The Apocalypse Stops For No Time Lord [Part Three]
Part Three
Bela’s head was still buzzing when the door rolled back and they slipped into the headquarters. Adrenaline residue was pumping through her body, not quite ready to relent yet. It was probably thanks to those left-over sparks that she was able to draw on the shadow in the corner so quickly.
“Identify yourself.” Jack was beside her in an instant, posture mirroring hers.
“Just an old friend,” came the reply in a strange British accent. Gaze staying unwaveringly fixed on the intruder, Bela reached over and flipped the light on. There was a narrow-faced, dark-eyed man sitting in Bela’s chair wearing a very expensive looking suit.
“Moriarty,” Jack hissed immediately, eyes narrowing to tight slits. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
The man chuckled humourlessly and Bela was sure that she had heard that laugh before, those mocking inflections. With a smirk he plucked at his blazer. “Yes, that’s what this meat-suit was called, and he was as good as dead.”
“Crowley,” Bela said with calm recognition and this time it was her eyes that narrowed. “Why are you here?”
The demon stood up and slowly wandered over to pour himself a drink from Jack’s not-so-secret secret stash. He looked strange in the new body and it was then that Bela realised just how distanced she had become from the demon world. Usually she would recognise another demon. Usually she would see the festering flesh under the false skin. Not anymore.
“Feeling a little too human?” Crowley asked, perfectly reading her thoughts. “Still trying to decide whether you fit in or not?” Beside her, Jack tensed, ready to come to her defense. Bela didn’t let him, raising a hand to hold the silence. She gritted her teeth and tried not to think about what Crowley was saying.
The problem was that she thought about it all the time. Every now and then she would feel it, the rippling desire for destruction, the need to watch something - someone - die. It would come with red-wash memories of Hell, searing flesh and snapping bone; the wet sound of skin slapping against the ground.
She couldn’t stop thinking about that moment when she had finally screamed ‘enough’ and given in to their ultimatum. Couldn’t stop thinking about the first time she looked in the mirror and saw black eyes staring back. She was a demon, not a human. She might have her old body back but it was still as fake as her name.
“Crowley, go.” Bela was surprised it had taken that long for Jack to ignore her unspoken request for his silence. “I don’t know what game you’re playing but Bela stays here.”
Crowley smirked. His new body fell into it easily, as if it were made to taunt with just the curve of his lips. “I think we should leave this one up to the lady.” He shrugged lightly, head tilting to the side as if his body was disjointed. “What's it going to be, Bela?”
“Get out.” She barely remembered saying the words but she wouldn't be able to forget the venom in them. Even Jack glanced at her nervously. Anger clouded her mind, reminding her of the fury of a demon but this felt too close to human to be the vestiges of something supernatural. “Get out now.”
For a second it seemed like Crowley would be too surprised to move. Then there was the soft rustle of clothing and he was gone. Without the king of Hell, the room suddenly seemed a lot bigger. A hand brushed along Bela's arm, coming to rest on her shoulder.
“What was that about?” Jack seemed genuinely confused and suddenly, for one strange moment, Bela hated him. “Why wouldn’t you fit in here?”
Bela’s thoughts tumbled into a tangled mess, human emotions melting into images of Hell and blood splattering hot on her skin. All those walls of humanity she had been building fell like children’s blocks. That thing, that demon part of her sent bugs crawling under her meat-suit’s skin.
“Why do you think?” Hatred for him, the man who found it so easy to be human, filled her mind with smoke, erupting in volcanic spurts of anger. “I know it’s easy to forget when you’re playing house but I’m Hellspawn. The whole baby-eating demons, damned to Hell, Bible as the word of God ringing any bells?”
“You’re human enough to belong here,” Jack said with his token calmness that did nothing but fuel Bela’s rage. Somewhere in the back of her mind she laughed at how much easier it was to be angry, to raise a defense instead of letting her real emotions filter through.
“It’s easier to think like that, isn’t it?” She whirled around to look at him, pulling away from his hands, mouth twisted in uncontrollable fury. “It’s easy to see a human instead of a dead body stopped from rotting by the scum of Hell inside. It’s so much nicer to pretend I’m human rather than think about how I would kill every last one of you.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Jack reached out again, grabbing her shoulders and digging his fingers in until she couldn’t pull away. “Listen to me! It doesn’t matter because I trust you and you've been saving hundreds of people.”
