The Four Realms (14 page)

It was upon finding this that Maureen made a decision that would change her life forever.
 
Maybe she didn't have anything more to lose, or maybe her grief had caused her to not think straight.

"I'm going to get to the bottom of this," she said to herself.

She'd said it before she'd even really had time to think about it, a subconscious slip that surprised her.
 
She'd never been one for going off and having adventures, instead content to stand by and let those people who did, in and out of her gateway.
 

There were a hundred and one good reasons for not embarking on the plan that was forming in the back of her head.
 
First and foremost, she was not an adventurer in any sense of the word, she was a little old lady.
 
Little old ladies did not go out sneaking into other realms.

"Poppycock," she told herself.
 
She was as fit as she'd been twenty years ago and it wasn't as if she was going to go off slaying dragons or anything.
 
No, she'd just simply pay a visit to Ernest's house and see if she couldn't find that notebook everyone seemed so excited about.
 
There was also probably an element of paying her last respects, because it was more than likely they'd now move the body through the Luton gateway and she'd never get to say her goodbyes.
 
Thinking about her plan stopped her crying.
 
She'd seen with her own eyes, heard him tell her so, that Joseph didn't lock his door.
 
What had he also said about people keeping to the right?
 
Could she really sneak through the Friary undetected?

Her heart raced at the thought.
 
What would she say if she was caught?
 
That she was testing the defences?
 
Wouldn't that get Joseph in trouble for not locking his door?
 
Or did she claim some form of senility? Or did she even give a damn what they thought when they treated loyal workers in such a way.

No, her mind was made up.
 
She was going to Ernest's house, that's what she had to do.

She folded up the map and then proceeded to walk round the house gathering things she might need for her trip:
 
tissues, a kitchen knife, a pen, some paper.
 
All these and others were put into her handbag for the trip.

She looked down at what she was wearing and tutted to herself.
 
Venefasia was a much warmer climate and her multiple layers, woolly hat and gloves would draw attention to herself.
 
She went upstairs and changed into a summer dress, wearing her dressing gown over the top to hold out the cold until such time as she stepped through the gateway.
 

And therein laid the difficulty.
 
Joseph was sat the other side, or at least he should be.
 
Would he stop her or would he offer to accompany her?
 
Maureen wasn't sure but thought it best not to involve him in her crazy plan.
 
That way, when they caught her, he wouldn't get fired as well.

She sighed.
 
Listen to yourself
, she thought,
already convinced you're going to be caught.
 
Why do this, Maureen?
 
Why ruin nearly eighty years of perfectly good service?
 
She knew the answer but the doubts remained.

She paced for much of the rest of the day, waiting for five o'clock in Venefasia, when, providing they weren't expecting anyone late back from the Realm of Men, Joseph would knock off.

#

The day was almost over.
 
Joseph should have gone home hours ago, but Maureen wanted to be extra sure.
 
She'd had plenty of time to reconsider her proposed actions, had mulled it over a hundred different ways in her head.
 
But each time she'd come to the conclusion that this was something she felt she had to do.
 
For Ernest.
 
That didn't mean there wasn't uncertainty.
 
She'd wanted to escape to Venefasia since she was a little girl and part of her worried that this was her enacting that fantasy.

She took a deep breath, and then key in hand carefully, silently, unlocked the door.
 
She stood there a moment as if waiting some reaction.
 
The silence was broken only by one of the cats meowing at her feet.

"You can't come," she whispered, as if there was someone else in the room that she didn't want to hear.
 
The cat rubbed up against her leg in denial, Maureen chased it away by shaking her foot.

She reached for the latch and gingerly, opened it.
 
There was a slight click as it opened, metal upon metal.
 
Maureen froze, waited thirty seconds before continuing.

The door squeaked as it opened.
 
Opening it slowly only caused more noise and Maureen winced at the high pitched squeal it emitted.
 
Stepping through into the corridor and closing the door behind her was just as agonising.

She was now shut in the corridor in the pitch black.
 
Stuck between two worlds she thought, and then worried what would happen if she got stuck here, unable to enter either realm.
 
She shook the thought out her head and fumbled in her handbag, to pull out the small torch she kept for whenever she had a power cut.
 
The light from it was weak, either the batteries or the bulb was going, but it was enough to see the door in front of her, Joseph's door and the latch.

Her heart was now racing, her mouth felt dry.
 
She reached out and touched the latch, waiting a few seconds before popping it open with a metallic clunk.
 
She winced.

She gave the door the smallest of pushes, trying to see if there was any resistance indicating that the door was locked.
 
Maybe Joseph had been lying, maybe he'd found the key and locked it, or maybe, as she found out, he had been telling the truth and the door was indeed unlocked.

Slowly, with her heart feeling like it was about to jump out her throat, she opened it, even slower than she'd opened her own door.
 
The door opened a crack and she put one eye to it, trying to see if anyone stood on the walkway beyond.

It was evening in Venefasia, the setting sun painting the sky in purple and peach.
 
Long shadows made the cloister seem eerie.
 
Maureen stood there staring out the crack in the door for a good two minutes before she felt comfortable that she was alone.

Quickly, she opened the door some more, slipped through, and closed the door behind her.
 
She looked out and up at the few premature stars that were the only witnesses to her trespass.

There was no time to stop though.
 
She was exposed and needed to get out of the Friary.
 
A woman on the streets of New Salisbury would blend in, but one in the Friary?

Keep to the right, Joseph had said.
 
