Quatermain hunched over his rock, clenching his mittened hands together, his faithful elephant gun Matilda leaning against him. He was unused to such severe cold, and his wounded shoulder sent twinges of pain down his arm, reminding him that he was no longer the young, resilient man he had once been. He gritted his teeth and ignored the pain.
The heavy storm blocked the stars, rendering the skies a grayish black. Blowing snow smeared out details in the distance, too, muting the fiery fortress to a sore red-orange glow that could not penetrate the blizzard. None of his men could possibly see the tiny, sheltered camp-fire in the cave.
Suddenly, Quatermain heard a noise. Swift and silent, the hunter yanked off his mittens, dropped them to the ground, and grabbed the elephant gun. He brought it to his shoulder and swept the barrel in a slow arc, looking for a target out in the blowing snow. In a low voice that the wind snatched away, he called out ftirtively, "Skinner?"
From out of the blizzard, an old white tiger appeared. Its camouflage had changed to winter coloring, pale as shadows on ice. It was powerful, dangerous, a hunter out in the emptiness, probably hungry enough to kill human prey. Quatermain sighted along Matilda, not needing his glasses now. The magnificent Siberian tiger was unnervingly close and utterly silent. It made no growl, no sound at all as it moved through the snow.
Keeping his breaths steady and even, Quatermain locked eyes with the tiger. It was motionless now, watching him. Its whiskers moved as it snuffled more of the man-scent. Snow eddied and swirled around the two hunters, sealing them in a curious, timeless moment, as if their tableau had been captured inside a child's snow globe. Quatermain closed one eye to take better aim, tentatively fingered the trigger.
But he couldn't do it.
The old adventurer had faced many deadly beasts before, yet he and the tiger shared a strange kinship. Perhaps they were meant to meet, in this far-off place… With a sigh he lowered the elephant gun, looked once more into the tigers eyes, and prepared to accept his fate. A few seconds passed.
Then the beast turned and stalked back into the blowing white wind, seeking other prey.
"We heard a noise," Mina said from the edge of the cave, startling him. He turned to see her standing there beside Nemo. The captain, his scimitar ready, stared off into the darkness.
"It was… nothing." Quatermains' throat was dry, his heart pounding.
"Just an old tiger sensing his end," Nemo said with eerie insight. He indicated a track of paw prints heading away into the snow.
Quatermain rested the elephant gun's stock on the ground and retrieved his mittens, tugging them over his numb fingers. "Perhaps this isn't his time to die after all." Nemo nodded wryly.
Suddenly, Mina stifled a cry as she was goosed from behind. She leaped awkwardly forward in alarm, skittered around while regaining her balance, then crouched to defend herself.
"Aheh! I've been waiting all week to do that," Skinners voice said. He stepped back out into the wind, and his man-shaped outline was visible in the blowing snow.
"Get a grip, man," Quatermain said, furious with him.
"I thought I just did," Skinner said. "Never thought I'd get away from that damned tiger. He's been tracking me for a mile. Smelled me but couldn't see me. Heh!"
"Report," Nemo said, sheathing his scimitar. "Tell us everything you—"
The invisible man interrupted him. "Hello to you, too, my dear captain." He came closer, leaving bare footprints in the drifted snow outside the cave. "Need I remind you that I'm naked in the snow in this bloody freezing wasteland. I can't feel any of my extremities. Any of them."
THIRTY EIGHT
The Cave. Blizzard,
Night
While thawing out by the fire after shouldering various crewmen aside so he could hold his invisible hands and other extremities closer to the warmth, Skinner donned spare clothing and once again reapplied his white face makeup. He looked like a frozen corpse, but at least he had stopped shivering, unlike Henry Jekyll.
"Ah, the things I do for the Empire." He was deeply disappointed to learn that his comrades had finished the last drops of whiskey in Quatermams hip flask.
When the other League members listened to the scraping whisper of the blizzard outside, Nemo was the first to demand answers. "So, if you weren't among the traitors, how is it you knew to follow Gray?"
