The Four Realms

by Adrian Faulkner

  D'Toeni let go of her neck. Maureen found herself rubbing where the hand had been.

  The vampire paced the cellar. "I don't believe it. I do not fucking believe it!"

  He walked over to Darwin and pointed a finger at him, though Maureen noticed he kept some distance between them. "This is all your fault," he said. "Another Darwin screw up!"

  Brian sank to his haunches and put his head in his hands. "We're fucked. We're fucked. Those things are going to catch up with us."

  "No-one's dead yet," Darwin protested.

  Brian narrowed his eyes at him. "Tell that to Jules."

  "I vote we make a run for it," said Stevens.

  "And go where?" Monk asked.

  "Back to the factory. We were safe there."

  "And how much longer do you think we'll continue to be safe there? A week? A month?"

  "I say we cut our losses and run," D'Toeni commented. "Every vampire for himself."

  "My, D'Toeni," Darwin sniped. "What a cowardly thing to do?"

  "Perhaps we could force open the door," Monk suggested. "Darwin, hand me Metzger's sword."

  D'Toeni beamed as Darwin took a step back. "Yes, why don't you do that, Darwin? Then maybe we can finish our little discussion from earlier."

  "What about Luton?" Honest Tom suggested. "We could go to Luton."

  Darwin shook his head. "Well unfortunately, D'Toeni saw to it that the minibus is as good as useless."

  "Me? I wasn't the one with the sword, dear boy."

  "I think we have another problem," Monk called out.

  Everyone looked down the passageway toward him. He was on all fours, ear to the floor, trying to look under the door. "It's daylight."

  "It can't be," said Honest Tom, pushing through everyone to join Monk at the door.

  "I tell you, it's daylight."

  Stevens turned round to face Maureen. "What's the meaning of this?" he demanded.

  Whereas the one with the bleeding face frightened her, Stevens held as much fear as an accountant.

  "It means it's still daylight in Venefasia. And it will be for another hour or so."

  Brian looked to the ceiling, his hands fists behind his head. "We're doomed."

  "So we wait an hour, wait until it gets dark and then try and force open the door?" Honest Tom suggested.

  D'Toeni huffed. "You can wait. I'm feasting." He walked over and gripped Maureen firmly by the arm.

  Maureen tried to pull away from him but D'Toeni just strengthened his grip until it hurt.

  Monk stood up. "Hey. There are others of us that are hungry as well. You going to share her around?"

  "Find your own meal," D'Toeni bit back.

  Maureen wondered what she could do. Maybe if she screamed Sally or Simon would hear.

  "Help!" she yelled.

  D'Toeni responded by clamping a hand over her mouth. "If you're going to cause trouble, I'll make sure it hurts." As if to re-enforce the point, he squeezed her arm so tight, Maureen thought it might snap. Tears came to her eyes.

  Cassidy jumped to her aid. "Leave her alone, D'Toeni. This has nothing to do with her."

  "Haven't you learned your lesson yet?" the vampire spat. But he let go when he caught sight of Darwin reaching behind him for his sword.

  "Take her upstairs, Cassidy," Darwin said as all vampire eyes looked at him.

  "You need to decide just whose side you're on, Darwin, because at the moment it sure doesn't look like you're on ours."

  Maureen didn't wait to see if things would escalate. She started heading up the stairs, Cassidy behind her.

  "I have to feed the cats," she told the girl as she made her way into the kitchen. She probably ought to be worrying about other things right now, but there was nothing she could do. Better to be doing something practical, if only to take her mind off what was happening downstairs.

  Cassidy watched as Maureen filled the two dishes on the floor, the cats waiting anxiously at her feet.

  "What are their names?" she asked.

  "The big one is Neil. He's generally good natured but can get grumpy at times. Nicholas is the mischievous one. He'll jump up on the side if you happen to leave food out."

  Cassidy crouched down to stroke them. "They're gorgeous."

  "Well mind Neil, especially when he's eating."

  But Neil showed none of his usual grumpiness, instead offering his neck and head Cassidy's outstretched hand.

