The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (8 page)

"While you profit from your 'arms race'?" Quatermain added. "How noble."

The Fantoms' laugh was like breaking glass. "I cannot deny that fortunes are
made in war, gentlemen. Not the politicians or kings, not the hapless
fighters—it is the businessmen and visionaries who profit from such a situation.
Imagine the riches a world war will yield!"

Quatermain glanced up again at the odd young marksman, who seemed to be
anxiously trying to get his attention. The imposter gestured slightly with his
rifle barrel; from his own familiarity and expertise, Quatermain identified a
customized Winchester with exotic aiming sight, decorated barrel, and carved
stock.
Very interesting
. The mysterious young man seemed to be bidding
him to act when the time was right.

None of his companions had noticed the misfit henchman above. Quatermains'
mind raced, and he tried to stall for time. He stood up to the black-garbed
Fantom. "I have held the treasure of King Solomon in my hands, sir. It taught me
that happiness can't be found in mountains of gold, nor in visions of
power."

From across the library, Skinner cleared his throat nervously. "Aheh! I, on
the other hand, find gold to be a beautiful hue." He lifted his glass. "Like
this Scotch."

When Quatermains' glance flicked down at his Webley lying on the floor, the
Fantom noticed at once. "Remind me to play you at cards one day. Your face is
like an open book." With his polished shoe, he kicked the revolver far away. It
skittered and spun, coming to rest under the library ladders.

Impatient now, he squared his shoulders and raised his voice to address the
League. "So what's it to be? Does Quatermain speak for all of you?"

"Your evil is palpable, sir," Mina said. "Even a so-called 'dreg' such as
myself must maintain her standards. I have associated with vile men before,"—she
shot a quick glance at Dorian Gray, who had not even bothered to rise from his
chair at the fireplace—"but I do have certain standards."

"Personally, I don't care for guns in my home." Gray sounded bored again.
"And I don't recall extending an invitation to any of you."

"I, on the other hand, always side with superior force." The invisible man
stepped forward. His white face paint showed his grin. "Take me, Fantom. I'm
yours."

Nemo was at his side so fast that Skinner barely had time to take another
step. He placed a firm hand on the invisible man's shoulder, squeezing so hard
that the thief winced and squirmed. "Skinner is with me. And I am with
them."

The Fantom let out an exaggerated sigh. "Then I'm truly saddened. I had hoped
you would take advantage of an obvious opportunity." He lifted a black-gloved
hand. "Men!"

The marksmen aimed. With a loud click, the firing bolts of sophisticated
breech-loading rifles were drawn back.

Just then, with a fierce yell, the young imposter turned his modified
Winchester on his fellow marksmen. He blasted away, killing two of the
unsuspecting henchmen, then dove for shelter.

The Fantom wheeled, surprised.

Everything happened in an instant. All the members of the League had tensed,
looking for any last-chance opportunity, and they flew into action. Nemo and
Mina leaped for cover.

Quatermain launched himself at the nearest library ladder, grabbing the rungs
and running. He shoved it along its rail, smashing the marksmen's protruding
rifles aside as it went. Several weapons, wrenched free, tumbled to the library
floor.

The marksmen on the other side of the library did not hesitate to fire,
though. Gunshots blasted out like a dozen firing squads, and the air filled with
bullets. Dorian Grays paintings, lamps, and ornaments shredded or shattered.
With muffled thuds, dozens of books exploded; some tumbled off the shelves, as
if trying to escape the fusillade. Paper fragments filled the air with a
parchment blizzard.

The dapper Dorian Gray, looking incongruously elegant in his purple smoking
jacket, staggered and jittered from multiple impacts. His body was riddled with
bulletholes, and his face wore an expression of surprised displeasure.

"Dorian!" Mina struggled to run to him, but Captain Nemo snagged her and
pulled her behind a pillar. A bullet struck the pillar, sending a spray of wood
splinters near their faces.

With a sharp yelp, Skinner ran the opposite direction. He tossed the full
glass of Scotch onto his white-painted face, squeezing his eyes shut
momentarily; the alcohol dissolved his makeup coating, making it easier for him
to wipe away with a piece of cloth, and by the time he had thrown off his coat,
the invisible man had completely vanished.

