The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (10 page)

Gripping their rifles, the two men sped after the brute, trying to keep up as
the monster bounded along the length of the shadowy conjoined roofs. They
followed the sounds, tracked the monsters silhouette. Sawyer aimed vaguely in
the direction of the inhumanly muscled figure and fired five shots in rapid
succession. All to no effect.

Quatermain chided the young man for wasting ammunition. "If you can't do it
with one bullet, lad, don't do it at all."

As if to prove his point, the old hunter fired at the monster. A section of
roof decoration exploded in the beast-man's face, spraying tile shards and
making the creature spin about and leap awkwardly to another rooftop across the
street.

"He's doubled back!"

"Precisely. He doesn't know where we want him to go," Quatermain said. "Come
on! We'll wrap this up soon."

Sawyer ran ahead of the older man around a left corner just as a stone angel
came tumbling down from high above. "Look out!" Quatermain snatched the young
man's arm and dragged him back as the statue smashed on the cobblestones,
missing them by inches. "That was naughty of him."

"Thanks," Sawyer said. "Who does he think he is, Quasimodo?"

"Keep your eyes open, boy! This isn't a coon hunt, and I can't protect you
all the time." Quatermain sniffed the air. "Ah, but he's afraid. It won't be
long now, mark my words."

"I can't smell anything." Sawyer drew an exaggerated sniff. "Just the
gutters."

"Shhh." Quatermain put his ear up against the moist brick wall and listened
for vibrations. He waited for a moment, then stepped out of cover, aimed upward,
and fired a series of perfect shots, driving the monster out of the shadows. The
beast roared a challenge, lifting clawed hands, but Quatermain fired again, once
more barely missing.

Each well-aimed shot was about a hair away from the beast, and each impact
sent plaster and brick exploding around its misshapen head. The monster had no
choice but to back away, trying to dodge the attack. Each bullet drove the
creature closer and closer to a steeply tiled roof that sloped into a
cul-de-sac. A carefully orchestrated trap.

Finally, predictably, the beast leaped and landed with broad bare feet on the
dew-slick tiles of the steep roof. His thick, blunt toenails were like spatulas
carved out of horn.

As the monster scrambled for purchase, Quatermain paused below and lifted his
trusty elephant gun Matilda. He aimed and fired the perfect coup de grace—not at
the cornered brute, but at a sagging gutter upon which all the tiles
depended.

With a thunderous, shattering clatter, the tiles slid off en masse, like an
avalanche. High above, the howling monster tried to scramble up. His clawed
hands tried to get a hold on the sliding surface. Finally, he snatched at a
chimney pot with long clawed fingers and strained with iron-cable sinews—but the
pot itself broke free with a groan. Airborne, the monster tumbled into the
cul-de-sac.

"Perfect," Quatermain said. He pulled out a flare gun and launched a blooming
phosphorus flower high into the night sky of Paris. "Now we've got him."

The light of the flare illuminated the stunned monster as he sprawled
grunting and twitching on the hard ground. With an inhuman groan, the beast
lifted its head up, cradling its temples from the pain of the impact.

"We've got to get there before it moves!" Sawyer said.

"Not to worry for now. Captain Nemo rigged up a little surprise."

As it tried to regain its feet, the huge, man-shaped thing began to realize
it had fallen on top of a thin mesh of wire and rope—a hidden net that suddenly
activated. With a sound like an overstressed spring breaking loose, the net shot
upward, engulfing and lifting its prey.

Once the trap was triggered, a central cable drew the corners of the mesh
tight and then began to drag the snarling package down the cul-de-sac at
incredible speed. Helpless, the captive monster jostled and bounced in the net
that rapidly pulled him—roaring all the while—to a slipway on the Seine
river.

Gleaming and enormous in the moonlight, the
Nautilus
waited at the
end of the cable, engines humming as it reeled in the trapped beast. The tough
cable led straight into an open hatch. Turbines and spindles whirled, pulling
the netted creature through the hatch and into the submarine boat.

The heavy metal door slammed shut as Quatermain and Sawyer bounded back to
the underwater vessel, satisfied with their night's hunting.

"There we are," the old adventurer said. "Our team is complete. Now, off to
Venice."

