This is not a straight fic – but a transcript of a Role Play between myself and ‘givemeyourwings’. It is in progress and unedited lmao.

Helen Magnus: givemeyourwings
Nikola Tesla: ellymelly
Title:ROME
rated: M
Fandom: Sanctuary
Pairing: Helen/Nikola

ROME

Nikola wasn’t usually one for crowds and bustling streets – but he always made an exception for Rome in the spring – especially the decaying corners of Old Rome where ancient buildings crumbled around the growing flocks of pigeons, picking over the cobblestone pathways that trailed in and out of promising shops.

He wasn’t braving this onslaught of people for nothing – Nikola was busily hunting for a very particular artefact – and was quite startled when he caught sight of a distinctive leather jacket strolling down the opposite side of the narrow lane way – almost lost among the other shoppers.

Instinctively, he fell against a shopfront, trying to hide in its shadow.

It wasn’t as though Helen was simply doing the tourist thing, either. She’d been to Rome enough to have seen all the usual attractions long ago. No, the day found her among the throng of people dotting the streets with a more pressing purpose. If memory served correctly, there was an old book shop just nearby wherein one could find all manner of strange and wonderful texts. Helen happened to on a mission to that very place. Had the crowd been less dense, Tesla’s sudden movement across the way would’ve caught her attention. For now, she remained unaware of his nearness.

Nikola remained pressed up against the glass of the store, contemplating his escape until he was prodded sharply by a very displeased Italian.

“Move along MOVE ALONG!!!” the shop keeper all but shouted in a thick Italian accent.

Nikola obliged at once, leaping back into the crowd and straight into the oncoming path of one Dr Helen Magnus.

That’s one way to get her attention. Helen tried to shift her weight in time to avoid crashing into him, but to no avail. After the rough collision, she stepped back, brushing her hair form her line of sight. A polite ‘excuse me’ began to form on her lips, though the words stopped short when her eyes fixed on him.

Not the entrance he’d been trying to make… Nikola thought to himself, hoping she hadn’t noticed his suspiciously nervous appearance.

It was probably too late to duck past her and back into the crowd – Helen was one who usually gave chase in those cases and he certainly didn’t want to be chased unceremoniously through the streets of Rome.

Instead, he settled on a quiet, “Afternoon…” as he brushed a few smears of dust from his unseasonal suit.

The crowd continued to shove past them, knocking Helen and Nikola closer to the marble building towering above the street.

Not to worry. Helen’s more concerned with the fact that Tesla’s right there than his out-of-date attire or his less-than-smooth entrance. The push of the crowd jostled her where she stood, though she made no effort at all to move, only a little more to hide her surprise.

Oh, yes, she’s surprised to see him. While Helen’s able to mask just how surprised, a hint of the emotion colours her expression. Her head canted slightly to one side, brows lifting in an expectant sort of look. “Nikola,” muttered in greeting.

He gracefully recovered his dignity and looked her over – oh yes, definitely the one and only immortal Ms Magnus looking just as out of place as him and ever so slightly flustered.

“Curious…” Nikola said, nudging an annoying tourist out of his way. “I wasn’t aware you were travelling at the present time,” his tone may have been mocking but Nikola’s eyes betrayed his sincerity, “with the Cabal so keen for revenge.”

A single eyebrow lofted a bit higher, her gaze mostly impassive. “I wasn’t aware you were monitoring my movements,” she countered.

There was a dark flicker in his eye.

“You should know, better than anyone, someone’s always watching.”

His gaze continued to shift between the enormous library behind them and the curious store opposite he’d travelled halfway around the world to investigate. He had to get Helen as far away from that as possible, so he boldly reached forward and took her by the arm.

“There’s an exquisite little cafe inside – unless you’d rather stay out here with the dust?”

His other arm opened out, enticing her forward toward the library steps where two guards in full dress suit tried to keep still despite the heat.

“I would not have suspected you to be among those watching, Nikola,” she droned.

Her gaze lowered, lingering on the hand at her arm. Bold move, to be certain. She looked back in the direction she’d been moving, brows furrowing slightly. Telling him of her errand would likely only draw questions. It could wait.

“As you like,” uttered she with a noticeable measure of suspicion.

He led her up the steps – through the large oak doorway that had seen better eons and, after a brief nod at a wary gentleman behind the welcome desk, strolled into the gothic-themed cafe.

The rich smell of coffee wafted on the air – somehow making the room with its leather furnishings and enormous ceilings feel homely.

Several choice pieces on loan from the museum were scattered around the room in glass cases – the most beautiful of which was a four foot inscribed rock that shone proudly in the centre of the restaurateurs.

And – ah yes, what an interesting surprise. On the far side of the room, just out of reach, was a Cabal agent sipping coffee, entirely unaware that their ‘most wanteds’ had wandered through the door.

Nikola picked a private booth along one of the walls.

“So tell me – Rome, interesting choice, not your usual scene at all. Either you’ve got a new lover you haven’t told anyone about,” he paused for effect, “or you’re after something rather special.”

By ‘special’ of course, he meant rare and dangerous – not the kind of thing you wanted people to see you acquiring.

The odd thing about coffee: it smelled delicious, but tasted like (for lack of a better description) ass. Ever observant, Helen noticed the silent exchange between Tesla and the man at the welcome desk. Clearly, he’d been here before and left an impression on the man. With Telsa guiding her, Helen was free to take a cursory glance around the café.

She located possible exits should the need for escape arise. Her eyes swept over the assembled people, noting the seemingly innocuous agent on the far side of the room. Brilliant. Once seated, Helen turned her attention to her old colleague, a wan smile coming to her face.

“One could say the same of you,” Helen countered, skirting the issue of her purpose in the city. Yes, make the conversation about Tesla. He always seemed to be keen on being the centre of attention.

She didn’t miss a trick – honing in on every available escape route. Clever girl – she’ll probably need them.

“She’ll have the tea, Earl Grey – lemon,” Nikola hissed at the waiter and then added, “and I’ll have…that,” he pointed at the large inscribed rock in the case in front of him.

“The Traveller’s Stone?” the waiter’s eyebrows hit the roof.

“Relax, I’ll settle for a short black.”

The waiter made a hasty escape and Nikola returned his attention to the Helen.

“I have something for you,” he began ominously, “but you’re not going to like it.”

Helen’s brow arched at the order. Not only was she well and capable of ordering her own drink, but, really did he need to make a scene? Well, of course. He simply wouldn’t be Tesla without the unnecessary dramatics.

Her expression shifted from bland endurance to something with a touch more worry around the edges. “In which case you may keep it.”

“Oh Helen,” he rolled his eyes dramatically, once again nervously fixing his collar. He was thankful he could put the action down to OCD – even if it wasn’t. “You don’t mean that – besides, I’ve been carting it around for ages – just in case.”

He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small bundle of red silk. On the other side of the room, the Cabal agent’s eyes snapped up – not as blindly unaware as Nikola and Helen had thought him.

“I mean every word I say,” she warned. Her eyes darted from Tesla to the bundle, suspicion rising. Without hesitation, she reached across the table, wrapping her hands around his. “Whatever it is, I hardly think this is time or place for it.”

He couldn’t help it – he paused at her gesture, looking down at her hands over his and suddenly he wished that his weren’t perpetually cold. Finally, he lifted his eyes back to hers – but didn’t move.

Crockery hit the table as the waiter returned with their drinks.

Awkward.

That wasn’t quite what she had in mind. Helen gave a slight nudge to push whatever was in his hands back. Thankfully, the server returned with their drinks, a most welcome distraction. She pulled her hands back, reaching for the tea with a nod of thanks to the waiter.

Nikola looked at the silk sadly, returning it to his jacket. The Cabal agent let his coffee go cold as he watched the pair intently.

“There are only two reasons why Helen Magnus wanders the globe. Either she wants something or she’s about to steal something. If you’re going to steal from me, I’d advise strongly against it.”

Helen lofted a brow at him. What gall to make assumptions as such about her!

“There is an old book store in Rome with rare volumes amidst its shelves. I am acquainted with the proprietor who has found something of interest to me.” To be truthful, it’s a personal interest having nothing at all to do with her work.

“Acquainted… So only one of us will be doing the stealing on this occasion…” he grinned, laying his fingers on his cup. “Age old question,” Nikola lowered his voice, “fight or flight?”

The Cabal agent was talking into his sleeve and things were about to get nasty.

Helen sighed quietly into her cup, glancing toward the fidgety agent. “It’s far below you to steal when you’re quite capable of charming what you desire out of so many,” she chastised. “Is there at least time to finish my tea?”

Nikola sized the agent up.

“Plenty… I think this one’s actually afraid of us.” He twitched his freshly grown moustache. “You try charming a cranky, elderly ex-CIA agent – it is well beyond my skills although you might manage it…” he added.

Colour her mildly curious. “I’ll have no part in your schemes,” she reminded him. Well, it wasn’t as if they could have a leisurely afternoon. Helen gulped down a bit of her tea and looked expectantly toward Tesla. “At your leisure,” she murmured, indicating that she’s prepared to leave when he is.

He flexed his claws.

“This,” he pointed to the library beyond the cafe, “is an extremely old library. When we’re – done, go out the door, swing a left and head toward the large granite stairwell. On three – shall we?” Nikola counted down on his claws, then turned his head and snarled at the Cabal agent who realised, a second too late, that he was in trouble.

Oh, dear. Helen swept her gaze around once more. A clear route would be best and, of course, she had to be mindful of the bystanders. She sighed, knowing there was nothing else to do once Tesla set his mind to a plan. Tesla was more than enough to deal with one agent.

For her part, Helen grabbed to cup of tea in one hand, keeping the other free for her gun should it be needed, and bolted toward the door. Focused determination narrowed her eyes, keeping her alert for any more potential agents in whose faces she’d be tossing that hot tea. Tea garners far less attention than gunfire.

He watched her hurray away before he heard the definite click of a weapon loading right beside him. Nikola turned to see the waiter standing over his shoulder and under his folded napkin – the barrel of a gun.

“Very unwise,” Tesla snarled.

The other Cabal agent had risen and crossed halfway through the room in pursuit of Helen.

Nikola calmly stood up, stretching to his not-so-impressive height, laid his napkin on the table and then stepped forward until he felt the barrel of the weapon on his jacket.

“Shame, I really did love this suit.”

The restaurant fell into silence as the gunshot rang out. Then, one by one – the screaming started. So much for not making a scene.

So much, indeed. Helen turned back, flinging the still-hot drink into her pursuer’s face. As the liquid flew, she reached for her gun. A quick scan of the room separated those fleeing from those who were threats. Helen’s sights were trained, not on the waiter with the firearm, but the agent they’d initially identified. The gunman would deal with Tesla, a far worse fate than being on the receiving end of a bullet. As for her own tail, well, he’d be blind and flailing long enough for them to flee.

“Nikola!”

Nikola was busy grinning menacingly at the gunman who was more than shocked to find the bullet had no effect on Tesla.

“Ouch…” Nikola whispered, then threw the Cabal agent back against a table sending cups and plates shattering to the ground.

He looked down and frowned at the trail of blood dribbling onto his suit, staining it. Nikola! he heard Helen’s voice. She was lingering at the door with a traumatised Cabal agent clutching his tea-soaked face.

“Are you paying – or am I?” Nikola asked Helen, cocking his eyebrow.

Helen jerked her head toward the door, a clear indication for him to move. The sooner they left, the less likely they were to be identified by locals. Being hunted by the Cabal was one thing, having to pull strings to divert local authorities, that was another annoyance all together.

She stepped out through the door, following the instructions Tesla gave, whether he was behind her or not. Left out the toward the large, granite stairwell. Somehow, it seemed all her most recent encounters with Tesla led to violence and fleeing.

Never one to run, he strode quickly behind her, pointing up the impressive stairwell. No one was giving chase yet and the library staff seemed more concerned with the squealing mortals in the cafe.

Nikola led the way to the third floor of the library where he spied a ‘Restricted Access’ door. He winked at Helen.

“While we’re here…” he said, running one of his claws over the door which crackled with electricity and unlocked.”Might as well…” he disappeared into the dark room.

“Nikola!” Helen hissed in dismayed protest. She cast a glance back down the stairs and then followed him into the room. She pulled the door closed behind her to better cover their tracks and stalked after the man. “I don’t appreciate being dragged into your mess, yet again. What have you done now to earn their ire?”

The room was pitch black and smelt of dust and accumulated time.

He could see just fine – one of the perks of being part vampire. Truthfully, he hadn’t had the nerve to break into this place on his own.

“Be a dear and help me with this vault…” he knelt down in front of the locked, metal vault. Finally, all his notes from a past life, confiscated by the FBI, classified, lost, hidden, sold and now, after all this time he was so close to recovering them.

Technically he thought, it’s not stealing.

Helen glared in the direction from which his voice had come. “I’ve already told you that I’ll have no hand in whatever scheme you’re hatching.” Helen paced for a moment while waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, arms crossed over her chest.

“Oh come on, old time’s sake – it’s not like I’m stealing. I am merely reclaiming a few personal items and then we can go wherever you want… Uh oh…”

His claw slipped into the lock and twisted. It hurt a damn-site more than being shot.

“Never mind,” he grinned, as the vault opened. There was a pile of paper inside along with a rather worn diary. Nikola wasted no time stashing it inside his jacket which puffed his chest out like a pigeon.

“I’m done,” his teeth bared themselves in a grin. “Where to – m’lady?”

It’s just like him to suggest gallivanting about Rome with the Cabal hot on their tail. Her brows knit as she strained to stare at him in the dark. She stepped closer, eyes wide to better see.

“This was all part of your plan, wasn’t it?”

“Plan?” he inched closer. “No… eventual plot – perhaps.

That man never had much regard for personal space. Not that Helen could tell in the darkness. “Have you someplace safe we can go?”

“That depends entirely on your definition of ’safe’.”

He brushed past her on his way to the door, opening it a crack so that he could survey the stairwell for pursuers.

“My lab is nearby but I’m not sure yet if I trust you enough to give you the guided tour. For all I know, you could be in Rome on Watson’s request to corner me. However…” he opened the door a little more so that bright light gushed into the room, “if I had your word you would behave…”

If only he could see that incredulous look on Helen’s face. Yes, he may be able to see in the dark, but even Tesla couldn’t see behind him.

“If anyone is justified in having trust issues, it’s me.”

Trust issues? well, she did have a point there. The last time they had been in Rome he hadn’t been on his best behaviour.

“So we’re clear,” he turned to her, and continued in his best ‘honest’ voice, “I was not and would never kill you.”

Truthfully, he wasn’t sure if he wanted ‘the great’ Helen Magnus snooping around his lair – all those things she could touch and break – it was enough to turn his pale skin pure white with fear. Besides, she was bound to disapprove of his latest experiment after having expressly told him not to undertake it.
That said – he didn’t like to leave her wandering aimlessly around Rome with the Cabal this eager.

“I need to know that you believe me before we go any further.”

No,” she asked, canting her head as she turned to face him. “Would you have tortured me instead as you did to John?” Helen pressed her lips together. No, he’d done little of late to earn her trust. Then again, there was the more distant past to consider. “I need to have a reason to believe you, Nikola.”

“Other than, I love you?” he nearly snapped back, then recovered. “We’ve all been alive a lot longer than nature intended. I admit that – for a brief time – I may have slipped into the realms of hostility but I never killed anyone in cold blood. Indeed – I think we can both safely say that Whitechapel is much improved since his experience.”

Her eyes narrowed, glaring balefully at him. “The ends do not justify the means.” There was, perhaps, a touch of hostility there, indignation perhaps on John’s behalf. Yes, Tesla may have helped him, but that certainly wasn’t his intent.

“There was a time when you would have taken me at my word – are things so different now?” he eyed her with his enormous dark eyes.

“I forgave you everything,” his voice was barely more than a whisper. Something else was slipping into his tone – betrayal?

Cue the curious, yet somewhat blank look. Helen racked her brain, but save for three bullets could think of nothing she’d down for which she’d need Tesla’s forgiveness.

Nikola looked unbelievably hurt.

“You don’t even remember – do you?” he answered her blank look with a fierce glare.

1952, she had left him in the Cabal’s hands for five months, trapped in a cage like an animal because Watson had uncovered evidence that ‘proved’ he’d been playing both sides. It was a straight forward set up and when Helen finally showed up for the rescue, Nikola had just nodded and forgiven her for believing the worst.

It was never Helen’s job to look after him. Honestly, if she had to recount every bit of trouble he’d dragged her into, well, her long memory would easily be filled.

“We are not all blessed with eidetic memory, Nikola,” retorted she. “You’ve manipulated, betrayed, tortured. You tried to kill me and have on numerous occasions wantonly put me in way of harm to further whatever game you’re playing.” Helen stepped closer, peering around him to see out of the door. “I ask again, what reason have I to trust you?”

“Trust me,” he stepped purposefully away from her, visibly unimpressed with her temper “or trust them…”

He could already hear a set of Cabal agents taking to the stairs – considerably more than before.

As a pair, they were good at escaping trouble but every decade the Cabal got faster and smarter. Capturing either Tesla or Magnus would be very bad but both at once? It would be a disaster and the Holy Grail of the Cabal.

“And for the record,” he added, “I don’t wantonly throw you in the path of danger. It’s your own over-ripened sense of curiosity that does that all by itself.”

Helen eyes him with great suspicion. However, at the sound of the approaching Cabal, she lifts a finger to hush him. The look she gave silently questioned how the genius of them planned to get them out of immediate danger.

Nikola’s eyes flickered with something that worried Helen. Before she had the chance to protest, he daringly slipped out of the room, strutted to the edge of the stairwell and peered down to see eight Cabal agents take to the stairs. A few of them looked up, saw him, and shouted.

Nikola bounced back from the stairwell.

“This could be fun,” he fixed his cufflink. “Or we could both die – personally I prefer the first one.”

Oh, how Helen glared at him, a look that accused him of trying to get them both killed. From under his breath, she muttered in frustration, “You’ve a twisted idea of fun!” Even as she spoke, Helen checked her ammunition. She would definitely be having words with him about informing his unwitting cohorts as to the plan before acting next time. If there was a next time. “You’re leading this dance,” she uttered, waiting for some indication of what he planned to do.

“It’s always a pleasure,” he watched Helen cock her weapon.

He, in turn, brought on his vampiric traits – the sharpening of his claws – darkening of his eyes and the ever so slight spiking of his dark hair.

“There – I see them!” a Cabal agent reached the final landing of the staircase.

“Yours…” said Nikola, inspecting his claw lazily.

Helen let out a breath, stepping into the doorway to fire at the first agent up the stairs. Two more shots rang out taking down the two immediately behind. She was careful to stay behind Tesla, allowing him to be the first line of defence should anyone come in close. However, if she could keep the agents at bay, a fight with Tesla, which would inevitably prove deadly, could be avoided.

A stray Cabal bullet clipped his arm, adding another hole and blood stain to his suit.

“Being your shield is not nearly as appealing as you think,” he growled at her, then laid his hand on the metal balustrade, shocking one of the Cabal agents pulling himself up the stairwell with it.

Another bullet from a persistent agent caught Nikola in the shoulder, sending a shower of blood over him, Helen and the floor. Nikola scowled.

“I’ve had enough of this party,” he said. “How’s your trust coming along, Helen? Because I’m walking this way,” Nikola began to head towards the lift.

Helen smirked, the expression perhaps a bit more triumphant than it need be. While he was busy electrocuting the hapless agents coming up the stairs, Helen peered down, taking aim and firing on those a level below them.

“It’s quite preferable to the alternative,” she teased. However, the splatter of blood across her face quickly ended her amusement. Yes, Tesla was difficult to kill, that didn’t mean he didn’t feel the pain. Or suffer from the loss of blood. The woman nodded to him, following along and ready to cover their escape with a rain of bullets if need be.

The lift was regrettably old and small – one of those flimsy, early 1900’s models he remembered from the good old years – indeed, he doubted anyone had shown the poor thing any attention in its long life hauling bookworms between its levels.

Nikola pulled the iron grate shut manually, and then locked the second set of doors just as the remainder of agents caught on. A few of them fired at the elevator doors but their bullets resulted in nothing but sparks as they bounced off.

“Interested in a nice view of Rome?” he asked Helen, as he pressed the uppermost button with his claw.

Well, it could never be said that Tesla didn’t show her an exciting time when they were together. Despite all the danger they were facing, she gave him a charming smile and an agreeable tilt of her head. “Can you show me one I’ve not yet seen?” After all, she did spend a bit of time in Rome now and again.

He grinned, and, despite his rather bullet-strewn exterior, managed to look rather dashing.

The lift lurched into action, grinding its way up with a worrying rattle.

“I can show the lady many a thing she has yet to see,” he said cryptically.

This is what he missed, the constant danger – undeniable intrigue and just a touch of Helen Magnus.

“Such things you say,” Helen crooned in kind. “You may very well upset my delicate Victorian sensibilities.” Just in case it hadn’t been obvious that she was making light before, it certainly was after that.

“A bullet-ridden vampire is hardly a new sight for me,” Helen reminds him, glancing around at the unstable lift. How it takes her back to less modern times.

“Your ‘Victorian sensibilities’ – such as they are,” he openly mocked, “will remain intact.”

The lift shook and came to a stop at its pre-destined location. Once again, Nikola pried open the grates. He strolled out of the lift, over to the doors and pushed them open revealing the roof. At once the smell and sound of Rome poured in.

“Rome awaits…” he said, holding the door open for her.

It’s true, even in the Victorian era Helen was a far cry from the ideal Victorian woman. No, she was ahead of her time displaying qualities which would in the 1920s embody the New Woman.

After the chase through the old library, the smells of blood, books, sweat, and staleness gave way to the sweet outdoor air. All the scents of the city washed over her. The momentary distraction was enough to make her forget, for only a few seconds, that danger still lurked behind.

“We’ve not much time.” Already, pale eyes scanned the rooftop for a latter or an old fire escape. Any means by which to get to the ground and once more lost in the throng of people on the street.

But there was nothing – nothing but an expanse of concrete speckled with air-conditioning units spinning happily to themselves.

He could see the terracotta rooftops of the other buildings tessellated around them in an endless maze and – far beyond, the dark hills of Rome. The air was full of passing flocks of seagulls, squawking as they grazed by in a single white sheet and somewhere in the distance a siren wailed.

There were no safety railings around the tops of these old buildings. The sides of the roof simply ended in a low marble step with a sharp, slippery drop to the busy streets below.  This feature was haunted by a solitary pigeon, softly cooing as it bobbed its head and moved away from the pair of humans intruding on its territory.

Nikola closed the door behind them – for all the good it would do, and headed off toward the nearest edge. He strode the half-step onto it, and nestled himself right at its extremity with the toes of his shoes hovering over nothing while he fished around inside his jacket pocket.

