Torchwood: Divergence
Book Two: Adferiad
Chapter 55
Jack took a great gasping gulp of air and tried to sit up, only to have two pairs of hands hold him down.
"Easy," Gwen advised, doing her best to help restrain the Captain. "It's all right… just breathe a minute."
"How…?" Harkness panted, swallowing hard.
"We broke speed records getting here, followed the GPS on Ianto's phone," Turlough explained. "Found you on a ledge over the cliff. Looks like he put you there to hide you while you were out. Incredible pain in the arse getting you back up, by the way."
"Ianto?" the Captain called, managing to sit up this time without being stopped. "What happened?"
"You tell us," Cooper prodded. "All we found when we came after you were patches of blood spatter on the trail, a few gory footprints in the slush, some blood here on the cliff edge with a fried comm unit and you. No Ianto, no Cult members… even their so-called church is empty."
"What the hell," Jack growled, his eyes both angry and worried. "He couldn't've fought. He took a rifle shot to the upper leg, clipped a major vein or artery from the way it was bleeding. I'm amazed he got me to the cliffs. Oh, God… did he go over?"
"Nothing down there but rocks, sand, and surf," Turlough reassured. "And no blood to indicate he'd hit anything the way he would have if he fell. Besides, he has wings, remember?"
"Then why isn't he here?" the agitated American insisted, struggling up off the ground with his team's help. "And why did those wackos suddenly disappear? Whatever they have in that wreck of a house is definitely alien, and I'll bet it's behind the string of disappearances between their old location and here. There were young kids in that group, and they were just as brainwashed and bloodthirsty as the adults. One of them planted a butcher knife in my chest earlier."
"Mind control?" the Trion born redhead beside him queried with a frown.
"On some level, yeah," Harkness confirmed. "It's the only reasonable explanation."
"You don't suppose whatever it is managed to convert Ianto, do you?" Gwen asked worriedly.
"If neither a Sontaran Proxy Vapour nor the Master could get past the Scieron cells in his body to control him," Turlough stated soberly. "I doubt anything can. But that doesn't mean it won't do damage trying… or have its minions do the damage for it."
"Then we need to find him fast," Cooper frowned. "But I'm not sure where to start. He left his phone and PDA with you, Jack."
"Christmas present!" the great coat clad immortal suddenly barked with an excited expression, garnering a strange look from both companions as he hurriedly opened the cover on his wrist strap and punched a series of buttons. "I coded his DNA into the tracking system of my VM, it can find him anywhere in the world and beyond for a couple of galaxies. The speed of the light pulse… damn, he's hurt, scared or both… that thing is blinking way too fast. He's about half a mile from here, which looks to be that house they turned into their church…"
"But we looked, it's empty," Gwen interrupted irritably as she squinted at the tiny readout he was studying.
"The locator is registering depth," Jack pointed out. "They aren't in the place, they're under it. At least a hundred metres, possibly more. Could be old shafts from the illegal mining someone tried in the area, or a cellar connected to a natural cave or fissure. Which would explain why that signal we came looking for was so intermittent. That far below ground, our sensors wouldn't pick it up, but every time they brought it up to worship or whatever, it pinged the Hub. We need to…"
"That doesn't seem good," Turlough murmured, seeing the Captain actually twitch when the little red dot on his EFM display suddenly stopped blinking and became a steady point of light.
"Let's move," Harkness growled, unholstering his Webley. "They like knives, farming implements, and guns. If you feel threatened in any way, shoot. That goes for both of you. Aim for whatever will put them out of action. If it's a kill or be killed situation, make sure you are the one standing after the fight."
"What does the light no longer blinking mean?" Gwen demanded as they double-timed back through the winter bared woods, seeing their leader keep glancing at the display on his wrist strap.
"If it synchs with Ianto's heartbeat," Turlough put in helpfully, casting her a brief exasperated look. "It means his heart has stopped."
"Shit," Cooper hissed, not protesting when the Captain picked up the pace to a jog.
They continued in silence for a few minutes, then Jack sighed slightly.
"He's back," he reported, though his eyes remained steely and his jaw was set. "But the rhythm's already speeding up again. Whatever that alien creature or device is, I want it shut down and destroyed with malice. It's been playing games with this area long enough, and it just made things very personal."
