The League of Doorways (A Book of Vampires, Werewolves & Black Magic) (The Doorways Trilogy - Book Two) (8 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Willow followed Wally Willabee down into the hollow. The mist swirled around her giant flanks like dry-ice. She watched as Wally scraped away a mushy pile of wet leaves to reveal a metal grate. Gritting his teeth, he hauled it up to reveal an opening that spiraled deep into the ground.

“Follow me,” he grinned back at Willow and climbed into the hole.

Willow looked back one last time at the woods, then guessing it was safe to follow Wally, as he had once been a friend of Warden’s, she scrambled into the hole. She found herself teetering on a ledge, and using her giant paws, she steadied herself. Wally stood beside her, and reaching up
, he closed the grate back over the hole, throwing them into darkness. She heard Wally rummage through his pockets. There was a clicking noise and then a white beam of light. Willow yelped as the light from the device he held in his hand shone brightly into her eyes.

“Sorry,” Wally said. “I guess this is the first time you’ve ever seen a flashlight.” He pointed the light away to reveal what appeared to be a slide that coiled around the inside of the shaft Willow now found herself peering into. However bright the light from Wally’s flashlight, it did nothing to penetrate the deep well of darkness beneath her.

Wally sensed her fear and said, “Don’t worry, Willow Weaver, you haven’t got to climb all the way to the bottom. There is a quicker way.”

Wally bounced the beam of light off the muddy ledge they stood on and down the length of the slide. It was green and covered in what looked like silky lengths of grass and patches of moss.

“This is the Green slide,” Wally beamed with excitement.

“Is it called that because of its colour?” Willow asked, watching the way the long
blades of grass seemed to wave back and forth like thin fingers.

“No,” Wally said. “It’s named after its inventor. Her name was Jennifer-The-Martian-Green.”

“Where is she now?” Willow asked him.

“She went through a doorway and never came back,” Wally said with a sense of sadness.

“So how can she take credit for inventing a slide?” Willow asked. “I thought they had been around for hundreds of years? We have them back in Endra.”

“This is no ordinary slide,” Wally exclaimed, his eyes suddenly burning as bright as his flashlight. “This slide doesn’t just carry you downwards – it carries you back to the top! Jennifer-The-Martian-Green was a genius!”

“Carries you back up?!” Willow barked.

“Let me show you!” Wally beamed, lowering himself onto the slide.

Willow watched as Wally settled on the blades of grass covering the slide. Then the blades of grass lent forward as if caught in a breeze, and carried Wally a short distance down the slide.

“See? Isn’t it
incredible!” Wally exclaimed. “Now watch this!” 

Wally stood up and turned around so he was facing the top of the slide. Again, the silky blades of grass lent forward, carrying him back to the top.

With a wide smile spread across his face, Wally howled, “Incredible! I’m telling you, the girl was an utter genius. It’s such a shame she left and never came back.”

Watching Wally going back and forth on the slide like an excited child, Willow couldn’t help but sense that he was lonely somehow – that he missed his friend. “Do you miss her?”

Wally stopped sliding up and down, and with a sorry look on his face, he looked up at Willow and said, “Yes. She was my friend. She was a bit cheeky at times for my liking, but she was a dear friend.”

“Maybe she’ll come back one day,” Willow said.

Wally sat quietly for a moment as if remembering his friend. Then, forcing the look of sadness from his face, he smiled up at Willow and said, “I’ll race you to the bottom!”  Then he was gone, whisked away into the darkness, carried on those blades of grass.

Willow gingerly stepped onto the slide, the grass seeping through her paws. Then they were moving, and she raced downwards as if being carried on a wave. The slide spiraled below, her long, sleek coat and whiskers billowing out behind her. At the bottom, the blades of grass stopped rippling, and she slid gently off the slide. Wally was waiting at the end, where he skipped excitedly about from foot to foot.

“I won! I won!” he howled with excitement. “Willow, I won!”

On all fours, Willow walked towards him, her bushy white tail waving behind her. “You cheated, you had a head start,” she said. “And besides, I haven’t come through the doorways to race you – I’ve come for your help.”

Wally stopped skipping on the spot. He turned off the torch, throwing the cavern at the bottom of the slide into darkness. Moments later, a series of lamps flickered on. Their warm orange light lit the rocky enclosure, and Willow glanced about. The room was circular, and the walls had been cut out of the rock deep below ground. It smelt damp, and large parts of the walls were covered in moss where water dripped from high above. In the middle of the chamber was a solitary door. Willow looked at Wally, then back at the doorway. She slowly moved towards it, her claws making a ‘clacking’ sound on the stone ground beneath her paws. The door was made of rusty coloured woods. It looked old and warped out of shape. Large, dark brown knots covered the door like bruises. As Willow drew closer to it, she noticed that the door had been fixed to the floor with iron clasps. The top of the doorway had similar looking clasps attached, which stretched out on either side and were screwed into the walls.

