Title: Combat (2/4)

Author: Emma
Characters: Canonical Torchwood Three members… sort of.
Rating: Some chapters definitely not safe for work.
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: Something is killing weevils, and Torchwood is out to stop it...
Notes: I'm sorry it took so long. It has taken me a while to find my stride between this and NaNoWriMo and the Count of Monte Cristo...
Notes: This is Bryn Cader Faner. Note I'm not being completely true to history and archaeology. It's an AU!
 

The industrial park was actually a series of windowless rectangular boxes lined up on either side of two gravel lanes. The van was parked in front of one of them, its front bumper pushed up against the garage-style roller door. All the van's doors were wide open, and the keys were in the ignition.

“Invitation to a theft,” Ianto said. “Poor luck these blokes have had lately. First Gwen spots them with the weevil and now they can't even get the criminal population of Cardiff to interest themselves in their van.”

Jack grinned. “Ours not to complain about.” He tapped his earpiece. “Anything, Tosh?”

“Not a thing. The whole place is deserted. It's all storage facilities for miles.” He could hear the distaste in her voice. “There's some sort of energy lock near you.”

“The garage door. It has been giving us the creepy-crawlies since we got here. I'll take care of it.” He ran his fingers along the frame carefully. “Aha! There is is.”

He flattened his palm against the wood. There was a sharp whine and a loud crack. “Sorted. Let's see what they hiding.”

They rolled up the door. The room was hot and airless, and it reeked of weevil. The reason for it was immediately apparent. Cages lined the long sides of the box; each had a dirty blanket on the floor and a foul-smelling bucket in one corner. They were empty, but there was no doubt as to what they had held. At the back of the room a cheap plywood partition had been used to create a minuscule office area.

“We might keep these cages about,” Jack said conversationally as he inspected the cages. “They might come in useful when dealing with Tresillian and his friends.”

Ianto had wandered back to the office area. “I don't think that would be necessary.”

His tone of voice alerted Jack. “Do I need to call Owen?”

“I don't think so.” Ianto was taking pictures using his cell phone camera. “This was no weevil kill.”

Jack peered into the office over Ianto's shoulder. There were two men in the office. They had been tied to the chairs with electrical cord., and each one was sporting a neat hole on the right temple.

“I see what you mean.” He tapped his earpiece in twice, paused, then tapped twice again. “Andy? We have something for you. I think it's related to the recent weevil kills... yes.” He gave Andy the address. “No, we won't be here. Some other things to do. Can you get away this afternoon?... Yes, that would be...”

Ianto's touch on his arm made him look up. Ianto made a shushing gesture as he pointed to the outside. After a second Jack heard it too. Footsteps on the gravel. Someone was walking outside; whoever it was was trying to make as little noise as possible. He made a spinning gesture with his index finger. Ianto nodded, and closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, Jack could see his pupils had expanded to consume the iris, leaving only a thin ring of blue showing. He knew that if he had been simply a mortal, even a talented one, Ianto would have been invisible to him.

He walked towards the exit, making sure whoever was outside could hear him. As he reached the roll door he launched himself forward, diving under the iron bar that came swinging down, rolling out of the way and letting Ianto deal with his attacker. He heard a choked-off scream and a grunt, and a body fell to the ground next to him. He pushed it over so they could see his face.

It was the kind of face, as the cliché went, that only a mother could love. The nose had been broken more than once and it had set crooked, pulling the upper lip up at one end into a permanent sneer. There was a scar bisecting one eyebrow and running under the hairline. From what they could see, the rest of the body matched the face; big, beefy, and scarred.

“Boxer?” Ianto asked as he took several pictures of the man, then answered himself. “No. There's something about him that doesn't speak to actual exercise and training.”

Jack jumped to his feet. “Soft around the middle. More of a weekend warrior sort.”

“The kind that fights drugged-up weevils?”

“Probably. Help me pull him up, will you?”

They got the man on his feet. Ianto snapped police-issue cuffs around his wrists. The man, obviously still stunned from Ianto's blow, didn't try to fight them. Jack looked at him thoughtfully.

“Ianto, let's get him inside. Maybe he should just join his mates... don't like that idea, do you?”

The ringing of a cell phone interrupted him. The silent man sneered at him, as if daring him to take it. Jack reached into the man's pocket and pulled it out.

“Yes?”

“Stop meddling into what doesn't concern you” Whoever was at the other end was using some sort of technology to make their voice sound artificial. “Torchwood has more important things to do than to protect some animals.”

“My town, my rules,” Jack said softly. “And those animals are under my protection. I would suggest you take your games elsewhere.”

“Stop meddling,” the mechanical voice repeated. “We won't tell you again.”

The end of the conversation was punctuated by a soft popping sound. The man's throat suddenly spurted blood, and he fell back, a look of surprise in his face. Ianto and Jack dove behind the van and crouched, waiting to see if more bullets came their way. There was nothing but silence for several minutes and then they heard the sound of police cars coming down Mardy Road.

“The cavalry,” Ianto said. “A few minutes late, as usual.”

“Are you all right?”