  Maureen smiled. "He likes you."

  "I get on with animals."

  "Huh. You mean like that lot downstairs," Maureen said as she put on the kettle. "Tea?"

  Cassidy nodded. "You lived here long, Mrs...?"

  "Summerglass, Maureen Summerglass, and it's Miss not Mrs."

  Maureen opened the fridge and smelled the milk. She'd not had chance to get out for days so it came as no surprise when she could tell it had gone off before she even got close. Oh well, Cassidy would just have to put up with black tea.

  "And in answer to your question, eighty-two years." She put the milk back into the fridge and waited for the kettle to boil whilst Cassidy played with the cats.

  "Let me ask you a question now," Maureen said, handing Cassidy the tea and sitting down at the kitchen table. Cassidy removed her coat and sat down beside her. "Why are you with them, Cassidy?"

  Maureen dreaded to think what sort of enchantment the vampires might have her under. Were they torturing the poor girl? "Are they hurting you? Making you do things you don't want?"

  Cassidy raised an eyebrow at Maureen. "No."

  "Then why on earth is a nice girl like you hanging around with them? They're dangerous people."

  "Darwin's my friend. He looks after me."

  There was an air of calmness around the girl that Maureen took for ignorance.

  "Besides, I can look after myself," she smiled, which only seemed to re-enforce Maureen's fears.

  Perhaps you need to stop worrying about the girl and start worrying about yourself, Maureen thought. Cassidy might be convinced that she could handle the vampires, but Maureen couldn't say the same about herself. Surely once they realised there really was no way through, they wouldn't think twice about killing her. She needed to come up with her own plan of escape.

  Her best bet lay with Sally and Simon. If she could get word to them, maybe they could call the police. There was no need to explain what they were or why they were here. She could just explain it away as a gang of crooks trying to rob her. There seemed to be a lot of that sort of thing going on in the papers of late.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Darwin emerging from under the stairs.

  "Everything OK?" Cassidy asked as he entered the kitchen.

  He shook his head. "I've had better days."

  Cassidy handed him her untouched tea. He took it and took a big swig of it. Any reaction to the lack of milk he kept concealed.

  Darwin addressed Maureen. "Right, we need to find a way to open that door or I won't be held responsible for what happens to you."

  Maureen's eyes narrowed. She didn't like threats at the best of times, least not in her own home. But maybe there was opportunity in this? If she did something that made a lot of noise, perhaps Sally and Simon would hear and come to her aid? She sighed. She was clutching at straws.

  "Why should I help you? You'll kill me anyways."

  Darwin leaned over Cassidy knocking into her chair as he brought his face close up to Maureen's.

  "I'll kill you if you don't," he said as something fell out of Cassidy's coat pocket and onto the floor.

  Maureen couldn't make it out at first, but then as it bounced across the kitchen floor she realised it was a notebook. It wasn't until it had completed its acrobatics, landing face up that she saw the monogrammed name on the front: "E. F. McFadden".

  Maureen gasped.

  She stood, her emotions a mix of fear, anger and grief. She'd found Ernest's killers, here in her very house. She'd searched Venefasia for them only for them to turn up on her doorstep. How could they?
How could they murder a poor, defenceless old man? How cold; how very, very cold.

  If she could she would have burned every single one of them. Well, all of them besides the girl - naive as she might be, she was still human. Maureen didn't consider herself a murderer but these things, these vampires, were worse than animals. Putting them down would be no sin and leave no mark on her conscience. Oh, if she could only open that door. Open it and let the mana flood in. Then she'd teach them the meaning of the word vengeance.

  It was no good. She couldn't stay here any longer. She couldn't breathe, the house felt claustrophobic. She had to get out.

  She was half way down the hall before Darwin realised what she was doing.

  "Hey," he shouted. "Come back here."

  She ignored him. They would probably kill her before she reached the front door, but she didn't care. She just wasn't going to go down without a fight. Of course an eighty-two year old against a group of vampires ... what did you call a group of vampires? A colony? Whatever it was, she wouldn't last long against it.