After reloading his Winchester, the young imposter advanced on the other
marksmen, opening fire again. He cocked the customized weapon one-handed while
yanking the bothersome handkerchief from his face. Then he blasted again. But,
to his disbelief, his shots ricocheted off the Fantom's marksmen. These were
wearing body armor, much like the assassins who had attacked Quatermain at the
Britannia Club.

With remarkable strength and determination, Mina Harker struggled free of
Nemo's grip. She took an urgent step away from the shelter of their hiding
place—and gasped in a new sort of shock at what she saw: Gray stood in front of
the fireplace, still on his feet and apparently unhurt. He snatched up a long
cane resting beside the fireplace implements and pulled away its covering to
reveal a thin, wickedly sharp sword. He stormed into the fray, showing no
evidence of wounds, despite all the bullets that had struck him.

At this sudden turn of events, the Fantom turned and sprinted for the
staircase that would take him to the house's exit and the street.

"Not one for a bit of a fight, are you, Fantom?" Quatermain called after the
masked villain. In a blurred sequence of movement, he retrieved his revolver
from where his opponent had kicked it, cocked the hammer, aimed, and fired. His
shot passed directly through the bookcase, striking the Fantom squarely in the
right shoulder. But the impact only spun him around. He hit a column, caromed
off, and kept running, though in the opposite direction now. His black overcoat
was torn, but no blood oozed from the wound.

"Damned body armor," Quatermain mutterered, then ran after him, heedless of
the danger. As he zigzagged through the lethal gauntlet, he passed Dorian Gray
coming the other way, furiously slashing right and left with his cane-sword.

From above, the mysterious young marksman covered Quatermains' pursuit, using
his Winchester to pick enemy shooters from their high perches around the
library.

Upon seeing Quatermains' insane act of bravery in charging after the Fantom,
Captain Nemo stepped out of the shadows himself. He glared at one of the enemy
henchmen and rushed toward him.

"No gun, darkie?" said one of the marksmen. "What's the matter?"

Nemo turned with slow poise, gathering his concentration and his energy. His
voluminous black beard bristled as he smiled. A group of marksmen had drawn a
bead on him, considering the unarmed captain an easy target. "No gun. I walk a
different path."

Before they could open fire, Nemo exploded into astonishing action, using his
entire body as a weapon. He became a blur of limbs, landing crushing blows with
his hands, elbows, knees, and booted feet. His spinning kicks carried a lethal
force against which body armor was no use. Caught in the hurricane of martial
arts destruction, enemy marksmen fell and scattered like ninepins.

The Fantom reached a rickety stairway and scrambled up it with Quatermain in
hot pursuit. Though panting, the old adventurer seemed intent on not letting his
enemy escape. Hand over hand, clutching the rail, the Fantom climbed
higher—until the stairs ended abruptly against a trapdoor.

His gloved hand grabbed at the handle of the trapdoor, but it was locked.
Taking little pleasure but great satisfaction, Quatermain charged forward and
was almost upon him—

When the Fantom's Lieutenant Dante dropped from nowhere and slammed into him.
Quatermain staggered, losing his balance.

"Run, James!" Dante shouted.

The Fantom smashed at the trapdoor with his armored shoulder, broke it open,
and hauled himself up to the next floor.

Recovering himself, Quatermam slammed a heavy fist into Dante's chin, and the
lieutenant reciprocated with punches of his own. Finally, the old hunter,
impatient to be after his true quarry, delivered a decisive head-butt, which
sent Dante reeling. Quatermain shoved the other man aside and pushed forward,
silently cursing Dorian Gray. "Why does one man require such a ridiculously
large house?"

Bested for now, Dante stumbled into the shadows.

From across the upper level of the library, the imposter marksman saw the
Fantom about to escape. He kicked an advancing marksman aside and clashed off to
help Quatermain.

Reaching the edge of the upper level, he did not pause but took a flying leap
over the railing of the alcove and landed on the same floor. Panting, and
grinning, he joined in the pursuit of the Fantom.