He leaned forward, locking their eyes until Jack was all that was left in Bela’s world. “It doesn’t matter that you’re not human. You can still belong on Earth.” His fingers loosened their grip and he slid a hand up to rest lightly on her neck, letting their foreheads fall together.
Bela could feel his breathe ghosting across her skin and she had never been so confused. As much as she wanted to push him away, she wanted him to stay there forever, keep that contact between human and demon as if it could be salvation.
“It doesn’t matter because I trust you and you've saved me more times that I will ever admit.”
It was impossible to stop a smile then and suddenly all Bela could think was how they had melded together, the joker and the thief. How they had fitted together with sharp words and easy smiles until she couldn’t imagine, couldn’t fathom, the world without this military man and his records of the dead.
She thought then that maybe, just maybe, she could love Captain Jack Harkness. Maybe she did love him and Bela had never felt so human.
It was a revelation to be lingered upon, the plot-twist in a murder mystery. All she wanted was to hide somewhere far away from this man who could control her emotions with a smile but she couldn’t. People were dying. Cardiff needed saving. If they didn’t save it, who would?
“Okay,” she whispered. Mustering all her will power she pulled away from her boss, meeting his gaze as steadily as she dared. “Then I guess we have some zombies to hunt, sir.”
“That’s my girl,” Jack said with a wink.
“Oh, I am so not your girl.”
“Don’t worry, we’ve got time.” Jack smirked then snagged the phone from its charger. “Well if we’re zombie hunting then there’s someone we need to call first.”
Bela moved around so she could peer over his shoulder at the number he was dialling. “Ooo, your mystery contact. A London number, how interesting.”
“Here you go!” Jack finished keying in the number, pressed the call button and promptly shoved the phone into Bela’s hand. “Good luck!”
“I-what?” She half-shrieked, chasing after Jack as he darted off around a desk. “Captain Jack Harkness, get back here! We can’t be playing games when there’s a zombie apocalypse.”
“If you can’t play around during zombie apocalypses, when can you?”
It wasn’t until Bela had chased her boss halfway down the stairs that she realised the phone was still ringing. Lifting it to her ear, she was just in time to hear a click then -
“Hello?” The voice was male, tight and trimmed, almost like Jack’s but with a British accent.
“Hi,” Bela said, trying not to make her voice sound too sickly sweet. Jack appeared at the bottom of the stairs, a grin plastered across his face. “This is Bela Talbot from Torchwood.”
“Oh, hello Torchwood,” the voice said, slightly more cheerfully. “It’s been a long time since we last heard from you. Jack’s been recruiting has he?”
“You could say that,” Bela replied, wincing awkwardly. “It’s a pleasure to talk to you.”
“He gave you the phone and then ran away, didn’t he?”
“How did you...”
“He does that a lot,” the voice said with a chuckle. “I think he’s hoping one of these days Sherlock will actually answer the phone. I’m John Watson, by the way.”
“John Watson.” The name was familiar, something she had seen in the news about... hats? Then it clicked. “John and Sherlock as in Holmes and Watson? As in London’s finest detectives?”
She could remember them easily now, plastered across the front page of every British news website. It was the revival of the century; a resurrection to challenge Jesus, some particularly excited people had said. ‘Real Detective, Fake Suicide’ had been the headline and the story described the new evidence against a consulting criminal.
Torchwood’s duo had still been in Sydney at the time but even in Australia the newspapers printed the picture of a grinning army doctor and a tall man beside him. When she had showed him, Jack had given one of his secret smiles and muttered ‘about time’.
After a few days Bela had stopped following the story, distracted by planets beyond Pluto but she never forgot the frozen smile on John Watson’s face as he looked up at the tall man. It would never be lost, forever captured in black and white.
There was a pause and Bela could practically hear John standing a little straighter. “Well, yes. How can we help Torchwood?”
“We need your help with...” She trailed off, trying to figure out how to explain zombies in Cardiff. “The thing is... see what’s happening is...”
With raised eyebrows Jack held out his hand for the phone. She quickly handed it over, trying not to look too grateful. Holding the receiver between them, Jack pushed the speaker button on the handset.
“Hi John, it’s Jack.”
“It’s good to hear from you again.”
“You too. How are you and Sherlock?”
“It’s all as normal as it ever will be,” came the wry reply. “Do you want him listening?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.” The two of them laughed at something Bela didn’t understand yet.
“Sherlock!” John call’s came over the phone distantly. “Jack needs our help.”
“Jack who?” came the muffled reply. The voice was sharp and distinct and Bela could instantly place it on the tall man from the picture.