“You always complain that I never keep in contact,” he said to her, against the wind.

Nikola withdrew the same silk bundle from before – only this time it was soaked in his own blood.

“I did try to give you this earlier,” he said, as a stunning amber stone fell out of the silk and into his other hand, “but now we’re going to use it.”

Helen followed behind him, close at his heels. Until, of course, he walked to the building’s edge. Her gaze drifted from the edge, to the ground, then back to Tesla. There’s no doubt he has some plan to escape. He’s not so foolish as to trap himself. Then again, being part vampire lends him a resilience Helen lacks. It’s very likely Tesla could fall or jump from such a height and still manage to walk away.

“Rightfully so,” Helen mused. “I usually see you on occasions such as these, then not again, not even a word of greeting, for decades.” Perhaps a touch of bitterness to the words? They’d been friends once upon a time, hadn’t they? Whatever insult she may have felt was quickly pushed aside when Tesla unwrapped the stone. Now it was pure curiosity that gripped her. Glancing back over her shoulder, pale blue eyes then drifted back to the stone, then up to Tesla’s face. “Make haste, Nikola.”

“Ah…” he sighed, “and now she’s curious.”

Nikola held the ruined silk out and then let it float down into the street, caught in several currents of air. The stone he kept safe, resting in the palm of his hand with the strong light piercing through it, scattering out the other side in waves of colour.

“This is one-half of a quantum pair,” he cast his eye over his shoulder at her as if he were some kind of professor. “Call it, a souvenir from Bhalasaam.”

He held his free hand out to Helen, inviting her to join him on the ledge.

Her eyes widened slightly at his words. Whether she was more amazed by what it was or form where it came, who could tell? Maybe it wasn’t what he said at all, but the offer of his hand, at which Helen now stared.

At length she stepped closer, reaching tentatively for his proffered hand. How had he come by such a trinket, she wondered silently. It wasn’t as if he’d give a clear explanation if she asked directly.

“Brilliant as the ancient vampires were,” he caught her hand firmly, “I doubt they completely understood its properties.”

Nikola helped her onto the ledge, keeping a determined grip on her as she wavered slightly against the strong wind.

“I spent many years with these relics – but this is no place to talk,” he observed, as the door behind them crashed open.

Not wanting to risk another bullet, Nikola pulled Helen towards him, capturing her in a sudden embrace – and then threw them both off the edge of the building.

Whatever thoughts or questions had been in her mind to voice fell away into a tumultuous and panicked cacophony of silent screams. Had she not been plummeting to what was likely an inevitable death, Helen would’ve noted the oddity of being held flush to someone with little body heat of which to speak.

As it was, Helen clung tightly to him as the shock lanced through her. Her fingers dug into his already ruined jacket, wrinkling the fabric in her white-knuckled grip. The wind deafened her as they fell, whipping her hair around her face and into her eyes. Oh, God, this could really be the end! And all she could think of was Ashley…

Nikola had been prepared for the fall – but not the strength of Helen’s desperate grasp on him which nearly squeezed the air from his lungs. Before taking the plunge he’d whispered something to the stone and now all that remained was to wait and trust that the ancient technology would not fail him as they fell toward the street in what would certainly be Helen’s end – if not his own.

They didn’t have long – the slanted calico of market stalls, sea of bustling people and very solid ground was approaching with haste.

A haze of dust kicked up into their faces. Nikola turned his head away and held Helen protectively so that if they hit the ground he would hit first.

Something was wrong – they were still falling.

Had he miscalculated the distance to the ground – the time it would take them to fall?

He had just closed his eyes in a final surge of panic when a flash of golden light enveloped them.

With a crack they were gone – literally vanished into thin air.

TESLA’S LAB

Helen gasped, nearly as much at the resounding crack in the air like a clap of thunder as the sudden thud onto the floor of… wherever they were. Of course, Tesla took the brunt of it, Helen was still jarred by the sudden stop in their descent. Equally jarring was lying there on the floor, on top of the inventor, clinging to him with all her might.

“If I had known you would be this easy,” Nikola managed, their noses almost touching, “I would have thrown you off a building sooner.”

He held her gaze for a few seconds too long before his countenance changed entirely. Pain washed over him and he threw his head back in a heavy groan. That fall had done nothing positive for his bullet holes – indeed, he could feel the warm crimson puddle forming beneath him, spreading across the stone floor of his underground lab.

Angered insult gave way to concern. Helen didn’t know how many shots had actually hit Tesla. She knew the last bullet to hit him in the library would’ve killed any human. Yes, he healed quickly, but even his vampiric body was far from perfect. He still could be injured, could bleed, and could feel the pain.

Helen sat up quickly, worry mounting over the sheer amount of blood he was losing and the pace at which he was losing it. With little regard for his already ruined clothes, she tore open the jacket and the shirt beneath to find the source of the major bleed. “Have you a first aid station?” She wouldn’t put it past Tesla to have neglected a safety station in his lab.

“I don’t need one,” he tried to bat her hands away.

She had made a right mess of his clothes – not that they were salvageable. He made a quiet note to never wear his best suit unless he was absolutely certain he wouldn’t encounter the legendary ‘Doctor’ Magnus. Nikola hadn’t worked out why, but circumstances always tended culminate in his ruined clothes and wayward bullets.

It was always a surprise to see the horrific injuries on his body and to know for certain that he would not die from them. Her worry though, was curious indeed.

“Quit your fussing – I just need a moment,” he glanced at the wounds on his bare chest, “or two … perhaps.”

“Nikola,” she insisted, batting at his hands as they tried to bat hers away. “This isn’t good, even for you. Especially for you.” Vampire short on blood? Not Helen’s idea of a good time.

“All right!” he finally gave in, letting her pin his hands away. “God, you’re persistent when you want to be. I believe there are some left over medical supplies over there from the last time…” ‘The last time’ meaning, when the famous Jack the Ripper had nearly found a way to kill him.

Nikola was pointing at a small cupboard pushed against the stone wall with a shaky hand.

The room itself was rather large and hummed with the cheerful drone of motors powering his various experiments – some of which he had not intended anyone to see. Despite his few homely touches – a leather armchair in the corner, a fine mahogany desk beside it and several slender work tables running the length of the lab, it still looked and felt like the catacomb it was.

Good, best that the scientist follow the doctor’s orders. Besides, this is mostly the rush of adrenaline from being flung off a building working itself out. Let the woman fuss over you, Tesla. It isn’t something that will often happen.

“Here,” she instructed, taking his hand and pressing it to the worst of the injuries. “Apply pressure for a moment.” That said, Helen moved to get the indicated medical supplies. Just something to help staunch the bleeding. In a worst-case scenario, Helen did have a tampon in her coat pocket… Those worked in a pinch to plug up bullet holes.

Nikola instinctively disobeyed orders – pulling his hand away as soon as Helen turned her back. He inspected the sticky red substance dribbling down his wrist – what a mess – and all over his lab.

“Don’t you go sneaking off,” he warned her.

With a sigh of effort, Nikola sat up, rocked himself forward and somehow made it to his feet. The remains of his jacket and shirt hung open around his chest and waist.  He shrugged off the jacket, folding it carefully and then laid it lovingly on a nearby bench.

Helen turned back, dismay coming over her features. Shoving a tampon in those bullet holes seemed more and more appealing by the moment. Fine, if he didn’t want her help. She stalked back over, a decisive set to her shoulders and that every present swish of her hips, pausing in front of Tesla.

“If you attack me, Nikola, by god I will end you.”

Is that a challenge or a threat? He wondered.

If it wasn’t for that pesky vow he’d be out hunting something innocent – but he had been true to his word for over a hundred years and he wasn’t about to break it, and certainly not on Helen.

“Where were we – ah yes,” he spied the quantum stone lying abandoned on the ground, “souvenirs…”

Nikola bent down and plucked the stone from the concrete floor. It took him a few goes to straighten back up, but when he finally did, it was with a triumphant grin.

Perhaps a bit of both?

Her eyes narrowed, flicking over him to access how bad the injuries were. It didn’t seem as if he’d need to have any bullets removed, they looked to have passed through cleanly. Not to worry, Tesla, she’s neither letting her gaze linger on bare skin nor on his inventions around the lab.

Not much… he eyed her accusingly, and then dodged her on the way to his desk.

Nikola set the stone down next to its partner, shuffled a few sensitive papers into a drawer – which he locked, and then spun back to face Helen. He let himself lean against the desk, half sitting – half perching on its edge.

He made an effort to re-button his shirt but found nothing but loose thread dangling where buttons had been. He cocked an eyebrow dramatically at her.

“Now who’s the one who knows how to get attention…”

She wasn’t exactly unscathed either.

“Rome’s very amicable – don’t you think?”

Dirty, frazzled, perhaps even grazed by a bullet. Helen, however, wasn’t the one gushing out blood. She crossed her arms over her chest, giving Tesla a hard gaze.

“It was more pleasant before bumping into you,” she retorted, eyes drifting once more to his wounds.

He definitely needed to be wearing more clothes with Helen eyeing him like some kind of snack.

“Never let it be said that I don’t show you a good time,” he winked – and then stumbled over to a coat cupboard where he hunted out a beautiful Victorian trench coat. He slipped it on and buttoned it up to his neck, concealing all injuries from chin to ankle.

“Welcome to my lair, Helen,” he said, finally remembering his manners. “It’s not much, but it’s home. Of course,” that playful tone that had gotten him into so much trouble in the past was back, “now that you’ve seen it I’ll simply have to kill you.”

Sadly, the jacket did little to improve his limp as he hobbled back to the desk. He wasn’t about to admit it, but he genuinely needed the extra support.

Not like a snack! Like a patient! A patient! There was no way her gaze was lingering on his pale skin because she was curious just how cold it was to the touch or anything like that! No way!

Helen rolled her eyes at his dramatic statement. “You sound like one of those cliché vampires one reads about in fiction you so loathe.”

“I’ve been alive for more than 100 years, I think it’s fair to say that I’ve read my share of fiction and, occasionally, found it tolerable.”

He’d been reading a lot of fiction of late – nearly all of it relating to vampires, their mythology and imaginary history. Nikola couldn’t help it if their tone had rubbed off on him. Indeed, a quick glance at the bookshelf behind the desk revealed this to the casual observer. Among the spines of books were some very rare texts he’d travelled far and wide to acquire.

Nikola folded his hands in front of him. He’d been alone in this lab for a long time – many, many years. Sure, he had thought about making contact with the others but the only member of The Five that he had any real intention of contacting was the most closely watched by the Cabal.

Still, here she was and he wasn’t sure what to do.

She canted her head slightly, worry still gnawing at the edges of her mind. Stiffness began to settle into her muscles from the fall. “Clearly,” she pointed out. “You’re beginning to live like one of them. If you manage to get a pipe organ here, I’ll be duly impressed.” Teasing? Yes, perhaps just a bit.

“Will you at least let me bandage your wounds?”

He subconsciously fiddled with his jacket – contemplating her request. It was true, he was still dripping and leaving smears over his furniture and as much as he tried to deny it, Helen had a point.

Besides, he really did love this jacket and didn’t want it completely ruined for the sake of ceremony.

“As it seems I’ll have no peace until you do…” he gave her his unique brand of approval. There were bandages enough in the cupboard for the task – and if she looked closely, a box of painkillers for her own inflamed joints.

There were few in this life who could refuse the great Helen Magnus. “Off with the coat,” she instructed, moving to fetch any antibiotic ointments he had in addition to bandages.

Nikola hesitated, his fingers brushing over the clasps of the jacket. Whatever battle he had going on inside his head, one side was eventually victorious and he proceeded to unclip each silver hook.

He wondered what she’d make of his interesting collection of medication. In addition to your average pharmaceuticals there were several rows of glass jars, stoppered with corks lurking in the back of the cabinet looking ominous. Most were.

Finally out of clasps, Nikola eased himself out of the heavy garment, draped it over the table and wondered if he should do the same with his ruined, ripped and rather destroyed shirt.

Certainly, being in his lair and all, Tesla had other shirts.

Helen’s eyes took note of the odd bottles with their archaic stoppers. For now, she could keep her curiosity at bay. There would be no answers to be had if the man bled himself into unconsciousness, blood frenzy, or worse.

The first aid items were placed on the desk against which he’d been leaning and Helen gave him a once over. “Shirt, too. Every bullet leaves two holes and exit wounds are the messier of the pair.” It isn’t as though Tesla didn’t know these things from first-hand experience. However, it helped to set Helen at ease to explain why she needed the vampire half-naked.

He obliged her, not that there was much left of the shirt to remove. For someone so particular about his appearance, it was difficult to accept just how much of a mess he was currently in.

“Prognosis, doctor?” he quipped. “Will I live?”

She breathed out heavily through her nose in amusement. “Anyone else would’ve been dead by now,” she offered. First things first, Helen looked over him thoroughly, front and back, to ensure all of the bullets had gone through. Pulling one out would just be messy. Additionally, in her once over, Helen checked to ensure he hadn’t been struck in his extremities, as well.

She dabbed antiseptic around each wound with her finger tips after wiping away the immediate blood with a sterile pad. One by one, each of the bullet holes was dressed until his torso was practically wrapped in bandages and gauze. “I can’t do much for your internal injuries, though, I’ve no doubt your preternatural healing will serve you well.” Honestly, after being torn into by John, quite literally, a few bullets passing through should seem as nothing.

Now that his blood was all over her hands, Helen glanced around the place for a sink at which to wash. “I wouldn’t recommend wearing any shirt of which you’re horribly fond. Those bandages will seep and need to be changed every hour, two at maximum.” The idea of Tesla trolling around in this cave in a sweatshirt to spare his wardrobe flicked through Helen’s mind and brought a smirk to her lips.

“I’m glad to be of amusement,” he caught the smirk as it crept over her lips. If it had been anyone else, he would have scowled.

Tesla had to give pause to think of a shirt he didn’t like or could hope to spare. In the end, he opted to return to his lucky jacket – the one piece of attire that put up with all the abuse and seemed to come out unscathed.

“Your skills have improved somewhat,” Nikola observed, as he pulled his jacket around his slightly larger girth. Her poking and prodding had hurt – yes, but he was never one to complain about female hands running lightly over his back and chest for the better part of half an hour.

“I’ve been practicing for the better part of a century. I should hope my skills improve after so much time.” Heaven knows she’s spent enough of the last two decades patching up Ashley. Only after washing her hands of any trace of Tesla left one them side she come over and clap him genially on the shoulder.

“You’ll live, Nikola,” she offered with wry smile. Her hand may have lingered for a second, possibly two before it fell away. As if to cover the gesture, Helen breathed out a sigh and rolled her shoulder before making a grab around Tesla for those pain killers.

“Ow…” he said softly, as she hit him playfully on the shoulder.

Nikola may have been injured but he was still faster than her. He swiped at the pain killers too – reaching them first and whisking them out of her reach.

A brow lifted, just slightly, bringing a look of incredulous questioning coming to her face. Unfortunately for Helen, Tesla’s a bit taller than she. In spite of that, she reaches for the tablets.

“Nikola.”

He raised it higher.

“My last bargaining chip,” he mused, twisting it to the artificial light, “as if it could be conquered so easily.”

Helen continued to give him an expectant glare. “Bargaining chip for what, pray tell? You threw me from a rooftop and would deny me some measure of relief from the resulting pain after I tended your wounds?”

“Charming as this city is,” he lowered the bottle just a touch, nearly letting it slip into her grasp before elevating it out of range. “I need to get out, but lately, every time I try…” his voice ambled off.

For some reason the Cabal were determined to capture him and planes – roads and boats proved opportune for such a task. He’d lost count of the close calls he’d escaped. ‘Travelling’ just wasn’t something he was able to achieve.

“I know you have the means,” he flicked the lid off the bottle with his thumb and tilted the bottle so that its pearly white pills tumbled to the rim – but not over it.

Her gaze fixed on the bottle of pills, the ache from being jostled so roughly seeming to settle deeper into her bones with each passing moment. Helen’s lips parted, eyes slightly wider than usual as the means to relief flicked into her sight.

With a blink, her eyes shifted to Tesla. “The means for what,” pressed she, a note of irritability creeping into her voice.

“…traffic me safely out of the country.”

Nikola let a single pill fall into her hand – it was a start, but it wouldn’t be enough to numb the pain.

“I’d of course need somewhere to stay – and a supply of vintage wine.”

Honestly, be rewarded like some sort of pet. Beyond insulting! Helen caught that single pill, tossing it back dry. What’s a little ibuprofen among friends?

Ever closer to her hairline that brow crept. Was he serious? He seemed to be. “Nikola, I came to Rome for a book. If that Cabal’s sources are clever enough to track you, they’re going to know I didn’t come here for a human-sized artefact…”

On the other hand, for the sake of their old friendship and sort of future alliance, Helen couldn’t outwardly decline. For a long moment she contemplated him, weighing the pros and cons of having him at the Sanctuary for a time.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

A steady stream of white objects rained down from the bottle into her hand. There were a dozen more bottles where it came from – more than he’d ever need. Without a smirk of his own, he tossed the empty container aside. It bounced across the floor and rolled into a corner adding to the mess.

His lab was ruined anyway – an adventure was just what he needed – a bit of time spent prowling around a change of scenery.

“It’s been a pleasure doing business with you Madame,” he dipped into a shallow bow.

“I don’t need that many,” she pointed out. “Unlike you, these things still affect me rather pleasantly.” Though, Helen did pop a few more pills into her mouth before pocketing the rest.

“If you think you’re to be rid of me so easily, Nikola, you’re sorely mistaken.” Her eyes narrowed, a gleam of determination flashing in them. “I’ll not be leaving Rome until I get that for which I came.”

That sounded positively ominous.

Nikola matched her stare and raised her a slight, amused tilt of the head.

“And what would that be?”

Helen tilted her head slightly, a small grin quirking up one corner of her mouth. “If I’d known you were so easy to flabbergast, I’d have fallen on top of you ages ago,” she taunted. Check and mate. “I understand after all the excitement that you’ve forgotten since, of course, my purpose here is of little interest to you and your schemes.”

“Touché…” he let the word linger for a while.

Her taunting had him well and truly distracted. He tried to tell himself it was just the loss of blood affecting his usual indifference but it simply wasn’t true – Helen Magnus had always been his weakness – ever since the spring of 1880 when she’d sauntered into Oxford and given the exact same smile she was giving now.

“Your book,” his mind clicked back on, “ah yes – you were after a book.”

Helen smiled, reaching up to pat his cheek in a playful manner. “That’s the one with which you’re supposed to think.” That said, she pivoted on the ball of her foot, making her way across the room. Finally, she was sweeping her eyes around the lab, taking in the vampire’s lair. A bit gauche in her opinion.

“You will have one room at the Sanctuary. I will also supply you a lab of your own, but there will be conditions. You will not have access to my databases or our computer systems. For security purposes.” She moves over behind the desk, trailing her fingers over it before flopping into the leather chair. “However, those arrangements will be made on the successful retrieval of my book.” The implication of which was that Tesla was to help in that endeavour.

“Very generous…” he assured Helen.

She still didn’t trust him and that made him proud. Nikola had to spin around slowly to watch her flop into his favourite chair. The leather squeaked as she shifted around. He peered at her from the other side of the desk, resting both his hands on the wood and leaning halfway over it.

“You’re in my chair,” he cautioned her.

Helen nodded, as if to affirm his observation. “I wouldn’t want you to bleed on your fine leather.” Leaning back in the chair, she cast another look, a suspicious look, about the lab. When her eyes settled back on Tesla, they were impassive.

“I presume most, if not all, of this will need to be transported.” Even if whatever he was working on was simply for his own amusement, Helen dare not leave any of his work behind for others to find. “You know,” she added, a smug look touching her features, “I’m sure James has space at the UK Sanctuary. Been a while since you’ve been to London, hasn’t it?”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he was now resting on his elbows, still lounged across the desk. “We both know that an arrangement like that would lead to an unfortunate murder – and since I can’t die – apparently…”

He wasn’t sure he liked the way her eyes wandered over the room – across all manner of incriminating research. He was not an entirely benevolent creature, and littered among the genuinely useful machinery was the occasional ‘world domination’ contraption – for his own amusement, of course.

“No indeed,” he corrected her. “I travel light – a briefcase should suffice.” The security on this lab put Helen’s Sanctuary to shame. All he would need was a change of clothes and a laptop. Yes, despite choice of attire, he was well in tune with the modern era. Only fair seeing as he had invented most of it.

The suitcase in question was already packed, sitting neatly beside the desk after his last attempt to escape the country.

Her brow lofted as if daring him to make another threat. “I never specified at which of my Sanctuaries you’d be hiding.” She leaned forward in the chair, resting her elbows on the desk, and contemplated him. It’s likely he’s seen to the safety and security of this location, hence his ability to remain settled in Rome for so long.

“With the Cabal watching you so closely, Nikola, I’ll have to insist you remain unseen for a time. I’m not certain we could fake your death again, not to them.” Helen reclined back into the chair, her gaze fixed on Tesla. “Have you a phone directory?”

“I am the master of discretion,” he whispered, undaunted by her sudden approach.

Nikola always stood his ground.

“Phone? Nothing so primitive,” he snipped. “Phones can be tapped, tracked, listened in on – no, phones outgrew their usefulness long ago.”

This time it was Nikola’s eyes that wandered slightly – most against his will and better judgement.

Oh, what a disbelieving look those words earned him. “Really? Is it that what you call attempting to sell your teleforce weapon during a time of war to nearly every Allied nation?” Well, at least he hadn’t offered it to the Nazis. That was a small blessing. “Or perhaps another show of discretion was in your approach last time we met in Rome?”

Helen’s look faded from incredulous to border-line annoyance. “I didn’t ask for a phone, Nikola, just a directory. They have addresses. If she noticed his wandering gaze, she made no sign of it.

“Do I look like I would keep a directory?” he reached forward with one hand and took hold of a small, rather scruffy looking book. It was no bigger than a common diary. “This, however, is something unique.”

He opened it with one hand and it became clear that it was no book. The pages were some kind of flexible display screen that flickered on after a moment. One of his more useful inventions.

“Ask it anything whatever you want and it will do its best do oblige you. And, if you must know, at the time I really did have honest intentions for the world and its squabbling rabble.”

“You don’t really want an answer to that,” she murmured. Helen took the little technological wonder and pulled it close. To its illuminated pages she softly whispered, “Why is Nikola Tesla such an arrogant egomaniac?”

Nikola Tesla rolled his eyes pushed off his desk in distress.

The page of the book, however, glowed slightly as several lines of text appeared.

“… and never in my life have I met someone as arrogant, disagreeable or intolerable as that Tesla. What an egomaniac – I shall destroy him just for the sake of it.” Thomas Edison, 1893

He dreaded what kind of an answer she was reading.

