The Four Realms

by Adrian Faulkner

  "You'll burn," she said eventually. At first Darwin thought it was Cassidy making some morality judgement, although even that was a bit strong for her. But then he realised with the hood of his sweatshirt down, she was talking about sunburn. Don't let her tell you what to do, he told himself, knowing full well that his unique physiology meant it took very little natural light for him to burn. Still that was better than his fellow vampires who'd just burst into flames.

  "No I won't," he offered looking up at the grey skies. "It's heavy cloud today."

  "Fine, then, you won't."

  "Why, am I looking red?"

  "A bit," Cassidy offered.

  "Crap," he said, pulling up his hood.

  "Where are we going anyway?" Cassidy asked.

  He beamed at her. Now she was interested.

  "The Vampire Council," he said.

  Cassidy was visibly surprised, her eyes widening. "Really?"

  Darwin nodded, hoping she'd be proud.

  "I thought they tried to kill you?" Cassidy asked.

  "Well yeah," said Darwin.

  "So they're going to welcome you back with open arms?"

  "It's been a while," said Darwin. "I'm hoping they will have forgotten."

  Cassidy shrugged. "Your funeral, I guess."

  "I thought you wanted me to go there?"

  "Not if they're gonna try and kill you."

  "That was when I was fourteen, I'm older now."

  "Oh, that makes it all better then," she said sarcastically. "They only tried to kill you whilst you were a child."

  Darwin snatched the notebook out of Cassidy's coat pocket.

  "Hey," she said.

  Darwin waved the notebook at her, just out of reach of her outstretched hands. "You want to find out what this thing says don't you?"

  "Well yeah but...”

  "Then we need to go to the Vampire Council."

  "I liked you better when you were starving," she quipped. Darwin wondered, however if there was some truth in that statement.

  He handed her back the notebook and carried on walking. But Cassidy had awakened that fear in him. He tried to tell himself, it would be different, he was an adult now, and all that was behind him. He felt good, felt like he could take on the whole world this morning, but could he handle himself if the vampires did turn on him? Of that he wasn't so sure.

  Still, he had to face this, he told himself. He'd never be treated as a vampire if he didn't start acting like one. He needed to get over his childhood trauma and take his rightful place in the community, and if that meant asserting himself, or the odd scuffle, so be it. He'd faced worse.

  "And afterwards?" Cassidy asked walking beside him.

  Darwin snapped out of his thoughts.

  "Sorry?" he said.

  "Where do we go afterwards?"

  "I hadn't given it much thought," he said truthfully. "Where do you want to go?"

  "I've always wanted to go to Manchester," she said. "Do you think we have enough money to get both of us there?"

  Darwin shrugged. "How much are tickets to Manchester nowadays?"

  Cassidy sighed. "Probably more than we have."

  "We can get more," Darwin said.

  "Preferably without leaving a trail of bloody destruction behind us?"

  Darwin shrugged. "I never promised that," he said with a smile.

  Cassidy smiled weakly back. Cassidy wasn't likely to forgive, but whatever had needed to be said, had now been said. Just as well, as Darwin was resolved that he was never going back to rats.

  #

  It took twice as long to get to the Vampire Council than Darwin had anticipated. The ice and snow had slowed them down more than Darwin thought it would, and he was concerned that even with his hood up, he might have been out in the sun too long.

  "Here we are," Darwin said, stopping in front of a dowdy office building, all glass and faded blue panels. The ground floor was comprised of shops save for a revolving door that lead into a small wooden panel entranceway with lifts and more importantly, a door marked private that went down into the Council lobby.

  "That's it?" Cassidy asked, clearly not impressed.

  "What did you expect, a sign saying 'welcome to the Vampire Council'?"

  "I dunno," said Cassidy examining the dull building. "Architecture maybe?"

  "Clever," he mocked, spinning her around so he could reach into her pocket and remove the notebook. "You wait here, whilst I go in. If I'm not back out in an hour, go get help?"

  "Who from? 'Excuse me sir, could you help my friend, he appears to be being beaten up by fellow vampires'?"

