The Gyptian Caravan Affair, Act 4: "... a fairly horrific thing to do…"
The Gyptian Caravan Affair
-a Man from UNCLE slash fanfic by Taylor Dancinghands
Pairing: Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin; Characters: Napoleon Solo, Illya Kuryakin, April Dancer, Mark Slate
Genre: slash, h/c, BDSM, A/U: His Dark Materials Universe
Warnings: none
Rating: Mature/PG 13
Beta: Special thanks to my "His Dark Materials" beta: Avery11
Chapter Index
Act 4: "... a fairly horrific thing to do…"
Illya's slow return to consciousness brought with it first the sense of being in motion, then the overpowering stench of horse, then the realization that he was trussed, hand and foot, and slung over the source of the stench, not unlike a sack of potatoes. Blinking hard to bring focus and sense to what he was seeing, Illya was finally able to make out the horse in front of him, over whose back were several netted bundles -one of them, he realized, being his Pasha. A low groan to his left made Illya aware that he was not the only burden his horse was carrying, and that his fellow UNCLE agent, Mark Slate, lay trussed just as he was.
"Bloody hell," Slate moaned. "I was looking for a bit of a friendlier welcome."
"I would have liked to give you one," Illya muttered. "Unfortunately our feathered friends had a different idea."
"Quite the welcoming committee that was," Mark agreed. "Any idea where they're taking us?"
"Probably to their base," Illya said. "Which, if you are inclined to see things in a positive light, saves us a trip on foot."
"Well, I'm all for taking the positive view," replied Mark. "I take it our dæmons are somewhere nearby?"
"Wrapped up in nets, from what I can make out," answered Illya. "On the horse in front of us." On the horse behind them, which Mark was able to see, he reported two more trussed up bodies -almost certainly poor Hanzi and Hanka. Neither of them said anything about Napoleon or April, assuming that the less their captors came to know about the other two UNCLE agents in the neighborhood, the better.
"Lyssa could probably chew her way out," Mark mused. Illya recalled that Mark's black footed ferret dæmon was renowned as an escape artist. "But I don't see how that gets us anywhere. Why ever did Thrush name themselves after a bird when nearly all their members have canine dæmons?"
Indeed the veritable pack of Thrush dæmons, bulldogs, german shepherds, mastiffs and the like trotting alongside the horses, would find Mark's ferret dæmon before he could get far. "I've seen a fair number of snakes and reptiles in the upper echelons," Illya commented. "At any rate, we're better off biding our time, I would agree, and waiting till we're inside the base." For all that it was almost never the original plan to get captured and complete the mission in the process of escaping, it happened often enough that Illya had come to consider getting captured little more than an inconvenience, though often an uncomfortable one.
Mark and Illya passed the rest of the journey in silence for the most part, though both would be taking in whatever information they could. Watching the shadows lengthen as they traveled, Illya guessed the time it took them to reach the base to be around three and a half hours. He also came to the conclusion that it would take Napoleon and April quite a bit longer to travel the same route on foot, and prepared himself for a considerable wait before the 'cavalry' showed up.
Eventually the whole group of Thrush horsemen rode past a guarded gate and into a barn-like building, where the horses were stabled and where Illya, Mark, Hanzi and Hanka (and their respective dæmons) were unceremoniously loaded off their horses and trundled down a long flight of stairs.
This was no primitive cellar, but an extensive, modern laboratory complex -that much Illya could make out merely by scent and sound. How extensive it was, he had no idea, but it was evidently big enough that he and Mark were sorted off to one room, and Hanzi and Hanka to another. The room where Illya and Mark were taken looked like a spare lab, with one large cage on the floor, where the two UNCLE agents were placed in leg manacles, and another across the room, sitting up on a table. This lent support to the idea that it was their dæmons that were to be experimented on, but initially they were left alone. Up on the table, Pasha and Lyssa explored the confines of their own cage and found it entirely secure.
"Damn," Illya muttered, testing his own leg irons. "I was hoping we'd be put with the others, or at least get a glimpse of how many more captives they've got down here."
"Why do you think they separated us?" Mark asked, coming to sit with his back against the side of their cage. "Do you suppose they knew UNCLE had sent someone?"
"I think they separated us because they saw that we didn't look or dress like the other Gyptians," Illya replied, crouching beside his fellow agent. "They will have figured out we were UNCLE when they saw our weapons, however."
"So we did," interrupted a haughty voice, speaking Russian, from just outside the doorway. "Though we long suspected that UNCLE would make an attempt on this facility. We were more than ready for you, as you see."
The man who entered now, flanked by two Thrush goons and their bulldog dæmons, was stooped with age, though his narrow eyes were sharp with menacing intelligence. He wore a lab coat, as white as the wisps of hair circling his bald pate. His sharply contrasting black snake dæmon coiled contentedly over his shoulders. Seeing his face and his dæmon, recognizing him after so many years, Illya started to stand, almost forgetting that his enclosure was too small for him to do so.
"Dubovich!" he cried. "Dr Grigoriy Dubovich, why am I even a little bit surprised to see you?"
"Do I know you?" the scientist asked, approaching to get a better look at Illya. In the cage on the table beside him, Pasha stood stiff legged with fury, the fur at his neck raised and bristling, and his lips curled to reveal sharp teeth, ready to tear flesh.
"No," Illya said with an almost-laugh of scorn. "No you do not know me at all, though you have seen me before. I was one of many then, dozens and dozens of innocent young naval cadets, who all blindly followed their officers' orders to their ruin."
"You!" Dubovich cried, coming closer still and crouching low to meet Illya's eyes. "You're the one who survived, number four-seven-three! So you've turned your coat for UNCLE now. Well, you see where that's gotten you. But what excellent luck for me! I've never had the chance to test the device on a dæmon twice. Perhaps that will be the key to my success."
Illya only barely suppressed the urge to throw himself at the scientist, and Pasha snarled so ferociously that Dubovich actually backed away. "It doesn't matter how many lives you ruin," Illya snarled himself. "Your device will never work, and your new Thrush masters will figure that out soon enough, just as the Czar did."
"The Czar!" sneered Dubovich. "A superstitious old cretin who goes running to the priest every Sunday like an old grandmother! He is just another small mind, soon to be left in history's boneyard. My investors at Thrush have shown me they have a far greater vision. Fifty years from now it is my name which will be found in the history books as maker of kings and founder of empires!"