“It’s not a perfect piece of technology,” he said, as he strode over to the workbench where his ruined coat from earlier still lay in a mess. Nikola pulled at hit, extracting his life’s work from its various pockets. Sadly, most of it was soggy and rather blood stained. At least it was once again in his possession, where it belonged.

Helen couldn’t repress a chuckle. Saucy little book! Her gaze flicked over to Tesla, then back to the gadget. “It must rub you horribly that you don’t get credit for inventing Google.”

All jest aside, Helen was impressed by the book. She laid it flat on the desk to admire the workmanship of it. Very clever, as expected from the brilliant mind of Nikola Tesla. Running a finger over the luminescent page, Helen murmured the name of the book store in question, asking for its street address.

Nikola could tell by the look of satisfaction on Helen’s face that his book was answering whatever it was she had purred at it.

He took his time sauntering back to the main desk, keeping a respectable distance from her secrets.

Without a word he hauled his suitcase onto it, fiddled with the brass locks until they snapped open and then proceeded to fill it with his personal papers.

“These go where I go,” he said firmly – as did the ‘book’ under Helen’s hands.

Helen’s not muttering secrets to Nikola’s little black book! Blue eyes flicked up to him, watching him with a polite measure of detachment while he fusses with the case. “I can arrange for a fire-proof safe in which you can store them when you’re act the Sanctuary. No one will have access to them save you,” she assured.

At length, she slid the book across the table, the address she’d requested still on its pages. Helen was banking on Nikola’s eidetic memory to remember those numbers. “How well do you know Rome’s tunnels, Nikola?”

“Are these trick questions?” he glanced at the page and it set into his memory.

He knew the place – quaint little store. Amongst other things its range of historical documents was extraordinary.

The ‘book’ joined the rest of his things in the briefcase which he shut firmly, adjusting the brass locks.

“Hamish may have an unparalleled collection of books and trinkets,” said Nikola, taking his briefcase in hand before wandering around to each piece of machinery in the lab, switching it off. Switch by switch, the room went quiet – as if sleeping. “But he’s a nasty old man with a temper and will overcharge if he gets so much as a whiff of affluence,” he risked a glance over his shoulder at her, “which he will.”

The only door to the lab was to the right of his desk where Helen was still draped over his chair. Talk about sights he never thought he would see.

He makes it seem so scandalous! It isn’t as if she’s wearing a short skirt with her legs thrown over the arm of the chair revealing the lace of her stockings. Not at all! Helen’s just sitting as a normal person sits. Worry clung to the edges of her thoughts as she peered over at him. Was he ready to travel so soon after being made into man-shaped Swiss cheese?

“Hamish and I have a bit of history, Nikola. Being personable often has long-reaching rewards.” Was she preening? Just a bit. Helen knows just what the man has for her and he knows exactly what he’s going to get for it. She’s been known to reward handsomely for things she covets.

Nikola was not one to laugh out loud but he absolutely could not prevent a soft, amused snigger before it slipped out when he watched Helen run her fingers through her hair, unconsciously removing flecks of dirt. No amount of attention could possibly hide her ruffled state. What Helen needed was a hotel room and an ensuité.

“You seem to have a lot of history,” he accused her.

There was something else he felt – that undeniable flicker of jealousy that surfaced every time Helen paraded one of her conquests in front of him. Hamish though? Now he was really depressed.

Helen paused in the fluffing of her hair to contemplate Tesla for a moment. And then it happened. Realization dawned and a broad smile broke across her face. “Are you jealous, Nikola?” There was a note of laughter to those words, just barely restrained. “Of Hamish? You must be joking!”

“Jealous?” he scoffed, “what rubbish.”

Nikola all but stormed back to his desk, this time coming around the side of it where Helen was seated. He stopped abruptly in front of her – the edges of his elegant coat just drifting far enough forward to sweep over her.

“Pity – perhaps, for having to endure you.”

Helen tilted her head slightly, her lashes lifting slowly as her eyes raked over him. For a long moment Helen met and held his gaze, pale eyes searching for something unknown in him. Tension grew in the air, thick as a heavy fog, and palpable.

Finally, Helen stood, flipping her hair back over on her shoulder, her expression hardening. A flash of fire lit in the depths of her eyes. “There are some things about which even you are bad at lying,” she grated out in a low, measured voice. “I promise you, you’ll have no need to endure me any longer.” That said, Helen turned on her heel and stalked toward anything that resembled an exit. “Good luck leaving Rome, Tesla.”

Nikola wasn’t sure when he had stopped breathing, but as Helen peered through him, examining the secrets of his soul at her leisure, he suddenly gasped and she had her answer.

The tension swirled with her sudden fury, which Nikola realised was as much about current events as it was caught up in their past.

Impulsively, and quite without his consent, he reached for her – just managing to catch the sleeve of her jacket before she strutted out of reach.

At the touch of his hand, that impulsive, desperate clutch, Helen whirled around, insult and fury lining her face. Instinct pulled her arm away from him, but something else froze her in place. Cold, distant eyes fell on him once more and it was all Helen could do to remember to breathe. Like in that moment when she met John… In the heavy silence, those seconds that felt like eternity, Helen could hear only the throbbing her heart in her chest — surely Nikola could as well.

It was as if she was seeing him for the first time. Not the scientist, the genius engineer, eccentric inventor. All of those melted away under her intense scrutiny. No more did she see arrogance, obnoxiousness, or even a vampire. Under that stare, Helen saw him, Nikola Tesla, the man, for the first time.

There was something human in him still, something he denied and hid from others. Something he, whether by his own will or not, revealed to her now. Helen stared at the magnificence of it as if watching a flower burst into bloom. All his well-crafted masks fell away in that one, simple, and so very human gesture. It left Helen breathless. Colour touched her cheeks, her eyes darkened slightly, and her lips parted. In those few seconds, rather than pull away, Helen stepped forward, closing the distance that remained between them, so close he could feel her breath on his skin.

He was frozen by the revelation; after decades of teasing, taunting, warring and outright avoidance there was something real beneath it all – and it shone through now, as starkly as a desert sunrise.

Nothing else mattered. She was a breath away – and Nikola’s eyes fluttered closed when his lips crashed down on hers.

Shock ran through her as hot and jarring as live voltage would’ve been. His lips against hers drew a small, perhaps startled, sound from Helen. However, whatever anger had been there, whatever tension, and lingering adrenaline served only to fan the flames. Rage was nothing more than a passion in and of itself, after all.

Even Helen was surprised to find her hands reaching out, cupping Nikola’s face. Her lips parted beneath his in a silent invitation to pour out decades’ worth of repressed and denied feelings into one heated moment.

Their collision knocked him backwards until he ran into the edge of the desk – his free hand fumbling for it to steady them.

Passion – in its most pure, demanding form took control of him.

Nikola’s lips answered her silent requests, parting in turn as his hands roamed up to hers and then tangled in her hair. He pulled her, if possible, closer as if he were afraid she would vanish like one of his countless reveries.

No mind was paid to Nikola’s injuries nor to the logical part of Helen’s mind railing against this lapse in judgment. No, she simply moved with him, pushing him back even once his desk stopped their progress. Her hands slid from his face, one remaining poised against the side of his throat, the other threading through his hair.

Helen’s tongue moves to greet Nikola’s, deepening their heated kiss with fervour. For a few seconds — and God how they seemed to drag on forever! — there was nothing else in the world other than the taste of him filling her senses, his hands in her mess of hair (shocking, considering Nikola’s aversion to touching hair!), his body against hers… Or so she thought until a great pop sounded and the room went dark. First instinct was that it was one of those parlour tricks he so enjoyed. Helen pulled back slightly, panting softly against his lips.

“Have I short-circuited you?” teased she, in a breathless voice.

For once in his life, Nikola’s mind was completely blank.

The feeling of Helen against him, inside him and all around him was overwhelming. A century of desire coursed through his veins – his heart pounding so hard he was sure that she would be able to hear it, pressed up against him like this. Her hands were knotted in his hair and her lips – they were hovering on his as she spoke.

It wasn’t until she repeated herself that his eyes flicked open and he realised that the lab had been thrown into darkness.

His chest pained from the awkward angle Helen had him at – half laid over his desk. Still, he tilted his head and lowered it to the side of her neck and breathed back his response.

“It wasn’t me…” he said softly, revelling in her for just a few more stolen moments.

She made no effort to move away from him. Through the fog of angry passion, the weight of Nikola’s words settle over her. At length she blinked, a sudden chill gripping her that has nothing to do with the coldness of his skin.

“… Move! Now!” She insisted as she pulled away. “Get what you can, we have to go!”

He heard a pile of papers fall to the floor beside them, knocked by his hand as he pushed them off the desk.

It wasn’t him which meant it was someone else – and, save the woman trying to pull him out of the room, he had only enemies.

He fell to the floor – half-dragging Helen with him as he searched for his briefcase – discarded in their passion. Eventually he found it and scrambled to his feet.

“This way,” he said, taking her firmly by the hand as he led her through the pitch black room toward the only exit.

Nikola could see but only just as he ran his hand over the door, grasping at the handle and shuffling Helen out from in front of it.

“Tunnels,” he told her, as the lights in the lab momentarily flickered back on – as if someone was fighting for control of them. “Whatever happens, Helen,” he told her seriously, as the room returned to black. “Keep your free hand on the right-side wall. It’s a maze down here – but that will lead you out.”

There’s a slight groan from Helen as she’s nearly dragged to the floor with the inventor. Helen grasped at his sleeve with the same desperation he’d grabbed at hers before. She may not have had any great love for Tesla, but Helen certainly didn’t bear him enough ill will to leave him in the hands of enemies.

In the dark, she staggered behind him, her fingers curling around his if only to keep from being lost in the lab. Her eyes widened at his words, a hand already going for the wall. “Nikola, I’m not leaving you behind.”

He was quickly hatching an escape plan as they entered the tunnel. The door to his lab locked behind them. No-one else would be getting into it alive but the longer they stayed here, the less chance they had of getting out of this mess un-captured.

“Leave me behind?” he eyed her scornfully in very low light of the tunnel. It was almost an unnatural ambient glow, barely allowing a differentiation between the stone walls and dirt floor. “I’d be offended if you did. It’s just in case,” he added, releasing her hand for effect, “we get separated.”

Just for the effect, she takes his hand firmly in her own. It may be hard to see in the dim light, though if anyone could see the determination in her eyes, Nikola would be the one. “We won’t.”

He raises his eyebrow as she re-takes his hand firmly, working her fingers between his until Nikola has no choice but to take hold.

“And there go all my carefully laid plans to vanish for the next century,” he joked, starting off down the tunnel with an air of caution.

These networks of tombs under Rome were positively ancient. There was no sense at all in their haphazard, confused and ridiculously complex design – if anything, it seemed contrived solely to trap unwitting wanderers in an endless tomb. This, of course, worked in Nikola’s favour most of the time. Rome had been his home on and off for nearly sixty years which gave him a decided advantage over any pursuers.

Surprisingly, they continued on for a while without trouble – navigating the occasional semi-collapsed section of tunnel until the floor began to tilt upward as if they were heading to the surface.

Helen frowned, following Nikola’s lead through the catacombs. It wasn’t beyond reason that he’d acquaint himself with them while in Rome. Hadn’t she herself done the same thing with the closed off undergrounds during World War II?

“Should you vanish again for a century,” Helen warned in a very serious tone, “it will only be because I’m testing what precisely will succeed in killing you.” That’s her way of saying, ‘you’d better not!’

After the tease she’d just given him? For once he wasn’t in a hurry to retreat into the shadows.

“Wouldn’t want to be your enemy…” he observed, as they neared the end of the catacombs.

Whoever had been playing with the lights in his lab hadn’t managed to find them – with any luck they were lost, huddled like frightened rats in a corner somewhere.

“It would be a shame to depart Rome without your purpose for coming here,” he said, pausing to sniff out the way ahead. Her bookstore was not far from where these tunnels emerged.

It was by far his favourite escape route – coming up under the great Pantheon. From there it was a leisurely stroll through the cafe courtyard to Hamish’s alleyway.

There was  a set of heavy doors a dozen metres in front of them with three other passage ways meeting at their foot. He listened to the other tunnels carefully for any hint of life.

Helen simply gave him a stare, one of complete agreement. “I don’t intend to leave without my book.” The question is how angry will Nikola be when he realizes said book is a rare first publication of short stories by Ray Bradbury?

Must be some book, he mused. His heart was still beating irregularly. He had not forgotten those moments in his lab. They were surreal – utterly so. The only evidence that they had transpired was Helen’s hand in his and the slightest stain of red lipstick on his mouth.

They crossed the last tunnel together. Nikola pushed the door open and the ruckus of the Pantheon could be heard as a distant haze of noise. The late afternoon was peak tourist time in Rome – those few hours before sunset when the soft yellow light caressed the streets and the café’s became bars with their iron chairs and tables littered over the giant courtyards.

Helen and Nikola ascended the stone steps – the background noise rising as they came to a second door. This one was brand new and, as he opened it, a blur of people came into view along with the lofty dome of the beautiful ancient building.

They found themselves inside the Pantheon, emerging from a door labelled, ‘Fire Exit Only’.

Helen’s grip on Nikola’s hand never wavered as he manoeuvred the tunnels. Her eyes narrowed, adjusting to the brighter light as they depart the underground catacombs. Her free hand lifted to shield her eyes from the glare of afternoon. Blinking while her sight adjusts, Helen paused to peer at her surroundings.

Impressive, Helen thought. Nikola’s knowledge of the catacombs must’ve come from years of exploration. That photographic memory of his can’t have hurt the process. Nikola may have taken note of the slight in-take of breath at the sight before her while they moved away from the Pantheon.

“Hamish’s shop isn’t far,” Helen finally murmured at length. “I’ll check your bandages there.”

“Ah yes, the great and alluring Hamish,” he teased, wading through the sea of tourists.

Out in the safety of the streets they almost forgot the chaos of before. To any casual observer they were simply two travellers, hand in hand, wandering through the twilight of Rome.

And then there it was – the time-ravished shop front of the bookstore, huddled away in the gap between two buildings.

Nikola brought them to a natural stop and then turned to her with an amused smile. Without a word, he set his briefcase down and then reached forward, brushing a smudge of dirt from her cheek.

“First impressions are key,” said Nikola, before retrieving his case.

Helen smirked, tipping her head slightly away from the coolness of his fingertips. They felt so cold against her skin after their flight through the ancient tunnels.

“Whatever impression Hamish has of me was made long ago,” informed she. However, she did run her fingers through her tussled hair to shake free some of the dirt and dust. Then, she reached forward, her thumb gliding lightly over his lower lip to wipe away the tell-tale smear of lipstick lingering there.

He held her gaze through the small gesture, smiling against her finger as it lingered a fraction longer than was necessary.

“Clearly not the impression you’re after,” he joked.

Eventually his eyes drifted to the shopfront.

“We should probably…”

Helen simply gave him a smirk, turning her attention toward the shop. “I have a reputation to maintain, at the very least.”

Nikola kept his thoughts in check as he strode over to the doors and peaked through the dark windows. Ordinary one tried to make a shop look open and inviting but Hamish wasn’t like that – he preferred his clients brazen and curious.

“He’s open all right,” Nikola turned the large door knob and pulled the rickety thing toward him. An old bell tingled as he did so, strung from a nail on the back side of the door. “I’d say, ‘ladies first’ but you’d only scorn me.”

Instead, he ventured into the poorly lit shop, tilting his head up to the surprisingly tall tiers of bookshelves. They looked like throwbacks to ancient Rome with netting wired over them in case of earthquakes or passing thieves and dust, god the dust…

Just to keep Nikola’s suspicions up, as they she walked through the door she pulled a key that looked easily as old as they were from her pocket. “It doesn’t matter if the shop is open for business. Hamish’s doors are always open to me, Nikola.” Yes, now she’s just being cruel.

The way that Tesla winced as the dust danced in the last beams of afternoon sun making their way into the shop brought a small, nostalgic grin to Helen’s face. One had to wonder how the man managed to survive with his aversions and predilections before the modern era he did so much to usher in.

At the tinkling of the bell, the heavy footsteps of Hamish sounded from behind distant shelves. Helen put on a bright smile as he emerged from a cloud of dust. A quick embrace and a kiss to the cheeks served as greeting. “I’m here for my book,” she crooned as if there could possibly be some other reason she’d come to see this man.

Nikola knew that she was playing him but could do nothing but mind his manners and keep a safe distance as Hamish embraced Helen in welcome. The old man was very Italian, and went in for a second peck. Nikola’s eyes rolled at the exchange and he made no effort to acknowledge his presence.

He was infinitely more curious about Helen’s key. It is not common practice to bring keys to bookstores, especially decorative ones like hers that bared all the trappings of age – a dull sheen, hairline scratches and that distinctive layer of silver sulphide.

Helen smiled politely, pulling back from the man. There was no need to introduce Tesla. It was likely they were already acquainted and, if not, there was little point in doing so now. While Helen had no doubt that Hamish would protect them until the end, there was no sense in throwing one more person between them and the Cabal.

“I can’t stay long,” Helen added, a note of urgency in her tone. “Little bit of trouble managed to find me,” she intoned, giving a pointed stare to Nikola. the man nodded in understanding. He murmured something about finding the deposit to his account before waddling off to get Helen’s goods. A simple book wrapped in paper and neatly tied with a piece of twine. The woman perked up, clutching the volume in her hands. “Thank you.” For a few brief seconds, she basked in her glee before turning to her companion. “Let’s go, Nikola.”

Nikola’s eyes were on the parcel clutched in Helen’s hands. He made a non-committal sound and stepped aside, allowing her to step past him and lead the way to the door. They stopped just before opening it – but well out of earshot of Hamish, who had vanished into another corner of his store.

“I hope you have a plan,” Nikola said to her, quite seriously, “because I cannot return to my lab.”

He wasn’t one to beg for help, but he was tired of fleeing – being a shadow on the edge of civilisation. Nikola had being doing it longer than her and with more organisations on the hunt.

“I have nowhere left to go,” he admitted.

Helen nods, taking a quick look outside before stepping out of the shop. “Of course I do,” she assured him. “There is a safe house on the outskirts of Rome. We can stay there for the time it will take for my contacts to arrange the necessary paperwork. Two, three days at most. I’ve been staying at the local Sanctuary, but that would be the most likely place of refuge.” Hence why they’ll not be going there.

Helen paused outside the door of the shop, offering the parcel in her hands to Nikola. “Will this fit in your case?” As if she hadn’t missed a beat to make that query, she continued. “We’ll take a series of taxis to the house, but we must start our travel quickly before the Cabal finds us once more.” Helen paused, then, wondering on him with a mild expression. She knew it was difficult for him to step around his ego and ask for help, hence why it was only in the most dire of circumstances that he called upon her. She also understood that was simply his way and no amount of chastising or assuring it needn’t be so would change it.

Nikola took the parcel with a snippy comment, even though his curiosity was more than peaked.

“I am not you caddy,” he snarled, wrapping his elegant fingers around the parcel.

Nikola could feel through the paper that it was a slight book – at fifty pages with a heavy binding. Nevertheless, he knelt down the ground – careful not to actually touch it, as he opened his brief case and laid her book beside his notes.

He was not blind to Helen’s gesture. After a second shuffling his things around to accommodate the book, Nikola shut the lid, locked it and straightened.

Catching taxis in Rome wasn’t like catching them in London. Most streets were too narrow for anything but people and scooters so Helen and Nikola found themselves hurrying along between the buildings until they emerged on one of the few main streets.

A tide of people and cars were squeezed together in the open space and amongst them, a speckling of taxis.

Once on the main road, hailing a taxi didn’t prove a difficult feat. Once they shuffled into the vehicle, Helen instructed the driver to take them to some random tourist site on the opposite end of the city. From there, they’d transfer to another cab and head once more to another part of the city before switching to yet another and making their way to the edge of Rome.

“Our best option is tourists. Easy enough since neither of us are Italian. A commercial flight will be booked and we will travel economically.” As she’d told him before, it would take a few days to get papers in order allowing them to travel with less chance of being tracked.

He sighed heavily as the word, ‘economically’ left her lips. Clearly they would be trapped in baggage class. Helen really was cheap – always had been – probably always would be. Nikola wasn’t one to talk though, as he was perpetually impoverished despite his best efforts.

Nikola nodded in reluctant agreement, glancing at the window of the taxi as a stand of weary poplars blurred past.

“I hope you have wine…” he said, still watching Italy out the window.

NIGHT TIME TRAVEL

Spending two to three days in a confined space with Tesla could prove to be Helen’s end. She’d contented herself reading through several books she kept at the house (and the one for which she’d come to Rome) and working diligently from her PDA. After spending the first day laying the ground rules (which included limits on how much wine he was to drink in a day and discussion of staying in the house except in the most dire of emergencies), Helen was pleased to learn their papers were to soon arrive via a courier.

Once the parcel was delivered (along with their airline tickets for that evening), Helen couldn’t help her amusement once she’d looked over the documents. “Nikola,” she called to him from the sitting room. “I have news for you.”

Nikola set his last allotted glass of red down on the table and slinked toward the hallway. He lingered in the doorway, arms folded across his chest as he observed Helen rustle through some papers.

“You called?” he said.

He was dressed in his only other change of clothes – a dark maroon vest over a black dress shirt with black trousers.

“Papers,” she stated, moving to hand him his needed documentation. If he flips through them, he’ll see a passport sporting his photo with the name ‘Milos Jovović’ printed on it, issued from the government of Serbia. It shows extensive travel through various parts of Europe. Among the documentation, he’ll find an IR green card, the type the spouse of a US citizen would have. The name listed as his sponsor reads as one Johanna Denton-Jovović, coincidentally, the name on Helen’s documents.

“It seems,” she droned on as if bored by the topic, “we’ve recently been married and have spent our honeymoon abroad. We’ll be flying back to the United States this evening.”

Nikola’s eyes languidly move from the papers in his hands to Helen’s bored look. He had read them twice, just to be sure.

“Maybe wine does affect me,” he said, slipping his passport into his buttoned pocket for safe keeping. “All I remember of Rome are bullets and mayhem … Mrs Jovović.”

Is he staring at her in a manner that he shouldn’t? Quite possibly. On occasion he can’t help it, especially when she purposely baits him by feigning disinterest in his existence.

For a long moment, Helen simply continued to look through her papers, completely impassive. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” she droned, the tone making it clear this little ruse was the closest he would ever get to her.

Finally, her gaze lifted to meet his, a flash of a startled look crossing her features. “Nikola, you’re leering.”

“So I am,” he acknowledge, snapping out of it. Nikola cracked into one of those smiles where it was impossible to tell if he’d been kidding or not. “I’m packed…” he nodded roughly in the direction of the front door where his briefcase stood next to her luggage. “And your driver is late.”