Aboard the underwater war vessel, Nemo's loyal crewmen went about their
duties. Their captain had issued his orders, and the submarine craft was under
way, heading for their important rendezvous in Venice.

When two of the sailors cast uneasy glances at each other with each roaring
howl from the lower chamber, the salty first mate Ishmael scolded them. "Never
mind that. You've got work to do."

The men studiously paid no attention to the thunderous violent pounding and
roars emanating from the vessel's bowels. The scraping of hard claws sounded
like sharp fingernails on a slate board, the snarling like that of a trapped
animal. The hammering came like a black-smith's sledge against a sturdy anvil.
Some of the inhuman snarls began to sound like threats, English words forming
colorful and creative curses.

The
Nautilus
crewmen hurried down the corridors. Ishmael frowned and
went back to his post…

Inside the cabin Nemo had assigned to her, Mina Harker continued unpacking
for the voyage. Her narrow shelves, the top of the bureau, the sink, even her
narrow bunk were already cluttered with the tools of chemistry, the apparatus of
her expertise: vials, rubber tubing, glass pipettes, atomizers, and test
tubes.

As she unpacked more equipment, Mina muttered to herself, bothered by Allan
Quatermains' annoyingly quaint and old-fashioned objections to her participation
in the mission. She mimicked his voice, though no one could hear her. "This
hunt's too dangerous for a woman. Even one such as you. Leave it to me, the
incredibly brave and strong
male
."

Then a thunderous bang shook the walls, as if the
Nautilus
had
rammed into an iceberg. As her cabin shelves shook, a rack of Mina's test tubes
crashed to the deck, and she let out a long and definitely unladylike string of
curses…

Inside his private cabin down the narrow corridor, Dorian Gray plucked his
eyebrows with a fine pair of tweezers. The pounding and howling was quite a
distraction, and the mirror rattled so much that Gray couldn't finish his task.
Annoyed, he tossed the tweezers down onto his vanity surface and went to
investigate.

He wasn't the only one incensed. He converged with Mina Harker and the
grossly made-up Skinner at an intersection of corridors. "Heh! The Great White
Hunter must have bagged his prize," said the invisible man. "Maybe we can all
get together for tea. I think he must be just your sort of man, Mrs.
Harker."

"I think not," both Gray and Mina said simultaneously.

They hurried toward the escalating sound of chaos. Up ahead, one of Nemo's
uniformed crewmen flew out of the ice room doorway, struck the bulkhead wall,
and lay groaning on the floor.

"Perhaps instead the prize bagged our hunter," Gray said with a superior
smile.

"Boys and their adventures," Mina said.

The trio entered the thick-walled ice room and stopped at the hatchway,
gaping, as the gigantic, hairy creature—some sort of hybrid between man and
primate— hurled himself against the thick shackles that bound his hands and neck
to the wall of the chamber. The manacles attached to the chains were already
bloodied from the beast's unceasing exertions.

Oddly enough, the captive monsters swollen and inhuman form was clad in the
tatters of prim gentleman's clothing: trousers, a waistcoat, a starched-collared
shirt which was now split apart at his tree-trunk neck.

Quatermain, Sawyer, and Nemo stood at a safe distance, clearly not knowing
what to do next. "Henry, you've got to calm yourself," Quatermain said, trying
to be reasonable with the monster. "Think pleasant—"

"I'm
Edward Hyde
!" the beast roared, spraying spittle and sending
out waves of foul breath. "Not that worm Jekyll!" The chains clanked again,
rivets groaning on the wall. But the shackles seemed secure enough, for now.

Gray, Skinner, and Mina approached with varying degrees of trepidation.

"Stay back if you value your life." Quatermain held out a cautionary
hand.

Hyde lunged at them and was brought to an abrupt halt by the manacles and the
cuff around his thick neck. With bloodshot eyes, he leered brazenly at Mina. She
merely cocked a brow at him.

Skinner was startled, and he stumbled. With no more politeness than if he was
picking up a scrap of litter, Dorian Gray grabbed the invisible man.

"Ow, you scratched me," Skinner whined.

"Better me than him," Gray said, letting go of the thieves sleeve. "Look at
those claws." He studied the captive monster and said sarcastically, "Well, this
is nice."

"I was about to suggest music," Mina said. "Soothing the savage beast and all
that."