"Heh! He was the only one creeping around as much as me." The invisible man turned his ghostly painted face to Mina, and his lips curved in a broad smile. "He has quite a way with him, eh, Mina?"
She didn't answer. She was dressed warmly, though the cold of their surroundings did not seem to affect her anyway.
Sawyer expressed indignation on her behalf. "So why didn't you just tell any of us?"
Skinner snorted at the suggestion. "With all the suspicion on the ship, I knew you'd never believe I wasn't the spy. You've been such dear friends, after all, aheh! So, I did what I'm good at. I thought it best to 'disappear' and wait for the real traitor to show himself."
Minas face remained hard, and she stared at him with icy green eyes across the firelight. "Why not do something to the nautiloid? It sounds as if you had plenty of opportunities."
"I'm invisible, not heroic," Skinner said.
Quatermain shifted his position, mentally reassessing everything they thought they knew. "Skinner, we need your information. What are we dealing with? Tell us everything you saw and learned while you were out sight-seeing."
"Sight-seeing? Why don't you try creeping around naked in the snow for hours?" He scowled at Quatermain's empty silver flask, then grudgingly accepted a cup of fortified tea. "All right, I'll describe everything for you as best I can. That fortress is an awfully big place."
"Where did it come from?" Sawyer asked. "Did M design it himself?"
"It was built long ago by a czar who allied himself with Cossack bandits and warlords in an attempt to conquer Europe and Asia. But they caught him cheating at a gambling game and slit his throat in his sleep. Not very good at thinking ahead, those Cossacks. Without the czar, they were left to do their raping and pillaging across Mongolia on a more customary scale."
"The citadel was abandoned… and M simply couldn't resist its allure. The place has all the amenities a discriminating mad genius bent on world domination could ask for." The invisible man slurped his lukewarm tea. "He's made a few modifications and improvements, of course."
Using words as an artist might use a fine brush, Skinner painted detailed verbal pictures of all he had seen inside. Foundry furnaces stoked by Mongol laborers produced fresh iron for making his weapons of destruction. Sweating and straining in the simmering orange heat, they poured molten metal into large casts. After the molds were quenched and cooled with icy water pumped from the nearby Amur River, muscular laborers used hammers to break the components free. Parts for his war machines.
Chains dangling from winches and pulleys raised the heavy iron pieces and shuttled them over to a maze of lathes, drills, and presses on the factory floor, where they were pieced together. Some workers constructed massive land ironclads, such as the one that had smashed through the Bank of England vault; others assembled monstrous long-barreled cannons, smaller guns, and rocket-launching tubes. Outside in the frigid daylight, teams test-fired the weapons, launching explosive artillery shells and shrieking rockets, using the empty peasant dwellings as makeshift targets.
"Worst of all," Skinner continued, "in the dry dock beneath the fortress, I saw M supervising laborers riveting hull plates in the diabolic heat and shadow. The vessels are still under construction, but soon M will have a fleet of armored submarine warships of his own."
"They've copied my Nautilus, "Nemo said, pained.
"Nautili, actually. Eight of them for now," Skinner said. "But, heh, I'm sure he'll build more."
Even in the firelight, Sawyer's face was flushed with anger. "Nemo, can you fire rockets from your own ship, like you did in Venice? Blow that whole place to Hell?"
"We are out of r
ange, Mr. Sawyer. And all those people inside… surely some of them must be innocent slaves." Nemo turned to Skinner. "What of the kidnapped scientists?"
"M holds their families hostage inside the fortress. The men are forced to work, or the women and children die. Simple and straightforward."
Nemos face darkened with fury, and he shook his head. "Monstrous. I see M has learned much from his barbaric predecessors."
The invisible man rubbed his unseen hands together. "Aheh! That isn't the half of it. M isn't just mechanically inclined when he designs his new weapons. He uses biology, as well. He's forcing the captive scientists to work night and day — to make new versions of us. As if one of me wasn't quite enough."
"What do you mean?" Quatermain said.