“I’ll thank you to refrain from staring at me like something into which you’d like to sink your teeth,” snapped Helen. She glanced over to the clock on the wall, mildly concerned by the time. “Only by five minutes. He could be stuck in traffic.”

Nikola pushed off the doorframe and gave her a lofty eyebrow.

“I don’t bite…” he snapped, and headed back to the lounge room to finish his glass of wine before it was snatched away.

Long plane flights – Nikola despised them – or was mildly wary of them.

He set the empty glass down and plucked a book from the desk at the corner of the room. It wasn’t his, but Nikola was not about to travel without something to distract from the precarious arrangement that was flight.

“Forgive me,” she offered almost instantly. That was not the best metaphor to use in the presence of a vampire. “I didn’t mean to imply that you would, Nikola.”

The sound of an approaching vehicle caught her attention. Helen peered out the window and watched as her driver pulled up to the house. “Our ride is here.”

“Pity doesn’t suit you, Helen,” said Nikola softly but sternly, as he retrieved his coat from the leather armchair and moved to navigate around her en route to the hallway.

He risked meeting her eyes with a brief glare, but it softened after a moment.

Her attention drifted from the approaching car to the direction from which Nikola’s voice sounded. “Pity insinuates I feel sorry for you. I do not,” Helen quipped, moving to get her own coat and her bag. Brushing past him to the door, Helen nudges his shoulder with hers. “Buck up, Milos. We’re newlyweds.”

Nikola’s shoulder jarred a little with the impact as he bent to pick up her bag as well as his.

“Yes darling…” he drawled for effect, “mustn’t keep them waiting.”

‘Newlyweds…’ she really did have a cruel sense of humour but wait – they had no rings. Anyone with half a brain would see through their ruse.

“Not to question your genius,” he said, laden with luggage as she opened the door, “but you forgot something…” Nikola looked pointedly at her bare hand.

“The letter that came with our papers, my love,” God, that just sounded so wrong, “informed me that our driver would be bringing that last small detail.” Then she grinned, sauntering out the door. “My genius is as great as yours.” Oh, yeah, she was teasing.

Nikola was forced to bite his tongue at that last comment of hers. Instead of detailing, at length, the many reasons why he outranked her in genius, he chose to follow her out of the house, frowning at the way she was enjoying the entire predicament.

The taxi waited on the gravel stretch between the house and the iron gates. The sky was beginning to darken and small specklings of light could be seen on the surrounding hills. Church bells rang out through the valley, marking the hour as they always did.

Their driver was leaning up against the taxi, having a smoke. He nodded in greeting as they approached.

“Dr Magnus,” said the driver respectfully, “Mr Tesla.”

Helen smiled to the driver, giving a nod of greeting. “Nice to see you again, Lucian,” she mused politely. Wide and varied were the contact of the great Helen Magnus. Walking to the back of the car, she pushed open the boot and turned to take the bags from Nikola. Once loaded, Helen closed the trunk and made her way back around to the driver.

“I believe you have something for us,” she stated, holding out her hand as the man pulled from his jacket a small envelope. From it, Helen dumped into her hand a pair of rings. “Platinum,” she mused with a frown as she inspected them. Far more expensive than she would’ve liked. Turning her attention back to Nikola, she held out the larger of the two to him. “Put this on.”

He hesitates. It was surreal at best. The white gold ring, beautifully worked but simple in its elegance, was nestled in her open palm.

Maybe this whole thing wasn’t such a good idea after all. He had not lied back in the catacombs on her last visit to Rome and this was worse than any form of torture he had endured.

Eventually reached out and, his fingers brushing lightly against her palm, took the ring. It fit perfectly as he slid it onto his finger, glistening against his pale skin. He hoped that she had not noticed the flash of emotion through his eyes. That was the last thing he needed – for Helen to see the pitiful, human side of him.

“Adequate,” he muttered, opening the taxi door for her.

Helen does notice his hesitation, the way his hand seemed to quiver every so slightly as he reached for the ring. She watched him intently, noting the way his lips moved and his strong, careless façade faltered. Once he finally put it on, Helen smiled gently.

“Good,” she mused to break the awkward silence settling between them. “I guessed right on the size.” Helen however simply closed her fingers around the remaining ring in her palm, not yet putting it on. “Shall we go?”

“Your carriage awaits,” he watched, waiting for her to disappear into the taxi before he closed the door firmly.

The driver gave Nikola a wink.

“Love is tough,” said the driver, then broke into one of his brief fits of laughter and coughing. He never ceased to be amused by the trouble Magnus got herself into.

Nikola ignored the driver, roamed around to the other side of the car, and shuffled in next to Helen. The metal on his finger was already warming as he pulled his own door shut and the taxi lurched into motion, turning out the drive and through the decorative gates.

“You should marry that thing instead,” said Nikola, pointing at the PDA in her hands.

It took a moment for Helen to hum in question. Another second before the she realized what he said. With a few decisive keystrokes, the PDA was tucked away into her shoulder bag and she peered over to Nikola.

“Oh, I will once it’s made legal for humans to marry inanimate, non-sentient objects.” Still coiled in her hands was that ring. The metal was warming to her own temperature, though her eyes lingered on Nikola. Ever since that moment in the lab, her mind had been wandering when there was time to spare. “You sound like a jealous husband already,” she quipped, holding out her fist to give him the other ring.

“Apparently,” he glanced at her outstretched hand, “I’m entitled to.”

His tone had lightened somewhat as the car continued to groan along the highway.

“Barely married two weeks and you’ve already found a better offer,” his lips twisted in amusement, still not taking the ring. “Not even wearing the ring…” Nikola withdrew the book he’d stolen from his coat and flipped it open lazily, skimming a random page.

She had played with him, and now he would return the favour. He wanted her to ask.

“Is that my volume of Yeats,” she asked, her brows furrowing slightly.

As if to draw more attention to it, Helen jiggled her hand in front of him. “Don’t be petulant. Do you want to put this on or not?”

Nikola’s will was not that strong. He gave in.

“Yes,” he answered, “to both questions.”

He let the book fall forgotten to his lap, extending his hand forward to hers and she dropped the ring into his grasp. It was lighter and smaller than his but adorned with a pair of perfectly cut diamonds. In every way it was more beautiful – as it should be.

He took her hand tenderly in one of his, brushing over her fingers deliberately until they parted. Finally, he singled one out as his other hand brought the ring to the tip of her finger, holding it there just shy of her skin as he lifted his eyes to hers.

Then, slowly, he slid it onto her finger until it sat snugly against her skin – his eyes never moving from hers.

“Now you’re Mrs Jovović,” he flashed her an honest smile.

Helen couldn’t repress the shiver that ran through her when his fingers brushed against hers. Suddenly, the metal she’d taken care to warm in her hand felt cool on her skin, like Nikola’s fingertips.

She faltered briefly, her lips parting to take in a sharp breath. Finally, her eyes darted to the book on his lap. Dark lashes fell closed as she recited her favourite of the author’s work (if only to distract from more personal thoughts).

“‘When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.’“

Nikola faltered, his hand, still holding hers, shaking slightly as he returned her whispered words.

“No, don’t approach me! I wish from a distance
to love and want your two eyes.
For happiness is sweet only while you wait for it,
while it’s giving only a hint of true self.

No, don’t approach me! There is more joy
in this sweet awe, waiting and fear.
Everything is more beautiful while you search for it,
while you only know its trace.

No, don’t approach me! Why and what for?
From this distance everything shines like a star;
From this distance only are we admire.
Ne, nek mi ne pridju oka tvoja dva”

Revel in the triumph of sending Helen Magnus into a moment of speechlessness. In Nikola’s hand, her fingers shook slightly. Dark lashes lifted, her eyes moving to meet his once more. That was completely unexpected.

“…Nikola…”

“I’d believe it,” said the jarring voice of the taxi driver. He had been watching the pair through his revision mirror the whole way.

Nikola broke away from her at once. He had not meant to do that. He had really not meant to do that. Reciting poetry from his home land – to her – while she looked at him like that, their hands resting together, shivering with… No, he had not meant to do that at all.

She was still starring. Even turned to the window, Nikola could feel her eyes settled on him – no doubt scornfully.

That was all the distraction she needed to pull her fast and hard back to the reality of the moment. Helen let her hand fall away from Nikola’s, the metal band still cool against her skin. She kicked the back of the seat, jostling the driver with a small glare.

Helen’s attention turned back to her bag, fishing out her PDA. Once more her fingers moved swiftly over the keys. “We’ll be landing in JFK. It appears we’ll be there two days before catching a small plane to Detroit. The day after, my private jet will come to collect us and take us to the Old City Sanctuary.”

His eyebrows lifted a little as she kicked the seat.

“A private jet?” he mused aloud. “This new century has been good to you I see. Shame we won’t be enjoying such comforts on the most arduous stretch of the trip.” Was it eighteen hours – twenty? He couldn’t remember – it had been so long since he’d flown. Nikola had caught a boat from the states to Rome.

“Tell me,” he continued, “do all Victorian women own their own planes?”

Ten hours across the sea by plane. Less than an hour to Detroit. Another three or four to Old City.

“The Sanctuary network has its needs and we’ve the funds to see to them,” she offered. “It is used in dire circumstances.” She glances up from the PDA and over to Nikola, trying to ignore the heat rising in her cheeks.

“I don’t know any other Victorian women,” she pointed out.

“Dire indeed,” he meets her eyes – sees Helen’s cheeks unnaturally flushed – and promptly looks away. Nikola is blissfully unaware that his own complexion looks positively normal – for a human. There is colour in his pale skin and it has something to do with his shaking hands.

“I do – just the one though,” Nikola continued. “She was never very good at being Victorian though, not even when the century called for it…” He was, of course, speaking of her.

“What an un-gentlemanly thing to say,” Helen quipped. Even if it was a true thing to say. She wasn’t the only bad Victorian in this taxi. For a long moment, Helen was silent, even the tones of PDA went quiet.

“Nikola… about before,” she began in a more subdued, uncomfortable tone.

His heart stopped for a moment. Was she going to torment him further? God, he was hoping she would just ignore him for the rest of the journey but her tone was clear that she would not.

Nikola made a non-committal noise somewhere between a sigh and a grunt. Finally, he turned back to her and saw how she was paused, waiting, her eyes focused solely on him.

No, she’s not trying! “Put it out of your mind,” she advised.

He eyed her incredulously. Even if he wanted to, it was technically impossible given his Eidetic memory. Lying though, he was better at.

“Put what out of my mind?” rhetorical, of course.

They were well within the confines of Rome now, skirting along the edge of the city on approach to the airport. On one side of the car was a dusty chasm – an immense excavation of the ancient city below with sad hollows of buildings and half crumbling pillars lit with spotlights against the night.

An aircraft coming into land roared above the sound of the traffic.

The taxi continued on until they reached the airport, even the driver noting the thick, heavy silence. He drove them to the drop-off pointed, where Helen removed their luggage from the car and paid the man for his time and his silence.

After the vehicle drove away, she peered over to Nikola an affected a pleasant smile. “Milos, shall I check your bag?” The implied question, of course, ‘do you want to carry this on the plane?’ Helen’s shoulder bag held the important items she would need should their luggage find itself lost.

He had one of her larger bags strung over his shoulder, making his lofty figure lopsided. Nikola’s briefcase however, was grasped firmly by his side.

“Secrets of the universe…” he reminded her, with a healthy lashing of sarcasm. His bag would be coming on board.

They made their way inside the airport, dodging as best they could the endless stream of bodies, piled up against each other, humming about in frantic patters across the airports tiled floor.

The length of the check-in queues elicited a groan from Nikola’s throat.

“We’ll be old and grey by the time we get through this,” he muttered, and then turned to her with a pointed look. “And that’s saying something.”

“If you’re very patient,” Helen crooned solicitously, “I’ll ask if we can upgrade to first-class since we’re on honeymoon.”

“I don’t think we should be drawing any undue attention to ourselves – considering the circumstance…” the line shuffled forward, as did Helen, Nikola and the luggage.

An Italian security guard gave the line a close pass, his black hat with gold braiding weaving around the tourists.

“Besides, I have grown used to being impoverished,” he flashed her a smile with an ever so slight hint of vampiric teeth.

Helen canted her head gently to one side, her look mild, but incredulous. “And yet such a taste for fine wine,” she pointed out as an aside. Playing to her role, Helen stepped closer to Nikola, reaching to brush her fingers against his. “Simply too much distance between us in those large first-class seats.”

“It rarely belongs to me…” he explained, then stopped as her fingers brushed against his again. “Oh yes,” Nikola picked up the end of her tone, “those first class seats are entirely too comfortable and spacious. Still – I will miss the complimentary beverages.”

His fingers moved against hers.

Awkward. Though Helen keeps the smile in place as the queue slowly shuffled forward. It seemed like months passed before they were at the counter. Bags were checked, their boarding passes assigned, and the happy couple wished-well.

As they wandered away with their carry-on bags, Helen sighed. “How are you healing?” she queried in quiet concern.

It was a much more pleasant stroll now that he was free of Helen’s surprisingly heavy baggage.

“Completely,” he replied, but amended it to, “mostly…”

Other than the occasional throb of pain through the worst of the bullet holes, there was nothing to show of their scuffle in the library.

Helen was wandering toward one of the many cafes that lined the terminal, but Nikola’s eyes kept drifting to the clock beside the departure board.

“We really don’t have time,” he cautioned her, pulling himself to a stop and backtracking to where she was lingering at a particularly excellent display of sweet pastries.

Helen smirked over at Tesla as he doubled back. “There’s always time for scones,” she informed. “I don’t know how often you fly, but airline food is a step above prison and hospital fare. It’s best we get something here to take on with us.”

She smiled at the girl at the counter and ordered three scones for herself and a cup of hot black tea. Then she turned to Nikola. “What would you like?”

His eyes flashed at her as he drawled, “Coffee… black, lots of it.”

Reluctantly, with both hers and his beverages in hand, he loitered around the nearby newsstand while Helen waited on her scones. A private smirk crept over him. Scones, a definite weakness o the great Helen Magnus.

His eyes tracked over the newspaper titles as the endless drone of boarding calls added to the general noise of the airport.

Oh, but this was interesting, He leant closer to a particular stand.

MONSTER SIGHTING IN OUTSKIRTS OF OLD CITY

Nikola wondered if it was one of Helen’s pets out for a wander.

It wasn’t long for the scones. The girl at the kiosk wrapped them neatly for take-away and Helen tucked them into her shoulder bag. Helen padded over to Nikola’s side, peering over his shoulder.

“Mmm,” she hums in his ear, reading the headlines. “This is why my trip was to be brief. We have some trouble on the home-front.”

He feels her long, dark hair fall over his jacket shoulder as she leans in to read over him.

“So it is one of yours then?”  Nikola moves slightly forward, freeing the paper and holding it up for them both to read. It is vague, as all news in the 21^st century was. “I think we’ll keep this,” he said finally, folding it in half and slipping it under his arm.

She was still resting on his shoulder, her chin lightly pressing on him for support. Nikola wasn’t sure if he should move or not – he was not used to being used in such a practical manner.

“Have I suddenly morphed into a lectern?” he asked her lightly, turning his head just a little in her direction though it was difficult to achieve without crashing into her.

She reaches around for her cup of tea and nod in the direction of the terminal. “We need to check in there, too,” Helen advises.

“It’s something we’ve been trying to find for a time. Chances are, if it’s causing a noticeable commotion something got too close to its territory. It’s usually a docile creature living in the old underground tunnels of Old City. Every now and again, some unwitting person or Abnormal strays there and… well, natural instincts.”

“This is supposed to comfort me?” he hands Helen her tea. “Your Sanctuaries are magnets for trouble,” Nikola continued, as they set off toward the second terminal – the now stolen paper still under his arm. “But part of me suspects that you enjoy the constant peril.”

The first boarding call for their flight was already ringing out above their heads. Nikola took the opportunity to depart a look of disdain in her direction.

“Tardiness is another thing you enjoy,” he commented. “I remember how your invitations always carried a different time to the rest of ours. It was the only way to ensure you presence.”

Helen lofts a brow at him as they bustle toward the terminal. “I dare say you attract a far more dangerous sort of trouble than I, darling. I suspect you enjoy it as it gives you an excuse to contact me once more.”

She sips her tea in an airy manner, nose turned up slightly as they meander through the queue to board the plane. “Have you flown over the sea before?”

He dipped his head at her, darkening is playful glare as they paced.

“Fair’s fair, on this occasion it was you who bumped into me.”

Nikola drained the entire coffee cup in one go, depositing it in a nearby bin.

“Of course I have flown,” he answered her question. “1942, friend of mine owned a plane. Long story short, it was not entirely pleasant.”

Helen couldn’t help but laugh, clapping Nikola on the shoulder. “Planes have changed a great deal since then.”

“I am sure this one will be perfectly –” they rounded a corner and entered the glass lined lounges were the planes could be seen, waiting eagerly for passengers.

One had a pack of brightly adorned engineers clambering over it, another was making a most unhealthy sound as it tested its engines and the one closest to them had a man suspended from a crane picking bits of debris out of its nose. “Satisfactory…” he finished, not looking so sure.

She watched him intently as his speech slowed unnaturally. After a few seconds, Helen took his hand and squeezed it gently. The band of metal on her finger, though warm from her skin, is still notably cooler.

“There is a greater chance of being struck dead by a meteor than dying in a plane crash. I dare say even that might not kill you.”

“I am very sure that you will be the death of me long before that transpires, Mrs Jovović,” despite the lightness of his tone, he makes no move to let go of her hand.

They checked in for the final time and, as they were already late, found themselves ushered down the small connecting tunnel and into the large plane. As they had expected, their boarding pass had them seated in a non-descript second toward the back of the plane, well within the confines of Economy.

Amazingly they found a pair of seats nestled next to a window awaiting them.

Under normal circumstances, such behaviour would’ve earned him a serving of scathing wit. As it was, Nikola seemed genuinely unnerved at the prospect of flying, as evidenced by his hand still gripping hers. Once settled into their seats, Helen turns to face him with an indulgent smile.

“You shall enjoy every moment you have with me,” she teased.

“Is that a promise?” he replied, turning to her. There was a hint of danger in his eyes – the same  that had been there in Rome, just before he threw her off the roof.

They were still holding hands – an action that played well with their cover though was not entirely necessary given nobody paid them more than a cursory glance. Nikola could feel her ring, cool on his skin. He hadn’t dared move his hand in case she remembered that he was still holding onto it.

Helen’s brows lifted as if in challenge for him to test her words. “Have I ever failed to show you a good time, Mr. Jovović?” she drawled with a note of amusement. She recognized that look in his eyes, her own daring him to try something in the confined space of the plane. She may not have her gun with her, but she could still make him suffer horribly for the next six to eight hours.

Helen’s free hand moved to rest over his, giving him a light, reassure pat. Despite all their snipping at one and other and their disagreements, she still sees Nikola as a friend.

“It’s going to be a long flight – I can tell…” he mused aloud, as she laid a second hand on him.

It was entirely impossible not to have flash backs to those moments (minutes?) in his lab, especially now that they were packed together so closely in these quite frankly, cheap arse seats. He could clearly see her giving him that daring look of hers – the one that said, ‘trouble’ like nothing else.

He must have been contemplating her – them unabashedly staring at each other – for a long while because the next thing he felt was his body pushed back in the seat and the plane take flight.

For his sake, Helen squeezed his hand more tightly as they plan took flight. She flew frequently and wasn’t horribly troubled by it. He on the other hand, seemed to have some trepidation.

Once they were at cruising altitude, Helen did retract her hands from his, digging through her bag for the book she’d picked up in Rome and a scone. Time passed in silence, Helen engrossed in her reading. It helped her ease the long hours of flight when she travelled.

Eventually Tesla put his memories of the shaky, hand-built aircraft of 1942 behind him and relaxed into the chair, staring out at the completely black porthole until an airhostess rudely snapped it shut. The divider between their seats was most irritating and by far the worst part of the flying experience. Nikola observed its construction quietly for a moment and then discovered that it could, indeed by lifted up out of the way – which he promptly did, removing the barrier between himself and Helen.

Then, he flicked open the newspaper he’d stolen earlier and began to read on about the strange creature sighted outside Old City. It sounded like some kind of extinct feline to him – perhaps some kind of rear wildcat imported illegally and then set free when it got too big and scary.

“Miracinonyx inexpectatus,” Helen droned at length. “Thought to be extinct. What it’s doing so far north, I’m not certain. We’re hoping to capture it and transport it to a Sanctuary closer to its native climate.” She closes the booking, shifting to look at Nikola. “Why did you lift the arm rest?”

“Because it hurts,” he answered, matter-of-factly. It was true – it did hurt. No matter how he rearranged himself in the seat it always ended up prodding into the side of his ribcage.

Nikola gave her an innocent look which was, for once, actually innocent.

“You object?” he lowered the paper.

Helen peered beyond him to the third party sharing their group of seats. She slid her hand against his, twining fingers with him before she moved in close. It seemed as if she was going to whisper, but instead speaks loudly enough for the other to hear. “I hadn’t meant to be so rough with you.” Now, she just wants to watch Nikola go red in the face.

Nikola continued her motion, tilting his head slightly to the side to avoid colliding with her – instead brushing against her cheek en-route her ear.

Instead of leading on the poor, tortured passenger beside them, Nikola made sure that only she could hear as he whispered, “Not to worry…” His face is half buried in her hair, but he can still feel her reddening as he continued, “You know I like it rough darling.”

And how colour burst into bloom on her face, causing pale eyes to widen. A hand lifted to push him away, though stopped short against his shoulder. If his injuries were, in fact, still causing him pain she didn’t want to add to that. Plus, she’d be compromising their cover. Not to mention, Helen had opened that can of worms. She should’ve known better with Nikola and his quick, often sharp wit.

She hadn’t pushed him away – probably because she didn’t want to blow their cover, he reminded himself. Whatever the reason, Nikola snuck a quick, soft kiss to her exposed neck, lingering there before he withdrew and returned to reading his paper as if nothing had happened.

Oh yes, it was a small victory. Helen was practically scarlet.

Practically? Please! She could put a poinsettia to shame!

The portly gentleman beside Nikola grinned and gave him a little nudge with his elbow during the moments Helen remained completely flabbergasted. She huffed out a breath, letting her hand fall away from his shoulder in defeat.

Despite surprise and embarrassment, Helen couldn’t stop her thoughts from drifting back to that stolen moment in Nikola’s lab, that moment she’d almost left him to fend for himself against the Cabal. Still she could feel the cool press of his lips to her throat, a hand lifting to brush lightly to her lips. After a long, silent moment, Helen shifted in her seat, leaning into Nikola before blatantly resting her head against his shoulder.