"Fifty hours from now your device will only have produced yet more drooling vegetables with deformed and crippled dæmons," Illya said, voice dripping with scorn. "And your 'investors' will want to know what you have to show them for all their efforts and investments. On that day, I do not think you will find Thrush to be very much more 'visionary' than the Czar."
None of this penetrated the scientist, Illya could see. He only shook his head and said, "It's possible that you will live to see how wrong you are, but more than likely you won't. My device has never been tested on a dæmon twice, so I am certain to learn a great deal, whatever the results for you. I believe I'll schedule this procedure for tomorrow morning, as I've other business to attend to today."
He turned and left then, without a word of farewell, turning off the lights and locking the door as he went.
"Sorry," said Illya after a moment of darkness and silence. "I hope you weren't expecting dinner."
"Would've been nice," Mark replied. "But I ate before we I left, anyhow. Lyssa, have you found any way out?"
"Sorry, guv," Lyssa spoke with her counterpart's British mannerisms. "We're locked up tight as a tick, I'm afraid. Plan B is a go, though, whenever you say."
"Plan B?" Illya asked.
"Plan B is that she hides in a corner somewhere -makes herself invisible," Mark says. "So the jailer, or whoever, thinks she's escaped."
"Next best thing," Illya said admiringly.
"We've often found it so," Mark agreed. "So, what's the low-down on this Dubovich chap?"
"I suppose now is as good a time for an in-depth briefing as any," Illya said, settling himself into a corner. "Dubovich's 'device' is based on the earlier discovery of another scientist, that certain types of radiation cause a dæmon's form to destabilize. The idea, which he successfully sold to the Imperial Ministry of Defence some fifteen years ago, is that his device would create adult soldiers whose dæmons could change form at will."
"I take it he can't actually do that?" Marked checked.
"Not even close," replied Illya. "All he's ever been able to do is damage or destroy dæmons' ability to control their form completely… which is a fairly horrific thing to do to one person, let alone hundreds, as he has."
"Hundreds!?" cried Mark.
"To be honest, I have no idea of the exact number," Illya said. "I certainly had no way of knowing how many others took part in the trial I was involved in, and we still don't have any real intel on the size of the operation here."
"You were part of the earlier trial?" Mark said. "He called you 'the one who survived', didn't he… Does that mean that you were the only one?"
"I… I have no idea, really," Illya said, shaking his head, though he knew Mark couldn't see it in the dark. "We were each processed in small groups. The invitation was an open one, however, for anyone in the Naval Academy who wanted to get into the submarine corps, but whose dæmon was over the size limit."
"Why did you want to get into the submarine corps?" Mark asked. "Isn't it more dangerous?"
"More dangerous and unpleasant," Illya confirmed, "but with much higher opportunities for promotion and advancement. Anyone in the Naval Academy with the least ambition wanted to get into the submarine corps."
Mark thought about this for a moment in silence and Illya knew what he was going to ask when he spoke again. "Your Pasha," Mark said finally. "He'd have no trouble passing the size limit now, would he?"
"Not at all," Illya answered. "We served with distinction, got the promotions we had hoped for, and were eventually given the opportunity to be admitted into training for the ISS. But my Pasha did not originally settle into the form in which you see him today."
Mark was quiet again for a moment. "Bloody hell, mate," he said at last. "And… what you said about 'drooling vegetables'? That's what happened to all the others?"
"The few that I happened to see," Illya said. "They controlled all of us very carefully to begin with, and limited what we were able to see, as much as they could. Honestly, I'm just as glad I didn't see more than I did."
"Right," Mark said uncomfortably after another long pause. "And on that pleasant note, I believe I'm going to try and get some shut-eye. Lyssa, don't forget, plan B the moment you hear anyone coming in."
"Right-oh, guv," said Lyssa.
"And how should I play it?" asked Pasha.
"Feign ignorance?" suggested Illya.
"That I can do," his dæmon smirked, and Illya could hear him curl up as he usually did before sleeping. After a moment or two, Illya did the same.
The sound of the bolt being turned in the door woke both agents and their dæmons long before anyone entered or turned on the lights. The brief scurrying sound from the cage across the room told Illya that Lyssa was enacting 'plan B' with time to spare. His internal clock suggested that he'd been asleep for four or five hours, making it now early morning. If they were coming to take either him or Mark's dæmon to be 'tested', then now must be when they made their move. There was no way Illya was going to let either of them be subject to Dubovich's infernal device.
The door to the lab opened and Illya closed his eyes, waiting for the lights to be turned on. When he opened them again, blinking hard to adjust to the brightness, he saw a Thrush scientist, wearing a labcoat, his toad dæmon riding in a bulging pocket. He was carrying a capture stick and approaching the cage with their dæmons. A guard stood at the door, mastiff dæmon at his side.
The lab-coated Thrushie paused before the cage. "Why are there not two dæmons in here?" he demanded loudly.
"Don't ask me," said the guard. "There were two when we locked up last night." The scientist whirled to face Illya and Mark.
"Where is it?" he repeated. "We all know it can't have gone far!"
"She's an independent-minded gal," Mark said with a shrug. "She don't always tell me where she's going."
The man in the lab coat cursed and shouted at the guard to keep his eye on Illya and Mark, then he returned to the cage with the dæmons, capture stick at the ready. "He asked for the fox first anyhow," he said, "and I'm told you won't mind having a little distance between you."
Mark's dæmon had hidden herself so well, even Illya couldn't see her. Instead, Illya kept his eye on his own dæmon as the scientist unlocked the cage door and maneuvered the loop of the capture stick into the doorway. Snarling, his hackles raised, Pasha backed away from the trap, crouching in the far corner.
The cage was small, and the man operating the capture stick fairly experienced, but Pasha managed to evade it for several minutes, much to the scientist's frustration. Lyssa remained in hiding, waiting for the scientist to become even more distracted, and Illya sensed that time was coming soon, for the man's patience was clearly fraying. After Pasha ducked yet another jab with the capture stick, the dodge brought him close enough to the door for the scientist to try and simply grab. Though his hands were covered in thick gloves, the violation of it, as a stranger's fingers closed around his dæmon's fur, still shook Illya, and Pasha yelped in distress.
It was at this moment, as the lab-coated man dragged Pasha through the cage door by the scruff of his neck, that Illya felt the opening well of panic and something more grab him by the guts. It was an indescribable feeling but one that Illya knew all too well, for all that he'd never expected to feel it again. It was over fifteen years ago that a young, impressionable Ensign Kuryakin had naively allowed his dæmon to be subjected to the device which had altered his form, not knowing at the time what a wrenching, profoundly wrong change the device would work in them both, nor how small the chance was that they would survive.
