The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (26 page)

Sawyer lagged behind and held up his Winchester, hoping to fire it at M. The
young American concentrated on his aim, still running headlong—and suddenly
tripped on something unseen. His legs went out from under him, and he tumbled to
the floor. His rifle clattered away. He heard a half-maniacal chuckle and saw
the outline of an invisible man fall into a hanging tapestry on the wall.

"Skinner!" Sawyer cried in disgust. He sprawled on the floor, out of the
chase now.

As Moriarty ducked around a corner, Quatermain looked back to make sure his
young friend was all right. He couldn't wait, or the villain would escape.
Sawyer waved to urge him on, and the old adventurer continued his pursuit.

The young American climbed to his feet and rounded on the unseen thief. "What
the heck are you doing here, Skinner?" He brushed himself off, wanting to
strangle the thief. "Now look what you did."

The invisible man continued to chuckle thinly, but the voice sounded very
strange. "What makes you think I'm Skinner?" The transparent man untangled
himself from the hanging fabric, and a floating knife came into view with him.
"He's not here.
My
name is Sanderson Reed!"

The other invisible man attacked with the very visible weapon.

In the high keep of the fortress, an iron-hard door flew open, and Moriarty
dashed into a stone-walled prison chamber. Quatermain bellowed after him.

This room had once been an impenetrable bastion of torture and horror, built
by the Cossacks and their power-mad czar—but the place was now forgotten,
cob-webbed and filled with opulent detritus. Snow blew through narrow spy slits
and drifted over sealed wooden crates of books, tarpaulin-covered old furniture,
and faded tapestries.

Plenty of places to hide.

Moriarty dove into the shadows, sinking down spider-silent as Quatermain
entered, panting hard. He instantly quieted himself, trying to control his heavy
breathing and the pounding of his heart.

Taking the time to study the room, letting his hunter instincts take over, he
scanned for the dark-garbed man… and saw him crouching in the shadows. He raised
the spare Winchester and drew a bead on his adversary. He couldn't possibly
miss.

Quatermain had learned over the years that a hesitant shot usually let the
quarry get away. He had tried to teach his son that lesson, too long ago, too
late. And he had no intention of letting his quarry get away now.

"End of the line, Moriarty," he said quietly. M looked up, reacting with
apparent surprise to see the heavy rifle pointed directly at him.

Quatermain pulled the trigger, and the Winchester let out a roar.

The evil genius shattered. Long pieces of reflective glass tumbled all around
as the bullet demolished a mirror propped in view of the door.

Quatermain spun, taken aback as the real Moriarty charged out of the shadows
with a wild yell, swinging a Mongolian mace. The deadly spiked chain-ball
whistled through the air an inch from Quatermains' face.

The old hunter instinctively blocked the second blow with the Winchester in
his hand. The heavy spiked ball smashed into the stock of the sturdy American
rifle—demolishing both gun and mace handle.

Moriarty took a moment to recover, but he never fought with less than cold
calculation. He tossed the mace handle aside and landed a heavy blow with his
other hand, punching Quatermain square on the old shoulder wound, where the
Fantom's stiletto had stabbed him in the Venice cemetery.

Quatermain roared in pain and swung the Winchesters broken stock at Moriarty.
The evil mastermind sidestepped, moving with a feral grace. He stuck out a long
bony leg to trip Quatermain, who fell, unable to get his elephant gun free in
time.

As the old hunter went down, Matildas straps snapped. The big elephant gun
skittered into the cluttered shadows of the old torture chamber.

Moriarty stepped back and snatched up a wicked, bent rod of forged iron. It
looked as if many times it had been heated red hot and used to sizzle the flesh
off of pitiful victims,. Though cold now, the iron bar was still capable of
being an effective bludgeon.

"To the death." Moriarty advanced on Quatermain.

The hunter prepared himself for the fight. "
Your
death."

M gave a thin, cold smile. "You'll need Hyde here to make it
my
death, Quatermain."

Under fire in the mezzanine, the
Nautilus
crewmen held their own,
taking risky shots at his henchmen whenever they could. But they could not last
here forever. The tumult continued below them on the factory floor. Workers
shouted and ran; steam tanks exploded.