Now it was Nikola’s turn to colour as Helen settled on him, nuzzling against him slightly as she got comfortable. Scandalous threats he could handle but this, Helen resting gently up against him – it played havoc with his carefully built resolve.

Lost for an appropriate reaction, Nikola did something he had always wanted to do. Carefully, and without disturbing her, Nikola freed his arm from between her and the seat. Next, he lifted his hand up until his fingers could reach the stray curl of hair that had fallen over Helen’s face. Nikola hooked one of his elegant fingers around it and moved the wild lock tenderly to the side.

Certainly the trip to Rome proved eventful, more than Helen anticipated. Even after bumping into Nikola, being shot at, flung from a building, harried through the catacombs of the ancient city once more… After all that in the security of the safe house, Helen still managed little sleep. The endless toiling of her mind saw to that. With literally nowhere to escape to busy herself, Helen’s exhaustion finally caught up with her.

Though she wasn’t fully asleep, she was fast on her way, lips parted and breathing slow where she nestled against his shoulder. The brush of cool fingers on her cheek did little to jar her. She simply tilted her head slightly into the soft touch, letting out a quiet sigh.

Nikola swallowed as Helen moved against his hand, turning – burying herself closer in the warmth of his jacket. Yes, he may be a vampire, but Nikola was still alive and even he had enough life to warm a jacket.

In truth, this was the reason he had left all those decades ago – vanished from the world and from her. He had always loved Helen, despite his protests and whining and scheming and – well, everything. Nikola had not lied about that. It was hard watching her with John back in Oxford, laughing and smiling with him when all along Nikola had known of John’s dark side. It was harder still when, after a hundred years Nikola could not stop the quickening pace of his heart and shortness of breath whenever she approached. It was impossible knowing that she would always belong to someone else.

But now here she was, hovering on the edge of sleep – trusting him and Nikola couldn’t keep his eyes from her.

It would be a terrible lie to say that Helen had no lovers since John. A woman has her needs after all. There’s only so much loneliness one can bear through the decades. She’d even had a handful since Ashley’s birth. Still, it was different to just lean into Nikola, to rest against him with such trust as few have earned from her. If he knew, he’d clearly see it’s a deeper sort of bond she extended to him than to most men she’d had in her life.

Which isn’t to say Helen would admit to or is even aware of the feelings she may or may not have for Tesla. Despite all they’ve been through, she would happily step up to help him when the need arises. Even if Nikola hadn’t vanished for six decades, Helen would’ve kept her distance, as she did with James. All the more reason to relish what time she had with him.

She nestled in closer, shifting in her seat to settle against him. One arm tucked up against her, laying lightly across her stomach while the other hand came to rest on his thigh. Though she was almost lost to sleep, there was a comfort to be had in knowing Nikola, her old friend, someone who understood her better than so many others, was right there.

Nikola exhaled deeply, deciding to finally give in and enjoy whatever this was that Helen was giving him. He moved a bit as she did. Oh, she’s comfortable with him all right – she always had been – since Oxford.

As Helen curled up to him, Nikola lowered one of his arms, lighting draping it down her shoulder and along her arm until his hand rested on top of hers, both rising and falling on her stomach in time with Helen’s sleepy breaths.

He let his head rest back into the seat until, as a pair, he and Helen were lounged as best they could in the confined space – and all the while Nikola tried desperately not to think about the hand she’d decided to leave on his thigh.

Helen sighed in content, the puff of air soft and warm against Nikola’s throat. To anyone walking by, they could very well be just what they were pretending: a couple very much in love. Helen, of course, being a Victorian woman put little stock in the endurance of romantic love and more in the ideas of trust and comfort in a kindred spirit. She’d always felt, as most Victorian women, that love came with time. John had been an exception to that rule, she was certain.

But Nikola claimed to have loved her for so long, despite everything. Time, distance, John, Ashley, even their own altercations. Whereas, despite the same things, Helen had always felt comfortable with him. Though others may doubt it, she knew beyond all doubt that he would be at her side should she need him.

Quite some time passed while Helen slept in Nikola’s arms, dreams of a peaceful life moving like shades and spectres through her mind. As pleasant as sleep was, she was too soon jarred back to reality by a particularly rough patch of turbulence the plane encountered. Blue eyes snapped open, wide, pale, and alert. Her fingers tensed against his leg, back straightening as consciousness was thrust upon her. A second, perhaps two, passed before Helen recalled they were travelling. One more before the realisation that she was snuggled against Nikola.

“Oh dear,” she murmured softly.

Nikola, roused from sleep, caught the end of her sentence, mumbling his reply through a thick haze of sleep.

“What is?” he said, his eyes slowly opening to the dim light of the cabin. It took a few moments for him to realise that he had been asleep – with Helen cuddled against him – on a plane – that was now bouncing through pockets of air.

It was a kind of artificial twilight inside the plane with most of the passengers sleeping, snoring in the near-darkness with only the occasional reading light casting halos of light over their owners.

At some point during the many hours they had apparently been sleeping blissfully, someone had thrown one of the complimentary blue blankets over them to stave off the inevitable chill of air-conditioning.

If he hadn’t been awake on the first jolt, the next once certainly did it. Nikola’s head rolled to the side then jerked up – properly alert as he felt Helen’s hand tense against his thigh and her body stir awake.

Helen let out a sleepy grunt, blinking away the lingering haze. A quick glance around the darkened plane brought the realisation that they weren’t yet landing. Her hand lifts from Nikola’s leg, rubbing at her eyes.

“How long did I sleep?” inquires she in a quiet voice.

The wrist with his watch was currently buried somewhere under the blanket covering them. That particular hand of his was still cupping hers – resting comfortably on her warm skin.

Nikola averted a yawn as he tried to speak.

“About as long as me,” he replied, most unhelpfully. Nikola never slept in public and he felt quiet disoriented waking up to an environment that had clearly been moving and changing while he wasn’t watching.

The turbulence was settling now – more than likely they had just cleared a mountain range.

Helen’s eyes blinked rapidly, a surprised look overtaking her features. “You… slept?” The awe wasn’t so much in the fact that he’d slept, but that he’d done so as they were fleeing the country and while in a mostly public place. Then she noticed the blanket, his arm around her and a slight heat came to her cheeks.

He frowned at her.

“Stranger things have happened,” he said, defiantly. “Besides,” he continued, his frown becoming a challenging smirk, “you slept too.”

Was she blushing again? He couldn’t tell in the half-light – it robbed all the colour from the world. Though, Nikola had to admit, it did little to calm the violent blue of the blanket thrown over them. It was just in its own little universe.

“What do you think,” he started, purposely glancing at the blanket, “worst blue you’ve ever seen?”

Nikola sleeping is rarer than her sleeping. “I’ve been shot at, chased, and thrown from a building in the last few days. I rather think I’m entitled to some rest.”

She’d never admit it, but she’s thankful for the change in topic. Peering down at the blanket still draped over them, Helen smiled lightly. “Even in the half-light it’s nearly blinding.”

And thoroughly kissed, he wanted to add to that list but didn’t. His thumb grazed over the back of her hand as he considered her – but they were interrupted by a sharp click.

All around them, the lights of the plane flickered on and the seat-belts signs flashed. A few people groaned in protest as the chime of the pilot’s intercom rang out.

“Good evening ladies and gentleman. We are now beginning our descent … please return to your seats.”

There was a general shuffling of disapproval around them as people glared through the new light, gathering up their things and re-arranging themselves. As for the third passenger beside Nikola, he had been squished into the side of the plane but didn’t seem to mind.

They would have to untangle themselves – but that meant admitting that they were indeed, tangled up.

Helen joined in the collective groan. She was far too comfortable and not horribly inclined to move. Helen shifted in her seat, pressing closer to him before moving slightly back. The hand his fingers crushed against under the blanket moved to take hold of his.

“H-” he went to protest with her name, but amended it to, “Johanna…” as she continued to do the exact opposite of what they were supposed to be doing.

Somehow she was getting closer to him, something Nikola didn’t think possible after having the one and only Helen Magnus asleep in his arms. Her hand was threading through his and his objections were falling away with every millimetre she claimed.

Helen’s look was quizzical. She opened her mouth as if to speak. Maybe something more?

Alas, the moment was ruined when a stewardess came to snatch their blanket away and chide them for not sitting properly while the place descended.

“She certainly told us,” Nikola, now seated correctly with nothing but the myriad of creases in his good jacket to show for last few hours, pulled the armrest back down between them to avoid further scorn. “It’s a good thing that your Italian is rusty,” he assured her.

Helen pulled her hand back in silence. Once the arm rest was returned to its proper position, she glanced over to him with an awkward look. “We must’ve slept most of the way.”

Nikola’s eyes dropped to his mostly ruined coat as he said, “Evidently…”

Truth was, they both looked rather ruffled with his hair jutting out oddly at the side where he had been resting against the seat.

He couldn’t help a satisfied smirk on his lips as he looked at her.

Helen lifted her hands to smooth, then fluff out her hair. She brushes a few wrinkles from her shirt, the platinum band around her finger catch the light and drawing her eyes. For a brief moment, she simply peered at it, captivated, before she returned to preening.

Nikola kept catching her glancing at her ring but chose to say nothing.

“You look fine, he assured her, as she continued to flit about beside him.

He on the other hand, well, he looked like most people did after long haul flights.

“Where exactly are we?” he inquired, as he had not even checked his tickets.

Of course he‘d say that! She could roll around in mud and he’d still tell her she’s beautiful.

Helen pauses in her fussing blinking off the last remnants of sleep. “Uh… New York.”

Nikola frowned inexplicably and turned away.

He hadn’t been expecting that feeling upon realising that he was about to return to the city where most of his ‘life’ had been spent. So many memories – tragedies – friends and they were all gone. History had even forgotten him.

“Oh,” he said quietly, before his eyes returned to her, a little paler than before. “New York.”

The shift in his demeanour didn’t go unnoticed. “We won’t be here long,” she assured. “Our flight to Detroit leaves in the morning.”

“Plenty of time to get caught and killed then,” he mused aloud in a light tone, flicking off whatever that moment of quiet had been.

“My bet is that the Cabal travelled first class…”

Helen snorted at that. “You don’t think they’d have taken the opportunity in the sin hours in which we slept?” Why, was that a little stab at him for not staying awake?

Nikola gave her one of those, ‘like that was my fault’ looks.

“Maybe we played our roles a bit too well,” he teased, “and they simply passed us by.”

Neither Nikola or Helen could know that that was exactly what had happened on the flight – or that an innocent couple three seats behind them were about to be pulled up by security on arrival.

A good thing for contacts.

Helen turned to Nikola, lifting a hand to smooth over his hair on one side. It was standing up unnaturally from being slept upon. Her smile was soft, almost fond. Once done she took his hand and mused, “Welcome to America, Milos.”

“Worrying…” he observed her. “Whenever I see you with that look, trouble is never far behind.”

Nikola’s fingers slid from Helen’s, running over the back of her hand until they curled around her wrist, holding her in a gentle grasp. In a quick, simple movement he had flipped her hand over, exposing the base of the wrist where the palm met onto which he lowered his head and pressed a kiss into the delicate skin there.

It was worrying all right – worrying how easily they slipped back into this closeness – how the centuries apart were quickly forgot and the need to paw at each other won out. Each testing the other’s boundaries until someone tapped out. It was a dangerous game they used to play and Helen usually won.

“I am not sure America is ready for me,” he grinned, his breath warm on her skin.

Pawing! He makes it sound as if they’re randy teenager with no sense of propriety!

The touch of his lips to her skin took Helen by surprise, though she hid it well. A slight widening of her eyes, a quick, soft gasp for breath were her only betrayals. Nikola undoubtedly felt the speeding of her pulse at the touch.

“I’m not sure I am,” she murmured in reply.

The plane was landing. A slight bump as its wheels hit the tarmac was the first Nikola and Helen knew of it.

“I guess we’re going to find out,” he replied – let it linger – and then added, “because it appears we have arrived.”

The bump jarred her senses back, her eyes narrowing slightly as she glanced toward the front of the plane. It was barely a few seconds since they’d touched ground before Helen’s PDA was in her hands.

“A driver will be awaiting us. We’ll be staying in…” Helen stopped, a small frown pursing her lips. “We have a decadent room in Times Square.” Far more expensive than she would’ve liked, but it helped to keep up the appearance of a honeymooning couple.

The flight attendant swept past them as soon as the plane had come to a stop, leaving a trail of expletives at the sight of Helen’s PDA in use.

“She really doesn’t like us,” he grinned, rising from his seat behind Helen – his briefcase uppermost in his priorities.

There was a general shuffle as the passengers became a solid mass, funnelled through the plan and out into the terminal where they immediately began to disperse. They were almost at the baggage carousel when Nikola heard it – angered and confused voices coming from gate they had just departed. Without drawing attention, Nikola tilted his head and glanced over his shoulder through the crowds of people.

“Helen,” he said quietly, directing her attention to the airport security pulling up an innocent couple while a Cabal agent lost his temper.

She glanced back casually, one hand clutching her bag, the other his hand. Helen’s eyes didn’t linger long. “We need to hurry. Fortune is on our side for the time being.”

Though the last thing they needed was to draw more attention to themselves. She couldn’t shake the edge of nervousness as they gathered their luggage from the carousel and made their way to the car awaiting them.

NEW YORK

“Niiiiice…” he tilted his head up to the chandelier tangled high up in the ceiling.

The hotel was gorgeous – a vast improvement on the hovel he had occupied last time he had been in town. It was difficult not to let his eyes wander around the various art displays as they wandered toward the check-in desk.

“This is certainly the best escape plan I’ve ever been a part of,” he hissed under his breath.

Helen snorted a breath as she followed along beside him, her eyes trailing over the decor of the place. Far too ritzy. Helen was already dreading how much this was going to cost her.

“I rather preferred planning your funeral in ‘43,” she hissed back with a frown. “Can you at least fake an Eastern European accent for our check-in?” It would make their cover more plausible.

“I’ll try not to take that personally…” he drawled back in his best Croatian accent.

Oh yes, the stay here was going to take a stab at Helen’s bank account but unlike him, she was uncommonly apt at acquiring finance. Case and point – her castle-like residence.

“Ah yes…” Nikola said, as they approached the reception desk with a pretty, well kept girl tapping away at a computer behind it.

For her part, Helen played the role of the eager bride, fidgeting slightly while clinging onto Nikola’s free arm. She left the check-in process to him, only dropping the façade once they were alone in the room.

“Honestly,” exclaimed she as she paced through the decadent room. “As if my contacts couldn’t have found something more modest!” Helen didn’t fail to realise that this was the best cover. After all, surely the Cabal would expect that she’d hide out in a modest hotel. What better way to keep them off the trial than to travel economy then book the honeymoon suite of an opulent hotel in Times Square.

“I saw a deli just down the street. I’m going to get some supplies. Do you want anything?”

Nikola strolled through the lavish room and found himself a leather couch by the window. He folded himself into it, lounging back with his shoes on the graceful arm.

Instead of answering her, Nikola glanced over his shoulder at her with a look of disapproval. Satisfied that he had been left alone after the door closed firmly behind her; Nikola quickly spun around and hopped off the couch, taking the opportunity to inspect the room properly. Yes it was most certainly an expensive room. The enormous windows looked out over the city while the fashionable furnishings gave the room a clean but comfortable feel – something you could easily live in. (Or maybe he would always hold a soft spot for hotel rooms, given his history of residence in them?)

Finally his eyes rested on a false cupboard underneath the kitchen area. That was no cupboard… He wandered over to it – tapping its sheer surface lightly with his finger.

It was the mini bar…

Not only did she see a deli, but a drug store, too! Needless to say, between buying snacks to tide them over for the night and the next plane ride and purchasing some decent skin and hair care products, Helen was gone nearly an hour. Upon her return… Nikola pointedly wasn’t where she left him. She’d never admit to the flash of worry in her eyes as they scanned the area and found nothing.

Except an empty minibar.

Whatever concern she’d felt evaporated as she followed the trail of tiny, empty bottles to… the bedroom. Inside, Helen gave the man a blank look. Partly because the candles and rose petals were so… something (and clearly he either hadn’t seen the bottle of champagne or he was saving it), and partly because there was Nikola, draped out across the bed and the flowers, surrounded by those little bottles from the minifridge.

They were all empty – of course – hardly enough to keep him busy. Indeed, he had consumed the entirety of the minibar – one of the many reasons why it was unwise to leave Nikola Tesla alone in a hotel room.

Nikola heard a pair of feet pad into the room and draw to a halt at the door. His eyes fluttered open from the half-sleep he had been enjoying. As it turned out, beds were infinitely more comfortable than airplane seats. Languidly, he rolled off his back, onto his side to find Helen, shopping in hand, looking a little miffed. A few rose petals dislodged around him, tumbling over one another.

“Ah,” he sighed contentedly, “room service…” The way he accentuated the observation with a cocked eyebrow suggested he wasn’t after food.

Helen. Just. Stared.

Then, without any hesitation, she reached into the bag from the drug store. With one hand, she thumbed off the cap of a leave-in hair conditioning spray and promptly spritzed Tesla with it. Like a half dozen times.

The first jet of slimly liquid took him by surprise. All of a sudden there was something cold and wet stinging his eyes which promptly slammed them shut with a muttered, “Urgh…”

The initial strike was quickly followed by a succession of secondary attacks as his chest and neck fell victim to the conditioning bottle.

Finally Nikola realised exactly what she had done. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, removing the gel.

Ruined… was all he could think as he looked down at his shirt.

“What – was – that – for?” he growled, seriously displeased with the overpowering rose fragrance now wafting from him.

“I’ll appreciate you minding your cheek despite this ruse,” Helen snapped. Then she added, “Be thankful I don’t have mace.”

Nikola’s eyes flashed dangerously back – their vampire traits turning his pale eyes into black marbles.

“I see your sense of humour hasn’t improved,” he hissed at her.

With great difficulty, he began to slide forward and manoeuvre himself off the bed without dripping the conditioner on the bedspread. Anyone who didn’t know him better might have suspected that his sluggish movements and occasional fumbling betrayed his abnormally high blood/alcohol content.

That amused her. She watches as he slithered away, moving to pick up the trail of bottles from the bed to the minibar. “Every time I see you, I find myself thrown into danger,” she called after him. Once the room was tied, Helen sank down onto the edge of the bed. A few minutes passed before she frowned. Why hadn’t she noticed before Nikola went into the bathroom? A few minutes more left Helen shifting this wy and that before finally she walked over to the door.

“Don’t come out of the shower, Nikola. I… have to use the toilet.”

Nikola froze for a moment – the shower spray already hot and pouring over him. The Bathroom was extensive but (tragically) lacked a shower curtain. It was a mostly open-plan shower with a curved wall that one could try to hide behind, albeit not very effectively.

Heavy layers of steam filled the air like a kind of fog, blurring the world a little.

Nikola backed away toward the wall as he heard the door open.

Not to worry! Helen’s got her eyes on the ground to keep them from wandering anywhere unsavoury or inappropriate. Such a decadent bathroom matched the motif of abundance in this room. Oh, how Helen shivered at the thought of its price.

The thought flicked through her mind that Nikola’s going to use all of the hot water in the building. So much steam in only a few minutes’ time… For that, however, she was thankful. It at least gave them a small measure of privacy.

Damn Nikola thought to himself, when he reached for the micro-bottles of shampoo and conditioner that were supposed to accompany showers at hotel rooms. There weren’t any. Not fond of the prospect of standing for an unknown amount of time cursing the modern shower for its oversight, Nikola decided to make use of his unwanted guest.

“Helen…” he started, ducking out of the stream of steaming water just enough to speak. Nikola assumed she was listening, though she gave no answer. “Pass me whatever it was that you just bought – please,” he attached as an afterthought.

Oh Lord. Helen rolled her eyes and breathed out a sigh.

“I didn’t bring it in with me,” she hissed from the toilet. Instinct caused her to turn her head she spoke, though she quickly jerked her eyes back to the floor. She had, in fact, left it on the sink which was out of reach. “Give me a moment.” As an afterthought, she added, “Might want to step out of the water.” Because she’s going to flush now.

He was going to – and maybe he did by a step or two, but Nikola quickly realised that that wasn’t going to work. The (what Nikola now considered to be poor) design of the bathroom meant that he had to endure the cold rush of water for the sake of his modesty.

Nikola suddenly felt very compromised and wondered what fit of folly had induced him into what was about to happen. He turned the temperature of the water up to something near scalding, creating more clouds of mist to obscure the room. It was almost suffocating.

Helen would’ve looked away, Nikola. His modesty is as important to her as to him. Once she finished her business, Helen moves to grab the bag with the toiletries she purchased. Without turning fully toward him, she reached out to hand him the plastic bag with the soaps and shampoos.

“God, Nikola, how can you breathe?”

He stifled a cough – the water vapour clogging his lungs.

Nikola heard her approach and thrust his hand out for the bag, misjudging slightly causing his hand to accidentally clamp around Helen’s wrist.

“Sorry…” he muttered, fumbling over her hand until he found his way to the plastic bag. Nikola could just see her face through the plumes of mist tumbling around them. She was looking away. Her hair was damp, falling around her face nearly dripping. God, she hadn’t changed in over a hundred years.

The touch startled Helen and she turned to face him, though swiftly wished she hadn’t. Colour rushed to her face and Helen quickly raised her eyes to and locked them on his face. “…”

As she turned to face him, he saw her eyes run from the floor to his face, causing his breath to catch. Thank goodness for the mist. He was surprised to see her cheeks flush as her eyes settled on his face. She was getting rather drenched now – the water from the shower splattering over her.

For a moment, one short, sweet moment, Helen was lost. That is until she heard her blackberry ringing angrily just beyond the bathroom. She pulled her arm back with haste, her fingers losing their grip on the bag of toiletries. “I need to get that,” she offered as an excuse to leave the bathroom in a hurry.

Nikola, of course, dropped the bag and had to fish around through the mist for the shampoo once Helen had gone in search of her blackberry. He wasn’t quite sure what had just happened but something had definitely happened.

Shaking his head, Nikola turned the hot water down – if only so that he could breathe, and began lathering up his hair. How had he gotten himself into this utter mess? And why, god why, did Helen have to pick such florally shampoo?

Beggars can’t be choosers, Nikola. At least this would be better for his hair than the hotel’s offerings. A few minutes passed, Helen’s voice muffled by distance, the closed door, and the spray of the shower. A few minutes more before there came an urgent knock at the door before it opened just a sliver. “Shake a leg, Nikola. We need to get out of here.”

Could he not enjoy five minutes of peace? Nikola looked up in confusion, oddly surrounded by bubbles.

“Go?” he shouted through the spray. “We just got here…”

He was in no mood to go anywhere and was it just his imagination or did Helen sound more insistent than usual.

“The Cabal have caught our scent,” she offered in a grave voice.