Meanwhile, Nemo ducked, rolled, and leaped. He seemed untouchable,
unshootable. He broke limbs without mercy. The marksmen had never seen anything
like him. They could understand bullets and knives and clubs… but not this. The
captains face wore such an intense and merciless expression that the henchmen
turned to run away in terror.

Instead, they ran into Dorian Gray and his wicked, slender sword.

The suave man stabbed and slashed, looking uninterested even as the henchmen
fought back, howling. He was oblivious to the wounds that the men inflicted on
him. "Ow," he said, though his tone of voice was less than convincing.

A skewered marksman fell to his knees before Gray and took a death grip on
Grays shirt beneath the smoking jacket. It tore open, affording the man a dying
glimpse of Grays wounds as they healed completely before his eyes.

"What are you?" the henchman gasped.

Gray pulled his long blade from the man's body and kicked him aside like a
discarded pillow. "I'm… complicated."

Across the room, the invisible man had found a blade of his own and went to
work. His hovering knife floated and swooped like a flying projectile. The
nearest henchman didn't understand what he was seeing, until the blade swung
down to slash his throat.

Leaving blood droplets dancing in the air, the invisibly wielded blade struck
sideways beneath the marksman's raised left arm to exploit the opening in the
bulletproof armor. The knife dealt a lethal blow to the man's heart.

Pulling ahead of Quatermain, the imposter marksman chased the Fantom up two
more flights of decaying stairs. "I sure didn't think a man in such fancy duds
could run like a greased pig!"

Cocking his Winchester one-handed again, he let loose another booming shot up
through rotted floorboards. Splinters and dust flew from the blast, but the
hoped-for cry of pain from the Fantom did not come.

The masked villain smashed through a thin barricade to reach the dim, topmost
level of Dorian Gray's old dock house. Every window in the attic was bricked up,
leaving no escape.

Face flushed, his rifle extended, the young imposter cornered the evil
mastermind. The Fantom backed against the grimy wallboards, which had been
weakened by age and decay.

The masked villain turned and with fearless resolve threw himself against the
thin patch of wallboards. Engulfed in dust and cobwebs, he broke completely
through the attic wall and plunged out into the night.

"Hey!" The imposter marksman cursed and raced for the broken opening. He
peered through it, desperately trying to get a glimpse of the escaped man, but
saw nothing.

A moment later, Quatermain reached a window on the floor beneath the attic.
He threw open the sash and stuck his head out, hoping to catch sight of his
quarry. He saw debris still falling, broken boards, loose shingles, dust, and
shards of glass. Far below, there was only a fogbound dock and empty
streets.

And no sign of the Fantom at all.

In the aftermath of the fight, Nemo checked for survivors among the bodies
strewn in the library. He moved methodically from man to man, ears cocked for a
groan of pain—though it wasn't clear from the grim set of his face whether he
intended to succor or execute any of the Fantom's men he found alive.

One severely wounded marksman looked up into Nemo's angry face and fierce
black eyes and died with a sudden whimper, before the black-bearded captain
could even check his injuries. Nemo was neither pleased nor disappointed.

Taking care of important business, Skinner finished applying fresh
greasepaint over his features. He donned his dark-lensed pince-nez spectacles
over the empty craters of his eyes, shrugged on his long-sleeved coat, then
carefully tugged his hat over the hollow top and back of his head.

Though he was completely visible now, Skinner still managed to startle Dorian
Gray out of his preoccupied thoughts. "Heh, Mr. Gray! And I thought I was
special. You're invulnerable to harm."

"And also invulnerable to the sands of time, if indeed you're older than
Quatermain," Nemo mused, looking up from another victim on the library floor.
"As we were discussing before our unexpected interruption." The captains
implacable expression demanded answers, but their host was not forthcoming.

"I don't like to boast," Gray said dismissively. He frowned at the numerous
punctures and bullet holes in his fine smoking jacket; he seemed unsettled, even
disappointed. "By the way, what happened to Mina?"

A fuming Allan Quatermain returned with heavy footsteps to the main library
chamber. Without a word, he tucked his revolver into his interior jacket pocket.
"She's probably hip-deep in some kind of peril. Expecting us to rescue her, no
doubt."