Kevin Anderson - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

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."

Mina reappeared, her auburn hair perfectly in place. She casually brushed at a few small blood spatters on the colorful fabric of her dress. "Oh, don't be such an old alarmist, Mr. Q. And my hips are none of your business."

She sensed someone behind her, but before she could turn, one of the last marksmen lurched out of an alcove. Although he knew he was outnumbered and trapped, all of his fellows slain, the Fantom gone, the marksman grabbed Mina with a powerful grip and held her before him as if she were a shield. He rammed a gleaming knife within a hair's breadth of her pale throat. The silk scarf she always wore would offer no protection from the sharpened steel.

Quatermain drew his revolver, and Nemo dropped into a fighting stance, while the invisible man froze in the process of pouring himself another drink. Faster than any of them, though, the mysterious young imposter leaped down from the upper levels of the library. His boots slammed on the floor with a crack like thunder. He aimed his flamboyant Winchester at the marksman's face. "Let 'er go, Mister, or I'll shoot ya!"

Cornered, the Fantoms' marksman had nothing to lose. "Shoot! Go on! I'll kill her on reflex!" The hand that held the knife twitched against the hollow of Mina's throat, and she remained very still. Her head lolled forward, obscuring her face. Her hair fell into disarray.

In the frozen standoff, the young imposter lowered his Winchester. Nemo remained tense, but took a step backward to a safer, nonthreatening distance. Quatermain lowered his revolver with an angry sigh. "I told you from the beginning she'd be trouble."