47

OUTPOST

Silence.

The city was strangled by it as she lay in the darkness, drifting like a helpless ship with its lanterns put out. Marble dust swirled in a choking fog, mixing with the water to form a sludge that lapped around the streets with the ever-encroaching tide. The chamber continued to fill from the remaining tunnels, water tumbling down the ancient rock in dozens of waterfalls. Nikola was among the bodies strewn over the ground, motionless.

A sharp crack cut the air. Those left in the city looked up toward the ceiling but could not see the enormous slab of rock swaying eerily, held aloft by tree roots.

At the very edge of the city, something splashed through the water and hauled itself up onto the street. The man in his late fifties lay there for a moment, panting for air which came laced with chalk. The freezing water made him numb to the sharp cobblestones littered with broken glass from the buildings.

Gregory clutched the leather bag to his chest. He'd managed to save his notebook containing the story of these people – these Cabal and their history of the underworld. Everything else, the samples, the vampires, Ranna... They were all lost.

Groaning, he stood unsteadily and started into the ruined city.

James refused to sit at the breakfast table, instead choosing to lean against the wall with an inscrutable facade better suited to Oxford's walls.

The third place at the table had already been made use of, its diner downstairs waiting in the basement amongst the disused cages and medical equipment of Gregory's workroom.

Druitt... Even the name made James ill. The thought of him in the house, no less at Helen's invitation, was enough to make him hurl – which he had done twice already after watching Helen lead London's most notorious mass murder down from her room. Good god he couldn't even entertain that thought.

Helen's gaze remained levelled at him, her eyes strikingly blue this morning. "He needs-"

James cut her off, turning his head to look past her in disgust. He couldn't see the people milling about on their way to work, or horses dragging carriages through the street in an endless procession as the night lamps were snuffed. All he'd ever see were the bloodied rooms and strewn out victims of the man casing about downstairs.

"I should have let you see..." he hissed, his normally even voice full of venom. "The girl laying beside Tesla – there was so little of her that she was identified by the remains of her dress. Is that your wish, Magnus?" James closed his eyes and was immediately met with visions of dismembered torso drowned in blood. Tesla, what would this do to him? He wasn't overly fond of the man but he had no desire to see him cast into despair.

Helen had shifted at the mention of his name. That sinking guilt in her stomach was linked inextricably to Nikola even though she was a long way from admitting it. She had made no promises to him.

"It will destroy him," James warned, turning back to Helen. For the first time, his dark brown eyes saw true cruelty in her.

"This is my work, James," Helen replied defiantly, every bit her father's daughter. "I created the darkness in John. Given enough time, I am confident of undoing the damage from the vampire blood. If Tesla can control full-blown vampirism then with treatment and time John will be returned to himself."

The worrying reversal of first names was not lost on James.

"You cannot fix Druitt. The core of the man has been corrupted."

"I do not need your permission – or your help," Helen snapped, hitting her teacup sharply against its saucer.

"You'll have it whether you like it or not, or I shall take a stroll back to Scotland Yard." He wasn't going to leave her alone with John for a second. "I'm sure the Queen and her ministers would be very interested to discover Jack the Ripper, alive and well... Gregory Manus is not exactly on their list of darling scientists and this is his house."

James could have sworn that there were flames dancing in her eyes but it could have been the dying ember of the last night lamp snuffing out.

"If you do that," she warned, "I'm sure they'll want to know how he escaped execution and from what I understand, you and Mr Holmes were the ones that let him go."

The bastard escaped, James hissed to himself.

Gregory stumbled through halos of warmth made by spot fires. Perhaps he could find one of those machines – what had Ranna called them? Shuttles. He could not think of any other way out of this tomb. At least the water was rising slowly now, with only a scattering of tunnels left unsealed. Gregory counted his blessings that he'd been thrown free before his tunnel had closed, otherwise he'd be dashed against the rock and drowned by now.

"Mr Tesla – good heavens!" Gregory knelt to the ground at once. He'd very nearly fallen over the man laying beside the giant granite sphere. "Can you hear me, Mr Tesla?" he asked, slapping Nikola's unshaven face gently to rouse him.

Nikola stirred, groaning something untoward as he rolled onto his side, eyes still firmly shut.

"Good man..." Gregory whispered, helping to support him. "What – in the name of all that is abnormal – are you doing down here?"

Nikola coughed, holding his side as he sat up. "Looking for you," he mumbled back.

Gregory sat on the ground beside the sphere. He shook his head in fond amusement. "You may be an arrogant bastard, Tesla – but your heart's in the right place."

That very nearly made Nikola grin.