Well, he'd proven right so far.
 
With a mixture of fear, sorrow and excitement she set off on the adventure she'd always dreamed of as a child.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Fight In The Library

Cassidy sat watching the gateway as Darwin searched among the books strewn amongst the upturned shelves.

"It's quite hypnotic, isn't it," she said entranced by the swirling reds and oranges.
 
Occasionally there'd be the hint of a shape, the vaguest of indications that something was out there, just beyond, perhaps waiting.

"This is the closest I've ever been to hell," she said.

Darwin wasn't paying attention, instead trying to find a book he remembered from his youth.
 
"Huh?" he grunted as he continued to search.
 
Even if the library hadn't been ransacked it would have still been a long and difficult search.
 
Vampires, it seemed, did not believe in indexing.

"I said this is the closest I've ever been to hell."

"You should try living with you then," Darwin quipped as yet another book looked promising only to prove useless.
 
He tossed it to the ground.
 
The place was a mess already, one more book wouldn't hurt.

"Hey!" Cassidy retorted standing up and walking over to where he was searching.
 
"What are you looking for exactly?"

"An elvish dictionary, so I can try and translate part of that notebook.
 
There used to be one here."

Cassidy shrugged.
 
"Books get lost."

Darwin could feel anger building up inside of him.
 
He yelled and threw the book he was holding at the portal.
 
As it hit it, it burst into orange flame before disappearing into its depths.

"This is useless," Darwin raged.
 
"I'm never gonna find it."

"I'm sure it'll turn up," Cassidy said, failing to sound reassuring.

Darwin slumped down cross legged in the midst of the strewn books.

"What if it's all my fault?" he said.
 
“What if that thing killed the vampires because they saw us take the notebook?"

"You don't know that.
 
We don't even know if what we saw was the same thing."

"But what if it was?
 
I'm scared, Cass.
 
In one night it’s pretty much wiped out my whole race."

"I'm sure there were some who escaped.
 
Like Honest Tom."

Darwin sat there thinking about this for a moment as Cassidy dealt with the awkward silence by picking up a book and flicking through the pages.

"What happens when you die?" Darwin asked.

"Hmm?" Cassidy replied looking up from the book, as if she hadn't been paying attention.
 
Darwin knew her well enough to know when she was putting on an act.
 
He repeated the question.

"Oh I don't know, I never got involved in all that sort of thing," Cassidy replied, but Darwin wasn't going to be brushed off so easily.

"Tell me," he said, quietly but forcibly.

Whether there was something in his voice that indicated to Cassidy that he was serious, or whether she took pity on him, he didn't know, but she sighed, let the book drop to the floor and sat down in front of him.

"OK," she sighed, her eyes conveying sadness.
 
"Think of your soul as an egg."

'An egg?" questioned Darwin.

"Yes an egg, bozo.
 
Now imagine the shell of that egg is what keeps your soul in you."

"I have an egg inside me?"

"No not a real egg, a meta-whatsit egg.
 
You know, not real."

"Metaphorical?"

"Yeah, something like that.
 
It doesn’t matter anyway, it’s just not a real egg.
 
And when your life ends, that egg... it kinda breaks, and your soul floats free toward heaven."

"Seems simple.
 
Peaceful even."

Cassidy snorted.
 
"Peaceful for the deceased maybe.
 
But it was enough to spark a war between heaven and hell."

"One we won," Darwin added.
 
He didn't know how much truth there was to the old legends, but it was a common belief by all vampires that Heaven should never be allowed to forget that they actually lost that war.

Cassidy shrugged.
 
"You have to understand that in the beginning, the very beginning, we didn't know what all these souls were floating around were.
 
They just got in our way.
 
At first we just wanted to destroy them, but when we finally realised they were the spirits of the dead, we tried to find ways to organise them."

"Organise them?"

"Yeah, like..." Cassidy stopped to think for a second.
 
"...Like a garden."

Darwin got up and walked to the gateway, extended his hand until it was almost touching it.

"So they're just in another realm then?
 
If only we could find a way to commune with them.
 
Perhaps someone like Nanny Voodoo..."

"It's not that simple," Cassidy interrupted.
 
Something was troubling her, but he couldn't tell what it was.

"Why not?" he asked.

She sighed, closing her eyes as she did so.
 
Whatever it was, she didn't want to say.

"Tell me Cass," he asked quietly.
 
"Please.
 
I have to know."

"Vampires have no souls," she whispered so lightly it was barely audible.

He looked at her with incomprehension.

"How can that...
 
I mean, I'm me... I have to have a soul..."

"It doesn't work like that, Darwin."

"But then what happens when a vampire..."

He could already see the tears in Cassidy's eyes.
 
"I'm sorry," she said.
 
"Truly I am."

Darwin slumped back down, looking at a small pile of ash near the entrance that had once been one of his race.
 
He wondered who it had been, whether he knew them or not, wondered what had been their last thought, their last emotion.
 
Fear?
 
Defiance?
 
And then that was that, their body was dust and they were no more, everything that defined them as a person reduced to memories of people who'd known them.

But what if those people had died as well?
 
Gone and forgotten, reduced to absolutely nothing bar the dust that now sat piled on the floor in front of him.
 
How much of their culture, their heritage, their history had been lost this past night?
 
It wasn't just the loss of physical people that annoyed Darwin - if he was honest, the loss of some of them was a blessing - it was how the creatures had eradicated the vampires so meticulously that it was as if they had never existed.