Having survived, Illya never expected to experience such a thing again, and never imagined that any circumstances would trigger such a change in his dæmon. It was probably the restimulation of those memories, Illya would later reflect, plus the proximity of the radiation from the device and possibly even the terrified panic that gripped them both at the stranger's touch that triggered Pasha's transformation. Impossible though it seemed at the moment, Illya knew exactly what was happening, even as he collapsed to his knees, mouth open in a silent scream. Then there was something like a living explosion of grey fur, teeth and claws at the cage door, and with it came a terrible snarling and a human scream of shock and mortal fear.
In a brutally violent second, the scientist was on the floor, his white labcoat stained with the blood gushing from his torn throat, and a massive grey shape, far larger than an arctic fox, was bounding across the room to grapple with the guard's dæmon. All Illya caught of that conflict was a momentary burst of snarls and yelps, as he himself was curled into a ball, trying to get past the feeling of having his guts turned inside out. The yelping quickly devolved to pained whining, followed by the very truncated scream of a man having his savaged.
Illya thought he heard Mark's exclamation of, "Bloody hell!" in the silence that followed. When he managed to uncurl himself, it was just in time to see the furry streak of lightning that was Mark's Lyssa, racing over to grab up the keys from the fallen guard.
"You all right, old man?" Mark asked him, still a little bug-eyed in astonishment as Lyssa worked the lock on their cage.
"Yes, yes," Illya said, panting a bit but recovering quickly. "Pasha! Go, find the way out and find Napoleon, he's sure to be waiting at the perimeter with April."
Pasha gave an affirmative bark and was off like a shot, claws skittering on the concrete floor of the corridor. Then their cage door was opening and Lyssa was handing Mark the keys to their shackles.
"I say, that was a bit unexpected," he said, working to regain his aplomb as he unlocked himself and began on Illya.
"Somewhat," said Illya, shaking the feeling back into his feet. "But I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, between possible influence of the device somewhere nearby and the… refreshed unpleasant memories."
The scientist hadn't been armed, but the guard had both a sidearm and a machine gun, which Illya and Mark happily availed themselves of.
"Which way?" Mark asked as they paused to scan the corridor.
"We need to find the prisoners," Illya said. "Find them and free them, and keep an eye out for Hanzi and Hanka, the two who were kidnapped with us. As to which way, well, Pasha went right, so let's go left."
An alarm began to sound just as they headed out in the fortunately empty corridor, but they ran in to resistance as they turned a corner into what looked like a cafeteria. The Thrush men seemed to have no interest in holding their ground, however, and merely seemed to be covering their retreat. Mark and Illya let them, then Lyssa scurried ahead to check for ambushes in the hallway beyond the cafeteria and returned shortly to urge them forward.
This hallway was lined with offices and labs, and from one of them could be heard a heated conversation. Once again Lyssa ran forward, noted that the door was ajar and not latched, then slowly began to push it open, so that the tableau within was gradually revealed to Illya and Mark . Those taking part hardly noticed that the door was now wide open.
"It will work, I tell you!" could be heard from the lab-coated Dubovich, who was backed up against the wall of his office, clutching a fat binder in front of him, either as an offering, or an ineffectual shield. It would most certainly be ineffectual against the gun being pointed at him by a uniformed Thrush man with a wolverine dæmon. No flunky this, Illya thought.
"You've had your chance, doctor," said the uniformed man. "And while I may have been willing to let you continue in your useless attempts for another week or so a few days ago, now that our cover is blown, Thrush Central agrees with me, that any effort spent on setting you up in a new facility would be a complete waste. My only orders now are to clean up after myself."
"No! You can't!" Dubovich's snake dæmon reared up and hissed at the Thrush commander, and the man himself looked around wildly and spotted Illya and Mark just outside the door, guns drawn. "You! UNCLE men!" he cried desperately. "You can't let him kill me! You need me! My secrets! My secrets can change the world!"
"Sorry, mate, but your secrets are rubbish," said Mark. "We'd take you in for questioning, if you were available, but if not…"
"No, letting UNCLE have you, no matter how 'rubbish' your secrets are, would not be professional," said the Thrush chief, and without further ado put two bullets in doctor Dubovich, who crumpled silently to the floor. The Thrush man turned then with lightning speed, his gun now pointing out at Mark and Illya.
"I'll be no guest of UNCLE's either," he said. "And I assure you that if you shoot me, one of you, at least, will die in exchange. On the floor, the Thrush man's wolverine dæmon faced off against a snarling Lyssa -utterly unintimidated by their difference in size.
Illya grimaced, not keen on letting a Thrush commander escape, but not deeming it worth another agent's life. He and Mark exchanged glances, then backed away, giving the man room to move into the corridor. He backed out, never taking his eye off Illya and Mark, which was how Napoleon, appearing behind him at the far end of the corridor, was able to take his time and get a perfect shot with the sleep dart. The Thrush man's trigger finger convulsed as he felt the dart strike, but the shot went wild and nowhere near any of the UNCLE agents.
April now greeted them cheerfully from beyond Napoleon, and the four agents gathered jubilantly in the corridor, taking a moment to secure their Thrush prisoner and report on each other's circumstances.
"And where's Pasha now?" Illya asked, grateful that Napoleon and April had asked no questions about his dæmon's new form, and honestly amazed that they'd recognized him in the first place.
"He went tearing off to the left at the bottom of the stairs on the way back in," answered Napoleon. "Said he was going to find Hanzi and Hanka."
Illya nodded, closing his eyes and looking inward to find the thin stretched connection to his dæmon and try and discern where he was. In a moment he had his answer, plus a terrible apprehension that what Pasha had found was not good. "They're this way!" he said, setting off up the corridor at a run.
He appreciated the sight of April's osprey dæmon swooping ahead of them down the hallway, as Illya was not of a mind to take precautions at the moment. He followed his instincts through a series of twists and turns, finally arriving in a large, low ceilinged room filled with cages, like a cross between a prison and a zoo. At one end of the room, the human and dæmon occupants were active, clutching at the bars and shouting at the newly appeared UNCLE agents to let them out. At the other end… The handful of human figures there lay curled in foetal balls, or rocked ceaselessly. Their dæmon occupants did not bear looking at, even for a second.