James and John locked eyes. They paced around each other, sharks circling in the dim light before taking up their respective places at opposite ends of the large table. Occupying in the centre of the room, it was lit by a line of fat candles half burned and spilled onto the wood. They wavered in the disturbed air, sending horrific shadows onto walls, shaped by the assortment of equipment and specimens.

John leered out from the darkness and James had to look away. He couldn't stand to feel those eyes on him. They taunted him – frightenedhim – fascinated him...

Helen entered, her arms full of books stolen from Oxford's library. She deposited them on the table with a cloud of swirling dust that made the candles tremble. One went out and sulked into mess of molten wax.

"Stealing again, Helen?" John asked with a familiarity that made James's stomach turn afresh. When she smiled quietly and fussed with her hair, James seriously considered leaving her to her fate. Love was ridiculous.

"Borrowing," Helen corrected, hunting out a slim book. She blew the dust off its cover and carefully flicked through the handwritten pages.

"That's not from the library," James took a step toward the table, tilting his head curiously. "It's Tesla's."

"He borrowed it from the library," she shrugged in reply. "Here – I knew I'd seen it somewhere before."

Helen turned the book around forcing the two gentlemen to tolerate each other's presence long enough to read. It was an old legend of a young boy turned by a vampire that managed to return to human form by convincing another vampire to bite him. Vampires don't bite vampires so it was likely that the myth was purely a warning to teach young vampires not to bite each other.

James shook his head.

"Even if it this were not the superstitious nonsense it appears, you are one pure blood vampire short of actually having one."

"Tesla -" Helen started, but James cut her off.

"Is not the vampire he wants us to think he is."

John shifted, hands clasped behind his back. "And I lack claws and fangs..." Not exactly a vampire either.

"It's the principle, gentlemen."

"We're in a giant, vampire reservoir?" Gregory repeated, gazing around nervously at the concave walls that surrounded the city. With much of the remaining city ablaze, the darkness had been broken into a soft, yellow hue.

"A water supply for a vast city, I assume," Nikola added. "It must be somewhere beneath us."

"Long dead."

"Perhaps, perhaps not... At the moment reaching it is our best chance of surviving."

Gregory looked at the last granite orb behind them. They had closed all the tunnels now and stopped the water rising. They were left trapped with fires quickly eating their oxygen.

"I'd wager," there was a gleam in Nikola's eyes as he climbed up on top of the sphere and surveyed the dark water, "that this will all drain away into the city below. It's what it's designed to do. For a reservoir to work there have to be tunnels to channel the water."

"Tesla, those would be submerged – if you're lucky enough for them to be intact at all after the quakes. I've been here for a while, the place is a wreck."

It was difficult but Nikola watched the water closely, monitoring the debris floating over its surface. Gregory heard a disconcerting creak and looked up to see the enormous stone hanging above the city. There was water dripping off it like rain.

"...Tesla..." Gregory's voice dropped to a whisper. Nikola saw it too and watched helplessly as vines started snapping, one by one.

They dove into the water together and swum out toward the whirlpool. Thousands of objects floated toward it including the grisly sight of bodies, cold and lifeless. Hundreds of them bobbed up and down in the freezing water along with everything else, spiralling like planets flung in dizzy circles around stars.

"Feel it?" Nikola asked, treading water. There was a warmer current beneath them, sucking downwards.

"Tesla... I-" Gregory felt the tentative tug on his legs. The water wanted them. "We'll never make it."

"Dr Magnus..." Nikola whispered, illuminated only by the orange light from the fires onshore. Somewhere in the city, another building crumbled to the ground. "I promised your daughter that I'd bring you back. She terrifies me more than this cave or the water beneath our feet."

Gregory lofted his eyebrow in amusement.

"You have a point," he conceded. "Shall we?"

They submerged together. Nikola clawed at the freezing water, undulating his body, forcing himself down into the current. The liquid clutched at him and dragged him into a strangely warm column water. He felt Gregory thrashing behind, caught as well.

The enormous segment of rock dangling above the city swayed. Its rough surface cut through more of the tree roots. One by one they snapped, flying out of sight. The boulder groaned, tipping forwards with another symphony of ruined vines then fell.

Even the water shook as the rock smashed into the heart of the outpost. The city was pulverised in a great cloud of dust that blew out the fires and sent the reservoir into darkness. Finally, the only sound was that of rock raining back down into the water. The Cabal outpost was gone.

It didn't take long for James and John to tire of the books. They'd left Helen to it, reading at the table as the candles burned down further and further. Each had taken up residence in opposing chairs and had been locked in glare for the better part of an hour.