  "I dunno," said Darwin disappearing into the revolving door of the entrance. "Go get lots of garlic or something."

  'Does that even work?" Cassidy called out after him. "Really?"

  Once inside the entranceway, Darwin pulled back his hood and took a deep breath. He tried not to dwell on his fears, instead making his way through the door and down the stairs that lay beyond. Something felt wrong. At first he couldn't put his finger on it but then as he neared the bottom of the stairs it occurred to him. Surely he should have been challenged by now, either by the security of the building or at least by a couple of Metzger's Vampirwaffen bully boys.

  His fears were confirmed when he emerged into the lobby. This usually busy hub was empty, and from the way the reception desk was overturned and the entire room appeared to be covered in a thick layer of dust, there had been some sort of disturbance. He looked closer and recognised the unmistakable khaki uniform of the Vampirwaffen amongst the dust.

  "Hello," he called out. "Hello, is there anyone here?"

  CHAPTER NINE - The Inquisitor

  Maureen wasn't sure what time she fell asleep, but she remembered her bedside clock reading 2am at one point. Her sleep was troubled, filled with strange images - Ernest being chased by his notebook, fluttering in the air behind him; there were elves in the shadows, or at least their eyes - or what Maureen imagined their eyes looked like - huge, looming out of the darkness.

  The morning felt like any other, but she knew it wasn't. It was a little emptier, a fact the day had not seemed to have woken up to. The house was still bitterly cold, despite the weak sunlight that flooded in through the windows, the pipes still groaned when she flushed the toilet, and the stairs still creaked. Perhaps she should take these as welcome signs that despite her sorrow, things carried on, and so must she. But if yesterday's little trip had done anything it had shown her what a miserable existence she now lived. She wouldn't go so far as to say there was nothing worth living for, but maybe she was just in denial.

  The hot water was playing up, so she boiled a kettle and washed herself in the bathroom sink, all the time looking at the grimy old bath and wondering when the last time she had a really good soak was. It was only as she was drying herself and hurriedly trying to get dressed to get warm again that she remembered that the Inquisitor was due. She hurried downstairs to the cellar just in time to hear the first knocks on the door.

  The Inquisitor was a small man with prematurely white hair and small round glasses. He wore a black bowler hat and long black winter coat. Presumably someone had told him about the weather.

  "Miss Summerglass?" he asked peering over his glasses to look at her. Behind him stood Joseph. Maureen wanted to apologise for her silence the night before, but the presence of the Inquisitor made conversation seem awkward.

  "You must be the Inquisitor," she said.

  The man pointed into Maureen's cellar, “Shall we?" he asked. "Let's not lose any time with pleasantries."

  Pleasantries or not, it didn't stop Maureen reluctantly offering the man a cup of tea and then explaining she had run out of milk. She was almost certain that she heard the man tut under his breath as he refused.

  "Now this should be fairly simple," The Inquisitor explained as he moved the blankets out of Maureen's armchair and sat down, placing his briefcase on his lap. There was the sound of double clasps opening and he removed a pen and p
ad.

  Maureen perched herself on the edge of the sofa, the presence of the Inquisitor making her feel uneasy and unable to relax in her own house.

  "I will go and arrange for the body to be released, and arrange for the coffin to be brought back through here."

  Maureen felt uncomfortable with this. She wanted to pay her last respects to Ernest, but the thought of his coffin passing through her house caused her unease.

  "I'm a bit worried that getting it down into the cellar might prove difficult. Your staircase is very narrow."

  There was an accusatory tone to his voice. I can't be blamed for that, Maureen thought to herself. I might be old, but I'm not old enough to have built the place. But she, too, wondered if a coffin would fit down the stairs into the cellar. Think of the noise, she thought and then came to a stark realisation.

  "There could be a problem,” Maureen said. "My neighbours watch me like a hawk. They'd notice a coffin coming into the house and would ask questions."

  There was an audible sigh from the Inquisitor.

  "Miss Summerglass," he said. "That is not my concern. It's your duty as gatekeeper to sort that out. I'm merely to go and collect the body."