"Hanzi! Hanka!" Illya called as he moved down the row of cages. Behind him, April, Mark and Napoleon were unlocking the cages and releasing the grateful occupants, but Illya's eyes sought his dæmon and found him eventually, in front of a cage in the middle of the room. Beyond this cage, the occupants had all clearly been subject to Dubovich's device. Immediately to the right of where Pasha sat, Illya recognized Hanka, her face wet with tears as she appeared to be pleading with someone. That someone was in the cage to the left and was moving desperately, as if trying repeatedly to pick something up and then drawing back. Drawing closer still, Illya now saw that this person was Hanzi, but when he saw the young man's dæmon he had to look away.
Hanzi's hare dæmon had not been affected as severely as the other dæmons subject to Dubovich's invention, but she had been affected nonetheless. The dæmon could not keep to any single form for more than a second or two, but changed continuously, appearing as a badger one second, then a cat, then a squirrel, then a lizard, then a rat, then a small pig, ceaselessly. It was exhausting just to look at, and Hanzi seemed to be trying to calm his dæmon by gathering her into his arms. Every time he tried to take hold of her, however, the dæmon's shape changed again.
Hanka seemed to be alternately imploring Hanzi and his dæmon, whose name Illya recalled was Jemeny, and simply pleading for the changing to stop. Her flying squirrel dæmon huddled on her shoulder, shaking with horror. Illya felt that sense of horror himself, down to his bones. He dropped to kneel in front of the cage, reaching through the bars to take one of Hanzi's restless hands.
"Hanzi, stop now, stop, look at me," Illya commanded, pulling the young man away from what he sought to do. "Don't look at her; look at me."
Illya had no clear idea what he meant to do, but there was a desperate need within him to fix this, and a flicker of hope that he knew how. He'd done it himself, once, after all.
"I can't make her stop, Illya!" the young man cried, glancing over at Illya for a second before turning back to his dæmon. "I can't… she can't…"
"I know, Hanzi, I know." Illya tried with all his heart to pour the truth of that knowing into his voice as he reached out, this time to take Hanzi's face between his hands and physically turn it away from his dæmon. "But you have to look away, now, look at me; listen to what I tell you."
After a moment's terrible internal struggle, Hanzi tore his attention away from his tormented dæmon and turned his wide-eye gaze on Illya. "That's good, Hanzi. You're very brave," Illya said. "Now tell me when this happened. When did they take Jemeny to the device?"
"J-just this morning," Hanzi said. "N-not so long ago…"
"Good, that's good," Illya soothed. "Now I want you to really listen to me. We can fix this, Hanzi. We can make it better again. I did it, me and my Pasha."
"Y-you did?" Hanzi gulped.
Part of Illya was terrified that he was giving the boy false hope, but another part knew that Hanzi had to believe, with every fiber of his being, that he could be saved, and so he continued.
"I did," Illya answered. "Years ago, when I was much the same age as you. Now listen and do what I tell you. First, close your eyes." Hanzi did as he was told, nodding obediently. Illya took his hands away from the boy's face and took hold of his hands. "Now, I need you to think about Jemeny, about what you like the most about her, what she does every day that makes you smile, anything that you remember."
"She… she's really good at telling stories," Hanzi said after a moment. "She knows so many, and songs too. She always knows all the words. I'm never bored when we're out minding the flocks."
"That's good," Illya said, squeezing Hanzi's hand. "Now, think about how she helps you; how you depend on her for certain things."
"Well… no one and nothing ever gets near us without her hearing it, when we're out with the sheep," he said. "Her ears are so keen, they don't miss anything. She once heard ants coming to steal my lunch."
"Good, now go on, tell me more about her ears," Illya encouraged.
"She puts them straight up when she's listening," Hanzi complied. "And they're never still, angling this way and that. Nobody sneaks up behind us, ever."
"And when she's relaxed?" Illya prompted.
"Then she lays them down on her back, and it's like they completely disappear," Hanzi reminisced with a smile. "She likes it when I stroke them then."
"And what do they feel like?"
"Oh, they're so soft," Hanzi said, longing. "Not even velvet is so soft as my Jemeny's ears."
"Imagine you can feel them now, Hanzi," Illya said, voice hushed. "You know what she feels like under your fingers. Feel it as if you were touching her." Under his own hand, Illya could feel Hanzi's fingers reaching out to touch the memory. Illya withdrew to let Hanzi's hands shape his dæmon in the air.
"I… I almost can," whispered Hanzi.
"That's it," Illya encouraged. "Now feel what it's like to hold her in your arms, like you do when you're relaxing by the fire in the evening. Tell me how it feels."
"She fits so perfect, right there," Hanzi's hands framed the space his dæmon ought to occupy. "She tucks her feet here, on my arm, and fits her head just under my hand, so I can pet her. She feels like a part of me."
"She is a part of you, Hanzi," Illya said softly. "She's right here." And he leaned forward to lay his hand over the young Gyptians's heart. "She's always been here and she'll always be here, never changing. Can you feel that?" Wordless with emotion, Hanzi nodded.
So intent was he on his words and the young man before him, Illya had not even once glanced over at the unfortunate dæmon, but in that moment even he thought he felt something. A second later he heard Pasha whine quietly and nudge at Illya's shoulder. Then there was a motion to his right and a sandy grey hare was pushing herself into the space that Hanzi had made for her in his arms.
"Oh Jemeny! My Jemeny!" Hanzi cried, burying his face in fur that was, possibly not exactly the same color it had been when Illya had seen her last, but none of that was important. Illya knew this better than anybody. Shaken with relief, he rose to step away from the cage and found that Napoleon was standing by with the key and had already freed Hanka. As soon as the door to Hanzi's cage was open she practically fell upon him, closing Hanzi and Jemeny in her arms as her flying squirrel dæmon clung to Jemeny's ears and chattered with joy.
Caught up in the scene before him, Illya started to back away and found himself stumbling over Pasha's considerable bulk and sitting abruptly. He was surprised then to find himself shaking with… relief? Memory? He was not sure, but suddenly all he could do was to gather his dæmon, his ferocious grey protector of old, into his arms, for the first time in many years, and hold him tight.
The hand he felt on his shoulder a few moments later came as no intrusion -was, in fact, almost as much a part of him as the dæmon in his arms. He leaned into the touch and soon an arm was around his shoulders, Napoleon's side pressed against his, his great, sleek panther dæmon likewise leaning against Illya's Pasha, cleaning the blood from his muzzle with wide swipes of her sandpapery tongue. Her rumbling purr vibrated through all four of them, speaking for the moment better than any words possibly could.