"You should see the chemicals and substances he is mass-producing. All distilled from our best — aheh! — traits. He will create invisible spies, an army of Hydes, vampiric assassins… and send them all off to wage war in a fleet of unstoppable submersibles." Skinner turned the tinted lenses of his glasses toward them. "Delightful, eh?"
Jekyll knotted his hands together, and his face sank in dismay. "I won't let my evil infect the world."
"Think any of us feel differently?" Mina looked at her pale palm, where the cut from the broken glass had long since healed, leaving no scar whatsoever. She felt as if Dorian Gray had violated her again.
Sawyer was impatient. "I'm tired of just sitting here in the cold, when we know M is just over there all cozy inside his fortress. What are we going to do?"
"We put an end to him," Nemo said with quiet force.
The invisible man, at least, continued to think pleasant thoughts. "Chimney pipes lace the buildings, factories, and foundries — so a few well-placed bombs in the furnaces would make quite a bang. Heh!" As if in agreement, the wood in the small campfire suddenly crackled and snapped. Skinner held his transparent hands over the warmth. "I know the way down, and I'm least likely to be seen."
"Skinner, I didn't know you were such a barefaced liar." Quatermain surprised the invisible man, then gave him a sly smile. "All this time, declaring you weren't a hero."
"Shut up, or I'll come to my senses." The invisible thief actually seemed embarrassed. "Besides, any more like me, and I lose the franchise."
Tom Sawyer, holding his Winchester rifle, cocked it suddenly with a loud sound. Ready to go, he stood. "That man killed Huck Finn. I'm not gonna let that pass. He's mine."
But Quatermain reluctantly touched the young agents rifle barrel, forced him to lower it. "This cannot be a hunt to the death, lad. Mores the pity." Sawyer looked as if the old adventurer had betrayed him, but Quatermain remained firm. "We must take M alive, if his secrets are to be uncovered."
Mina's green eyes looked feral in the firelight. "Not Gray, though." She stood, like a vengeful spirit rising from the grave. "He's lived long enough."
"I'll handle him—" Sawyer said.
"No," said Mina. "Dorian is… my business."
Sawyer understood and nodded grimly.
The storm outside seemed to be lessening, but their work had just begun. Quatermain said, "M decided that he could use our particular abilities to help him wage war — its time we demonstrate just how right he is. Only we'll be waging war on him."
"Right!" Sawyer shouldered his Winchester. "If we work together, getting into that fortress of his should be a piece of cake."
Quatermain strode to the cave opening and led the way out. "The game is on."
THIRTY NINE
M's Fortress
With the first light of morning dazzling on the fresh snow, a Mongolian guard stood vigil at the foot of the black fortress. He had dark eyes, a long drooping mustache, and stiff leather armor that kept out arrows and knife blades, but not the cold. He carried a sleek new-design automatic weapon from the master's arsenal.
When he stamped his feet, the iron nails of his boot soles rang on the stone path. His toes were numb, his belly rumbled with queasy hunger, and his head pounded from the effects of too much drink the night before. Though no enemy had crossed the empty windswept wasteland in recent memory, he stood at his post and kept guard.
He would rather face an onrushing horde alone than incur the Fantom's anger. The masked man was a demon, the stuff of nightmares.
The guard was stationed at the opening to a roaring meltwater sluice. A canal diverted part of the river channel into the foundry forges and the factories, and dumped water into turbines and storage tanks. The air was bitterly cold, and spray from the surging water rimed the fortress's dark stones with thick frost and coated the walkway with treacherous ice.
One of his fellow guards took up a post deeper inside the sluice tunnel, where the surging flow made the cold air clammy, the stone walls slick and slimy. At least here, outside the fortress walls, the air was clear and fresh.
The guard scanned the open, rocky landscape all around, dazzled by the white glare. Then he saw two figures in the distance, black shapes: a woman and… something massive. He frowned, stroking one end of his ice-crusted mustache, then called out to his partner deeper inside the tunnel.
Oddly, he saw another set of footprints much closer in the fresh snow… coming all the way up to the sluice gate. Made by naked feet.