Nemo himself saw a way down into the laboratory. "Hold them here, Hyde. I
will take care of what we came for."

The brutish man grunted his assent, still holding the heavy metal door as a
barricade against the furious hail of bullets. Hyde's muscles bulged, and veins
stood out on his hairy skin, but he didn't seem at all flustered. "Go
ahead." 

Hyde coughed a mouthful of phlegm and spewed it around the side of the metal
shield. Moriarty's men scrambled out of the way, as if the bestial man's fuming
spit might be as deadly as bullets. They weren't necessarily wrong.

Dante called curt orders to his men. "This takes too much time. Summon the
fighter, so that we may finish them off."

The shower of bullets ricocheting off the thick metal shield in Hyde's grip
diminished to an occasional patter. Nemos crewmen tensed, wondering what other
bizarre secret weapons the evil mastermind might have in store. Hyde growled and
let the immense iron sheet rest on the flagstoned floor with a thud. He breathed
stentoriously. Waiting.

Then a clanking noise boomed out even louder than the continuing explosions
from the factory floor. Something huge and heavy plodded up behind the massed
ranks of enemy soldiers. Dante whistled, summoning the massive mechanical threat
forward.

Hyde peered around his shelter, and his bulging, bloodshot eyes widened. An
ironclad "tank man" thudded forward, twelve feet tall—a man in a colossal,
rivet-studded gladiator suit, powered by an electrical motor that crackled with
blue sparks along its pistons and joints. Each footstep sounded like a falling
boulder.

The tank man paused at the front of Dante's cadre, and the beleaguered
henchmen backed away in awe. The Fantom's lieutenant grinned in anticipation at
the fate of his cornered prey.

The ironclad tank man raised a titanic steel-plated arm, showing a circular
cluster of long tubes—heavy-caliber gun barrels that rotated around a central
axis. Captain Nemo would have recognized the design as an extension of the
horrifically destructive Gatling gun introduced decades before in the American
Civil War. Edward Hyde knew only that it was dangerous.

With a blast of steam and a crackle of power from thrumming electrical
motors, the rotating Gatling launcher locked into position. Explosive artillery
shells
thunked
into launching tubes.

Hyde had just enough time to pick up the thick iron shield again before the
tank man opened fire.

Nemo fought his way to the guarded laboratory where captive scientists were
being forced to develop ever-more sophisticated weapons for M's war against the
entire world. Though he had reached his destination, the
Nautilus
captains struggle was just beginning.

The Fantoms' guards shouted, and Nemo crouched, keeping his limbs loose in
his blue-sleeved uniform, his hands extended as weapons. The scientists watched
the strange turbaned man, not daring to hope. Outside the laboratory prison,
they could hear the clamor of continuing battles.

Nemo moved farther into the room. Seeing only one opponent, the guards drew
their thick Mongolian swords and strode toward him. He gave them a welcoming
smile.

In a flash, Nemo waded into the group of armed men, kicked a guard squarely
in the chin with his left foot, and used his right fist to crush the larynx of a
second. The bellowing guards swung their swords, but he moved too fast. Their
curved blades swept like threatening whispers through empty air; some struck
sparks from the stone wall.

Surging into the laboratory, the captain grabbed up a stool vacated by a
scrambling scientist and punched a charging guard in the stomach with the long
hard legs, then swung the seat around in a smooth lightning strike to his head.
The guard crumpled to the floor, his skull split open.

Seven guards remained, but at the moment Nemo wasn't counting.

To a certain extent, he let his body act and react on a subconscious level,
flying in an ecstatic release of blows and moves. He had seen the wild gyrations
of the true Sufi dervishes in India, enlightened ascetics who threw themselves
into a state of complete abandon. It was more than just dancing, it was a
possession—like the berserkers on Viking battlefields. Nemo had incorporated
elements of this approach into his fighting.

But he also prized his sharp and insightful mind. Even as the captain flung
himself into a whirlwind of battle, he remained aware of himself and his goal.
All the Fantom's henchmen together could not possibly withstand the onslaught of
this lone man.