  "Are you not dealing with the murder investigation?"

  The man laughed a derogatory guffaw. "What murder investigation?"

  "Ernest," Maureen said defiantly. "He was murdered. Rofen said so."

  The man looked down at her from over the top of his glasses. It made Maureen feel as if the Inquisitor was patronising her.

  "Really?" he questioned. "I think you'll find it was a case of a drunken wizard getting into a bar room brawl."

  Maureen attempted to keep a straight face to hide her shock at this. Ernest wasn't a drinker, not really. He might enjoy the odd glass of wine, or on the times when Maureen used to arrange to cook for him after a visit into London, maybe a beer. But even then he preferred to have it watered down into a shandy. No, she could safely say that Ernest had never been a drinker.

  She considered the Inquisitor carefully. Why would he lie to her? Was that what he was being told, or had he made that story up himself? He'd shown genuine surprise at the mention of a murder investigation so she suspected, no matter how much she had already grown to dislike the man in this short time, that he probably believed he was telling the truth.

  All this asked a much larger question. Why? Why would Ernest's murder be covered up? And if it was being covered up why would Rofen tell her? Surely, any cover up would go to the top? Had he just been over excited and let it slip, or had he meant to tell her?

  Anger ignited deep inside her. Whatever had happened they were just going to cover it up, explain it away as some misadventure. The indignity of it all. Ernest had been loyal to the Friary for as long as Maureen could remember. He'd never once complained or moaned, just accepted change as something he needed to adapt to rather than resist. And this was how they paid him back for all those loyal years of service? Murdered in some street for what?

  Maureen thought back to her conversation with Rofen. The notebook! He had asked her about it. Had Ernest made some discovery? A discovery that maybe some people, more senior people, were willing to kill for?

  Grief does funny things to people. Maureen had seen people who'd been unable to cry over the loss of their partners, who'd appeared to be unmoved by the death when nothing could be further from the truth. Others, strong people who could withstand adversity after adversity, she'd seen reduced to blubbering wrecks. Maureen wasn't sure which end of the scale she was, but she did feel a little imbalanced. Someone should be bringing Ernest's killer to justice, not just covering it up. And if the Friary wasn't going to do anything about it, perhaps she should.

  She tried to reason with herself. She was a little old lady, not one of those television detectives who leapt across car bonnets and beat confessions out of people. But what did she have to lose? If the cold didn't take her, old age would. And what had she accomplished in all her years? Opened a door. That was hardly a worthy epitaph. And it looked like the very organisation she was working for, was the one trying to cover this all up.

  "I've had enough," she said to herself. She had put up with years of people's nonsense; she was at an age where she didn't have to take it anymore. It was only when the Inquisitor looked up from his notes that she realised that she'd said it aloud.

  "Don't worry," he said matter-of-factly. "We're due to do another review next year, and this place only just escaped closure last time. Have you got family you can go live with?"

  She wanted to say no, that she'd been too busy married to the job to settle down and have children of her own. What was worse was that the Inquisitor didn't seem to see any offense in saying this. That's all right Maureen, he seemed to suggest. We'll just throw you out on the streets so you can take care of yourself. By the way, thanks for the years of service.

  Maureen pursed her lips, and looked out the window.

  "Are you planning on going up to London today, Inquisitor?" she said.

  "That's why I'm here," he said, not without a trace of sarcasm, Maureen noted.

  "Well, I hope you brought a thicker coat than the one you are wearing now. It's a long walk into Guildford, and there's no way the bus is going to be running in this weather."

  "Walk?" the Inquisitor said perplexed.

  "Oh, haven't you heard, Inquisitor? We're out in the sticks here. Anybody looking to go into London nowadays does so via Luton. Easier transport connections, so I hear."

  The Inquisitor got up, putting his briefcase on the chair as he stood, and looked out at the snow.

  "Don't they grit the roads, or something?"

  "Oh don't be so silly, they won't down here for days. Folks down here are used to coping. Most of them have those big four by fours."