Epilogue
-a Man from UNCLE slash fanfic by Taylor Dancinghands
Pairing: Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin; Characters: Napoleon Solo, Illya Kuryakin, April Dancer, Mark Slate
Genre: slash, h/c, BDSM, A/U: His Dark Materials Universe
Warnings: none
Rating: Mature/PG 13
Beta: Special thanks to my "His Dark Materials" beta: Avery11
Chapter Index
Act 4: "... a fairly horrific thing to do…"
Illya's slow return to consciousness brought with it first the sense of being in motion, then the overpowering stench of horse, then the realization that he was trussed, hand and foot, and slung over the source of the stench, not unlike a sack of potatoes. Blinking hard to bring focus and sense to what he was seeing, Illya was finally able to make out the horse in front of him, over whose back were several netted bundles -one of them, he realized, being his Pasha. A low groan to his left made Illya aware that he was not the only burden his horse was carrying, and that his fellow UNCLE agent, Mark Slate, lay trussed just as he was.
"Bloody hell," Slate moaned. "I was looking for a bit of a friendlier welcome."
"I would have liked to give you one," Illya muttered. "Unfortunately our feathered friends had a different idea."
"Quite the welcoming committee that was," Mark agreed. "Any idea where they're taking us?"
"Probably to their base," Illya said. "Which, if you are inclined to see things in a positive light, saves us a trip on foot."
"Well, I'm all for taking the positive view," replied Mark. "I take it our dæmons are somewhere nearby?"
"Wrapped up in nets, from what I can make out," answered Illya. "On the horse in front of us." On the horse behind them, which Mark was able to see, he reported two more trussed up bodies -almost certainly poor Hanzi and Hanka. Neither of them said anything about Napoleon or April, assuming that the less their captors came to know about the other two UNCLE agents in the neighborhood, the better.
"Lyssa could probably chew her way out," Mark mused. Illya recalled that Mark's black footed ferret dæmon was renowned as an escape artist. "But I don't see how that gets us anywhere. Why ever did Thrush name themselves after a bird when nearly all their members have canine dæmons?"
Indeed the veritable pack of Thrush dæmons, bulldogs, german shepherds, mastiffs and the like trotting alongside the horses, would find Mark's ferret dæmon before he could get far. "I've seen a fair number of snakes and reptiles in the upper echelons," Illya commented. "At any rate, we're better off biding our time, I would agree, and waiting till we're inside the base." For all that it was almost never the original plan to get captured and complete the mission in the process of escaping, it happened often enough that Illya had come to consider getting captured little more than an inconvenience, though often an uncomfortable one.
Mark and Illya passed the rest of the journey in silence for the most part, though both would be taking in whatever information they could. Watching the shadows lengthen as they traveled, Illya guessed the time it took them to reach the base to be around three and a half hours. He also came to the conclusion that it would take Napoleon and April quite a bit longer to travel the same route on foot, and prepared himself for a considerable wait before the 'cavalry' showed up.
Eventually the whole group of Thrush horsemen rode past a guarded gate and into a barn-like building, where the horses were stabled and where Illya, Mark, Hanzi and Hanka (and their respective dæmons) were unceremoniously loaded off their horses and trundled down a long flight of stairs.
This was no primitive cellar, but an extensive, modern laboratory complex -that much Illya could make out merely by scent and sound. How extensive it was, he had no idea, but it was evidently big enough that he and Mark were sorted off to one room, and Hanzi and Hanka to another. The room where Illya and Mark were taken looked like a spare lab, with one large cage on the floor, where the two UNCLE agents were placed in leg manacles, and another across the room, sitting up on a table. This lent support to the idea that it was their dæmons that were to be experimented on, but initially they were left alone. Up on the table, Pasha and Lyssa explored the confines of their own cage and found it entirely secure.
"Damn," Illya muttered, testing his own leg irons. "I was hoping we'd be put with the others, or at least get a glimpse of how many more captives they've got down here."
"Why do you think they separated us?" Mark asked, coming to sit with his back against the side of their cage. "Do you suppose they knew UNCLE had sent someone?"
"I think they separated us because they saw that we didn't look or dress like the other Gyptians," Illya replied, crouching beside his fellow agent. "They will have figured out we were UNCLE when they saw our weapons, however."
"So we did," interrupted a haughty voice, speaking Russian, from just outside the doorway. "Though we long suspected that UNCLE would make an attempt on this facility. We were more than ready for you, as you see."
The man who entered now, flanked by two Thrush goons and their bulldog dæmons, was stooped with age, though his narrow eyes were sharp with menacing intelligence. He wore a lab coat, as white as the wisps of hair circling his bald pate. His sharply contrasting black snake dæmon coiled contentedly over his shoulders. Seeing his face and his dæmon, recognizing him after so many years, Illya started to stand, almost forgetting that his enclosure was too small for him to do so.
"Dubovich!" he cried. "Dr Grigoriy Dubovich, why am I even a little bit surprised to see you?"
"Do I know you?" the scientist asked, approaching to get a better look at Illya. In the cage on the table beside him, Pasha stood stiff legged with fury, the fur at his neck raised and bristling, and his lips curled to reveal sharp teeth, ready to tear flesh.
"No," Illya said with an almost-laugh of scorn. "No you do not know me at all, though you have seen me before. I was one of many then, dozens and dozens of innocent young naval cadets, who all blindly followed their officers' orders to their ruin."
"You!" Dubovich cried, coming closer still and crouching low to meet Illya's eyes. "You're the one who survived, number four-seven-three! So you've turned your coat for UNCLE now. Well, you see where that's gotten you. But what excellent luck for me! I've never had the chance to test the device on a dæmon twice. Perhaps that will be the key to my success."
Illya only barely suppressed the urge to throw himself at the scientist, and Pasha snarled so ferociously that Dubovich actually backed away. "It doesn't matter how many lives you ruin," Illya snarled himself. "Your device will never work, and your new Thrush masters will figure that out soon enough, just as the Czar did."
"The Czar!" sneered Dubovich. "A superstitious old cretin who goes running to the priest every Sunday like an old grandmother! He is just another small mind, soon to be left in history's boneyard. My investors at Thrush have shown me they have a far greater vision. Fifty years from now it is my name which will be found in the history books as maker of kings and founder of empires!"