Nemo used tools and laboratory instruments to deadly effect, proving that a
long metal T square from a blueprint table could be as dangerous as a sword. He
smashed beakers, threw boiling acid into another man's eyes. A blackboard full
of equations crashed down onto a guards shoulders, and Nemo knocked him
senseless with a sharp elbow blow to the temple.

Everything in his grasp became a weapon, and when he held nothing, his bare
hands served him well enough. Before long, he had taken out every guard.

Catching his balance and his breath, Nemo turned to the stunned scientists
who had watched him in awe. All around him the laboratory lay in ruins: tables
splintered, chalk-scrawled blackboards shattered, notes and plans strewn on the
floor.

The captive engineers and scientists stared, as speechless with fear of this
stranger as they were of the masked Fantom—until he told them what they needed
to hear.

"You are free."

Hyde struggled to hold the thick iron door steady against the coming attack.
With a whistling cry in flight, the first of the large-caliber shells from the
tank man's Gading gun slammed into the heavy shield. Hyde staggered backward.
The sound of the impact was deafening.

"Get back!" he snarled to the
Nautilus
crewmen, who still held their
weapons ready, still hoping to take shots at Dante's cadre, though the remaining
henchmen had taken shelter, leaving the battle to the armored colossus.
"Go!"

Another artillery shell struck the iron shield like a meteor, making it
shudder in Hyde's grasp. Two impact craters now bent the barrier inward, but the
shield held. The high-caliber projectile ricocheted off to the side, striking
high on a wall. A stone arch crumbled.

Hyde got the glimmer of an idea. It was enough.

The ironclad tank man took two heavy steps forward. The Gatling cylinder
rotated, bringing the next shell into position. He fired a third heavy
projectile, then another, and another.

The shells flew at him in rapid succession, and each time Hyde used the heavy
iron shield to deflect them. One shell struck the ceiling, bringing part of it
down. He tilted the door in a crude attempt at aiming the ricocheting
shells.

The second caromed off toward Dante's huddled henchmen, detonated, and sent
screaming bodies flying.

Hyde's third attempt flew true, blasting the ironclad titan in the armored
torso and exploding with spectacular results.

Shrapnel showered everywhere. The remains of the ironclad tank man toppled
backward like a fallen Goliath. Armor plates, weapons, and jointed metal lay
collapsed in a pile of wreckage.

When the smoke and dust cleared sufficiendy, Hyde surveyed the mess with
pride and satisfaction.

The rest of Dante's cadre turned and fled.

Sawyer scrambled backward as Sanderson Reed's dagger came down and slashed
repeatedly on all sides. Reed's accompanying thin laughter sounded like breaking
glass.

The young agent swayed, bent, and twisted like a willow tree, evading the
deadly point. His Winchester lay across the hall, where it had fallen after the
unseen killer sent him sprawling.

Seeing no other choice, intent on avenging his murdered friend Huck, the
American lunged forward and grabbed the sharp dancing blade itself—the only part
of his assailant he could see. Although his hand stung and bled, Sawyer never
wavered. It was like teasing snapping turtles on the Mississippi.

Sawyer struggled with the invisible bureaucrat in a savage pantomime. Blood
streamed from his slashed hand. He kicked out at thin air and sent Reed
stumbling backward into the wall, stunning him for long enough that he could
scramble over to snatch up his rifle.

Holding the Winchester out in front of him, he backed away from the invisible
Reed. He shot in the direction of the unseen killer, striking the wall,
shredding the tapestries. The invisible bureaucrat's footsteps pattered down the
hall toward a closed door. Sawyer ran after him, firing repeatedly. The
murderous Reed already provided an uncertain enough target; judging by the
sounds, Sawyer knew he had missed each time.

His rifle clicked empty.

The moment he stopped firing, he heard slapping footsteps and saw the
floating dagger streak back toward him, gripped in Reed's invisible hand. Sawyer
swung his Winchester around to block the main force of the knife as it slashed
him once, twice, laying open his arm.

Hissing with the pain, the young agent swung wildly with all his strength, as
if the long rifle were nothing more than a tree branch he had fashioned into a
club. The Winchester made a loud and very gratifying sound as it connected with
the invisible attacker. Sawyer drove him backward.