"Debussy," said the beast-man. The League reacted with surprise to the
cultured suggestion, all except Quatermain, who seemed to have expected it. Hyde
continued, "That is, if you want to get on my good side. Debussy usually works,
though Jekyll prefers Mozart. Sissy music."

"I could play my mouth harp," Sawyer suggested.

Quatermain stepped up and looked Hyde square in the bloodshot eyes. The
creatures swollen red lips could barely cover his crooked teeth. "Mr. Edward
Hyde, you've done terrible things in England. So terrible that you were forced
to flee the country."

Hyde laughed wickedly, proudly.

Quatermain continued, relaying the message M had given him at the outset.
"I'm ashamed to say that Her Majesty's Government is willing to offer you
amnesty in return for your services on this particular mission. Would you like
to go home?"

"Home is where the heart is, that's what they say. I've ripped out a few
hearts in my time. Tough to chew." His lips worked, but a mistiness came to his
eyes. "Ah, the stink of the Thames, all the people coughing with tuberculosis,
the hopelessness, the desperate poor. And they never did catch the Ripper, did
they? Outdid even my best work—must have come straight from Hell, and then gone
back there."

Hyde shifted about like a caged tiger, brooding. "I have been missing London
after all. Its sorrow is as sweet to me as rare wine." He offered the League
members a Cheshire cat smile and slumped cooperatively against the metal wall.
The chains fell slack. "I'm yours." He turned to Mina. "By the by, call me a
beast again, Miss. Please? I'm liable to become overly affectionate." He smiled
slyly to everyone. "Aww, don't be scared."

"Hey, who said we're scared?" Tom Sawyer said.

"You do!" Playfully, it seemed, Hyde lunged, pulling a chain clean out of the
wall, as if he could have done it at any time. He lashed it through the air, and
Sawyer and Quatermain ducked to avoid it. The
Nautilus
crewmen shouted,
scrambling to grab their weapons. Nemo crouched, ready to fight with his bare
hands.

Hyde didn't advance on them, though. He sniffed the air, then let out a
guffaw like breaking rocks. "You
stink
of fear."

"Quite the parlor trick," said Gray, unnerved but still pretending to be
uninterested.

Suddenly the monstrously muscled Hyde winced as if he had swallowed acid. The
pain immediately escalated, rippling through his chest and shoulders. "You call
it a parlor trick?" He gasped for breath, his throat convulsing. "Wait until you
see my next one." Hyde clutched his stomach and doubled over. "Abracadabra."

He thrashed against his remaining chains, screaming and howling as his hairy
body distorted. His muscles contracted, his skin tightened, tissues distended.
Bones cracked and reshaped as his body transformed.

He slammed against the chamber wall, back and forth, shrieking and howling,
agonized as the metamorphosis wracked his body. The band around his neck snapped
clean off, and he broke the remaining shackle on his left wrist. But escape was
the last thing on his mind at the moment.

Hyde fell to the floor, still flailing in his fearsome seizure. None of the
others approached him, wary for their lives.

Little by little Edward Hyde shrank into a smaller person. His coarse, unruly
hair and thick black nails receded until finally, the beast was entirely gone.
Another man lay there on the deck, awash in the monster's sour sweat.

"At least he fits those clothes better now," the invisible man pointed out,
unhelpfully.

Shaking with weakness and personal misery, the scrawny stranger arose,
blinking his nervous, saucer-wide eyes. He was a slight man who easily slipped
his entire hand out of Hyde's wrist shackles, leaving the torn chains on the
floor. His ashen face reflected his ordeal. His large Adam's apple bobbed up and
down as he gulped.

"Henry Jekyll, at your service. And I would very much like to earn my pardon
and return to London." He swallowed hard. "May I have a glass of water,
please?"

"So the League is set," Quatermain said when the seven members gathered later
inside the plush parlor of the submarine boat. Nemo had offered them all
yellowish homemade cigars fashioned from a rare nicotine-containing seaweed.
Quatermain drew a long puff, expecting to dislike the cigar, but found it rather
pleasant. "Now we can finally be about our work."

Hearing a chatter of machinery, Nemo went to tear an incoming ticker tape
from a wall unit. He skimmed down the punched words. "And so is the time and
precise location for the conference. We have three days."