"Fifty hours from now your device will only have produced yet more drooling vegetables with deformed and crippled dæmons," Illya said, voice dripping with scorn. "And your 'investors' will want to know what you have to show them for all their efforts and investments. On that day, I do not think you will find Thrush to be very much more 'visionary' than the Czar."
None of this penetrated the scientist, Illya could see. He only shook his head and said, "It's possible that you will live to see how wrong you are, but more than likely you won't. My device has never been tested on a dæmon twice, so I am certain to learn a great deal, whatever the results for you. I believe I'll schedule this procedure for tomorrow morning, as I've other business to attend to today."
He turned and left then, without a word of farewell, turning off the lights and locking the door as he went.
"Sorry," said Illya after a moment of darkness and silence. "I hope you weren't expecting dinner."
"Would've been nice," Mark replied. "But I ate before we I left, anyhow. Lyssa, have you found any way out?"
"Sorry, guv," Lyssa spoke with her counterpart's British mannerisms. "We're locked up tight as a tick, I'm afraid. Plan B is a go, though, whenever you say."
"Plan B?" Illya asked.
"Plan B is that she hides in a corner somewhere -makes herself invisible," Mark says. "So the jailer, or whoever, thinks she's escaped."
"Next best thing," Illya said admiringly.
"We've often found it so," Mark agreed. "So, what's the low-down on this Dubovich chap?"
"I suppose now is as good a time for an in-depth briefing as any," Illya said, settling himself into a corner. "Dubovich's 'device' is based on the earlier discovery of another scientist, that certain types of radiation cause a dæmon's form to destabilize. The idea, which he successfully sold to the Imperial Ministry of Defence some fifteen years ago, is that his device would create adult soldiers whose dæmons could change form at will."
"I take it he can't actually do that?" Marked checked.
"Not even close," replied Illya. "All he's ever been able to do is damage or destroy dæmons' ability to control their form completely… which is a fairly horrific thing to do to one person, let alone hundreds, as he has."
"Hundreds!?" cried Mark.
"To be honest, I have no idea of the exact number," Illya said. "I certainly had no way of knowing how many others took part in the trial I was involved in, and we still don't have any real intel on the size of the operation here."
"You were part of the earlier trial?" Mark said. "He called you 'the one who survived', didn't he… Does that mean that you were the only one?"
"I… I have no idea, really," Illya said, shaking his head, though he knew Mark couldn't see it in the dark. "We were each processed in small groups. The invitation was an open one, however, for anyone in the Naval Academy who wanted to get into the submarine corps, but whose dæmon was over the size limit."
"Why did you want to get into the submarine corps?" Mark asked. "Isn't it more dangerous?"
"More dangerous and unpleasant," Illya confirmed, "but with much higher opportunities for promotion and advancement. Anyone in the Naval Academy with the least ambition wanted to get into the submarine corps."
Mark thought about this for a moment in silence and Illya knew what he was going to ask when he spoke again. "Your Pasha," Mark said finally. "He'd have no trouble passing the size limit now, would he?"
"Not at all," Illya answered. "We served with distinction, got the promotions we had hoped for, and were eventually given the opportunity to be admitted into training for the ISS. But my Pasha did not originally settle into the form in which you see him today."
Mark was quiet again for a moment. "Bloody hell, mate," he said at last. "And… what you said about 'drooling vegetables'? That's what happened to all the others?"
"The few that I happened to see," Illya said. "They controlled all of us very carefully to begin with, and limited what we were able to see, as much as they could. Honestly, I'm just as glad I didn't see more than I did."
"Right," Mark said uncomfortably after another long pause. "And on that pleasant note, I believe I'm going to try and get some shut-eye. Lyssa, don't forget, plan B the moment you hear anyone coming in."
"Right-oh, guv," said Lyssa.
"And how should I play it?" asked Pasha.
"Feign ignorance?" suggested Illya.
"That I can do," his dæmon smirked, and Illya could hear him curl up as he usually did before sleeping. After a moment or two, Illya did the same.
The sound of the bolt being turned in the door woke both agents and their dæmons long before anyone entered or turned on the lights. The brief scurrying sound from the cage across the room told Illya that Lyssa was enacting 'plan B' with time to spare. His internal clock suggested that he'd been asleep for four or five hours, making it now early morning. If they were coming to take either him or Mark's dæmon to be 'tested', then now must be when they made their move. There was no way Illya was going to let either of them be subject to Dubovich's infernal device.
The door to the lab opened and Illya closed his eyes, waiting for the lights to be turned on. When he opened them again, blinking hard to adjust to the brightness, he saw a Thrush scientist, wearing a labcoat, his toad dæmon riding in a bulging pocket. He was carrying a capture stick and approaching the cage with their dæmons. A guard stood at the door, mastiff dæmon at his side.
The lab-coated Thrushie paused before the cage. "Why are there not two dæmons in here?" he demanded loudly.
"Don't ask me," said the guard. "There were two when we locked up last night." The scientist whirled to face Illya and Mark.
"Where is it?" he repeated. "We all know it can't have gone far!"
"She's an independent-minded gal," Mark said with a shrug. "She don't always tell me where she's going."
The man in the lab coat cursed and shouted at the guard to keep his eye on Illya and Mark, then he returned to the cage with the dæmons, capture stick at the ready. "He asked for the fox first anyhow," he said, "and I'm told you won't mind having a little distance between you."
Mark's dæmon had hidden herself so well, even Illya couldn't see her. Instead, Illya kept his eye on his own dæmon as the scientist unlocked the cage door and maneuvered the loop of the capture stick into the doorway. Snarling, his hackles raised, Pasha backed away from the trap, crouching in the far corner.
The cage was small, and the man operating the capture stick fairly experienced, but Pasha managed to evade it for several minutes, much to the scientist's frustration. Lyssa remained in hiding, waiting for the scientist to become even more distracted, and Illya sensed that time was coming soon, for the man's patience was clearly fraying. After Pasha ducked yet another jab with the capture stick, the dodge brought him close enough to the door for the scientist to try and simply grab. Though his hands were covered in thick gloves, the violation of it, as a stranger's fingers closed around his dæmon's fur, still shook Illya, and Pasha yelped in distress.
It was at this moment, as the lab-coated man dragged Pasha through the cage door by the scruff of his neck, that Illya felt the opening well of panic and something more grab him by the guts. It was an indescribable feeling but one that Illya knew all too well, for all that he'd never expected to feel it again. It was over fifteen years ago that a young, impressionable Ensign Kuryakin had naively allowed his dæmon to be subjected to the device which had altered his form, not knowing at the time what a wrenching, profoundly wrong change the device would work in them both, nor how small the chance was that they would survive.
