Chapter 29
Storybrooke Bay, 11 am
They've been walking forever, it seems. Bae's feet are cold, his sneakers being soaked through with dew, and his stomach informs him it's lunchtime. But he doesn't complain because he's on a mission: his mission is to prove Em wrong in her mission to take Tam down.
Emma too is running out of steam. She's had very little sleep and her nerves have been on edge ever since Hook's attack on Gold. But this is her expedition, so she sets her jaw and trudges along behind Ruby, who moves agonizingly slowly, stopping periodically to take a reminder whiff from Tamara's sweatshirt, then sniffing at bushes, trees and grass. They've wend their way from the hotel east on Main Street, past the library, past City Hall, past the pharmacy and various shops into the residential area, to the outskirts of town, and now finally seaside. And here it becomes difficult for Ruby to find a scent to track. At last she shakes her head. "Nothing. There's too much sand, too much moisture."
"From here, we depend on our eyes." Emma checks her Beretta, then studies the terrain. There are twenty warehouses, four canneries and numerous portable storage units to be searched, and of course most of them are locked, and she has neither a subpoena nor bolt cutters.
But she does have magic. She doesn't know the spells, but as she stands before the first storage unit and visualizes the lock popping open of its own accord, she finds she can make things happen, so she does.
The subpoena, however, is another matter. But if the state should ever poke their noses into Storybrooke, she suspects the lapse in proper procedure will be pretty low on their list of concerns.
Rolling the steel door open, she urges her companions to stand behind her. The building is dark, so she conjures flashlights for Bae and Ruby, and then she enters, pistol raised, and her companions follow, flashlights on.
Fifteen minutes later they emerge, clueless and discouraged. "One down, forty to go," Bae grumbles. "You're on a wild goose chase, Em. I told you: I don't have any idea who killed Cora, but it wasn't Tam." He fumbles in the pocket of his hoodie. "Let me try calling her again. I bet she's back at the hotel now, probably soaking in the tub."
Emma's face freezes and her eyes grow cold. "Call her."
Bae dials, holds the phone to his ear and waits.
"What's that?" Ruby exclaims. "That sound?"
"I don't hear—" Emma starts, but Ruby hushes her and starts to walk toward the canneries.
Bae removes the phone from his ear, but Emma seizes his wrist. "Don't hang up." She follows after Ruby.
"You people are—" And then Bae hears it too: 30 Seconds to Mars' "This is War."
Tam's ring tone.
Storybrooke Sardines 11:02 am
The place stinks of fish and sweat and blood—fairy/human/sorcerer blood.
His magic transports Rumplestiltskin directly into the scene of the crime, for it's there that his summoner is being held. He remains invisible while he figures out what's going on.
Henry is locked in Tamara's arms, but he's putting up a pretty good fight, stomping on her feet, biting at her hands until she smacks him. He thrashes back and forth in a vain attempt to break free, and he's shouting "Grampa!"
A snippet of a song emanates from Tamara's pocket. "Neal," she says, and as he enters the room, rolling an ECT machine on a cart, Greg Mendell curses, "Damn it, shut it off."
Taking advantage of the distraction, Henry throws his head back, striking Tamara in the nose, and she releases him to staunch the blood flowing from her nose. Henry now has the opportunity to escape, but he doesn't: he stands stock still, staring directly at Rumple. After wiping her nose with her sweatshirt sleeve, Tamara shuts off her cell phone, then seizes Henry again and shoves him into a chair. Henry doesn't budge, just stares off into space, and Tamara stands over him.
Rumplestiltskin cocks his head, pondering: he'd swear Henry can see him, although he's still invisible. As a test, he raises a cautionary finger to his lips, and Henry nods in acknowledgement.
The cannery equipment has all been shoved to one end of the building, but a hospital gurney has been wheeled in the center of the room: the Queen is strapped to it. Mendell attaches electrodes from the ECT to various parts of her body. Hook stands over her, talking to her in low tones. Mendell fiddles with dials on the machine.
Hook seems to lose interest in the proceedings—or pretends to. Something in his posture informs Rumple that the pirate may have a soft spot for the queen—but Rumple growls under his breath when Hook clarifies the reason he's walking away: "When you're interested in killing Rumplestiltskin, not torturing the Queen, find me."
Now it's Rumple's turn to squirm as Hook brushes past him, leaving the building. Rumple's hand forms a claw and he has to fight the impulse to sink his nails into the pirate's throat.
A tussle of words between Mendell and Regina brings Rumple's attention back to the center of the room. "This is how we deal with your kind," Mendell says. "Now where is my father?"
Regina simply glares, and Mendell presses a glowing button on the ECT. There's a hissing sound and the smell of burnt flesh, and Regina jerks and screams as volts of electricity course through her body.
"Mom!" Henry cries out, leaping to his feet. Tamara pushes him back into the chair.
"Sedate him," Mendell advises as he sends another shock into Regina. "It'll make it easier for us to transport him."
"Transport him?" Tamara puzzles, but she picks up a valise from the floor and rifles through it. She finds a zippered kit and opens it to remove a hypodermic needle and a vial.