The other Torchwood agents made no protest, simply keeping the pace and bracing for a fight. By the time the old house came into view among the trees, their missing friend's heart had stopped and restarted yet again. And his partner was beyond common anger, rapidly approaching a murderous rage. So, it was no surprise that when they burst into the rundown structure, he simply shot the legs out from under the Cult member they found guarding the door to the cellar, then kicked the man in the head to knock him unconscious. Zip-ties bound the nameless individual's wrists tight to his opposing ankles and he was shoved out of the way. Finding Ianto's nearly shredded and blood-stained field jacket on the floor nearby didn't improve the team's mood, if anything it made it worse.
Hand torches and weapons at the ready, the three headed downstairs into the darkness beneath the house with Harkness in the lead. A strange greenish light became discernible through an obviously hand-carved archway in the far corner of the cellar, and after a time it was unnecessary to use their torches. They came across a few other sentries, and the American in the front of the group used quick hand signals each time to arrange an ambush with the other team members. The cultists were rendered unconscious and bound like their fellow upstairs. Deeper and deeper underground they went, now past the one hundred metre mark along obvious mining excavations and still gradually descending.
"Why are we just finding one here and there along the tunnel?" Cooper hissed with a frown. "Where are all the rest?"
Just then they heard a terrible cry from up ahead, the voice unmistakably identifying the person in torment as Ianto. Throwing caution to the wind, the three bolted down the surprisingly straight-line passage and finally came out into a huge cavern. Once part of an expansive coal or copper mine, the main sink shaft cut straight up through the stone roof from the centre of the hollow space. The walls had been carved into a strange, crumbling city of sorts at some point, however, and the majority of the cultists now huddled in confused groups in the "homes" there. The place was lit by a harsh greenish light emanating from a huge crystal that looked to have grown from the chamber floor almost directly below the mine shaft.
Chained spreadeagle between portions of the old cage-lift structure in front of the glowing stone, suspended more than half a metre above the ground, was the Torchwood operative they'd come in search of. Ianto was stripped to the waist, covered in large black and red bruises, a partially healed gash in the arch of his sternum still seeping blood… and the strange piece of alien tech he and his partner had glimpsed earlier was clamped over his upper face, newly manifested metal legs gouged into his flesh to hold it in place. The light of the crystal pulsed and the bound Changeling convulsed with a hoarse cry of agony, the chains binding him tightening of their own volition and pulling his limbs hard enough to make the skin start to visibly tear at his shoulders and underarms, dark blood rapidly staining his torn trousers across the groin and down the insides of both legs as well.
Out of nowhere, Harkness remembered the strange nightmare his lover had suffered months ago. Green sky, ruined city… but in the dream the Doctor and some stranger had been watching, condemning the twenty-six-year-old to be drawn and quartered.
"We have to shut down that tech and destroy the crystal," the Captain told his team.
"How?" Gwen prodded angrily. "We didn't know to bring any explosives or big alien guns now, did we?"
"If we can backlash the power of the tech through the crystal entity controlling it," Turlough suggested, ignoring the older woman's outburst. "It should destroy both. But it's bound to kill Ianto as well."
The named Archivist cried out again, the horrible sounds of splintering bone, tearing muscle, and ripping tendons clearly audible this time, blood splattering to the cavern floor like rain.
"He'll come back," Jack grated, his voice breaking slightly nonetheless. "What do we need to do?"
"I think…" the redhead beside him began, pulling an odd device from his inner coat pocket but freezing before he could use it as a high-pitched tone rang through the cavern. "Fight… it…"
"Shit…" Harkness blurted, feeling something in the painful sound trying to take control of his body and mind, even as Gwen let out a choked shriek behind him.
Several Cult members appeared, grabbing them all by the arms to restrain them so their "God" could work.
"We can talk! Just let Ianto go!" the Captain shouted desperately. "Please don't do this to him! Don't hurt him anymore! Ianto!"
They all heard the Scieron Changeling cry out in agony once more, only this time it wasn't just a scream of torment, it was his struggling partner's name.
"Jack!"
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AN: Ianto is not having a good day…
Yes, I know how horrible I am for leaving you with a cliff-hanger… sometimes it just can't be helped (and is evilly fun, I must admit).
Thank you to those reading the story. And thank you to those who have followed, favourited, and reviewed. NM