Though the guard saw no one, he heard a noise. "Who's there?" He extended his high-tech rifle, narrowing his eyes to scan for any target within range.
Suddenly, something yanked the long gun right out of his hand. The weapon floated in midair for a second, while he stared at it in astonishment. He snatched for the barrel, but the gun danced out of his reach, then turned itself about.
With a resounding smash of bone and a spray of blood, the haunted weapon clubbed him in the face. It struck again, battering the guard until he fell unconscious.
Responding to the call, a second guard came running out of the dark tunnel. When he saw his collapsed comrade, he skittered on the ice-slick walkway. Before he understood what he was seeing, he let out a yell, but it was lost in the roar of the meltwater sluice.
Then his warning cry shriveled to a squeak, and the guard stopped in his tracks as he became aware of something… huge. There was a bloodcurdling roar of challenge, a meaty arm covered with coarse black hair, a flash of jagged teeth designed to bite off flesh in dripping, painful chunks.
Terrified, the guard scrambled back into the sluice and ran toward the end of the tunnel until he reached a bolted gate. He dragged at a heavy iron pin, struggling to open the barrier.
A moment later Edward Hyde loomed behind him and let out a low grumble that sounded like boiling mud. He reached out to clench both the hapless guard and the metal grating in one massive fist and wrenched the sluice open. The guard broke before the latch did, and his screams abruptly ceased.
Hyde tore the gate free and tossed it aside along with the man's corpse. Then he bellowed for the others to hurry up.
At the top of the sluice tubes deeper inside the fortress factory, a third man, having heard the awful cries of his fellow guard, turned from his station. He felt even greater uneasiness as the noises were cut off. With wide eyes adjusted to the torchlit shadows of the deep tunnels, he peered down the sluice hole.
He caught a frantic rustling, high-pitched squeaking and buzzing just beyond the edge of his ability to hear. His breath caught in his throat as he realized something was coming up toward him — coming fast.
The guard scrambled backward as a black storm of flying creatures erupted up through the hole in a tornado of thin shrieks, sharp claws, and beating wings. Bats. Thousands of them.
And in the center of the swarm, he saw a whirling thing with piercing green eyes. He screamed, but he was trapped inside the crowded sluice tunnel. There was no place to run.
The bats enveloped the guard.
When they dispersed, the man's skin was a chalky, cadaverous white, pricked and punctured by scores of tiny teeth. And his throat had been torn out entirely. An expression of horror had frozen on his face.
/> Mina Harker crouched and wiped blood from her mouth. Then she adjusted her scarf and stood primly again, waiting for the others.
FOURTY
M's Fortress, Private Planning Room
Even in the cold and uncivilized landscape of Mongolia, M had contrived to create a fine private parlor, full of rich wood and velvet. He reclined his gaunt body in a leather chair in front of a roaring fire. Here, the fortress's stone walls were thick enough that he did not hear the pounding clamor of the foundries and factories, though he could feel a reassuring industrial tremor through the floor. He smiled. Everything was proceeding very nicely.
He poured a glass of the finest sherry from a cut-crystal decanter on the table beside his chair, sniffed it, then enjoyed a long sip. "A woman's drink, indeed!" He would let Allan Quatermain have his bathtub gin, or whiskey, or whatever it was the old hunter preferred.
As he set the glass down, he winced, touching the tender pain of his dressed wound. Though has battle with Quatermain in the Venice cemetery had occurred several days earlier, he still nursed the injury. Luckily, his armored vest had mostly deflected the deadly blade, but unlike some of his recent acquaintances, he could not heal instantly.
The coffered wooden door opened quietly, and Dorian Gray, once again wearing fine clothing, entered the private parlor. His cool expression was a bit too tense to make a convincing show of his usual feigned boredom. In silence, he looked expectantly at the evil leader.
"All right, then." M sighed without looking around. "Your precious paintings in your room." It was pitiful how poorly Gray covered his relief.
"In return for the League. That was our deal, M, and I'm glad you honor it."
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Page 17