  "A hearse?" There was a note of worry in the Inquisitor's voice.

  "Oh lordy. You won't be able to get a hearse down that road for a week. It'll just skid off into a ditch."

  "A ditch?"

  "Road up to Puttenham is very narrow at the best of times. And of course we're in the shade of the Hog's Back here, so it'll take ages for the snow to melt, and then ages for the ice formed from the melted snow to go. Do you know, a couple of years back, we still hadn't got rid of all the snow by April? April! Can you believe it?"

  "But I have to get the body back tonight." Maureen took great delight by the way the man almost seemed to squeal.

  "Oh dear," she said. "I don't think you'll be doing that."

  "But I... But I..." the Inquisitor flustered. He started stuffing papers back into his briefcase. "I'll have to go another way."

  "You could always try Luton," Maureen suggested helpfully.

  The Inquisitor closed his briefcase but not properly because he'd not gone more than a couple of steps across the living room before it sprung open, the contents flying across the room. Maureen bent down to help but the Inquisitor was already scooping papers up and throwing them unceremoniously back into the briefcase. Safely clasped this time, he picked it up and hurried down the cellar stairs.

  There's no use hurrying, Maureen thought to herself whilst fingering the key in her pocket. She deliberately took her time going down the steps.

  "Well, it was lovely seeing you, Inquisitor," she said as she ambled over to the door. "Perhaps next time, it won't be such a flying visit?"

  The Inquisitor said nothing, instead seeming to hop from foot to foot as if he was in desperate need of the bathroom. Maureen couldn't help but take slight pity on him and decided not to torment him anymore. She unlocked her door and then entered the passage to bang on Joseph's door. She saw the latch go but noted that, as Joseph had said, the door had remained unlocked.

  "Finished so soon?" said Joseph with a face of concern.

  The Inquisitor said nothing and pushed his way past without as much as a goodbye. Maureen tutted. Manners didn't cost anything.

  Joseph watched him storm down the covered walkway before turning back to Maureen
.

  "Are you all right, Maureen?" he asked worriedly.

  Maureen looked up at him and smiled. "Yes, Joseph. I'm fine. Really. Thank you."

  Joseph didn't look convinced.

  "You just holler if you need anything," he said.

  Good old Joseph. Always there if she needed him, just like his father and grandfather before him. She worried how she would cope if she had to leave this place. No, she corrected herself, not if, when. The Inquisitor had confirmed it was on the cards, although it was no big shock. She had a year left here, at most. And then what? Where would she go? What would happen to Joseph? This gateway was his job too. She should tell him, give him notice so that at least he had time to maybe look for another job. But what if he found one? That would mean losing him early, and she wasn't sure she could cope with that.

  So instead she just told him, "I'm just a bit of turmoil at the moment. Pay me no mind. I'll be all right, just want to be on my own for a while. Please don't take any offense by it."

  The troll reached out and ruffled her hair with that big three fingered hand of his. "Oh Maureen," he said. "What are we going to do with you?"

  She returned his smile and then stepped back to close the door, hearing the latch but not the key turn. What were they going to do with her indeed? She stepped back into her realm, closed her door, locked it and hung up the key before everything hit her at once and she burst into tears.

  CHAPTER TEN - A Different Direction

  Magellan stared out the windows at the vista beyond. From up here you could see across the whole valley. You might not even know there were Humans here were it not for the tell-tale signs of houses visible under the trees on the far side.

  He sighed. How to ruin perfection, stick an ugly house in the middle.

  He turned to look at Mr East who was sitting patiently on the living room sofa, sipping at a cup of tea. How false, Mr Magellan thought, probably all West’s fault with his comments on individuality and acting ‘more human’. But why would anyone want to be more human? They called this space a living room but Magellan wanted to spend as little of his life as possible in here. The television had never been switched on, and as for that bookcase, he wasn't even sure what books were in it. A bookcase can tell you a lot about a person, the training programmes had said. Apparently his told him that he liked bird watching. All he knew was that if it wasn't for the fantastic view, Mr Magellan wouldn't ever come into this room.