by Craig Askham
“You’re going to be fine, Grujo. I’m going to get you out of here.”
He shook his head, face partially obscured by greasy strands of hair that he was unable to push away. She stopped trying to free him and brushed them away, then subconsciously wiped her hands on her tunic before reaching for his restraints again.
“Don’t bother. I’m done.”
“No you’re not.”
“Idella.” He sounded calm. At peace, even. “I’m done.”
Idella sobbed.
“No. Please.”
She barely knew him, and certainly didn’t like him very much, but she desperately didn’t want him to die. Not like this. They’d defeated Varun Behl together, and should be celebrating together. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and didn’t need to turn around to know it was Tregurtha.
“We should get out of here, Idella.” His voice was gentle, but she found his words callous under the circumstances and tried to shrug her way free. Reluctantly, he let go. “The acolytes could return. Or worse, more City Watch could arrive.”
“I need to stay here with Grujo. Until he…nobody should die alone.”
Grujo reached out and took her hand in his, a wan smile on his face.
“Thank you,” he said.
Tregurtha sighed, and Idella heard him walk away, muttering something about not signing up for this part. She turned to make sure he wasn’t going too far, and when she looked back at Grujo he was dead. He’d managed to close his eyes one last time, which she was grateful for as she didn’t think she could have brought herself to use her hand to do it for him. Gently, she pulled her hand free from his and took a step back.
“Goodbye, Grujo. You were…an idiot, if I’m being honest. But your heart was in the right place.” She took another step back, and caught herself raising a hand to wave at him. “Er…safe journey, I guess.”
Annoyed that a few pathetic words were the best she could come up with, she shook her head and hurried after Tregurtha, pausing only to scoop up her sword on the way. By the time she fell into step with him, she’d managed to banish her negative thoughts and was grinning happily at the ring on her finger.
Fifteen
Rafferty lay still, trying to ignore his throbbing head. There was a chance he’d gotten a little carried away. A small chance, but a chance nonetheless. He wanted to open his eyes to check that Idella had left, but his professionalism wouldn’t allow it. Hurry up, this is uncomfortable! Finally, he heard a voice call from somewhere up above. Veronica’s, of course.
“Aaaand…clear! Good work, people. I guess.”
Rafferty took a deep breath and opened his eyes. One of the fallen acolytes explosively let out his breath as he sat up, and then groaned to make sure everyone knew that his body was aching.
“Can somebody untie me, please?” That came from the fellow strapped to the altar. A hand appeared in front of his face, and he looked up to see that it belonged to the acolyte with the achy body. Accepting the help, he allowed the athletic looking man to pull him to his feet before clapping him awkwardly on the shoulder.
“Thank you very much, chap. Good work, by the way.”
“No worries, man. Well done to you, too. That last scene was…different to what we’re used to. Intense.”
Rafferty gave him his most winsome smile, and decided to take it as a compliment. Screw you, Jason Lister. Good luck following that!
The rest of the acolytes began filtering back in pairs. Naz, the insufferable dolt with the big mouth, was already untying Grujo’s restraints. There was much back slapping and congratulating going on. Veronica and her little assistant appeared from the shadows, both of them looking directly at him. The assistant’s wide-eyed expression betrayed her relief, perhaps even gratitude, whilst Veronica was still doing her best if looks could kill impression. He managed to take a few steps in her direction before being accosted by Naz, who grabbed his hand and pumped it enthusiastically.
“Amazing performance!” he bellowed, somewhat theatrically. “Absolute honour to be able to work with you again, sir. I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when I walked in and saw the great Rafferty Barnes in front of me! You probably don’t remember, but I was Graziano to your Iago once, must’ve been five years or so ago? In Stratford?”
God, how embarrassing. Rafferty had no idea who this man was, but was mildly impressed at how well he’d played the fool tonight. He’d fooled the great Rafferty Barnes, anyway.
“Of course! Othello was one of my favourites, young man. So very good to see you again. You were amazing tonight. One of the best death scenes I’ve ever witnessed. Seriously.”
The young actor beamed from ear to ear, and Rafferty took the opportunity to disentangle himself from him before any fake blood stained him. With one last clap of the shoulder, he sidestepped him and continued towards Veronica. Grujo, covered in fake blood, had other ideas.
“Hello there,” he greeted, wiping a hand on his tunic before holding it out to be shaken. Reluctantly, Rafferty did so.
“Hello there, yourself. Great job tonight.” He tried to move on, but his fellow actor was having none of it.
“You scared the hell out of me, dude. I literally nearly soiled myself. Awesome work!”
“Oh, stop it. It was nothing. Really.”