“I’ve trapped it,” Wally said, coming towards the doorway.

“Trapped it?” Willow woofed. “I’m not sure that I understand.”

“The doorways have a habit of moving,” Wally said, stroking the long, fine beard that grew from his chin. “They’re not stable anymore. There was a time when you could predict – know for certain – where you would step out on the other side of your doorway.”

“What changed?” Willow asked him.

“Throat changed everything when he took the Queen prisoner,” Wally said.

“So you do know then what’s happening on the other side of the door?” Willow quizzed him.

With a look of shame, Wally nodded his head and said, “Yes, I know what is going on.”

“So why hasn’t the great League of Doorways come to Endra’s rescue?” Willow asked, staring at him with her deep crimson eyes.

“Because
, like I’ve already told you, there is no League of Doorways, it’s just me,” he said, breaking Willow’s stare and going to an odd-looking table that jutted out of the ground like a pillar of rock.

“So why is Wilberforce under the impression that there is this mighty League, made up of the Slath and Noxas, who have travelled into Earth over many hundreds of years?”

“I don’t know,” Wally said, shrugging his huge shoulders.

“You lied to him,” Willow yelped, understanding now how Wilberforce had been deceived.

“I didn’t lie, I just…” Wally started, still unable to meet Willow’s stare.

“You lied,” Willow barked, feeling cheated herself somehow.

“And can you blame me?” Wally suddenly barked at her, his sense of fun leaving him. “I was always considered a joke. No one ever took me seriously. I was always the wild one. All the other Noxas thought they were smarter than me. Even your husband
, Warden, felt the same.”

“Warden has spoken about you often,” Willow told him. “For all these years, he believed you were dead, blown to pieces by an inferno berry in the howling forests. But all the time you have been living here in Earth. Don’t you think that was a cruel thing to do?”

“I didn’t want to come back,” Wally snapped. “In Endra, I was mocked – I was a nobody; but here, I’m a somebody.” 

“Are you?” Willow asked, glancing around the cave. “You seem very much alone to me. Even your friend left you and hasn’t come back.”

“Okay – you don’t have to rub it in,” Wally howled at her. “I know I get excited and can act the fool sometimes – but I’m really not that stupid. I’m the only Noxas who has managed to trap their own doorway. I’m the only one who has managed to figure out the doorway’s true power.”

“And what is the true power, and can it help save Endra?” Willow asked him.

Wally stepped away from the odd-looking table and crossed the cavern towards his doorway. Standing before it, he said, “Why does everyone go through their doorway like this?” he said, and stepped forward through the open doorway. There was a bang so loud, the cavern shook, sending down a shower of stone and dust from above. There was a blinding flash of light, and Willow threw one of her paws over her eyes. When she dared to look again, Wally was standing before her as a wolf. Like Willow, he was bigger than any wolf that a human would care to see. His fur was chocolate brown in colour with an orange streak of fur blazing down the front of his snout. His eyes burnt red as he stared at her.

“Step through the doorways like you normally would, and you change into your other
self – the wolf,” he barked. “But that lacks such imagination. What happens if you go through sideways?”

Before Willow had had the chance to say anything, Wally had bounded back towards the doorway, flipped onto his side
, and passed through it. This was followed by another Earth-shattering bang and flash of light. Wally stepped through the doorway as he had stood before Willow just moments before – a Noxas, with his long flowing beard, long matted dreadlocks, claws, and razor-like teeth.

As if brimming with excitement, Wally said, “But what about if I went through the doorway backwards? What happens then?”

Willow looked at him and shook her giant head. “I don’t know.”

“Watch this,” he said, and stepped backwards through the doorway.

The cavern trembled again as his doorway banged open and closed. This time the light was so bright that Willow felt a hot ripple of air pass over her. The light winked out and Willow barked at Wally as he stood before her.

Chapter Fifteen

Anna glanced to her right and gasped as Van
Demon flew backwards under the sheer force of Tanner’s brow slamming into his face. The sound of Van Demon’s skull was sickening, like brittle bones being crunched underfoot. But this was soon drowned out by the sound of gunfire. Anna looked up to see six powerful-looking rafter horses come scuttling over the sand dunes which surrounded the shoreline. Their pointed hooves kicked up plumes of sand, almost masking the riders on the strange-looking creatures. The rafter horses’ manes twisted and coiled in the air as the riders held them like reins. With their free hands, Anna could see that the riders held crossbows, and they released wave after wave of stakes at Van Demon’s men.

