"Priest was dying." Said Lucy as she looked up at Mona, "He didn't want to tell you, he didn't want to tell me but I found out anyway. He was dying of some sort of rare vampire-specific disease. He'd had that disease since before you met him.

"That's why he was always so reckless; he was suicidal, Mona. He knew that in spite of it all he wasn't going to live forever, he couldn't bear the thought of wasting away, so he tried to make the end come a lot closer."

"I can't believe you'd make this shit up!"

"I'm not. What did he say to you, Mona? In Gotham, outside the stable, last year on Christmas morning, when he came out of a coma?

__________________

"… you were almost killed..."

"Tell me about it," said Priest weakly and coughed, "You should have left me to die."

"Yeah? Well its too late now." said Mona as she tossed an old blanket on top of him.

__________________

"So we leave him to rot, because its not worth the effort? Because he'll die soon anyway? That's not the point!"

"Shaun's right, Priest wouldn't have wanted us to come for him." Said Lucy, "The answer is no."

"That settles it, then." said Barbossa as he stood up, "Priest is on his own. May god protect him."

Later

"You look like you bring bad news, chum." Said Barbossa, sitting by himself in the Black Pearl's bridge as Al-Sheikh came walking in, "Who was it?"

"O'Brien quit. He said he's seen too much. He can't stomach it anymore. He says he's heading for Gotham, try his hand at crimefighting again."

"Sax?"

"She's shocked by what Miss Wagner has said, but she's staying."

"Wagner?"

"She's handling it a lot better."

"Collier?"

"Absolutely emotionless. If Priest has passed something significant onto his protégé, it is sheer apathy in the face of hardship."

"So where does that leave us?"

"Priest is dead or captured, Jarrah and O'Brien have to pursue their own devices. We're down to three minutemen. Two of whom have had a dissagreement with their leader that she won't forget, and might not be able to put it aside…. You know back when I first formed this unit, I said to Nemo that it was a temporary detail, that if allowed to continue long enough I will be disastrous consequences… As time passed and they did whatever we asked and more, I started to delude myself, thinking it would hold together for a long time, but I was wrong. That day has come."

Al-Sheikh turned around, and walked away from Barbossa.

"The minutemen are over."

Barbossa turned toward his instrument, and with a flick of a switch, a panel opened up, revealing the murky waters of Basin City Harbor.

"God help us all."

I've left a clue above to a character that will be introduced next chapter. See f you can spot it.

Next Chapter

Priest wakes up in a certain insane asylum, and meets a man they call the White Angel. At the same time, in London, Harmony Kendall reaches her breaking point and contemplates doing something drastic before facing something that will change everything for the League and the opposition.

R&R.