“Nothing? You’re kidding me, right?” His eyes were wide with excitement, adrenaline still racing through his veins and causing his cheeks to turn ruddy. He could barely breathe, and used the hand that wasn’t gripping Rafferty’s to push wayward locks of dank hair from his eyes. “Dude, she was crying real tears when she left here. You did that. She was so caught up in the performance that she believed every word, completely forgot that it wasn’t real. She even held my hand as I died! I mean, nobody’s ever done that before! She genuinely believed I was dead, man! We should totally hook up, Raff – can I call you Raff – I know this great bar in LA that does the best cocktails. Or we could just go straight to my condo and have sex? Am I being too forward? I’m so sorry, I really don’t know what’s come over me. Must be the adrenaline. Please don’t hate me.”
Rafferty squirmed free of Grujo’s grip, managing to fix a fake smile to his face that had none of the conviction of his demonic performance just a few minutes previously.
“Thank you, thank you. I have a rule that forbids me from dating fellow cast mates, but thank you so much for the compliment. Perhaps some other time when we’re not working together?”
Grujo’s shoulders slumped, and he belatedly plastered a smile to his face that was no more convincing than Rafferty supposed his own was.
“Oh. Of course. Makes sense, I guess. If you change your mind, though, you know where to find me. Congrats again on the performance.”
Mercifully, he moved on. Behind him, Rafferty could hear the actress who’d ‘killed’ Naz complaining loudly to him about harassment in the workplace, and how he was lucky she wasn’t reporting him to Professional Standards. He sighed, fixing his sights on Veronica once more. Time to make his excuses and get the hell out of this madhouse. Despite the congratulations on his performance, he couldn’t help but feel the whole thing had been a complete shambles, and it was an assessment he was sure Veronica would wholeheartedly agree with. This wasn’t for him. He’d done the best he could under the circumstances, of course, but he was going to have a lump the size of a golf ball on his head, not to mention the bruise on his hip where the delightful Idella had kicked him. And they’d only done one performance so far! There were at least another four to go before the end of the night, and he was pretty sure at least one of the performances was going to end up killing him. He cleared his throat as he came to a stop in front of the director. She glared at him, and started talking before he could.
“Don’t even think about quitting on me, Rafferty Barnes.” Beside her, Jida rolled her eyes at her use of his real name. Veronica, of course, ignored her. “The next group will be here in less than ten minutes. You will repeat that performance another four times befo
re the night is through. If you don’t want to come back again tomorrow, then fair enough. But you owe me this much, Barnes. Don’t even think about leaving me in the lurch, unless you’re happy to start carrying your balls around in your hand instead of your scrotum.”
Rafferty opened his mouth to protest, and abruptly closed it again. This wasn’t going to plan. Was Veronica saying his performance was…adequate? He opened his mouth again. And then closed it again. He noted the satisfaction she was getting from his indecision. Finally, he thought of something useful to say.
“You mean, you actually want me to stay?”
She laughed. It wasn’t a laugh really, more like a snort or a harrumph, She started shaking her head, and didn’t stop until she’d finished speaking again.
“Of course I don’t want you to stay, you foppish little prick. I hate you more than life itself. But…overall, your performance tonight didn’t completely make me want to kill myself. Do yourself a favour, and lay off the cheese a little bit. And the ham. You’re way too hammy, Barnes. Just relax a little bit, and bear in mind there’s nobody from the Academy watching you. There are no awards for best performance, and you don’t get to leave here with a little goody bag worth thousands. If you’re lucky, you’ll leave here with a modicum of dignity still attached and a desire to sleep for a month. Whatever the hell you did when the demon was supposedly leaving your body, I suggest you tone down ten notches next time. Don’t leave yourself open to attack, don’t try to contort your body into positions it wasn’t designed to contort into, and try not to smash your head on the floor. This is a marathon, not a race. If you continue to treat it like a race, you’ll be wrapped up in a foil blanket by the end of the first mile.” She held her hand up in front of his face, thumb and index finger an inch apart. “Your performance tonight was this much above average.” She increased the gap to two inches. “Your next performance needs to be this much above average. Blink twice if any of this is getting through, Rafferty.”
Without waiting for an answer, she turned tail and strode off into the shadows. Rafferty didn’t have a single clue what to say, so he focused his disbelieving stare on the unsuspecting Jida Alakija instead. She shrugged her narrow little shoulders, and focused her own stare several inches to the left of his face.
“Leave. Stay. Whatever.” She took a step forward and clapped her hands to get everybody’s attention. That was it. Case dismissed. “Right everyone, I think that’s quite enough back slapping for one evening. Start preparing for the next performance, please. I want that altar scrubbed, and all the weapons back where they belong. Those of you who need clean clothing, please report to the costume department immediately. Come on, people; chop chop!” She retraced the one step she’d taken, and glared up at Rafferty with a raised eyebrow. “Well? Are you in or are you out?”
Rafferty looked down at her, and shook his head in defeat.
“Fine. But don’t think for one moment I’ll be cleaning corn syrup off that altar.” He winked as he drew himself up to his full height. “I’m Rafferty bloody Barnes.”