As they raced nearer, Anna could see that each of the riders was dressed just like Tanner. They wore blue denim shirts and jeans. The tails of their long
, black coats trailed out behind them, as their horses scuttled forward. The horse’s heads snaked back and forth on their serpent-like necks and screamed at the bandits who now fired back at the approaching peacekeepers.

“Release me!” Tanner hollered at one of the riders as they went tearing by. He then turned his back, leaned forward
, and raised his tethered wrists into the air.

The peacekeeper turned his horse in the sand and
came racing back towards Tanner. Anna looked up at the rider and could see that it was a pretty young woman. Her long, pulled-back hair fluttered about her shoulders as she raised her crossbow and took aim at the rope which held Tanner’s wrists together.

The wom
an released a shot, and the ropes disintegrated. Tanner whirled around and held his good arm up. As the female peacekeeper raced past, she threw a crossbow at Tanner who snatched it out of the air.

“Thanks,” he winked at the female as she raced away, unleashing another volley of shots at Van Demon’s men. “Turn around!” Tanner ordered Anna as he came running towards her.

Just as Tanner had done, Anna swung around, lent forward, and raised her wrists in the air. There was a cracking noise and she felt the rope fall free, releasing her arms from behind her back. She inspected her wrists; they were red and raw where the rope had cut into them.

“Get down!” Tanner roared, as he pushed her down into the sand. As she fell, she watched Tanner bound over her, releasing a volley of stakes into the head of a bandit who had been racing towards her. The bandit flew through the air as if being dragged backwards by a pair of invisible hands.

Tanner landed in the sand on both feet, crouched low, and fired off another flood of shots at the approaching Dammed Bandits. They raced forwards; some with axes held high, others firing bullets from their rifles. The bullets whizzed and whined over Anna’s head and thudded into the sand all around her. Anna pressed herself flat into the ground, and watched as the group of peacekeepers raced their rafter horses across the sand as they gunned down the Dammed Bandits. Tanner crouched someway along the shore on one knee as he picked off the approaching bandits. Anna saw that his eyes seemed bright and keen. The fever he had been suffering from the wound in his shoulder, now gone.

Anna tried to stand, but as she did, she felt someone sit astride her. Rolling onto her back to see who had hold of her, she cried out at the sight of her uncle’s narrow and pointed face leering down at her.

“And where do you think you are going?” he sneered, his hands still fastened behind his back.

“Get off me!” Anna screamed over the sound of gunfire and the cries of the dying.
She hoped that Tanner might hear her.

“I can’t let you go
, sweet little Anna. I have to take you with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you!” She hissed, thrusting her hips upwards. With his hands tied behind his back, Fandel toppled off Anna and into the sand.

“Ahh, you little bitch!” Fandel cried out, trying to get to his feet.

Seizing her chance, Anna got up and headed towards Tanner further along the shore. She ducked and dived as she dodged the bullets and stakes that still whizzed overhead, then a hand grabbed her ankle and she fell, face-first into the sand. She spat the grit from her mouth and looked back to see that it was Van Demon who had hold of her. His jaw swung loosely where Tanner had shattered it with his forehead. Anna recoiled in disgust as she watched Van Demon’s tongue roll from the open wound and flop on to his chest. He made a gargling noise as he tried to speak, but his fleshy grey tongue just beat against his chest. His eyes swiveled in their broken sockets as he looked at her.

Then there came two bangs in quick succession. The first sounded like an explosion, as Van Demon’s head flew clean off his neck and thudded into the sand some distance away. Anna glanced back to see Tanner standing with one of the dead bandits’ smoking rifles in his hand.

“Are you okay
, kid?” he asked in his dry tone.

She nodded, and the second bang came and Anna flinched so violently
, she thought her heart might just stop. Staggering to her feet, Anna watched as a twisted black doorway appeared on the beach.

“No! No! No!” Tanner roared as he raced towards the doorway that had materialized before Fandel in the sand. “Don’t let him go through it!”

Hearing his cries, the other peacekeepers turned their rafter horses and galloped along the shore towards the doorway, as Fandel crawled towards it.  He looked back, his pointed face beaded with sweat as he saw the peacekeepers racing towards him. He hurried towards the door, his hands behind his back. Fandel dropped forward, face-first into the sand, just as the doorway flew open.

“Get him!” Tanner roared as he raced towards the door.

Fandel looked back, and fixing Anna with his beady black eyes, he smiled. Then a hand appeared from the other side, took hold of Fandel by the collar, and dragged him through it. The doorway slammed shut as the stakes from the peacekeepers’ crossbows bounced off it. Then the door was gone, and so was Fandel.