“Captain Jack Harkness,” John said patiently. “Torchwood needs our help.”
“Torchwood?” There was a layer of scorn in Sherlock’s voice so thick Bela couldn’t decide whether it was serious or not. She glanced over at Jack but the military man was grinning widely at the phone. “I’m busy.”
“No you’re no- he’s not busy,” John spluttered. “Of course we will help you, Jack, won’t we Sherlock?” Bela was distinctly reminded of a parent telling off their child.
“Fine.” Sherlock’s faint mutter was almost lost in the slight static of the phone line. “What do you need help with and speak quickly.”
“There’s a virus called Croatoan going through Cardiff,” Jack started.
“Boring!” Sherlock interrupted. For a second the line fell quiet and Bela could just make out muffled words until it returned.
“What kind of virus?” John spoke this time, genuine interest in his voice.
“It attacks the limbic system,” Jack replied, not mentioning Sherlock’s outburst. “We’ve seen the damage. Think bad zombie movie.”
“How many infected?”
“Too many. Maybe 30 or 40.”
“Why do you need our help?” Jack looked to Bela at the question and she took the cue to jump in.
“It’s quite literally the virus from Hell. It was crafted so that those who got infected would be as violent as possible when they came across someone but quickly lose interest once they were dead or infected.
“However this time we’ve been noticing there are a number of victims who’ve had their brains specifically removed. We think that one of Hell’s elite has altered the virus, allowing the zombies to be controlled. The brainless were targets.”
It wasn’t until Bela fell silent that she considered maybe the detective and the army doctor didn’t know about the host of Heaven and Hell. She glanced at Jack but the military man’s gaze was still fixed on the phone. On the other end of the line there was a moment’s hesitation.
“Send over the names of the victims,” Sherlock said finally.
“Sorry, what?” Bela gave the phone a suspicious glance. “How did you-”
“I’m the world’s only consulting detective and you obviously aren’t calling for John’s help.”
“Thank you, Sherlock,” John muttered.
“You seem to know what’s going on so you don’t need help with that. The Torchwood access will get you all the information you need so you clearly can’t figure out the connection and that’s what you need me for.”
Bela turned her permanent glare from the phone to where Jack was standing, trying not to choke on suppressed laughter. Carefully she considered the consequences of punching him.
“Just ignore Sherlock,” John said, coming to the rescue. “He likes to show off. Send us the information and we’ll do what we can. After we know the connection, we’ll head over to you.”
“Thanks,” Jack managed to choke out. “We’ll take care of the infected.”
“Get a blood sample from one of the infected,” Sherlock broke in. “I can make a cure for the virus.”
Bela couldn’t hold back the scorn in her voice. “You think you can make a cure for the virus made for Satan’s apocalypse by looking at a zombie’s blood sample.”
“Jack, you should fire her.”
“Hey, listen up Detective Assh -“
“Okay, that’s enough,” John quickly interrupted. “Jack?”
“It’s probably a good idea,” the military man replied. He shot Bela a half-amused, half-sympathetic glance and picked up the phone, taking it off speaker. “What are you thinking?”
There was a pause and Bela could hear the hissing ends of the ‘s’s in John’s voice as she fumed quietly.
“Okay call us if you get anything,.”
Pause and more ‘s’s.
“Sure. Also, John,” Jack hesitated for a moment. “You might see Moriarty around. It’s not him.” Pause. “Yeah, I’m sorry. It’s a demon called Crowley.”
‘S’s.
“No, don’t go near him. I just wanted you to know in case you come across him. Just don’t think that he’s back.”
Pause.
“Okay. You too.”
“I am not working with Sherlock-bloody-Holmes,” Bela said bluntly as Jack hung up the phone. “His ego is big enough to challenge Dean Winchester’s.”
“Nice,” Jack said appreciative glance. “You’ll just have to deal with it though. Like it or not, he’s the best chance we’ve got.”
“Yeah, and he’ll just have to deal with my fist in his face.”
“You know, you’re cute when you’re angry.”
“Don’t make me practise on you.” Bela let a smile cross her lips for a moment. “So what now?”
“John is going to call us back as soon as they have something and they’ll be in Cardiff in two hours or so.”
“Only two hours? That’s fast.”
“For some reason Sherlock’s decided he’s going to drive.” Jack shook his head ruefully. "Either it’s going to take them two hours or they’ll never make it at all. Until then, we prepare for another apocalypse.”
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| Part Four |