Title: The Eye of Neith (8/10)
Author: Emma
Characters/Pairings: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Rhys, Martha, Andy, John Hart; Jack/Ianto, mentions of past others
Rating: R, maybe
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?
Spoilers: None. Takes place twenty or so years after Series 2 ends.
Summary: Torchwood’s past and Ianto’s future collide when Ianto’s former lover arrives in Cardiff asking for help…
Author's Note: Validium is featured in the classic Doctor Who episode Silver Nemesis . The "Sinister Woman" appears in 42  and The Sound of Drums

Homecoming is here; Part one is here; Part two is here; Part three is here; Part four is here ; Part five is here; Part six is here; Part seven is here 
 

             Like so many places in up-and-coming Cardiff, Phoenix Park was a work in progress. Construction material was still piled up among the flower beds and most of the Victorian-style lamp posts were not yet wired. The only finished area seemed to be the central plaza, where four stark ebony columns loomed unappealingly over the incomplete landscape.

            Jack watched the plaza from the first floor of one of the shops that lined the old-fashioned pier along the river. The others were scattered around the grounds, Gwen and Andy keeping an eye on other possible entrances, while John, Ianto, and Martha swept the area for surveillance equipment.  

            The team -- and Isabella -- had been smuggled into the complex inside a furnishings delivery lorry kept in Rhys’s yard for such occasions. Jack’s first impulse had been to let the lady cool her heels in the cage next to Janet’s, but she had given him a scathing look and told him to stop being silly.

            “If I’m not there, Nethisi may decide not to participate. The results would be horrific, Jack. Raw power being pulled from the Rift without a proper receptacle to channel it in a place like that… would you be ready for the second coming of Abaddon? Besides,” she gave him a sly smile, “my being there might give you a chance to snatch the Eye back. I am probably the only person who can touch it when it is fully powered up.”

            And so professor Branciforte had joined them, under John’s watchful eye. Jack had given John some very specific orders in her presence, and she had bared her teeth at them in a mocking grimace. The Doc, though, waited in the Hub, protected by a perception filter and Tosh’s bubble. He had pitched an almighty strop, but Ianto, of all people, had managed to get through to him.

            “If we stop them before regeneration takes place, problem solved. If we don’t, well, you’re our last line of defense against rogue Time Lords.”

            After their -- Jack wanted to call it a confrontation, but had been more of a surgically precise strike -- Ianto and the Doctor had spent the rest of the time sniffing at each other like a couple of cats. Jack had watched in barely concealed glee as the two most important men in his life wordlessly negotiated a truce and took a few tentative steps towards friendship.

            “Heads up!” Andy’s voice sounded urgent in his ear. “They’re here.”

            Three dark sedans drove into the complex and parked as close to the plaza as they could. Armed guards stepped out of each, weapons drawn. Jack snorted in disgust; the Valiant crew hadn’t learned much in twenty-five years.

            Two women emerged from the first sedan. They were cloaked, like the heroines in a BBC historical melodrama. One of them was carrying the box taken from Davies’s house. She motioned at the other sedan, and two girls were dragged out. From their slow, uncoordinated movements, it was obvious they had been drugged.

            The group moved along the gravel path to the plaza. The fountain was a modern affair, with a shallow basin and a metal plinth crowned by a flat marble slab in its center. Water was supposed to seep out of spouts inset in the marble and stream over the edge. Now, bone, dry, it served as an altar of sorts.

            The two cloaked women and four of the guards stepped into the basin. The guards lit torches and set them in a semicircle around the the lip of the basin. The woman carrying the box placed it on the slab, opened it, and took out the Eye.

            “It’s time.”

            Jack gave a start as he realized that he was hearing her over the Torchwood network.

            “Captain Harkness. I know you can hear me. So helpful of you to provide the Cardiff police with phones during their recent troubles.” Her voice was tinny, unrecognizable. “But some of our erstwhile defenders have expensive tastes. It’s so easy to find a weak link, don’t you think?”

            It was obvious she expected a response, but, when none was coming, she continued. “Aren’t you concerned with the lives of these poor girls? Sacrifices in a good cause, Captain, but you can change that.” She grew visibly angry at the continued silence. “No? Very well, then. I will give you someone to worry about.”

            She reached up and tore the hood off the other woman’s head.

            It was Lucy Saxon.

            Jack was downstairs before he realized he was moving. He ran flat-out, past the parking lot and the pretty flower beds, until he stood at the lip of the basin, peering up at the hooded woman facing him.

            “Who the hell are you?”

            She threw back her hood with a triumphant air. She had once been beautiful, in a cool blonde way, but age had not been kind. Her hair was dull and unkempt and the heavy makeup could not conceal the ravaged skin underneath.

            “That’s the woman who confiscated my telephone,” Martha told him. “The one who had my family arrested.”

            From the woman’s expression, it was obvious that she also could also Martha. “I was Mr. Saxon’s assistant. He called me his right hand man.” She giggled “He liked his puns.”

            “I remember you now,” Jack said. “Miss Dexter. The guards hated you. They used to call you Miss Sinister.”