…

Nikola actually sighed and lowered head, the shower washing away most of the soap. Reluctantly he turned it off and wrapped one of the towel-bathrobes around himself, pacing over to the slightly open door.

He can see Helen just shy of it, by the bed pacing frantically around.

Nikola cleared his throat to get her attention.

“My clothes?” he says, as they are no longer in the bathroom where he’d left them in a heap.

Once he called out, Helen nudged open the door, praying silently he at least had a towel to protect his modesty. “Something clean,” she informed, gesturing to the neatly folded clothes in her hands. Yes, let’s ignore the fact she took them from his suitcase. He’d notice that she’s also in different clothes, her usual black leather. Just in case.

“My my,” Nikola purposely lounged in the doorway – his bathrobe a tad loose. “You’ve been in my suitcase,” he observed.

Somehow the urgency of the situation wasn’t rubbing off on him. Nikola usually responds to threat best if he can actually see it.

Her eyes skimmed over him, her lips set in an unimpressed line. Helen sauntered over, her step deliberate. Why, was that an exaggerated swish of her hips as she moved? The clothes in her hands were thrust against him and Helen remained still waiting for him to take them.

“If I have to throw you down and dress you myself to get you out of here before we’re captured or killed, don’t think I won’t do it.”

Nikola swallowed hard. He made no effort to take the pile of clothes from her (which she was currently crushing).

“My my,” he rolled the words in a playfully threatening way, “what a curious proposition.”

She is, in fact, crushing the clothes against him. A good thing the room is still so full of steam that it could possibly pull any wrinkles out of them. Helen gave the bundle a little push into Nikola chest as she glowers at him impatiently.

“We haven’t the time for games, Nikola,” she pressed, urgency lacing the words. “Get dressed. We can play later.”

Nikola rolled his eyes dramatically and backtracked into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

He reappeared a few minutes later, dressed in a CRUSHED suite with damp, spiked hair which only added to his unimpressed demeanour.

Nikola roamed through the bedroom, stepping into his shoes as he goes.

“Better?”

Helen, of course, was pacing through the room, eyes moving from the door, to the window, to her Blackberry. She looked up at Nikola’s words, urgency etched into her face. “We don’t have much of a head start. It seems as if they haven’t managed to pin down our aliases yet, but we need to move quickly.” She paused to type into the phone and then tucked it away into a hidden, inner pocket of her leather jacket. “Let’s go.”

Nikola retrieved his briefcase and hoisted her heavy bag onto his shoulder.

“Are you aware,” he made it to the door, opening it just a crack to check that the hallway was clear, “that your major relationship in life is with a machine?” Nikola looked back over his shoulder, hinting at the pocket of her leather jacket where the phone had just vanished into.

“You might want to work on that,” he advised, opening the door fully and stepping aside to allow her to leave first. “Immortals before geniuses…”

Helen snatched up her smaller bag, pulling the strap crossways over her shoulder, and padded toward the door. “I rather think that applies to both you and I,” she mused as she stepped into the hall.

“Nikola, you’re hardly an appropriate person to lecture me on relationships. Especially with technology made possible by your work…” Helen jerked her head for him to follow. “I left the card key in the room, we can check out virtually in the morning.” Down the hall she want, alert and attentive for any sign of danger.

“So what you’re really trying to say, rather in-eloquently,” he closed their hotel door so it didn’t look completely like they’d left in a rush, “is that you’re actually having a relationship with me – well, my work, that is.”

Nikola followed her with his signature, paranoid glance over his shoulder.

“I knew there was something odd about the way you looked at my saucy little book – as you called it.” Not that he was letting her name his inventions.

Good thing he’s behind her so he doesn’t see her rolling her eyes. Once the elevator arrives, Helen reaches in to hit a random floor before waiting for another elevator to arrive. And people think Tesla’s paranoid. Helen steps into the next elevator, pushing the button for the lobby with impatience. Once more she pulls out her humming Blackberry and peers at it with consternation.

“The head of the New York Sanctuary chartered a private plane for us. It leaves as soon as we get back to the air port. She says there’s a taxi waiting for us two blocks from here.”

Nikola watches with amusement.

“It doesn’t matter how many decoy lifts you send down, they’re still going to be waiting for us at reception – unless you care for another freefall?”

He steps into the lift with her and this time it’s his turn sigh as she pulls out her blackberry. Again.

“Two blocks?” Tesla looks far from amused. “Were they lost?“

“They’re not here yet, according to my intel,” she pointed out. “We need to hurry though,” Helen insisted. “The distance is due to traffic. Have you forgotten we’re in Times Square?”

“Please…” he drawled, “how long have you known me?” As if the great Tesla forgets.

The elevators opened with an ominous, ‘ping!’ to reveal a rather suspicious looking lobby. There were far too many business men pretending to read upside down newspapers, twitching towards the elevators.

“Is this room how you remember it?” he muttered, wondering just how far it was to the glass doors on the opposite wall. He also glanced at the fire exit to their left – a move which definitely attract attention.

Helen’s eyes scanned the room and she nodded in approval when Nikola glanced to the fire exit.

“Nikola,” she whispered. “There is nothing in that bag I can’t part with.” Yes, he’s free to drop it or throw it at any attackers. “Walk toward it causally unless someone runs at us.”

“Because it wouldn’t be at all suspicious if I were to leave your bag in the middle of the lobby…” he grinned at her. Still, Helen Magnus short on clothes? Maybe he would abandon the case after all.

Nikola did as he was told and pretended to head towards the magazine rack that was near the fire exit. There were definitely eyes following them, eyes that weren’t in the least fooled by his subterfuge.

“Pesky little things,” he commented, swerving toward the fire exit.

Before he left the lift, she swatted him in the chest for being cheeky. She too meandered in the general direction of the fire exit, waiting for Nikola to bolt. She watched as eyes fell on them and fingers flew over keys sending their location to who knows where.

“Go,” she murmured.

Nikola heard her murmur in his ear and he instantly relaxed his hand around the handle of her bag – dropping it to the floor with a loud crash.

Well, that certainly got their attention. Half a dozen men launched themselves from their seats and skidded over the marble floors in pursuit.

Nikola hit the fire exit door first, pressing down on its metal bar before throwing it open. He ushered Helen through it and then slammed it closed, pausing for a moment to lay his and on it – imparting a nice little electrical surprise for the next person lucky enough to touch it.

Helen darted out the door, sparing a backward glance to ensure Nikola was still behind. At some point, she’d pulled the Blackberry from her coat and peered at it. “Nikola, here!” she called to him, all but diving into a nondescript taxi that came screeching to a halt in front of them.

Halfway into the taxi – Nikola grinned with satisfaction as the fire exit door sparked, marking the demise of at least one Cabal agent. The taxi, meanwhile, began to speed off without the least bit of consideration for him, and Nikola had to launch himself through the open door, slamming it behind him, to avoid being left in a pile of dust on the street behind.

“So much for your luxury hotel,” he straightened his jacket and set his briefcase safely on his lap. “What can I say – their wine was cheap and their lobby infested with rodents. Your taste is definitely slipping.”

“Slipping?” she panted in question, peering out the rear window as the driver (not just any driver, but an agent of the local Sanctuary) made quick work of the traffic, putting distance between them and the hotel with impressive skill. “It should’ve been obvious in the troublesome company I’m still keeping.”

It wasn’t long that they were on the road, speeding to less crowded parts of the city that Helen was once more consulting her Blackberry. A sudden jerk of the vehicle to one side, pulled her attention away. The sound of shots were cause for alarm.

“I think they may still be following us…” Tesla said sarcastically, twisting around to look behind before suddenly ducking out of the way of a volley of poorly aimed bullets.

“This constant peril is not working for me,” he slumped against the seat, well aware that the shell of the car was no match for automatic weapons. “And yet you are still focused on your blackberry,” he noted, as Helen’s head dipped once again to the screen. “Honestly, I’m actually starting to feel the cold pang of jealousy,” he finished melodramatically.

Helen graced him with a scathing look. The sort that clearly showed the inappropriateness of his wit. Then again, Nikola’s comments were often pointed during these most inopportune of times. “Change of plans,” she called over the squeal of tires and the ruckus of one, two cars pulling up to their vehicle. She pushed the phone back into her pocket and drew her own weapon, preparing to return fire.

Over the noise and the rain of shattering glass, Helen called out to the driver, the man doing his very best to escape very untimely death as well as pursuit. A small charter plane is waiting for them at private air field, if only they can get to it. “Jealousy doesn’t sui–” The words were cut off as another hail of bullets tore through the rear window. Helen cried out as one struck her, splattering hot blood across Nikola’s face.

Title: Once, There was Blood
Author: ellymelly
Pairing: predominately Snape/Lily
Chapters: | Trails by the Summer River | Albus Dumbledore | The Stolen Key | The Wand and the Owl |
Rating: T at the moment (may change in later chapters)
Summary: A Severus Snape story about his arrival at Hogwarts and descent into the alluring dark arts.
Standard Disclaimer: I do not own ANYTHING that you recognise from J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter series. I am just borrowing these characters – please don’t sue me! It features Lily and Severus’s first year at Hogwarts and all the mischief they get up to while unraveling some of the school’s oldest secrets. Please note – this is not a depressing fic :) Bitter-sweet maybe…
Warnings (if any): Other than spoilers for all books, uh – not at present :)

1

TRAILS BY THE SUMMER RIVER

There was a time when Hogwarts had been a dream – something that lingered beyond the thick hedge of trees that covered the wild hills to the north of his home and heavy mists which lingered during the evening in sweet smelling tides.

The school crest and elegant words etched beneath it on the letter had become a sort of refuge for Severus Snape. He retreated back to that precious envelope, sliding his fingers over the heavy paper, tracing the ink with a sharp fingernail, in the hope that it would transform into a portkey and take him away from the hateful house around him.

It never happened. The years trailed on and his home became darker. Its walls, congealed with the remnants of past altercations, were scratched and mournful. He was sure that he could hear them sigh sadly as he slid past them on his way out into the last of the day.

Snape hated every inch of his life but was yet to give up on life itself. There were, he reasoned, beautiful things remaining in the world and he was confident that they lurked inside the mysterious, magical walls of Hogwarts.

He was surprised, then, to meet one of these things much sooner. It was an afternoon, late in summer when the trees had nearly given all of their green and drooped, exhausted, over the grass, when he heard the first shrill of laughter.

‘Stop it, Lily!’ protested another voice, as the laughter doubled and a swift whoosh through the air saw a small girl sail safely to her feet. ‘You’re not s’posed to!’

Snape paused in the middle of the neglected path snaking along the river’s edge. His thin, dark hair escaped from behind his ear and flapped about by his cheek leaving greasy lines there as he listened.

‘Oh Tuny…’ protested a second voice, skipping back to the swing which had slowed enough for her to snatch its chains from the air. ‘It’s fun.’

‘It’s wrong,’ replied Petunia, on the verge of tears. ‘Mum says it’s wrong!’

Lily perched on the swing’s seat and quickly started gaining height. Severus crept closer to the girls. He crouched behind a wretched hedge and peaked between its thorns and dead leaves. An elegant girl surveyed the river behind him with a set of fierce green eyes. She loved the wind rushing over her as the swing gained pace and, at its height, the chains flirted with the idea of flipping her right over the top.

Suddenly she was free. Lily leapt from the seat and stretched out into the air which she floated through, held there by some unnatural force. The other girl screamed and cried jealously before running off shouting, ‘I’m telling! I’m getting mum!’

Alone in the small patch of playground, Lily touched lightly down onto the asphalt. The wind kicked up and stole a cluster of leaves from an ancient plane tree. They rained down around her, crunching as their fragile stars rolled about.

Snape pulled apart the branches of his hedge so that he could see her better. He guessed that she was about his age – a bit taller than him with long, dark red hair and a light smattering of freckles across her nose from vacations spent far away by the sea. There was a definite similarity between her and the other girl who was headed across the weed-choked oval toward a line of houses and he guessed that they were siblings.

Whatever else this girl was, there was one thing for certain – she was a witch and he was a wizard.

“Hello,” she smiled, taking a few steps toward him.

Lily had to repeat her greeting several times before the boy hidden amongst the hedge startled and freed himself of its leaves and thorns. She paced around to its other side where she found him glancing nervously around, no doubt devising a manner of escape. He was shy, desperately shy. Lily’s grin only widened.

“What is your name?” she offered, hoping a question would be easier for him. Her accent was different from his – cleaner, more defined like the other muggles in the street whose families had lived in the town for many generations.

He was going to retreat – dart back down the road to the safety of the riverbank – escape her questioning eyes and curious tilt to her head as she inspected him, but for reasons he did not understand, he remained rooted to the spot.

“I – I,” he stammered, before mustering enough courage to continue, “I know what you are…” he said cryptically. “You’re a witch.”

Her smile vanished.

“A what?” she watched the boy return to his fidgeting; clearly wishing he hadn’t said anything at all. “That’s not a very nice thing to say…”

“No it’s – ” she was glaring at him now, with the same sense of repulse that he was used to seeing from living creatures. “I’m one too – a wizard, that is.”

Maybe she thought he was joking, perhaps she had decided he was a little bit crazy. Either way he didn’t mind because she was grinning again.

“Oh aye,” she mocked him gently.

“You are,” Snape pointed at the swings and she knew exactly what he meant. “It’s not a bad thing…” he added.

“LILY!”

Lilly spun around so quickly that her hair obscured Snape’s vision with a blur of red. The girl lifted herself onto tiptoes and quickly spied her mother and sister approaching, both with threatening looks. She was definitely in trouble now.

Snape saw them as well and had to fight his natural instinct to flee.

“I think they’re looking for you…”

“Probably,” she sighed, as the teary, red face of her sister became clearer. “You still didn’t tell me your name,” Lily insisted, not willing to give up the field.

He tugged self-consciously at the ugly yards of fabric around him, wishing he could transform them into proper robes.

“Sev – err –usss…” he half muttered, as if she had drawn this secret from him most unwillingly.

“Sev,” she flashed another dazzling smile, “it is then.”

And she was gone, traipsing back to her mother who wasted no time questioning her, prompted by her sister’s accusations. He wished that he knew proper magic so that he could hex them for her.

Weeks later, it was she who found him. He had escaped to the rubbish-strewn river, avoiding another violent row that was still underway. The raised voices and magical curses were carrying up the water accompanied, every now and then, by a colourful flash of light.

Snape had brought his letter this time. It was folded snugly inside his robes, kept safe for the day that was fast approaching. He didn’t know what he was going to do. With the school year approaching, he would need books, robes, an owl and a thousand other things that excited first years, but he doubted his parents would give him enough gold for even a modest quill.

“There you are,” Lily chirped, emerging from a stand of trees at the top of the small rise around the river. “You are not easy to find.”

He didn’t say anything, so she sat down beside him and picked at a sprig of clover.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said,” she continued, “about – you know – me being a witch.” The word was still quite unreal to her. Magic was in stories, fairytales and dreams. As her sister constantly reminded her, it was not real, it couldn’t be and yet, these last few years Lily thought that there was something different inside her.

“I’m not saying that I believe you,” she added quickly, as the boy finally met her eyes and began to open his mouth to speak. “But, let’s just pretend, if it were really real, what does it mean?”

“It is real,” Snape insisted, reaching inside his clothes for something. “And you are definitely a witch.”

The word still made Lily flinch. A witch, weren’t they evil? In stories the witches were the ones with warts on their hooked noses and half-eaten clothes which smelled of the terrible ingredients they used in their potions.

“You can do magic,” he said, “I’ve seen you. When you’re old enough, you can have a wand and –”

“Oh,” she interrupted, “and I suppose we ride on broomsticks too?”

“Yes,” Snape replied, quite seriously. “Some do.” He found what he’d been searching for. It was a crumpled envelope which had clearly been loved more than any of his possessions. She watched curiously as he unfolded it and then withdrew a card from within.

“Hogwarts,” he continued, allowing Lily to take the letter from him, “is a school for witches and wizards. Your letter will come, very soon most likely. Muggle-borns have to wait until just before school starts.”

“Muggle-borns,” she copied him, her eyes not believing the paper in her hands.

“People with no magic in them are called, ‘muggles’. Sometimes they have magical children, like you. Sometimes magical couples have non-magical children, they’re called, ‘squibs’.”

“And I’m going to get one of these letters…” she gave it back to him, disbelievingly.

“If you’re lucky,” his dark eyes seemed to shine, “it’ll come by owl.”

It did come by owl, three days after their talk by the river. The letter had not arrived at her mailbox, but straight to Lily’s bedroom window where the poor, scruffy looking creature had tapped and clawed at the glass until she opened the window and it swooped into her room, depositing the letter on her bed. The owl hooted proudly at its effort and proceeded to hop from her chair to the floor, inspecting its new surrounds.

Lily raced to her bed and took the letter in her shaking hands. It looked exactly the same as Sev’s, only less creased and the thick wax seal was still in place. She was so excited, she forgot to open it.

Lily Evans

2^nd Bedroom, Top Floor

11 Riverside Crescent

Spinner’s End

Durham

‘Lily!’ came her mother’s voice from downstairs. ‘What is all that racket about?’

“N – nothing…” she quickly lied, closing her bedroom door.

Inside the envelope was a letter, inviting her to the school. Her name was there, at the top of the card scratched in beautiful dark ink and old fashioned script. It looked awfully like her grandmother’s writing, with the long tails on the letters curled excessively. Accompanying this letter was a list of objects that she would require for the school year, but as she read through it, excitement turned to despair.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Uniform

First year students will require:

1. Three sets of plain work robes (black)
2. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear
3. One pair of protective gloves…

Those, at least, she thought that she could manage, until she read; dragon hide or similar.

The list only turned more and more impossible with extraordinary textbooks and finally the list of equipment beginning with, 1 wand and amended with the warning, ‘PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS’

She collapsed onto the bed in dismay, how would she find even half of these things?

Moving to the last scrap of paper, she found a note from the Headmaster of the school, Professor Dumbledore. It was not addressed to her, but to her parents.

She tried to shoo the owl out of her room, but it pecked irritably at her fingers, nipping one of them sharply before returning to its comfortable perch on the oversized door handle.

“Fine,” she mumbled at it, “stay there, but don’t come pecking at me when you starve.”

The owl twisted its head nearly all the way off and buried its beak inside the soft duffel under its wing, apparently not in the least bit concerned with her threat.

She read her letters over and over until her eyes fluttered closed and she fell sound asleep, still clutching them in one hand. Lily stayed like that until morning came and, just as the sun crept up over the curve of the earth and down their street, turning the pavement pink and orange, a loud knock at the door woke the house.

Lily knew it was for her. Already dressed, she darted out her door where she found her sister yawning in the corridor. Lily rushed past her and all but flew down the two sets of stairs to the foyer where her mother, dressed in a light gown, was opening the front door to a very strange looking old man with a set of half-moon spectacles perched upon his nose.

2

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

“Ah…” exhaled the old man merrily.

Ignoring the woman at the door, Professor Dumbledore craned his neck to take in the view of the sun rising over the dreary landscape of Spinner’s End. It was a sad district, a kind of nook in the world that even its inhabitants misunderstood. He adored it. Splendid place.

“Mrs Evans,” Dumbledore suddenly realised that he was standing in a doorway with its owner eyeing him scornfully. “What an excellent morning it is!” he remarked.

There were only two people that braved the streets at this hour – thieves and salesmen. Mrs Evans did not think that this peculiar man resembled either. He was entirely a mystery.

“Can I help you?” she asked coldly, but was very careful not to be outright impolite.

The man wore strange, floor length robes which shimmered several shades of purple while his white hair, trailing down over his shoulders and sprouting from his chin in a thick beard, still held a few flecks of grey. Presently, he was showing an unusual amount of interest in their cheap doorknob and simply could not restrain himself from fondling it.

“I presume you have been expecting me,” he continued, finally letting go of the object. “The letter that preceded me must have come as a surp-”

Lily’s heart skipped a beat. She was crouched at the bottom of the stairs, peering at the door through the old wooden railings, hanging on every word. The letter addressed to her parents was still clutched firmly in her fist, undelivered.

“Letter…” Mrs Evans’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Dumbledore entirely missed her meaning. “Precisely,” he continued, clearly astounded that this muggle had not tried to interrogate him. Most were quite anxious after hearing of the magical world – some were downright furious.

“I have received no letter…”

He stopped mid-sentence as the word ‘no’ sunk through his soft mane of hair into his mind. “No?” his curled eyebrows raised themselves as if by magic. “No letter?”

Mrs Evans’s head was slowly shaking.

“How extraordinary,” Dumbledore seemed more pleased by the thought, if that was at all possible. “Well well, what a morning this will be.”

The woman’s patience began to wear. She folded her arms crossly and fought back a yawn. It may have been summer but the sharp cold winds of Autumn were testing their luck down the street.

“Are you…” a small voice trembled next to Mrs Evans. Lily had crept up to the door, unnoticed by both her mother and the old man. She was holding a letter. “A wizard?” Lily finished, both terrified and excited. She could feel the magic around him. The very air was flickering and buzzing even though nobody else could see it.

“Goodness Lily,” her mother glanced down at her child, “you gave me a fright.”

Dumbledore though, owned a grin wider than the moon’s.

“But of course,” he replied, withdrawing a small, smooth looking stick from one of his gaping sleeves. He held the wand up and pointed it at the dried patch of dirt beside the door. He muttered a string of nonsensical words under his breath and suddenly a brilliant green vine erupted and climbed the wall beside the door, finishing with a spray of crimson roses.

Lily’s jaw dropped. That was real magic, she thought, as one of the roses let go of its petals and they tumbled down onto the man’s hair, and it was beautiful!

“Oh,” Dumbledore reached forward and slipped the letter out of her hand. He turned it over several times and then presented it to Mrs Evans, who stood, mouth agape like her daughter. “Your letter.”

*~*~*

It had not taken much persuasion to convince the Evans’s to allow their daughter to attend Hogwarts. The mother was, and remained for the duration of the interview, completely detached from the world. Shock as it was commonly known, was a most useful emotion.

The child now trailed him happily, skipping and bounding down the road beside him as if she were seeing the world around her for the first time. In some small way he was happy that Filius had been detained by a wayward charm as it gave him the opportunity to wander with muggles. A lone car cruised past them and Dumbledore became entranced by the turn of its wheels and the sleepy creature half-heartedly resting on the wheel. It was so primitive, but quite fantastic. Without magic humans had found a way to make do.

“Excuse me, sir.”

He felt his arm tugged down sharply. Upon further inspection, he found Miss Lily Evans waiting eagerly for his attention.

“Where are we going?”

“What an excellent question,” he replied, “one that has a most simple answer. We are on our way to retrieve another student and then, dear child, we are going shopping.”

