Title: The John Hart Chronicles: The Soul Trap, Part Five of Five

Author: Emma

Characters: John Hart, OCs

Rating: Small bits of Not Safe For Work, but if you blink you miss it!

Disclaimer: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?

Summary: John finds dangerous alien technology in the strangest place…

Author's Note: At the end of Exit Wounds, John Hart told Jack Harkness he was going to see a bit of the Earth. These are his adventures. In the HomecomingVerse they are before AND after A Very Private War but before Homecoming

Part One is here; Part Two is here; Part Three is here; Part Four is here
 

            Dublin Street was not as aristocratic as it had once been. The lower and ground floors of the Georgian townhouses had been converted to restaurants and shops, and the floors above into flats. The Dalgliesh townhouse, an end-of-terrace three-story beauty, hadn’t suffered any such indignities. A few discreet steps leading down to a door tucked underneath the main staircase signaled the existence of a garden apartment, but otherwise it remained an elegant reminder of another era.

            Across the street and a few doors to the left, the lower two floors were occupied by an Italian café. It was doing brisk take-away trade, but the tables were nearly empty. Hart commandeered a small one by the window, ordered lunch, and settled in to watch.

            Several of the articles he had read mentioned that Sarah Dalgliesh ran her consulting business out of her home. Over the next two hours a few people came and went. Two of them were old, old money, the kind that considered flaunting its wealth to be the worst sort of vulgarity. One was oil money, and one Hart recognized as the head of a notorious Russian crime family. Two of them were definitely not human.

            Finally the comings and goings ended, and a young woman in a simple tweed suit  skipped down the front steps, waving at someone inside. Hart paid the bill and added a tip large enough to leave behind a good impression but not so large as to attract attention, and strolled out of the restaurant.

            As he stood by the kerb, guidebook in hand,  as if trying to decide what to do next, he was startled to feel his wrist strap start to vibrate. Before leaving the hotel he had fed the biochemical readings he had gotten from the lorry into the tracker. A soul trap being inoperable by the vast majority of twenty-first century humans, he had been working on the assumption that either the thief or the buyer or both were aliens. He knew that, like most British cities, Edinburgh had a tiny colony of extraterrestrial immigrants, but he wasn’t about to go barging into it without something solid to go on. He had planned to use whatever information he could squeeze out of Sarah Dalgliesh to start the search, and then use the tracker to pinpoint the man’s location.

            He certainly didn’t expect to have him walking up the mews that ran alongside the Dalgliesh townhouse wall, cheerfully swinging Cameron’s overnight bag from one hand.

            The thief was a small man, with the balance and economy of movement of a martial arts student, and a peculiar way of holding his head to one side, as if listening to something nobody else could hear. Hart noticed that the people who passed him tended to steer clear of him, like one usually did with the bullies or the crazies.

            He waited until he was sure the man was aiming for the steps leading to the garden apartment, and then moved fast. There was a bus lumbering up the street; he would look like just another tourist doing the usual mad dash. At the last minute he veered off and vaulted over the railing, dropping into the tiny sunken courtyard directly behind the thief. As he came up from his crouch, he pulled his knife from its boot sheath and slid it in right under the man’s ribs, exactly as he had been taught by his Time Agency instructors. The thief was dead before he could register it, folding down over Hart’s arm with a soft sigh.

            Picking up the keys the man had dropped, Hart opened the door. The tiny entryway was furnished with a high-backed bench with hanging knobs across the top and a hinged seat. Inside there were just a few blankets and several pairs of wellies. It took a little effort, but he was able to stuff the body inside and cover it with the blankets. He searched through the overnight bag until he found the soul trap. Dropping it in his coat pocket, he shoved the bag on top of the body, and closed the seat.

            The room beyond was long and narrow, but given a pleasant sense of airiness by the French doors looking out over a traditional rose garden. Hart was more interested in the spiral stairs leading upwards through the ceiling. It would seem that Cameron’s would-be murderer had direct access to the Dalgliesh household.