            “They thought I was just an assistant. But I was more, so much more.” She pointed at Lucy. “She warmed his bed, but I was his Companion. His friend.” At Jack’s contemptuous snort, she stamped her foot. “I was! He told me all his plans. He told me who he was, the most powerful being in the Universe…”

            Out of the corner of his eye Jack could see movement. He had to keep Miss Dexter's attention off what was happening in the shadows beyond the light of the torches. “Yeah, yeah, power, greatness, ruling the Universe, blah, blah, blah,” he said mockingly. “So if you’re his soulmate, what do you need Lucy for?”

            She grabbed Lucy by the wrist and pulled her forward. Jack nearly winced as he got his first good look at her. Lucy looked nearly as bad as she had done in those godawful final days in the Valiant.

            “Haven’t you guessed yet, Captain? Nethisi needs a new body. This one will do very well as a template.” She smiled “And the punishment will fit the crime.”

            “Crime?”

            “Did you think I didn’t know? How she snuck down to the boiler room at night after my Master was done with her? So romantic, holding you for hours, talking to you as if you were courting in her father’s gardens. Stupid woman. I knew, I knew!”

            “Did you get off on watching us, Miss Sinister?” Jack gave her a feral grin. “Saxon wouldn’t have had much of an interest in you after Lucy. Was that why you didn’t tell him? He won’t be pleased, you know. He was never much for independent thought in his followers.”

            “He won’t care! He won’t care because I’m going to give him what he wants most of all.” She giggled as she stroked the Eye. “Do you know what he wanted most, Captain? You. He used to talk about you for hours. To me, only to me. And now I’m going to give him your body, Captain. He’ll look like you, be you. And he’ll have you to play with forever, and ever, and ever…”

            Jack shivered uncontrollably. “You are stark staring mad.”

            “Be quiet!” She screamed, pulling out a gun from the folds of her cloak and pointing it at Lucy. “Get the priestess here or I’ll kill her. Nethisi won’t care which body she gets.”

            “I’m here.”

            Isabella walked out of the shadows at the other end of the plaza. Jack’s jaw nearly hit the ground when he saw her. She wore a pleated linen sheath held up by wide straps that covered her breasts. Her hair flowed down her back, held to her temples by a simple diadem of carnelian beads woven in the shape of lotus blossoms. She looked about fifteen, if a fifteen year old could also possess infinite knowledge and wisdom.

            She was followed by Ianto, seemingly unarmed.

            Jack only managed to keep from screaming by chomping down on the inside of his cheek. He trusted Ianto to know what he was doing, but the sight of his lover walking into the line of fire terrified him. Listen, Whoever you are and if you’re there, don’t make me lose him now that I’ve found him again. Anything you want, but not Ianto.

            When she reached the altar, Isabella reached out to brush her fingertips across the Eye. “My Lady is ready. Produce your Master.”

            Miss Dexter set a heavy ring on the table next to the Eye. Isabella ran her hands over them, chanting something under her breath. Jack could feel the build up of power in his bones, like a faint electric current that kept on gaining strength with each passing second.

            As the power increased, two vague shapes began to form above the slab. Icy air emanated from them. Jack could see frost appearing in the marble. The shapes moved around each other in a kind of dance that seemed more of a fencing match than a birth. It took a moment for Jack to realize what was happening: one of the shapes was keeping the other contained above the slab.

            “Now!” Isabella shouted.

            John, Andy, and Gwen erupted from behind the bushes, taking aim at the guards. Ianto threw himself against Jack, pulling him to the ground. The shapes above the slab writhed frenziedly in each other’s embrace as power built up around them.

            “Noooooo!” Miss Dexter launched herself at the slab, making a grab for the Eye. Isabella slammed into her, but her hand connected with the pectoral, sending it flying off the marble and into the grass beyond. One of the shapes tried to follow it but was pulled back by the other. Howling, Miss Dexter waved the gun about wildly, keeping Isabella away from the ring that still lay on the slab.

            She had -- everyone had -- forgotten Lucy. She seemed to snap out of her trance. With a joyful smile in Jack’s direction, she grabbed at the ring, threw it on the floor, and stomped down on it.

            “Nooooo!” The gunshot echoed loudly. Jack saw Lucy crumple, her neck, shoulder, and arm covered in blood. Miss Dexter pushed Isabella away and tried to run after the Eye.

            “Ianto!”

            Isabella’s shout sent Ianto scrambling after the Eye. Remembering his reaction to the unpowered relic, Jack jumped up and went after him. He was too late.

            As Ianto’s hands closed around the pectoral, the power peaked with a teeth-rattling whine. The shapes above the marble slab seemed to expand, then contract. Jack saw Isabella reach towards one of them, tears in her eyes. A huge burst of red and gold light lit up the night like Christmas fireworks, and then darkness and silence descended on the plaza.

            Ianto was on his knees, holding on to the shattered pieces of the pectoral. Jack could see the remains of the bas-relief carvings and the chain.

            “Ianto! Are you all right?”

            “I guess so.”

            Jack reached down to help him up. As he took Ianto’s hand, the sleeve of his partner’s jacket rode up. Jack froze, terror suddenly clenching in the pit of his stomach.

            Around Ianto’s wrist there was a bracelet about as wide as Jack’s wrist strap. Two wide silver bands framed two bands of red-gold stone, which in their turn framed a narrow blood-red band. It had no clasp; Jack was sure Ianto would not be able to take it off.

            “Well,” Isabella said as she reached them, “my Lady did say it was his.”

            Ianto looked at both of them and smiled… and then, for the second time in three days, slid down in a dead faint at Jack’s feet.