  Darwin reached her a couple of steps before the front door. His arm grabbed her around the neck. She yanked her elbow back hard, connecting with his stomach. She needed to breathe. He doubled up, his hold on her momentarily slipping. It was enough for her to have time to reach the door and turn the handle.

  He grabbed her again, more forcibly this time, his forearm pushing against her throat. He pulled her back from the door. "I said, come back here," he wheezed.

  Maureen kept hold of the door handle and pulled it open as she was dragged backward. It opened to let in the cold night air she so desperately craved. It washed over her like oxygen, and she found herself taking a deep breath.

  And there standing on the doorstep was a man with slightly unkempt balding hair and a half untucked shirt. Maureen recognised him and her heart soared.

  "Simon," she said, relief washing over her. If she'd thought about it, she would have questioned what use he would have been against this colony of vampires, but at that moment in time he was her knight in shining armour. But she felt the vampire flinch, the pressure on her neck easing a little. She heard him gasp, as if this was a man they feared.

  "Hello, Maureen," said Mr West, running a hand over his hair. "Hello, Darwin."

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX - West’s Unexpected Gift

  Mr West smiled. He'd not wanted to believe the drone. There had been too many random occurrences of late, too many incorrect data models for him to get excited. But the drone had promised that he would go round and help Maureen and this gave him the perfect excuse to check. He liked being a good neighbour. And there he was, Darwin - presumably with Cassidy and the notebook nearby.

  Darwin's immediate reaction was to leap at the door, bowling Maureen to one side as he slammed it shut in Mr West's face. It was to be expected, he supposed. But it was no use. West had seen the intelligence reports, he knew that the Venefasia side-door of the gateway was locked. The vampires had nowhere to go.

  He turned and quietly walked back down Maureen's path as the sound of upheaval echoed from beyond the door. Barricading themselves in, he concluded. Good, that made it harder for them to escape into the night.

  There would probably be some form of discussion, probably a few heated words before they started thinking about their next move. That meant he had time... probably. That word had seemed so disgusting to him once, the foul-mouthed curse of a heretic, but here... here 'probably' pretty much summed up this world.

  He felt a rush as he realised that he'd just made an analysis of the situation without simulation. Humans called it "gut reaction". He liked gut reaction. There was something so freeing about casting aside the mathematics and just feeling the future. It was like driving down a straight, empty road with your eyes closed: thrilling and just a little dangerous.

  There was a spring in his step as he walked along the lane from Maureen’s to his own gate. Things finally seemed to be coming together.

  He'd felt betrayed when the drone had told him of Magellan and North's failed attempt to trap Darwin and Cassidy. No, not a drone he told himself. Referring to her as such no longer seemed apt, her work surely deemed her worthy of a name once again and Sally was as good as anything. She'd achieved more than the combined forces of Magellan and North, a point he'd make them aware of when they arrived.

  He stopped with his hand on his gate. Did he really want to invite Magellan and North here? Wouldn't it be better to acquire the notebook and then inform them that the task was done? He shook his head. No, he couldn't be sure of just how many vampires were now in Maureen's house. He needed all available resource, which of course meant he'd get just Magellan and North. Maybe he could talk them into bringing some heavily armed drones with them? He didn't need gut reaction to know for certain what the outcome to that request would be. The arrogant bastards.

  There was always Sally if he needed her. Four should be enough, even if there were twenty vampires next door. He doubted Magellan would give her the honour of fighting beside them. No, it was best she stay out of this, lest things went wrong and certain evidence needed destroying.

  He walked up the path and into his house.

  Sally stood in the hallway looking pensive. "Well?"

  "They're there," he said handing Sally his coat as he walked past.

  "Now what?" Her demeanour was sober. What a shame she isn't willing to enjoy this victory, West thought. The Dictatoriat stripped her of more than just her name.

  "Now we call in Magellan and North."

  Sally hesitated then asked as tentatively as she could, "is that wise, sir?"

  Good, so they had not managed to take all sense of identity from her.