As she punctures the cap on the vial with the needle, Henry tries to run, but Mendell warns him, "Stay put, kid. You're valuable to us but your mom isn't. Don't give me an excuse to crank this up to full blast." To make his point, he sends a third blast through Regina. Her screams have grown weaker and she no longer fights the restraints.
Henry sits back down, tears streaming down his face. His voice drops to a whisper, "Mom! It's going to be all right."
"Nobody told me anything about snatching a kid. Where are we taking him?" Tamara wants to know as she raises the hypo to peer at the dosage markings.
"Change of plans. All the information we've been feeding the Home Office—turns out Young Mr. Mills here is our greatest find. A unique specimen. We're to take him directly to Pan."
Tamara flashes her beautiful smile. "We're going to meet the man himself?"
"And receive his congratulations." Greg grins back before he turns to Regina. "Now, where is my father?"
Regina's eyes widen in panic and she twists her head around to look at Henry. "I won't let them take you, Henry. I promise."
Greg sends another shock into her. "A queen to the last. But you'd do better to recognize who has the power now, Your Majesty."
Tamara leans over Henry, rolling up the sleeve of his shirt in preparation for the needle.
Pan. Rumplestiltskin swallows hard. But there must be hundreds of men named Pan in the world. . . .
Tamara taps the needle to release an air bubble, then she grasps Henry's arm, wrenching it, and positioning the hypodermic over his skin. "You're a lucky boy, Henry. You're going to meet Peter Pan," she remarks—seconds before the needle flies out of her hand and the electricity in the room cuts off.
As Tamara drops to the floor, scrambling for the needle, Greg frantically presses buttons on the ECT. "What happened to the power?"
"It shifted to my side, dearie." Rumplestiltskin makes himself visible, leaning casually over the ECT. With the index finger of one hand he elevates the needle and makes it spin around and thrust itself into Greg's arm, while with the other hand he forces the gurney straps to unbuckle. Tamara, still crouching on the floor, escapes Rumple's notice as she grabs the valise and thrusts her hand inside.
"Henry, I'm sending you back to Mr. Dove. Stay put this time!"
"But I want—" Henry doesn't get to finish his complaint. In a cloud of purple smoke his grandfather transports him from the cannery.
The child-sized dosage of sedative that shoots into Greg's arm makes him woozy but isn't enough to put him under. Leaning on the cart, Mendell hauls himself to his feet.
"Get this off of me," Regina begs, indicating the leather band strapped around her wrist.
Rumple tosses some magic at the band, but nothing happens. He blinks and tosses a stronger blast of magic, and still nothing happens. "It absorbs magic or something," Regina explains.
Rumple conjures a miniature hacksaw. "We'll cut it off, then."
"You're wasting your time," Mendell says. "State-of-the-art engineering designed that band. The electronics in it are impervious to magic." His hand slides into his jacket.
Now Rumple's hackles rise. "No science can stand up to the power of imagination, boy." He thinks a moment, then conjures a pair of magnets that he holds on either side of Regina's wrist, and in a moment a whirring issues from the band, and then a puff of smoke and a popping sound. He drops the magnets and attacks the leather with his little hacksaw. "Shall I send you to the hospital?" he asks as he saws through the leather.
"And let that wolf in a lab coat put his hands all over me?" Regina wrinkles her nose in disgust. "Knowing him, he'll probably want to yank my heart out to see how it withstood those electrical—move aside, Rumple!" She shoves him and he frowns, but he moves in the direction she indicates, in time to avoid taking the bullet Mendell has just fired.
Regina glares at Mendell as Rumple sends a blast of magic at him, electrifying his pistol so that it shocks him. "You people have no idea what you're doing. You can't kill the Dark One with a gun. Didn't your Home Office tell you that?"
She prepares a softball-sized fireball and takes aim, but Rumple seizes her wrist. "Not yet, dearie. Let's drain some information out of him first. Then you can kill him." Rumple smiles over his shoulder at Mendell and casts an immobilization spell upon him.
"You can kill us but there's an entire army of people just like us who know about this place and will replace us," Mendell warns.
Distracted, neither of the mages notices Tamara crawling towards them with something that looks like an electric razor in her hand. She reaches her prey, seizes his ankle and thrust the razor against his thigh. A current of power—something much stronger than electricity, stronger even than a bolt of magic—issues from the device, impeded only slightly by the leather of Rumple's trousers.
Cold fire shoots through every nerve in Rumplestiltskin's body. He jerks, barely able to keep to his feet, as pain drives all thought and all breath from him. Blood spurts from his nose and his mouth and he feels his magic being sucked through his fingertips. His spell over Mendell breaks, and the man lunges at Regina.
Rumple's last thought is that he will die—and that is unacceptable. Rumplestiltskin feels himself leaving his body, but the Dark One takes over, clutching onto life with a superhuman ferocity. He forms his hand into a claw and closes it, and what is left of his magic lashes out, grips Tamara by the throat and strangles her.
The razor clatters to the cement floor, and Tamara follows.