Lily let go of his sleeve and resumed trailing him. That explained the small purse her father had slipped into her bag before they left.

It was not long before Lily realised that they were nearing the last of Spinner’s End. The avenue of trees had become further and further apart. Several had died leaving conspicuous gaps while the rest of the tortured plants were curled into themselves. Weeds and rubbish replaced manicured lawns and the terraces were squeezed impossibly close to each other.

They came to a stop at the most unloved house she had seen yet. It was the last one in the street and had a view over the dirty trail of river and expanse of factories.

The Professor raised his hand to the door to knock but it opened on its own. A small boy with greasy hair poked his head out, took one look at Dumbledore, and then hastily exited the house and closed the door.

“That was easy,” smiled Dumbledore, stepping aside to reveal Lily. “I believe you two have already met.”

Snape saw the girl’s bright eyes and ferocious grin. “I knew it,” he whispered in delight.

“Right – Miss Evans, Mr Snape,” Dumbledore led them away from the sinister looking house and out into the street which wasn’t much better. He quickly scanned the windows for early morning eyes but all was quiet and asleep as it should be. “Hold on tight now.”

Fascinated, they both did as instructed and the world they knew ripped away and vanished like a candle blown out by the wind.

*~*~*

The world resumed in a rather crowded, cobblestone street lined with all-day bars and odd shops spilling into the onslaught of people. Nobody seemed to notice the sudden appearance of a man and two children as they quickly got their bearings and joined the general flow of people.

Snape and Lily glanced at each other, often forgetting to watch where they were going. Twice Dumbledore had to rescue the boy when he was whisked out of reach by hurried groups of workers, tangled up in their briefcases.

“Careful now,” he said, as they finally came to a stop in front of a pub. It was, if possible, covered in more centimetres of dust and grime than any of the other buildings. The mortar could have fallen from between its stones and Dumbledore was quite certain that it would have no problem remaining upright. Remnants of repair spells and anti-muggle charms were smeared rather generously over it – the most recent of which was currently holding the cauldron on the sign in place.

The Leaky Cauldron’s doors opened and the three stepped inside.

“Albus,” a rather scruffy looking man in the nearest booth looked up from his butterbeer, “working already?”

“Alas this is not work, Olaus,” he diverted to his table with the two children in tow, both hiding behind him. “I expect we will being seeing you this year?”

“Yes Professor,” the man replied. He was a middle-aged wizard with a fabulous moustache curling theatrically up both sides of his cheeks framed by long, wavy hair that ended at his collar, all of which was a healthy brown.

“You’re looking younger and younger,” remarked Dumbledore, as the man finished his glass. “Found something I should know about in that cabinet of yours?”

“My secrets are not your secrets, Ablus,” the man replied lightly. “But I assure you, I shall be on time for the school year, just as I promised. Students…?” he spied two pairs of keen eyes.

“Oh yes,” Dumbledore had quite forgot his purpose for being in the Leaky Cauldron. “Merlin’s beard, I believe we’re late.”

And with that, Dumbledore hurried them through the bar and past its other shadowy inhabitants all of whom were dressed in curious long robes and the occasional pointy hat. They left through a door that had seen better centuries and found themselves in a depressing alleyway that made Spinner’s End look positively pleasant.

The Professor broke from the children and began counting bricks on a wall in front of them. Snape and Lily turned to each other with quizzical looks, neither sure of what to expect from the wall or the wizard.

“What is he doing?” whispered Lily, leaning closer to Snape.

“Something – magical – I guess,” he replied, as confused as she was. He had known of magic all his life but his parents had never taken him into the magical world. They always left him behind, alone in the house whenever affairs took them out of town. He only knew what he had scavenged from discarded newspapers and the odd book from his father’s study.

“There is it,” Dumbledore honed in on an average looking brick. “Nearly evaded me this time…” he confessed, for it was rare that Dumbledore entered Diagon Alley in this way, most inconvenient as it was. “Right,” he gathered the children beside him, “ready? Of course you are – look at those big round eyes, gaping in wonder.”

Actually, thought both Snape and Lily, they were gaping in scepticism.

“Aaaand…” Dumbledore touched the brick deliberately with his wand.

Nothing happened.

“He’s completely mad,” said Lily quietly.

“He’s our headmaster…” added Snape, more than slightly worried.

The unremarkable brick groaned and began to sink through the wall and then – at the last minute, folded away.

“Wait, waaaaaaaait!” the man that had been slouched boredly behind the bar fell out the back door into the alley beside them. “Prof-ess-or,” the crooked creature panted, scurrying to his feet. A large lump between his shoulder blades prevented him from straightening as he offered a small package in Dumbledore’s direction.

Professor Dumbledore turned his back on the folding wall which had all-but vanished to reveal an archway into a completely different street.

“Tom?” Dumbledore queried, taking a few elegant steps toward the Leaky Cauldron’s landlord.

“You for-got this.”

Dumbledore eyed the package, hesitant to take it. “I don’t believe I did…”

“Six months ago,” Tom shoved the round, brown paper wrapped object roughly into Dumbledore’s unwilling grip. “The Leaky Caul-dron is not an owlery.” With that, Tom dusted off his cloak and shuffled back into his bar leaving Professor Dumbledore to inspect his parcel.

“What’s in it?” asked Lily finally, unable to keep her curiosity at bay.

Dumbledore threw it up in the air as if to juggle, then caught it and buried it deep in one of his pockets.

“No idea,” he replied honestly. “Come on children,” he re-affirmed his grip on their arms as he led them to the archway in the brick wall. Diagon Alley stretched out before them in all its disordered glory. “Let’s shop.”

Severus dipped his free hand into his pocket where his fingers found a small silver key. Satisfied that it was safe, he allowed himself to enjoy the whoosh as the muggle world vanished and Diagon Alley begun.

3

THE STOLEN KEY

In the world of their new headmaster, they quickly learnt that ‘let’s go shopping!’ actually meant ‘you go shopping!’ for they were in Diagon Alley no more than a few moments when the silver-haired man decided he had other business to attend to.

“Mr Snape,” Dumbledore bent down so that his beard grazed over the stone surface of Diagon Alley.

There was a rush of people either side of them, scurrying every which way in and out of shop fronts. They all wore long robes and pointed hats and carried curious assortments of items in their arms or creatures screaming inside cages. Witches and wizards of every variety squabbled over dragon scales, newts eyes, purple-blade grass and an array of things Lily had never heard of.

“It would be most gentlemanly if you could accompany Miss Evans to Gringotts.”

Gringotts… thought Snape, wasn’t that a bank?

“Ah…” he opened his mouth to reply with I have no idea where that is, but Dumbledore brought the two children together and made sure they were holding hands before letting go of them. “Very kind, very kind,” he muttered absently, beginning to wander off. “I will meet you back at this very spot when you have finished acquiring your school supplies,” he added.

“Pr-professor!” Snape spoke up, rushing a few steps forward with Lily dragging behind him. Professor Dumbledore stopped slowly turned back to them, re-adjusting his glasses.

“How – how will you know what time to meet us?”

“I will know,” he replied calmly, and then vanished into the crowds.

It was only then that Snape realised that Lily’s grip on his hand was painfully firm. Her little knuckles had turned white and his fingers were a blushing pink where they were crunched together. He had never held a girl’s hand before and had no idea how to address the problem.

“He just left us here…” said Lily softly, in disbelief. “All alone, in the middle of the street – a street behind a brick wall – a brick wall that –”

“Lily,” Snape interrupted. She was becoming quite frantic and he could feel her heart pounding faster and faster through her grip. “Magic…” he reassured her.

“It takes some getting used to,” she admitted.

A small explosion shook the street and the pair jumped in fright. It was followed by a shower of brightly coloured feathers that flew out the shattered window of the shop on their right amid a trail of curses. Birds screeched in high pitched cries and a small trail of black smoke wafted after the feathers. Snape rose to tiptoes and thought he caught a hint of flame deep within the shop.

“Bloody phoenixes,” hissed a passerby, ducking to avoid the black smoke. “More trouble than they’re worth!”

The sign on top of the shop squeaked and fell to the ground with a crash.

Eeylops Owl Emporium

It was quickly restored to its lofty location by a tall witch. A purple spell poured from the tip of her wand, took hold of the sign and somehow stuck it back onto its metal cornice. Next she set herself to fixing the window. Lily and Snape watched in awe as every piece of fractured glass picked itself up and flew dutifully back to the window where it remelted and cooled in an instant leaving a perfect, unbroken shopfront.

“Oomprh!”

There was a collision in the middle of the street and Snape found himself sprawled over the smooth stones. A dozen feet whizzed past his face kicking dust up onto him which inevitably stuck to his greaser than usual hair. Lily ended up in a heap beside him, still clutching onto his hand.

“You fell-” she flicked her hair back off her face and hopped to her knees, pulling Severus up with her.

“Well spotted…” he automatically snapped, as they dusted each other down and he finally regained use of his hand. Technically, he hadn’t ‘fallen’ he’d been ‘pushed’ – an important distinction that the girl didn’t show the slightest bit of interest in.

Lily’s eyes fluttered back to the storefront where a beautiful red owl retook its place at the centre of a bronze perch. Its feathers had tips of gold that matched its enormous eyes which the creature used to survey the street and in particular, Lily as she inched closer to it.

“We have to go to the bank,” said Snape, snapping Lily out of her enamoured daze, “before we can buy anything. Did your parents give you money?”

Lily dug into her bag and pulled out a heavy purse. It jingled in the affirmative.

“Muggle money?” he asked. She was confused for a moment and then nodded. Of course, how stupid of him, how would she have anything else? “We have to change it into wizard money,” he explained. “I think that’s why the Professor wanted me to take you there but –”

“You don’t know where it is, do you?”

He found the confession of it unreasonably embarrassing so he settled on, “It can’t be hard to find. It is supposed to be the grandest building in all of – what?”

Lily pointed down to the far end of the street they were standing on with a satisfied smirk. In the distance several crooked pillars of white marble towered over the rest of the shops. They held up several layers of a snowy white building, gleaming in the sun. The building proudly owned a set of heavy wooden doors, encrusted with jewels and edged with gold.

“Just a guess,” she offered tentatively, “but is that it?”

“For a muggle,” Snape begrudgingly admitted, as they started out towards it, “you’re very observant.”

“For a wizard,” she saved him from another collision with a mad-looking witch with several feet of crazy hair, “you’re very not.”

Ordinarily he was but ever since meeting Lily Evans his accident count had greatly increased. She’d somehow destroyed his sense of balance – or maybe it was his vision that was blurry – he couldn’t tell because everywhere he looked, all he saw was the grinning redhead.

It took them ages to reach those doors. Every step they took towards them, the crowd nudged them backwards and it was only when Lily ducked and pulled him underneath the stream of bodies that they were able to escape from the crowd and join the line of people trailing into the bank.

When Lily saw her first goblin, she yelped and hopped behind Snape as she had Dumbledore. Snape looked back over his shoulder and found Lily peering out over it, watching closely as the goblin, white hair and bony arms poking out from its uniform, returned to a register and continued receiving business.

“Goblins,” whispered Snape over his shoulder.

They were even shorter than Snape and Lily – by at least a foot, and sported bright red jackets with golden buttons and trimmed sleeves. Their intelligence was frightening, you could feel it gazing up at you, piercing through your eyes and straight down into your soul, deciding whether or not you’re here to steal. Snape closed his mind and thought of nothing but a bubbling stream, taking a turn around a brown bank. The goblin broke its stare and returned to balancing galleons on a scale.

By the time they reached one of the counters (and clambered onto the boxes presented), Lily was too afraid to speak and it was left to Snape to fumble her purse onto the counter.

“We would like change muggle money,” said Snape clearly, aware of the rumours surrounding Goblins and their poor hearing which they always used to their advantage.

“Exchange rates are on the board beside you,” it droned with disinterest. “Objections must be made prior to counting. Sign here please.”

He nudged a black feathered quill toward her. Lily looked at it but didn’t register it as a writing implement until Snape picked it up and dipped it in an ink well for her.

“Oh…” she gently took it from him as a drop of red ink hit the counter. The goblin flinched but made no comment. “I don’t have a signature,” she whispered nervously to Snape.

“I think you can just write your name and make it look – hard to read.”

She thought about it for a moment and then wrote, Lily Evans in perfect script before putting several decorative lines through it.

“I’d believe it…” Snape rubbed his hooked nose on his sleeve as she handed it back.

The goblin whose name appeared to be Gersward, didn’t seem to care what was scrawled on the paper as he immediately emptied Lily’s purse onto the table and prodded its contents with a long, sharp finger.

“Twenty-three galleons, fourteen sickles and eight knuts,” the goblin moved three neat piles of coins in her direction.

Lily didn’t think it looked like much considering the amount she’d handed over, but then again, the first one – galleons, they looked like actual gold.

“Th-thank you,” she slipped it all into her purse.

Thank you? Thought the goblin, muggles…

“Will there be anything else, young sir?” Gersward thoroughly hated this time of year. It was predictably flooded with unaccompanied eleven year olds staring, doe-eyed holding up proper procedure.

“I think he means you,” Lily nudged Snape gently.

The key, the key – the key… Snape burrowed his hand deep into his pockets and wrapped his fingers around the little silver key.

“I have this – a key,” he presented it for the goblin’s inspection. The key was tiny and light as a feather, delicately ornate with a serial number etched along its shaft.

“Zero-three-three-zero-six-two-nine,” the goblin sniffed the key to check its validity. “You are Snape’s child,” he assumed correctly.

Severus’s heart thudded unpleasantly. They couldn’t possibly know… not yet.

“He is,” Lily answered of him, when it became clear that Snape couldn’t.

The goblin hopped off its chair and completely vanished behind the desk. Snape and Lily instinctively leaned in, searching for the horrid creature that was already behind them, waiting. Gersward announced himself with a discreet cough.

“This way, if you please,” he beckoned them forward.

They followed him through the marble foyer and down a set of stairs to the left.

“There are many vaults in Gringotts,” Gersward explained as he reached the first locked door. He whispered something to the door in a language Snape and Lily couldn’t understand, and it swung open for them. “It would be a shame to steal from any of them.”

This time it was Snape that fell, ever so subtly, behind Lily.

“Thief, you have been warned, beware – of finding more than treasure there…” The goblin made a horrible rasping sound that may have, in a time long forgotten, passed as a laugh.

“Yes,” it continued, opening another door, this time with a key of its own, “a goblin always knows when treasure is unjustly on the move, the real question, the only one that matters,” he was talking to himself now, entirely forgetting the children behind him, “is whether or not he cares.”

They came to a stop in front of a wall full of keyholes. Vaults, thousands of them, sprawled out into the dark tunnel. These were not expensive vaults, they were the basic, standard, almost post-box like holes in Gringotts magical walls.

“Your vault, Master Snape,” the goblin pointed at a small square on the wall with a keyhole marked 0330629.

Snape swallowed hard.

He took exactly fifteen galleons from his father’s vault. No sickle more. Severus had prepared it all so carefully and determined the minimum amount he would need for a basic set of school supplies. Still, it made him sick inside to think what he was doing and what made it infinitely worse was his mind wondering endlessly why the goblin hadn’t stopped him.

4

THE WAND AND THE OWL

Diagon Alley had doubled its already bulging population by the time Snape and Lily spilled back out into it.

They began their hunt for school supplies with wands – it was always best to start there, if nothing else, at least you could make magic. That, and there was no way that either of them would be able to focus until they had one.

Shoe shop, thought Lily, upon entering Ollivanders. Every available wall (and ceiling) was covered by rows of rather ordinary looking boxes. Compared to the noise of the street outside, it was eerily silent inside the poorly lit shop. Nothing but a few straggly lanterns hung across the ceiling and their dreary glow was hardly sufficient to illuminate the deep, dark corners of the shop.

“Ribbet!”

Snape and Lily gasped in fright. Sitting on a pile of empty wand boxes beside them was an oversized toad keeping watch over the shop. It croaked again, unapologetically.

“Yes, yes, yes – my, my, my…” an old, crackled voice trailed off, far out of sight at the back of the shop. The wand boxes towering around Ollivander jiggled with excitement. One of them would be picked – one of them would be free.

“It’s,” started Lily, deciding whether or not it was safe to approach the frog, “cute – I guess.”

“Careful,” warned Snape, “it could be an Animagus – a wizard disguised as an animal.”

Lily frowned thoughtfully, “But what kind of a wizard would turn into a thing like that? Not very useful, is it?”

Snape was about to debate the issue when Ollivander stumbled in, buried under the weight of several dozen wand boxes which he deposited on the front counter. He waited for the young wizard and witch to approach. In all his long years selling wands, he had always found it best that way.

“Ex-excuse me, sir,” Snape approached the counter cautiously with Lily hopping up beside him. “Is this where we buy wands?”

The answer was obvious, but Ollivander smiled reassuringly, spread his arms and said, “But of course. I have been expecting you.”

‘Ex-pec-ting us?’ mouthed Lily.

“Mmm…” Ollivander thought, looking down at the wizard curiously. “You’ll be wanting one of the dark-woods, a rich mahogany perhaps…” he wandered off. There was a shuffling of boxes in the distance and a few more half-formed sentences before Ollivander returned with two wand boxes.

He placed them both in front of Severus and carefully removed their lids. Two chestnut red wands with perfectly straight forms gleamed in the low light.

“Go on,” Ollivander encouraged.

Snape stretched his fingers toward the first wand, inching closer and closer until they brushed over the smooth wood. Finally, he took it in his hand and lifted it from the box. It was solid, firm but for all intensive purposes – just a piece of wood.

Ollivander’s head fell to the side and a moment later he retrieved the wand from Snape and snatched both boxes away before Snape had the chance try the second one.

“Too young,” said Ollivander to himself, back up his ladder. “Much too young. You need something –” his pale, silvery eyes lingered on a dusty box in the far corner.

Ollivander was gone a long time.

“Is it always like this?” asked Lily. “I mean, can’t we just pick a wand we like the look of?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” replied Snape, made a little nervous by Ollivander’s long absence. “The wand chooses the wizard, not the other way around. We have to wait for the right wand.”

“Oh,” her voice fell even softer. “But what if a wand doesn’t choose me?” Her eyes were round and green, full of sincere worry. He didn’t answer her.

Ollivander returned nearly an hour later with only one box. It was a long, slender box made from a softly patterned wood rather than cardboard like the others. The seal on its front was not that of Ollivander’s wand makers, but a mostly-faded trio of circles that gently spun around each other.

“If you please, young sir,” Ollivander pushed the box toward Snape, not daring to open it. It was clear that he was deeply curious, on the cusp of a mystery that had haunted him.

Snape reached for the box and as he did, it rattled. Ollivander’s eyes brightened.

“Yes,” he whispered, “open it.”

Snape picked up the box in one hand and instantly felt its contents shuffle about restlessly inside. The wand was waking up from a long slumber and now it was ready to work. Like a creature, it grew restless.

Eventually Snape lifted the lid of the box to reveal an ominous 12 inch wand.

It was beautiful – ethereal and never quite there no matter how he turned his head. Snape took the wand and left the box on the counter. It shivered under his fingers, responding to the slow movements of his hand.

“I did not make this wand,” confessed Ollivander, as he watched the boy wrap his fingers around the ancient wood. “Agathis – nearly fifty-thousand years old. Buried, dug up and reformed long before our time. Until this moment, it has never shown a spark of life.”

The wand, whose grain appeared silken, like clouds captured in wood, made the air around its tip crackle when Snape gripped it tighter.

“I was beginning to think it nothing but a pretty stick,” Ollivander smiled, “and I regret that I cannot tell you anymore about this wand. It was made, if it was made, in a time of different magic. Indeed, it is entirely possible that it has a core of Hydra-heart or Nosferatu hair.” He lowered his eyes to the empty box, which he closed and moved to the side. “As such, I cannot tell you where its talents will lie.”

“He’ll take it,” said Lily with a grin, as Severus seemed to be completely enamoured with the wand and unable to converse. “How much?”

Ollivander backed away with his palms up as if freeing himself of something.

“No charge,” he insisted. “It is dangerous practice to sell a wand that is not yours. I have merely been its keeper.”

Snape finally came to his senses and tucked his new wand away inside his robes where it would be safe.

“Oh,” Ollivander snapped back into action, “I have your wand!” He ducked under the bench, snatched another box, and handed it to a surprised Lily.

“Willow,” he said proudly, “10¼ inches, nice and swishy. It will do you well for Charm work.”

The wand took to her immediately – to the misfortune of the shop. No sooner had she tried its ‘swish’ when all the boxes flew off their shelves, toppling to the ground around them in a great hail.

“Oh!” she squeaked in fright, horrified. “I’m sorry!”

Ollivander grinned, swiped his own wand over the room and restored order in a flash.

“Your wand is a little over excited – no matter.”

This time, he did charge for the wand and it was quite steep – almost a third of Lily’s purse gone in the first store.

Their books and robes, quills and cauldrons were found much faster. They each pulled a trolley now, no longer able to struggle with their bags as they headed back down Diagon Alley towards where they had started. There was only one item left on their list – an owl, and they knew just where to find it.

Lily was scurrying impossibly fast ahead of him, dragging her trolley dangerously behind her. Snape wanted to say, ‘wait – Lily!’ but she wouldn’t have been able to hear him over the crowd of wizards doing their best to leap out of her way.

By the time he caught up to her (after a mishap with a dwarf and a quick retrieval of his books), he found her waiting outside Eeylops Owl Emporium. They navigated their trolleys into the shop and left them along a bare wall.

Their air was full of soft, duffle feathers, wafting calmly around them – forever kicked up off the ground by shoppers’ feet. A small crowd of people hunted around the shop’s cages, tapping at their bars. There were not just owls inside but a whole range of magical creatures which were claimed to be trained to ‘carry messages anywhere’ and were of course, ‘reliable and reasonably priced’.

But there was only one owl that Lily could see and it was the most majestic creature in the room, happily preening itself on its gilded perch at the window.

The other customers gave it a wide birth – mostly because of the sign hanging beneath it that read;

‘ATTENTION ALL CUSTOMERS – OWL NOT FOR SALE.  KNOWN TO PECK SHARPLY IF APPROACHED. DO NOT TOUCH!’

Do not touch – a warning that Lily had never quite gotten the hang of.

She stepped toward the creature slowly, whispering to it. Its crimson feathers ruffled, revealing their golden tips and for a few moments it looked a bit like a pom-pom. The owl seemed as interested in the young witch as she was in it, and allowed her to reach out and gently stroke its head.

Lily’s fingers slipped in between its soft feathers and the owl leant in toward her, trying to get her to scratch a little harder.

Snape wasn’t game to get any closer to the pair. While it was friendly enough toward Lily, it shot warning glares with its enormous eyes to anyone else that so much looked at it.