  "It's perfectly wise, Sally." He made sure to stress the use of the word 'Sally', though if it registered she was not giving anything away with her body language. "I want them to share in the moment of our victory."

  At that Sally managed a slight smile.

  Mr West opened the door to the basement. "Call them in, would you, Sally?"

  She nodded and rushed off to comply as West started making his way down the stairs. How he would have liked to have seen their faces when Sally told them. They couldn't fail to accept his methods now. Not only had they tried to outsmart him by launching their own trap - and failed - but now they had to witness as he captured the vampire and his cohort. West felt very smug.

  The basement looked something between an archaeological dig site and a renovation project. The ground was covered in sand, only placed on top of the soil so that he didn't keep walking mud into the house above. Dotted around, seemingly at random, scaffolding supported the house above, planks on the floor stopping the scaffolding sinking into the dirt. On three sides there were dirt walls, the occasional bit of the foundations showing through. On the fourth, the side that adjoined Maureen's basement, the wall had been revealed and carefully thinned. In the centre, the back of the gateway swirled, different colours emerging and disappearing.

  It had taken Mr West months to excavate this basement, the sounds of power drills and hammers in the spare bedroom upstairs used to mask the real work that had gone on. From here they could safely study the gateway without fear of discovery. West had to admit that it was both a thing of pure beauty and a freak of nature. He knew what it was: a wormhole, a tear in the world. His people made use of them, opening wormholes to travel great distances instantaneously. Yet he also knew how brief they were able to sustain them for, and the ridiculous amount of energy they could take. There had been strong objections to the fleet coming here simply on the basis that the outward journey alone would take more than three years of his entire world's energy consumption. Of course, they had come here not knowing what they would find, if anything. Then they had found this.

  Here was a wormhole that didn't just tear space, it tore dimensions. He'd had people supply him with maps of stars, and used it together with what was known about the universe to try and pinpoint Venefasia's location. Nothing matched. Wher
ever Venefasia was it wasn't in this dimension. That discovery in itself was mind-blowing but his people didn't care. Their only concern was the primary mission.

  Then there was the fact that the gateway maintained itself and by all accounts had done so for at least hundreds of years. And not just one. There were hundreds, if not thousands of these gateways, not all of them controlled by the Friary.

  He walked up to and placed his palm less than an inch from the swirling air. He wanted to place his hand through but knew better than to do so. Wormholes had directions, enter one the wrong way and who knows where you went... certainly somewhere you never returned from.

  He closed his eyes, trying to sense the gateway. Maybe a slight breeze? A sense of power? No, there was nothing. He opened his eyes and turned to see Sally standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  He offered her a weak smile. "Have you contacted Magellan?"

  As if in response the air shimmered and Magellan faded into the room. How different their teleportation technology seemed to the gateway in front of him. It was the same science, or at least the tests he'd conducted since revealing the back of it appeared to indicate it was. How little they really knew about these gateways. Still, in a couple of minutes the notebook would be theirs, Ernest's years of observations being added to their science. Perhaps the mystery of how the gateways stayed open would be revealed.

  There was a second shimmer and Mr North stepped into view. His head and arm was bandaged. Sally had said he'd lost a tentacle in the fight. West found himself instinctively reaching for his own arm, memories of his injury at Nanny Voodoo's still fresh in his mind.

  West hailed his superior. Magellan's body language betrayed him as always and West almost had to stifle a smirk at Magellan's obvious discomfort at being here.

  "Where are they?" Magellan growled.

  West pointed at the wall. "Just through here."

  "Good. Let's get this over and done with once and for all.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN - Betrayal

  Darwin's world was crashing down around him. It had seemed like such a simple plan: grab the minibus, ferry everyone to the gateway and out into Venefasia. But then D'Toeni had proved himself to be an arsehole, taken a dislike to Cassidy and started a fight. Cassidy had managed to drop the notebook, send the old dear into hysterics and running for the door. And just when things couldn't get worse, who was standing there but one of the men who had been chasing him.