"What were their names?" James asked calmly. John remained silent, spread out over his chair with a glass of scotch. The man was an enigma. Sometimes he thought he saw flickers of genuine feeling for those around him but then the illusion was shattered by a cold smirk. "How many, then?" Still silence. "Why..." John shifted very slightly, lifting the scotch to his lips for a sip.

"Why not?" he replied, his eyes dark in the ever-fading candlelight. "I know you feel it too – embrace it," John taunted, too softly for Helen to hear.

"Pass..." James hissed. Another long silence. "Do you believe, for one moment that Helen will cure you – that you even want to be cured?"

"Anything is possible, James."

James looked at those deep brown eyes again but found nothing in them.

Drowning, Nikola's lungs burned. He tried to swim up – to the side – anywhere but down. Down was all there was. He struggled, writhing helplessly with his hands at his throat. Nikola needed to breathe – crack. The smooth edge of the tunnel hit his arm and grazed along it. He was moving fast.

The tunnel hit a stationary lake and sent him tumbling. Violent turbulence nearly broke Nikola's back as he was flipped again before he felt air against his face for a moment – not long enough to breathe.

His mouth was full of water which he tried to swallow. Too late, his lungs expanded on their own and he felt the water drag down his throat into his lungs. Nikola was thrust up into the air again, thrown there by the power of the rushing water. Air mixed with the water in his lungs as his body was spat out onto a rocky outcrop. His arms wrapped around it, gripping tightly.

"Tesla!" Gregory sailed through the air, pawing uselessly at it. His body started falling, twisting and then searing pain overwhelmed him as his shoulder hit the rock and popped out of its socket.

Nikola swore profusely in Serbian in reply, his mouth full of blood. The left side of his face was grazed so badly that the skin hung off it in places. Already, it was healing, shedding dead skin and growing fresh stretches of it. It made him hungry...

"Magnus?" Nikola clambered over the rock, heading toward the screams.

Something else was with them, riding the currents. The sand creature cut elegantly through the water. It had been in the caves so long that the skin between its fingers had fused into webbing, propelling its body onto the shore. The injuries it sustained in the lab were healing but its memories were sharp. It could see the body of one of the humans that had subjected it to such suffering. Silently, it crept over the rocks.

"The bag – the bag!" Gregory shouted.

Nikola growled and reached into the water, stumbling to keep his footing as he scooped Gregory's backpack out of the water.

It was quieter down here. The water writhed silently except for when it hit the rocks, splashing against them. Hundreds of marble columns glowed around them, dotted over the rocks like lamp posts. Gregory was lying on the ground, clutching his dislocated shoulder. A few yards away, the sand creature waited – its body twisted, waiting to pounce, completely invisible against the rock.

Nikola slipped several times, hitting the uneven ground. The rocks were black, scattered roughly like a natural shoreline. Huge columns towered over them in a forest of marble. Nikola used one of them to help him back to his feet.

"For heaven's sake, stop moving," Nikola growled at Gregory. He rolled the older man over carefully, wincing at the sight of Gregory's limp arm. "You know this is going to hurt..." Gregory just nodded. It wasn't his first dislocation.

Eventually, Gregory managed to sit. His shoulder pained but at least he could move his arm now. He was getting too old for this...

"Where are we?" he asked. The marble columns created a glare and the way they were scattered over the rocks made them appear as a glowing wall.

Nikola explored, walking around some of the columns. It felt eerily like a maze.

As soon as the vampire slipped out of sight, the sand creature struck. It launched itself, hitting Gregory in the chest, forcing him back down onto the rock with a sharp cry. The creature opened its mouth in a snarl, rippling out of camouflage so that its prey could see its scarlet skin, riddled with scars.

Gregory cried out, hitting the creature with his good arm. "Bloody hell!"

Nikola raced back, startled by the sight. It was – a creature but one he'd never seen before. Still, it was familiar, buried in memories that weren't his. Before he could think, Nikola's claws extended out of his hands, unfurling further than he knew they could go. Sharp fangs filled his mouth and Nikola opened his mouth in a loud growl that vibrated deep in his chest.

The creature hesitated, hissing at Nikola in fear.

Nikola growled again, advancing with terrifying black eyes.

Gregory looked just as frightened as the creature when Nikola arched forward, claws extended and roared.

Twisted stone towered above Nigel. Beside every window of Oxford University's great library stood a gargoyle. They appeared to be grown out of the walls, leering out over the books. He stood in front of one of them, his face cut in half by the moonlight. Demons, history was full of them.

"Are you looking for something in particular, Mr Griffin?" the librarian asked. It was late in the evening and she wanted to close soon. The man had been standing beside the windows for hours, staring up at the statues, pacing between them.

Nigel didn't take his eyes off the stone gaze of the gargoyle.

"I've found it – thank you."