            The stairs emerged into a small butler’s pantry next to a small but efficient kitchen. Beyond the kitchen door, a corridor led to an exquisitely Georgian entrance hall having two doors on one side and another door on the other. A sweeping staircase curved upwards to the first floor.

            The two doors on the left led to a double drawing room decorated in the grandest style. The Dalgliesh family had preferred Hepplewhite over Chippendale. One of the family portraits was definitely a Gainsborough, and over the smaller fireplace at the far end hung a Turner.

            “Do you like it?”

            He turned unhurriedly. He had known she was behind him; to someone with his enhanced olfactory sense, her scent was immediately recognizable. “I do, yes.”

            “Not that it will matter in the end, but may I know why you are in my drawing room without being invited?”

            “Certainly. I was following a murderer, and it led me here.”

            “Ah. I’m not going to see my dear Markos again, am I? Pity. Such an useful man. You are a friend of Cameron Munro, then. Does he know what you are?”

            “No more than anyone in Edinburgh knows what you are.”

            “Ah.” No surprise and no attempt at denial. “What gave me away?”

            “Family resemblance can only explain so much. Especially when one has other explanations at hand.”

            “Indeed. That was always the weak point, although most others like us give me a wide berth.”

            “Not many people would want to tangle with an Ixen ghoul.”

            “Such an ugly name.”

            Hart rubbed his hands together then slid them in his pockets. “Sorry. Not used to the Scottish weather yet. The story Cameron heard was not exactly the truth, was it?”

            She laughed, throwing back her head and exposing the long neck. “Not really. Poor Robert managed to escape with my little toy. I was reduced to… other means of feeding. Still, I knew he would send it back in the end. He asked to be cremated, did you know?”

            “Logical. He couldn’t risk an autopsy. Even if the change was permanent, his insides would have given the game away.”

            “You are very good at this. And do take your hands out of your pockets. I can feel the soul trap from here.”

            Hart gave her a grin and a little shrug. “Sorry. Had to try.”

            “I’m sorry, too. Really.”

            Suddenly the beautiful red-headed woman was gone and in her place was a creature not unlike a bird, gleaming red scales cascading from the bony crest at the top of its head to its three-toed feet. The arms ended in three-fingered  hands with long claws, sharp as straight razors. Where its mouth would be was a beak surrounded by hair-like tentacles. She was actually quite beautiful, but he knew the survival statistics of males who tangled with one such as her.

            She lunged at him, arms outstretched. He dove out of the way, rolling on the Aubusson carpet as he reached for his knife. She stopped, turned, and lunged again, all in a single movement, so fast that her scales clickety-clacked. As she reached him, he was already moving upwards, knife thrusting. The blade caught on the thick leathery skin covering her front, but her own momentum drove it under her arm. Her screech nearly deafened him.

            He tried to pull the knife out but it was tightly wedged. She swung at him, screeching again, and smashed the back of her hand against his head, lifting him off his feet and slamming him against the wall. Dizzy, he managed to reach into his pocket and pull out the soul trap.

            “Give it to me!” She screamed, words barely recognizable in a mouth not meant for human speech. “Give it to me!”

            His mouth stretched in a death’s head grin as he activated the trap and tossed it at her. “It’s all yours.”

            She screeched and screeched as the trap’s neural fields immobilized her.  He watched, smiling the whole time, as her essence was sucked into the box, twisting in agony, until the only thing left on the carpet was a small greasy stain.

            He managed to get to his feet by holding on to the legs of the grand piano angled between the fireplace and the wall. Once he was sure he could move without throwing up, he retrieved the trap. It felt warm and full in his hands.

            “Don’t worry,” he said, smirking. “You’ll make some Grand Prince a marvelous meal. And Cameron will have the very best care money can buy.”

            He left the house by the garden apartment entrance and strolled up towards Queen Street. As he reached Abercromby Place he noticed a constable on foot patrol. “Excuse me. An acquantaince of mine was hurt in a hit and run this morning. How would I go about finding out which hospital he was taken to?”