Sixteen
Yooku Sangari stalked the shadows, Rafferty Barnes all but forgotten about. She had bigger problems. There. On the floor, just ahead. Her heart sank. Fighting the urge to keep on walking until she reached the portal, she came to a halt and looked down at the crumpled bodies of the two dead Watchmen, Durler and Ditmas. How the hell was she going to explain this? She knelt down next to them, Ditmas on top of Durler, both of them with their necks snapped. Nausea crept upwards from her stomach. She waited for the feeling to subside, averting her gaze so that she was looking at everything and anything other than the dead men. The truly dead men. No acting here. No yelling cut so they could sit up and stretch their achy muscles.
“There’s no point hiding,” she said, finally. “We need to deal with this.”
Givrok Ironshoulder materialised from nowhere, and crouched down next to her. When he reached for her shoulder, she flinched. Accepting her judgment with a nod, he withdrew his hand.
“Fair enough.”
“Why?” It was a rhetorical question. The man was a killer, plain and simple. He couldn’t answer her question, even if she gave him a month to think about it.
“I had no choice.”
“Of course you had a choice.”
“My job is to protect Stillwater.”
“You could have done that without killing them.”
He sighed and stood up, already done with defending himself to her.
“My decision to make, not yours. I couldn’t let them report back to their sergeant what they saw here. I was operating within my remit.”
“Their families will be grateful for that, no doubt.”
Ironshoulder shook his head, and his hair moved as if it was a separate entity. Under any other circumstances, she would have found it amusing. Under these specific circumstances, however, she found everything about the soldier terrifying. She’d made him angry. Not that making a monster such as this angry was ever a difficult thing to do, of course. How ironic that he embodied every single character trait Varun Behl himself would have been proud of.
“Their families will receive anonymous payments that will more than ease their burden. This is a beautiful world, but a harsh one. These men knew what they were getting into when they signed up for the Watch.”
“I very much doubt that, Givrok.” Yooku sighed, and crawled over to the nearest wall. Once there she sat and leaned her back against it, unable to tear her eyes away from the dead friends. One on top of the other, like discarded meat. Durler looked terrified. Ditmas looked confused. Ironshoulder slipped his hands underneath Ditmas’s armpits, and started to drag the big man away.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to dispose of the evidence before the next lot of gamers get here.” He paused to take a breath and compose himself for the next Herculean feat. “Don’t worry. The Department of Professional Standards have friends within the Watch. They’ll smooth this over.” He started dragging again, and Yooku watched him go. Suddenly all she could think about was her children, and whether they’d pick cereal or bagels for breakfast. They were the only things that mattered. She needed to hug them, make sure they were safe, make sure they were never exposed to men such as Givrok Ironshoulder. Resting the back of her head against the wall, she started to cry. A tear from each eye at first, already more than she usually allowed, but then a trickle and then a flood.
“Yooku?” Jida’s voice was shrill. “The next gamers are outside. Where are you? I need you.”
Poor Jida. How would she react if she saw these dead bodies? She’d probably faint. Don’t come any closer! You don’t need to see this. The sobs were starting to come thick and fast now. She’d given them permission, but now Jida was looking for her and she had to stop them again. It was easier said than done, of course. She sniffed loudly, as if doing so was going to be of any help whatsoever. Pulling a sleeve down over her hand, she used it to dab her eyes, still not trusting herself to speak. At least, not without using a quavering voice that would give her away in an instant. Forcing herself to her feet, she sniffed again and pushed herself away from the wall. One deep breath, two deep breaths, three deep breaths.
With one last wipe of her eyes, Yooku hurried back through the shadows and into the light.
“Coming.”
A Message From The Author
Right, then. Yes, it’s me again. Wakey wakey.
You didn’t take my advice, I see. Do you want me to wipe that dribble from your chin, or can you manage it yourself? There you go. Don’t worry, my sleeve is clean.
Did you like the book? You did? Excellent. In which case, just turn the page and have a little read of Book 3; Dragon Quest. It’s available for pre-order. Don’t worry, I won’t keep you waiting long; just choose your Amazon store and hit the link, and you can have it delivered the very second it goes live.
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Right. Without any further ado, and before you drop off again, just turn the page and read the excerpt, then get Book 3 ordered!
Dragon Quest: The Blurb
Dragon Quest Available – sightseeing only, strictly no hunting.
Once in a lifetime opportunity.
Meeting at the Beijing portal in under two hours.
Apply below.*
*Terms and Conditions Apply. Always read the small print. Severe danger of death.
Ben Hackett is one of the youngest trillionaires on Earth, and obsessed with dragons. Now, thanks to a new venture in portal tourism offered by the mysterious Stillwater Project, he’s finally in a position to do something about it.
Because dragons exist.
And, for the right price, he can go and see one in the flesh.
Catapulted through a portal to the medieval world of Vangura, Ben and a small group of similarly-minded adventurers find themselves high in the Seghiri mountains, where a large red dragon has been spotted for the first time in years. Together, and under the less-than-watchful eye of their hapless Stillwater guide, they set off on an expedition to find the dragon, risking life and limb along the way.