Having survived, Illya never expected to experience such a thing again, and never imagined that any circumstances would trigger such a change in his dæmon. It was probably the restimulation of those memories, Illya would later reflect, plus the proximity of the radiation from the device and possibly even the terrified panic that gripped them both at the stranger's touch that triggered Pasha's transformation. Impossible though it seemed at the moment, Illya knew exactly what was happening, even as he collapsed to his knees, mouth open in a silent scream. Then there was something like a living explosion of grey fur, teeth and claws at the cage door, and with it came a terrible snarling and a human scream of shock and mortal fear.
In a brutally violent second, the scientist was on the floor, his white labcoat stained with the blood gushing from his torn throat, and a massive grey shape, far larger than an arctic fox, was bounding across the room to grapple with the guard's dæmon. All Illya caught of that conflict was a momentary burst of snarls and yelps, as he himself was curled into a ball, trying to get past the feeling of having his guts turned inside out. The yelping quickly devolved to pained whining, followed by the very truncated scream of a man having his savaged.
Illya thought he heard Mark's exclamation of, "Bloody hell!" in the silence that followed. When he managed to uncurl himself, it was just in time to see the furry streak of lightning that was Mark's Lyssa, racing over to grab up the keys from the fallen guard.
"You all right, old man?" Mark asked him, still a little bug-eyed in astonishment as Lyssa worked the lock on their cage.
"Yes, yes," Illya said, panting a bit but recovering quickly. "Pasha! Go, find the way out and find Napoleon, he's sure to be waiting at the perimeter with April."
Pasha gave an affirmative bark and was off like a shot, claws skittering on the concrete floor of the corridor. Then their cage door was opening and Lyssa was handing Mark the keys to their shackles.
"I say, that was a bit unexpected," he said, working to regain his aplomb as he unlocked himself and began on Illya.
"Somewhat," said Illya, shaking the feeling back into his feet. "But I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, between possible influence of the device somewhere nearby and the… refreshed unpleasant memories."
The scientist hadn't been armed, but the guard had both a sidearm and a machine gun, which Illya and Mark happily availed themselves of.
"Which way?" Mark asked as they paused to scan the corridor.
"We need to find the prisoners," Illya said. "Find them and free them, and keep an eye out for Hanzi and Hanka, the two who were kidnapped with us. As to which way, well, Pasha went right, so let's go left."
An alarm began to sound just as they headed out in the fortunately empty corridor, but they ran in to resistance as they turned a corner into what looked like a cafeteria. The Thrush men seemed to have no interest in holding their ground, however, and merely seemed to be covering their retreat. Mark and Illya let them, then Lyssa scurried ahead to check for ambushes in the hallway beyond the cafeteria and returned shortly to urge them forward.
This hallway was lined with offices and labs, and from one of them could be heard a heated conversation. Once again Lyssa ran forward, noted that the door was ajar and not latched, then slowly began to push it open, so that the tableau within was gradually revealed to Illya and Mark . Those taking part hardly noticed that the door was now wide open.
"It will work, I tell you!" could be heard from the lab-coated Dubovich, who was backed up against the wall of his office, clutching a fat binder in front of him, either as an offering, or an ineffectual shield. It would most certainly be ineffectual against the gun being pointed at him by a uniformed Thrush man with a wolverine dæmon. No flunky this, Illya thought.
"You've had your chance, doctor," said the uniformed man. "And while I may have been willing to let you continue in your useless attempts for another week or so a few days ago, now that our cover is blown, Thrush Central agrees with me, that any effort spent on setting you up in a new facility would be a complete waste. My only orders now are to clean up after myself."
"No! You can't!" Dubovich's snake dæmon reared up and hissed at the Thrush commander, and the man himself looked around wildly and spotted Illya and Mark just outside the door, guns drawn. "You! UNCLE men!" he cried desperately. "You can't let him kill me! You need me! My secrets! My secrets can change the world!"
"Sorry, mate, but your secrets are rubbish," said Mark. "We'd take you in for questioning, if you were available, but if not…"
"No, letting UNCLE have you, no matter how 'rubbish' your secrets are, would not be professional," said the Thrush chief, and without further ado put two bullets in doctor Dubovich, who crumpled silently to the floor. The Thrush man turned then with lightning speed, his gun now pointing out at Mark and Illya.
"I'll be no guest of UNCLE's either," he said. "And I assure you that if you shoot me, one of you, at least, will die in exchange. On the floor, the Thrush man's wolverine dæmon faced off against a snarling Lyssa -utterly unintimidated by their difference in size.
Illya grimaced, not keen on letting a Thrush commander escape, but not deeming it worth another agent's life. He and Mark exchanged glances, then backed away, giving the man room to move into the corridor. He backed out, never taking his eye off Illya and Mark, which was how Napoleon, appearing behind him at the far end of the corridor, was able to take his time and get a perfect shot with the sleep dart. The Thrush man's trigger finger convulsed as he felt the dart strike, but the shot went wild and nowhere near any of the UNCLE agents.
April now greeted them cheerfully from beyond Napoleon, and the four agents gathered jubilantly in the corridor, taking a moment to secure their Thrush prisoner and report on each other's circumstances.
"And where's Pasha now?" Illya asked, grateful that Napoleon and April had asked no questions about his dæmon's new form, and honestly amazed that they'd recognized him in the first place.
"He went tearing off to the left at the bottom of the stairs on the way back in," answered Napoleon. "Said he was going to find Hanzi and Hanka."
Illya nodded, closing his eyes and looking inward to find the thin stretched connection to his dæmon and try and discern where he was. In a moment he had his answer, plus a terrible apprehension that what Pasha had found was not good. "They're this way!" he said, setting off up the corridor at a run.
He appreciated the sight of April's osprey dæmon swooping ahead of them down the hallway, as Illya was not of a mind to take precautions at the moment. He followed his instincts through a series of twists and turns, finally arriving in a large, low ceilinged room filled with cages, like a cross between a prison and a zoo. At one end of the room, the human and dæmon occupants were active, clutching at the bars and shouting at the newly appeared UNCLE agents to let them out. At the other end… The handful of human figures there lay curled in foetal balls, or rocked ceaselessly. Their dæmon occupants did not bear looking at, even for a second.