Rumplestiltskin loses control of his muscles. As he collapses, his head strikes the edge of the gurney.
Cannery Row, 11:10 am
"Damn it, which one are they in?" Emma complains as she and her companions run towards the four canneries.
"Not that one," Bae surmises, pointing to the westernmost building, where workers in rubber boots and aprons are moving in and out. "Got to be one of these three that are closed."
Ruby sniffs the air, then shouts and points. "Hook!" The pirate is emerging from the sardine cannery.
"That one!" Emma picks up speed and Bae is close on her heels. "Take him down, Ruby!"
The waitress grins, her eyes glowing yellow. "You got it, Sheriff." In mid-stride she changes form, and with a single tremendous leap she lands upon the pirate, trapping him between her paws and her fangs.
"But don't kill him!" Emma adds as she rounds the corner of the building.
"I always knew you had a soft spot for me, Princess," Hook calls out to her. "Would you kindly ask her to stop salivating on me too?"
"No 'soft spot' about it, Hook. I just want the pleasure of killing you myself." Emma finds the entrance to the building and runs for it. "Of course, I may let Gold have a piece of you first."
Inside now, Emma stops to allow her eyes to adjust to the dim light. As she seeks her bearings, Bae comes up behind her and nudges her. "Over there," he points and whispers.
"How do you know?" Emma whispers back.
Bae looks at her in dismay. "I smell Tam's perfume."
Emma raises her Beretta.
Dove's SUV, Main Street, 11:15 am
"Hi, Mr. Dove!"
Dove slams on the brakes and his Yukon jerks to a stop in the middle of Main Street. Fortunately, every street in town is empty, all the residents having gone to shelter, with the exception of Belle's posse, so Dove's sudden stop causes no traffic problems. It does, however, cause the driver and his suddenly-appeared passenger a bad case of seat belt burn.
Dove slams the transmission into park. "What the hel—hello, Master Henry, how did you get here?"
"Grampa sent me. We gotta go back, Mr. Dove." Henry twists around to face the driver. "Please! To the cannery." He points east, opposite the direction Dove was heading. "They're back there, Mom and Grampa, and Tamara and that other guy are gonna kill them. They wanted to take me to Peter Pan, but Grampa sent me to you instead."
"Slow down, Master Henry." Dove swings the Yukon into a u-turn and starts for the bay. "First, I think you'd better call your other grandfather. We might need him." He tosses his cell phone onto the boy's lap. "And after that, tell me everything that happened so I'll know what we're up against."
Storybrooke Sardines 11:33 am
Rumplestiltskin awakens to the sound of wailing. His head pounding, he waits to open his eyes until he's managed to sort out some of the sounds: a siren, voices talking urgently. . . and sobbing.
A cool hand presses against his cheek. "Gold?" a feminine voice calls to him. "Mr. Gold?"
He can't delay any longer. He pries his eyes open to find the savior peering down at him. His head is cradled in her lap and she brushes his hair back. "An ambulance is coming. We're gonna get you to the hospital."
"Not again," he moans.
"'Fraid so. You hit your head when you fell." She glances over the rest of his body. "You're all bloody. Something burned through your pant leg, melted the leather right into your skin. Good thing your hide's so tough, huh?" She's staring at him curiously.
He raises a hand to his forehead, and in so doing he notices his black nails and scaly skin, and he reflects, "Oh, that's right; this is your first time meeting Rumplestiltskin, isn't it? I usually make a much more impressive first impression."
"Well, you're nothing like the cartoon version. Are you in pain?"
"Head hurts." He shifts in her lap, assessing the damage. "Can't feel my leg."
"When you do, it's gonna hurt like hell."
He tries to turn his head and look around, but the pain is too intense. "Where are they?"
"We got Hook," Emma says carefully. "David and Mary Margaret took him into custody. Mendell got away, but Ruby's on his trail, Belle and her posse are turnin' over every rock and the dwarves have got roadblocks up everywhere. We'll get him before nightfall."
"Tamara?"
Emma glances at something over her shoulder, then looks down on him again. "Here's the ambulance."
"What happened?" Bae's face swims into view; it's mottled red and white and streaked with dusty tears. "How did Tamara die?"
A ruckus outside is brought inside, and Emma's lap is replaced by the strong arms of EMTs, who lift Rumple onto a gurney. They keep talking to him, asking useless questions as they wheel him outside—trying to keep him conscious, he realizes. But past the nagging of the EMTs, Rumple hears his son asking again in a reed-thin voice, "How did Tamara die?"
As the EMTs lift the gurney into the ambulance, Rumple hears Regina provide the answer with an edge of smugness in her voice, "Your father killed her."
"Why?" Bae demands.
Regina chuckles. "Because he could."
"No," Rumple tries to shout. "Bae!" The ambulance doors close and the engine roars to life.
A/N. Coming up: Regina's revenge, Rumple's last secret exposed, a (step)mother and son's heart-to-heart talk, and the destruction of Storybrooke. Thanks to everyone who has commented upon, followed, or favorited this story. Hope the conclusion gives you a thrill!