Ianto examined himself briefly. “No bones broken, no holes in my throat, the suit trousers may be a tax write-off. Nothing unusual.”

“Mouthy.” Jack replied, smiling. “There's Andy.”

They handed over three corpses and some information to the Senior Constable and went on their way. Jack drove with his usual disregard for traffic rules while Ianto downloaded the pictures he had taken. “Tosh, I'm sending you some pictures. See if you can identify any of them. Jack and I are on our way back. Andy will follow as soon as he can. Is Owen there? All right. See you soon.”

He turned to Jack. “Cardiff Hospital got another injured man. This one is in much better shape. Gwen went to interview him.”

“Good. Andy's coming over after he finishes here. Let's go.”

They stopped at their favorite Indian takeaway and loaded up on punjaabi samosas, Dal makhni, chicken tikka jalfreezi, and prawns ulathiyathu. When Jack dithered over the sweets menu, Ianto pointed out that they still had some of the cocoanut meringues Sister Enid had made for Tosh, not to mention the salted chocolates Ianto imported from California. Jack followed him out of the restaurant without complaint.

When they got to the Hub, they found Andy already waiting, flirting with Tosh as usual. Owen sat at his terminal, supposedly completing his reports, while he pestered Tosh for help and traded barbs with the other man. Jack, Ianto, and Gwen exchanged grins and eye rolls behind the others’ backs. Since their encounter with Mary, Owen had become very protective of Tosh, and had taken to playing gooseberry every time Andy was around. Even funnier was that Tosh, that usually most observant of women, didn’t have a clue as to what was happening. Andy, on the other hand, was having a ball.

“Escaped early, I see,” Jack said to Andy as they all headed upstairs to the conference room. “Do you have anything for us?”

Andy shooed Ianto off to the coffee machine and took over setting out the food. “Three other bodies out by Llandaff. Killed the same way.”

Gwen plunked down plates and cutlery. “Someone’s cleaning house.”

“I think so.” Andy helped himself to prawns and rice. “Still, at the rate they’re using up people they must run out sooner or later.”

“Or they’re a really big organization,” Ianto said, “and the body count is irrelevant.”

“The mafia is running illegal weevil fights?” Owen offered the tray of samosas to Tosh. “In Cardiff?”

“One thing I don’t understand…” Gwen started then stopped.

“Watch out everyone,” Ianto quipped. “Gwen question hurtling in. Injuries will be attended to in order of severity.”

She threw a napkin at him. “Prat. Seriously. I’ve known about weevils all my life. They live in the sewers and scavenge for food, and if you give them a wide berth they’ll do the same. But what are they? Where do they come from? I took a look in our files and we don’t have much either.”

“On purpose.” Jack put down his fork. “Those poor bastards don’t need any more grief.”

“You protect them, don’t you?” She asked. “I noticed we buy those boiler suits. And there’s a careful count of babies. Not many of those.”

“No. Not many.” The icy flatness in Jack’s voice that made them all sit up straight. “All right. Maybe there are some things you should know. All of you.”

He seemed to think about it for a moment. “There were people here before the Celts. Before us, I suppose I should say. They built the megaliths and the first versions of Stonehenge and Avebury. They didn't have a chance against us when we arrived. They weren't a peaceful people but they weren't warriors, and all they had were bronze and stone weapons. Iron was almost unheard of, the property of kings. When they realized they were going to lose their lands, they gathered at Bryn Cader Faner, over the grave of their greatest sorcerer-king. And they prayed that he would make them stronger and faster than their opponents.”

“And he did this?” Tosh sounded ill. “He turned his people in weevils?”

“No. The prayers were heard, all right. But not by anything that had been mortal on this Earth. They were heard by a demon.”

Andy made the sign of the cross. “Dear God in Heaven.”

“The demon wanted an army. Not for anything important. Just one of those wars that demons indulge in for prestige or territory. So he took these people and turned them into what you see now. But the demon made a mistake. He was so certain that these people would bow down before him that he didn't do much to their minds. The millennia of abuse took their toll, but under it all they burned to be free … and to come home.” He sipped some water. “What happened to them was not their fault. Torchwood has always kept an eye out for them, make sure they are clothed and fed, specially in the winter. They are dying out because one of the side effects of what the demon did was to make them mostly sterile. By my calculations they will be gone in fifty years.”

“Jack, when I was doing the autopsy,” Owen said hesitantly, “I noticed something about their DNA...” He stopped, looking at a loss for words.

“Go ahead. Say it.”

“There are elements of your DNA in them.”

Jack shook his head. “It's the other way around. You know, most of the legends about demons begetting children on human women are just that. Legends. The human immune system treats demon sperm like a pathogen. Most demons couldn't even start to overcome that. It takes a great deal of planning and preparation, not to mention a hell of a lot of raw power to pull it off.”

Ianto reached over to grasp Jack's hand in his. “Your father made the weevils.”

“The correct word is design. He designed them and then he realized how he could use them to design the child he wanted.” Jack felt a surge of relief when he felt Ianto's fingers twine with his and hang on with a punishing grip. “I protect the weevils because in a terrifying, but very real way, they're my older brothers.”