"Hanzi! Hanka!" Illya called as he moved down the row of cages. Behind him, April, Mark and Napoleon were unlocking the cages and releasing the grateful occupants, but Illya's eyes sought his dæmon and found him eventually, in front of a cage in the middle of the room. Beyond this cage, the occupants had all clearly been subject to Dubovich's device. Immediately to the right of where Pasha sat, Illya recognized Hanka, her face wet with tears as she appeared to be pleading with someone. That someone was in the cage to the left and was moving desperately, as if trying repeatedly to pick something up and then drawing back. Drawing closer still, Illya now saw that this person was Hanzi, but when he saw the young man's dæmon he had to look away.
Hanzi's hare dæmon had not been affected as severely as the other dæmons subject to Dubovich's invention, but she had been affected nonetheless. The dæmon could not keep to any single form for more than a second or two, but changed continuously, appearing as a badger one second, then a cat, then a squirrel, then a lizard, then a rat, then a small pig, ceaselessly. It was exhausting just to look at, and Hanzi seemed to be trying to calm his dæmon by gathering her into his arms. Every time he tried to take hold of her, however, the dæmon's shape changed again.
Hanka seemed to be alternately imploring Hanzi and his dæmon, whose name Illya recalled was Jemeny, and simply pleading for the changing to stop. Her flying squirrel dæmon huddled on her shoulder, shaking with horror. Illya felt that sense of horror himself, down to his bones. He dropped to kneel in front of the cage, reaching through the bars to take one of Hanzi's restless hands.
"Hanzi, stop now, stop, look at me," Illya commanded, pulling the young man away from what he sought to do. "Don't look at her; look at me."
Illya had no clear idea what he meant to do, but there was a desperate need within him to fix this, and a flicker of hope that he knew how. He'd done it himself, once, after all.
"I can't make her stop, Illya!" the young man cried, glancing over at Illya for a second before turning back to his dæmon. "I can't… she can't…"
"I know, Hanzi, I know." Illya tried with all his heart to pour the truth of that knowing into his voice as he reached out, this time to take Hanzi's face between his hands and physically turn it away from his dæmon. "But you have to look away, now, look at me; listen to what I tell you."
After a moment's terrible internal struggle, Hanzi tore his attention away from his tormented dæmon and turned his wide-eye gaze on Illya. "That's good, Hanzi. You're very brave," Illya said. "Now tell me when this happened. When did they take Jemeny to the device?"
"J-just this morning," Hanzi said. "N-not so long ago…"
"Good, that's good," Illya soothed. "Now I want you to really listen to me. We can fix this, Hanzi. We can make it better again. I did it, me and my Pasha."
"Y-you did?" Hanzi gulped.
Part of Illya was terrified that he was giving the boy false hope, but another part knew that Hanzi had to believe, with every fiber of his being, that he could be saved, and so he continued.
"I did," Illya answered. "Years ago, when I was much the same age as you. Now listen and do what I tell you. First, close your eyes." Hanzi did as he was told, nodding obediently. Illya took his hands away from the boy's face and took hold of his hands. "Now, I need you to think about Jemeny, about what you like the most about her, what she does every day that makes you smile, anything that you remember."
"She… she's really good at telling stories," Hanzi said after a moment. "She knows so many, and songs too. She always knows all the words. I'm never bored when we're out minding the flocks."
"That's good," Illya said, squeezing Hanzi's hand. "Now, think about how she helps you; how you depend on her for certain things."
"Well… no one and nothing ever gets near us without her hearing it, when we're out with the sheep," he said. "Her ears are so keen, they don't miss anything. She once heard ants coming to steal my lunch."
"Good, now go on, tell me more about her ears," Illya encouraged.
"She puts them straight up when she's listening," Hanzi complied. "And they're never still, angling this way and that. Nobody sneaks up behind us, ever."
"And when she's relaxed?" Illya prompted.
"Then she lays them down on her back, and it's like they completely disappear," Hanzi reminisced with a smile. "She likes it when I stroke them then."
"And what do they feel like?"
"Oh, they're so soft," Hanzi said, longing. "Not even velvet is so soft as my Jemeny's ears."
"Imagine you can feel them now, Hanzi," Illya said, voice hushed. "You know what she feels like under your fingers. Feel it as if you were touching her." Under his own hand, Illya could feel Hanzi's fingers reaching out to touch the memory. Illya withdrew to let Hanzi's hands shape his dæmon in the air.
"I… I almost can," whispered Hanzi.
"That's it," Illya encouraged. "Now feel what it's like to hold her in your arms, like you do when you're relaxing by the fire in the evening. Tell me how it feels."
"She fits so perfect, right there," Hanzi's hands framed the space his dæmon ought to occupy. "She tucks her feet here, on my arm, and fits her head just under my hand, so I can pet her. She feels like a part of me."
"She is a part of you, Hanzi," Illya said softly. "She's right here." And he leaned forward to lay his hand over the young Gyptians's heart. "She's always been here and she'll always be here, never changing. Can you feel that?" Wordless with emotion, Hanzi nodded.
So intent was he on his words and the young man before him, Illya had not even once glanced over at the unfortunate dæmon, but in that moment even he thought he felt something. A second later he heard Pasha whine quietly and nudge at Illya's shoulder. Then there was a motion to his right and a sandy grey hare was pushing herself into the space that Hanzi had made for her in his arms.
"Oh Jemeny! My Jemeny!" Hanzi cried, burying his face in fur that was, possibly not exactly the same color it had been when Illya had seen her last, but none of that was important. Illya knew this better than anybody. Shaken with relief, he rose to step away from the cage and found that Napoleon was standing by with the key and had already freed Hanka. As soon as the door to Hanzi's cage was open she practically fell upon him, closing Hanzi and Jemeny in her arms as her flying squirrel dæmon clung to Jemeny's ears and chattered with joy.
Caught up in the scene before him, Illya started to back away and found himself stumbling over Pasha's considerable bulk and sitting abruptly. He was surprised then to find himself shaking with… relief? Memory? He was not sure, but suddenly all he could do was to gather his dæmon, his ferocious grey protector of old, into his arms, for the first time in many years, and hold him tight.
The hand he felt on his shoulder a few moments later came as no intrusion -was, in fact, almost as much a part of him as the dæmon in his arms. He leaned into the touch and soon an arm was around his shoulders, Napoleon's side pressed against his, his great, sleek panther dæmon likewise leaning against Illya's Pasha, cleaning the blood from his muzzle with wide swipes of her sandpapery tongue. Her rumbling purr vibrated through all four of them, speaking for the moment better than any words possibly could.
Epilogue