Suddenly, a small, stout sort of a man in overly long black robes raced across the room, scattering the crowd in his shop.

“You mustn’ touch!” he shouted, nearly toppling another wizard balancing a falcon on his arm. “Musn’ touch!” he cried again, taking hold of Lily and pulling her roughly back. She nearly fell.

“Hey!” Snape ran over to assist, but Lily easily wriggled out of the man’s hold.

“Very dangerous,” he continued. A silver plaque glued onto his robes read, ‘Assistant Manager’. “Mustn’ touch that owl,” he kept repeating, as if it were the most important instruction ever given to him.

Snape could see why. The owl, no longer looking friendly, had a sharp flicker of green its eyes that wasn’t there before. If possible, it was taller having straightened up to its full height of nearly three feet.

“Will rip you three ways apart,” continued the assistant manager, clearly terrified of the owl. There were nasty scratches across his forehead and neck, possibly from the same owl which was inspecting the assistant manager as if it held a grudge.

“Does it take mail?” asked Lily calmly, grinning at the owl.

The assistant manager was taken off guard.

“Uh – uh – I – it should, I mean, it’s trained – but…”

“I would like to buy this owl,” she said simply, moving to pat it again but this time it was Snape that caught her jacket.

“Lily…” he cautioned. “It looks dangerous.”

“Not for sale,” the assistant manager swallowed, perplexed by the idea of anybody wanting such a horrid creature. Then he pointed at the sign.

“But if it was for sale,” she continued, “how much would it cost?”

“Twelve galleons but –” he hadn’t meant to say that, “not for sale, too dangerous,” he repeated. “There’s a lovely owl over here, same colour, bit smaller, eleven galleons-”

Lily cut him off, “I want this owl.”

“I-” he protested.

“Yes?” she insisted.

“But…”

“Give me the owl…” she demanded.

“Not ‘supposed to-”

“Thirteen galleons…”

“I-” the wizard seemed to consider this, glancing back at the horrible owl that had been nothing but trouble since its previous owner threw it back into their shop in disgust. It would be good to be rid of it. “Fine…” he finally agreed. “If you can carry it, you can buy it for thirteen galleons.”

Snape let Lily’s coat slip through his fingers as she returned to the owl which seemed perfectly happy to let her stroke its feathers. She extended her arm and whispered to it again. Dutifully, the enormous owl hopped onto her arm, carful to keep its sharp claws in check.

The whole shop was watching now, following her as she paraded the owl through the room toward the counter where the witch that had fixed the window waited. The people at the counter scattered.

“Thirteen galleons,” said the witch, extending her hand into which Lily emptied her purse.

Lily’s face fell in dismay. She was short – two galleons.

The witch behind the counter raised her eyebrow at the pitiful pile of sickles and knuts that simply refused to add up to two galleons no matter how many times Lily counted them.

“Here…” whispered Snape, handing her two shiny gold coins from his pocket. His last galleons. Lily frowned at him.

“That’s all you have,” she said, “what about your owl?”

“My parents will lend me theirs,” he lied quickly. “Go on, I think it might kill everyone in the shop if you don’t buy it.”

The owl blinked in the affirmative.

“Well,” said Lily slowly, “if you’re sure…”

A short time later, they returned to the place where Professor Dumbledore had left them. They felt a bit silly, standing their ground in a random spot, apparently in the way of everybody else. The owl, still on Lily’s arm, spread its wings and knocked a few teenagers over in the process.

“I think Merlin likes being out,” she stroked it again. Snape was still terrified of the creature.

“You’re really going to call it Merlin?” he inquired, eyeing the owl. It didn’t look one bit like the pictures he’d seen of the great wizard.

“Yes,” she said simply. “I am. Finally-” Lily pointed at Dumbledore, working his way toward them. “I thought he had forgotten about us. Mum’ll be worried, we’ve been gone for ages.”

They had, it was almost dark. A sinking feeling crept over Snape – he had been dreading this moment all day.

Dumbledore looked positively odd – more so than usual. One side of his hair was now shorter – singed off at an angle accompanied by several burn marks on his robes. Still, it hadn’t affected his mood. He was as aloof as ever.

“Well done!” he exclaimed, seeing their haul of things. “All set then. Fine creature,” he commented, spying her owl. Dumbledore instantly went to stroke it but the owl retaliated, wasting no time stabbing the professor’s finger with its sharp beak. It drew blood but didn’t damage Dumbledore’s opinion of it, “Excellent!”

Dumbledore returned them to Spinner’s End, starting with Lily.

“That was wonderful,” she said, heading toward her front door with her trolley and owl. “I can’t believe school starts tomorrow!”

Snape waved as her door closed and she disappeared into the house.

“Now, for you,” Dumbledore turned to the small, dark haired boy.

“Sir…” Snape said quietly, “I don’t-”

“Have an owl, yes,” he pulled a wand from his robe, “it had caught my attention.”

Dumbledore pointed to the window on the top level of Lily’s house. Snape narrowed his eyes and quickly saw a small scruff of feathers launching itself at the window from the inside – trying but failing to escape from Lily’s room. Dumbledore flicked his wand and said, ‘Alohomora’.

The window clicked and slid open, freeing the creature which launched itself into the air and half-flew, half-fell to the ground beside Dumbledore and Snape.

“Mr Snape,” said Dumbledore, “meet my owl. He was kind enough to deliver a letter to your friend yesterday. As it happens, my need of his assistance has come to an end, therefore, from now on, he is yours.”

Snape’s eyes widened. The headmaster’s owl?

The owl seemed to understand and took to hopping along the ground beside the young boy.

“Now,” continued Dumbledore importantly, “the train leaves tomorrow. I have arranged with Mrs Evans for her to take you there with Lily early in the morning.”

Snape didn’t ask how Dumbledore had known that he couldn’t get to London.

“And now I bid you goodnight,” said the professor finally. “And welcome to Hogwarts.”

In a puff of smoke, he was gone and Snape was left all alone outside Lily’s house. He fought to hold a sob down – he could not go home again, not for a long time.

Hey everyone!

I have updated several of my major fanfics in the ‘Sanctuary’ category including the completion of, ‘People of the Sand’ which can also be downloaded as a .pdf file.

Its prequel, ‘Love in the Time of Science’ has entered its 18th chapter while the sequel, ‘Sanctuary of the Moon’ is now up to chapter 6.

Also, part of the same universe but set far into the future, ‘Red Dust Blue Blood’ now has 5 chapters. This fanfic is set on Mars where Helen must investigate a grisly murder whilst Ashley goes missing after an industrial accident.

All of these fanfics are rated M for adult themes and elements of horror. As a general disclaimer, I do NOT own or am affiliated with Sanctuary – I’m just borrowing them :D

UNTOLD SANCTUARY

RED DUST – BLUE BLOOD

by ellymelly

TABLE OF CONTENTS

01 Beautiful Chaos

02 Blood Relations

03 Lovers of the Past

04 Smoke and Sand

05 Accidents and Acquaintances

1

BEAUTIFUL CHAOS

18^th December, 3082

Helen watched the world escape beneath her, shrinking into a hazy ball of blue. Milk white clouds lulled by, apparently unaware of the seas shimmering beneath, plotting to transform their casual clusters into cyclones. It was always like this during the sun’s peak solar cycle – a beautiful catastrophe.

Another of the passengers roughly deposited a file into her lap. She startled, glancing up for the culprit but all she found was a bored looking bureaucrat doing the exact same thing to the next person. Raising an eyebrow, Helen Magnus flipped open the top sheet and started skimming.

It was a summary, detailing the purpose the team’s mission. She rolled her tied eyes and threw the folder onto the spare seat beside her, returning her gaze to the window. The shuttle skimmed out of the atmosphere and followed the curve of the Earth until it escaped the sun’s bombardment. In the shadow of her home planet, Helen saw the cities come alight, trailing along the coasts of continents like lonely stars.

She smiled, letting her eyelids fall closed. A moment later she was peaceful, finally asleep after a long day.

*~*~*

The man staggered backwards, holding onto the handle of the knife embedded in his stomach. Pain blurred his thoughts as his eyes searched feverishly around the room for the safe. He had dragged himself halfway through the building like this – gasping for air. Finally his hand found the keypad beside the silver box. He fumbled his pass code, slipping over the keys.

The door unlocked slowly, sliding across as the man coughed up another gush of blood. He was dying and knew it.

As soon as the safe was open, he reached into the small box and withdrew an old paper manuscript. There were footsteps coming down behind. They were tracking him, following the trail of blood straight towards him.

Panicked, the man threw the manuscript into the small, mesh wastepaper bin. He poured the remainder of his vodka over it and set the whole thing alight. The combination burned fiercely, blackening into ash as he watched.

“Found you…” announced a sinister voice, slipping into the small office behind the man. The pursuer carried a set of knives around his belt identical to the one in the man’s stomach. With an air of fascination, they withdrew another, slowly turning it between their fingers.

Flames reflected off the metal edge, dancing over the blade as it cut through the air.

The scientist, still on his feet, rested against his desk as he waited for the inevitable.

*~*~*

Mars wasn’t half as impressive as the brochures led you to believe. It wasn’t so much red, as pastel orange up close. Rust, by its very nature, was not particularly attractive. Neither was traipsing through it. There were reasons Helen rarely visited the new city and this topped them – miles and miles of sand getting into the air and over her skin. She couldn’t see what John and Ashley found so appealing.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said another member of the team, falling into step beside her. He was a young gentlemen dressed specifically for the walk rather than the orientation afterwards. Despite it all, he seemed to be enjoying himself as evidenced by the enormous grin hogging his face.

Helen didn’t respond. She shifted her shoulder bag, wondering if there’d be time to change when they reached the outer building.

“Really a marvellous feat,” the irritating man continued. “A terriformed planet, habitable to humans. Extraordinary.”

Hardly, thought Helen. Despite their best efforts, apart from breathable air, Mars was still the same lump of iron oxide it had always been. The ‘city’ held as the pride of the human race’s achievements was a smattering of buildings huddled together inside a small crater. In the beginning, when the promotional photos had been taken, they were stunning white pillars, capped in polished sheets of limestone. They glittered in the soft light, going pink at dawn and dusk. Granted, they had been beautiful then. Now the dust had got to them, reddening their edges and smudging into their facades.

Despite its three thousand permanent inhabitants, Prosperity appeared a ruin in the sand.

It was twilight before they reached the first building. The sun, a weak mew at best, had dipped behind the wall of the crater casting a shadow over the city.

The team of fourteen led by a tall man in green, filed into a squat building at the edge of the city. It was warm inside, a pleasant change from the freezing winds on the surface. Helen ditched her coat, stuffing it into her bag. She whipped her head forward, trying to shake her hair free of dust.

“Welcome to Mars,” said the leader of the group. His ginger hair was straight to his ears where it took on a light curl. “No time for sightseeing I’m afraid, we have a lot of work to do and no time to do it. Break into your teams and follow me.”

*~*~*

The scorched wreck was still smouldering when the first team approached. Level 4 of the Ecological sciences building had been badly damaged by the fire as it raged most of the night. A cloud of ash could still be seen on the horizon as the last of the light faded from the sky, revealing a glittering sky of stars. With no moon, it was their light that cast shadows after the sun was gone.

Helen was the last into the room, slinking around the burnt out doorway.

“Nice of you to join us, Magnus,” the team leader lifted his eyes to hers. Her inclusion on the team was not his choice. As far as Smith was concerned, Helen Magnus was nothing but a red flag for trouble. No-one knew anything about her except for ridiculous rumours.

The other five had lined themselves along where the windows had once been. Behind their feet was a sharp fall to the city streets. Helen joined them, waiting for the leader to continue.

“Two days ago this level was burnt to a shell. The forensic scientists have found a set of remains belonging to Dr. T. Edwards. He was of course, Mars’s chief climate engineer. This knife,” Smith withdrew a plastic bag with a blackened knife, “along with another like it, were found in the victim. It is your job, ladies and gentlemen, to find and bring this murderer to justice. Now, we have reason to believe that they are not working alone and that their ultimate goal is to destroy the terriforming equipment, making Mars uninhabitable. This must not happen. Work fast and diligently. Dismissed.”

Helen immediately made for the exit. She was stopped by a hand latching onto her coat sleeve.

“What are you doing? There’s work to do,” said Smith.

“I have contacts here,” replied Helen, tugging herself free. “You’ll have your answer inside the week.”

With that, Helen Magnus vanished out the door, descending the flight of stairs to the building’s foyer and out the double glass doors into the night.

*~*~*

Nikola adored this century.

It was a fresh, uncomplicated bed of corruption. He smiled, a thick moustache accentuating his grin. It was not so much that he loved corruption, more that all the major organisations were so busy watching each other that they left him in peace – a peace that he used to his advantage designing ever greater technology.

He sold patents whenever he needed money. Most of them ended up on space ships or Martian technologies and indeed, had he not blown the last wad of cash on this machine, he would be quite the wealthy gentlemen. Instead, he was as impoverished as he had ever been. But that was okay.

This was the main reason that he was surprised one night by the sound of the locks on his door thumping to the ground. There was another loud bang, bringing him to his feet just in time to see his door fly from its hinges and a group of people file in, covered from head to combat boot in black.

2

BLOOD RELATIONS

She ran her hand along the sand that lapped at the destroyed building’s edge. Helen felt the night through her coat – it was bitterly cold as if on the edge nothing. Martian life clung to existence by silken threads of atmosphere constantly ripped away by solar winds. The artificial magnetic shielding set up to protect the planet was fragile and in constant need of attention.

The street ahead of her led directly to a set of tall apartment buildings on the outskirts of the city. Behind them, the rim of the crater rose up, cutting a silhouette against the sky. Laneways criss-crossed in front of her, but they were all empty. She had to keep to the road as the footpaths had been consumed by unstable mounds of red sand, blown there in the recent storm. It was a constant battle against a planet that seemed set on burying them all.

More than a thousand years had passed since Oxford – since that night. It was a dream to her, a faint set of memories of times past and feelings lost to history. The only thing still sharp was the moment the needle had pierced her skin – it hurt, even now.

Helen spun silently, raising a sleek gun to the night air.

Something had darted behind her, rushing into the shadows. She eyed the parked cars nestled against the line of buildings. Helen could hear heavy breathing and the frantic heartbeats of the person cowering against a rise of sand.

“Come out if you want to live,” she took a step forward, backlit by an ocean of stars.

Whoever it was scurried around the cars and vanished into a side street.

“Or you could just run away,” Helen sighed, lowering her weapon. “Everybody else does…”

*~*~*

The black-clothed people in Tesla’s lab caught sight of the imposing scientist and froze, watching as Nikola buttoned his jacket calmly. There was an ever-present menacing air circling Nikola and the intruders could feel it tense.

“Do you have any idea,” began Nikola, his voice rising just shy of subdued fury, “whose Sanctuary you are breaking into?” He gave a cord dangling above his head a tug and the room was engulfed in a bright light which crackled, rife with scattered lightening.

Usually, this party trick was enough to startle would be thieves into leaving, but the team of whatever they were simply pulled a set of goggles over their eyes and converged on Nikola.

They were keen, he would give them that.

“I tried to be fair,” he sighed, sharpening his claws. Nikola’s eyes blackened into smooth domes as a set of sharp teeth grew from his jaw. He cocked his head, clicking several vertebras back into position as his vampirish form stirred.

The closest attacker quickly pulled out a small gun, aiming it at Tesla’s heart. Nikola raised his eyebrow. Would they ever learn?

He had expected the bullet to hurt – they always did, but this one was different. Instead of burning through his flesh, it was cold as ice, shocking his torn skin into uncontrollable shivers. He staggered backwards, inspecting the trivial hole in his coat before his knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor in human form.

“Clever little birds…” he gasped.

Nikola was paralysed, hardly able to breathe as the unknown group began emptying his draws of documents into bags, smashing anything they could reach in the process. His masterpiece, a delicate system of copper disks, met its demise at the hand the group’s leader.

When they were finished, one of them strode over to Nikola. Seeing that the scientist was conscious, he knelt down.

Nikola’s eyes caught a flicker of silver where a set of ornate knives hid along their waist.

“It has been a pleasure doing business with you,” they said. One of the others had a bottle of flammable liquid and was busy splashing it over the room.

A moment later a match was struck and Nikola was left to watch as his life’s work caught alight and burnt furiously before him. Even though he couldn’t move, a tear slipped down his cheek and onto the dusty floorboards.

*~*~*

“By God, you look exactly the same.” John stepped aside, allowing Helen into the small apartment.

He didn’t. Time had taken its toll on John in the form of scars networked across his face and neck. His hair had started to silver in patches behind his ears whilst his nose was slightly larger and his eyebrows – a little longer. He was still alluring though, in ways Helen had always struggled to understand. All she knew was that she had missed him, these last years.

“It’s been a long time,” she said, still with a very British accent, as he closed the door gently.

They stood in silence, observing one another until John broke a shaky smile and said, “I called you, twelve years ago when I was back on Earth. You were in the papers again and I –”

“I know,” Helen cut him off. “We were very busy then.”

The silence returned. She didn’t mean to be harsh, there was just a lot of things that needed to be said – centuries to recover but as it so often turned out, she didn’t have the time.

“Is Ashley here?” she asked, catching sight of a female coat hanging on the back of the door. Ashley had been offered a job with a Martian security firm, so they shared an apartment.

“She went out earlier, hunting a petty thief. I shall tell her that you’re in town. Do you have a number that I can contact you on?”

“Ecological Science Building – Level 4. I’ll be there tomorrow morning. John?” John lifted his eyes from the floor, a place that they had chosen to settle to avoid Helen’s cold demeanour. “Is there anything that I need to know about the city?” she asked. “Nasty surprises that wouldn’t have been included in my briefing? I don’t have long for this job and I can’t afford diversions.”

He smiled, ever so slightly. This place has been his home for a long time, and he knew it well. He’s never grown particularly fond of it, but he can feel its blood rising and soul stirring with every new day.

“The food shipments have been delayed two months,” he began. “I help to distribute it, what little there is left. You might also want to keep an eye on the hydrogardens, they’re in poor condition after a rupture in the main water pipe. The firm Ashley works for suspects sabotage but I don’t know Helen, whoever did it lives here as well, and if the gardens go, then they’ll die like the rest of us.”

So basically, thought Helen, chaos as usual. He opened the door for her, and she slipped out, lingering in the hallway. “Give my love to Ashley,” she said, wanting to say more. “Tell her to write again.”

“No one writes any more, Helen,” he replied, closing the door.

*~*~*

She was knee deep in water and not happy about it. The thick pipe running along the roof of the tunnel took up most of the space leaving just enough room for her to walk below, scanning it for damage.

Ashley found cause of the problem a third of the way through the tunnel. The rivets holding each section of pipe together had been half unscrewed and then hit by something, smashing them back into the pipe at strange angles. Water leaked from each one in a process that would eventually flood the whole tunnel.

“Great,” she whispered, taking out her camera and snapping away for her employer. “All I need is sabotage…”

“Progress?” Her caddy, for lack of a better description, had finally made it to her position carrying the rest of her equipment. He was a young boy new to the concept of hormones, and seemed content in his job of trailing Ashley.

“Your father’s tunnel’s buggered,” she said, focusing her flashlight on the torrents of water pouring out. “He’ll have to turn the water off and replace the whole section unless he wants to start an underwater colony…”

“Was it like he said – on purpose?”

Ashley nodded. “I reckon so. Rivets don’t usually bash each other to pieces after a late night party. Not that you’ve ever been to one of those. Bad parenting tip.”

The boy took her camera from her and stowed it away. “It’s starting then, just like they said it would.”

“I hope not,” replied Ashley, sloshing through the water back toward the exit.

3

LOVERS OF THE PAST

It started with a ‘click’. A sharp, sudden snapping of metal as one of the rivets holding the pipe in place dislodged and hit the water. Ashley froze mid conversation when the pipe above her head groaned. She could hear the thousands of litres of water gushing through the pipe, swirling, trapped in endless currents. It was begging to be free and as a second ‘click’ rang out, it might just be about to get its chance.

Ashley closed her eyes as the entire line of rivets popped, flung out into the tunnel with the enormous force of the water pressure. She stumbled forward, taking the young boy with her as the pipe shuddered and cracked, unleashing a torrent of freezing water over them.

They plunged into the water, submerged by the pressure above them. The boy’s arms flailed wildly, his feet finding the bottom of the tunnel and kicking off, propelling him back toward the surface. He emerged in a nightmare of white spray.

“Ash!” he screamed, convulsing as water stuck in his throat. He coughed it out, treading water as he spun endlessly. The air was indiscernible from the water, heavy and thick in his lungs. His eyes stung, pierced by the saline edge of the unrefined liquid pumped out of the Martian crust. The lights above were blurred into a monotonous, disorienting glow.

He couldn’t see her. All he could hear was the great roar of the fractured pipe and the pounds of another series of rivets hitting the walls of the tunnel as they exploded from their holdings.

The water was rising around him, developing a current as it searched for an exit. He was no match for it, tugged and thrown about as the dark waters gathered speed. Eventually he slipped under, no longer able to fight the drag.

The boy opened his eyes in the water, madly searching for escape. He found a thousand tiny creatures, aglow in the murky water. Their limbs were delicate, notched by several joints and feelers. They drifted peacefully by him as the last of his breath bubbled away, rising in perfect spheres through the creatures.

*~*~*

Helen felt the city rumble beneath her. It was a soft shudder, rattling a tray of refreshments servicing the huddle of investigating officers. She hung back from them, strolling in and out of the morning light coming through broken windows.

“Five minutes…” Smith reminded her, pointing at his watch. The mysterious woman wouldn’t tell him what or whom she was waiting for, but he couldn’t keep the team waiting on her behalf – well, not for much longer anyway.

She nodded back, running a hand nervously through her hair. Helen had not seen her daughter for decades, ever since she moved to this horrid planet.

The building rumbled again, hard enough for the others to glance around in confusion. Mars was supposedly geologically dead. No plates, no continents grinding against one another – no reason at all to shiver its skin.

“What is that?” Helen asked Smith, as he joined her at the window. They kept back from the edge, out of reach of the wind kicking along the edge of the building.

“No idea,” he replied, as the trembling ceased. “But it feels like it’s right below us.”

Helen’s eyebrows furrowed, peaking out under a mass of unrestrained dark hair. “Do I need to worry?”

“Shouldn’t think so. Been here five times now and on every single occasion this place throws us a curve. You can’t get settled. She’s got life left in her yet, this world.”

“Are my five minutes up?” she craned her head to get a look at his watch.

“I can’t let you stay. The company wants you out examining the shield.”

“I know,” she folded her arms and turned back to the room. Two of the team had moved towards the door, waiting. Helen and Smith joined them with a sigh audible on her lips as she spied the red haired enthusiast from orientation.

*~*~*

“So beautiful,” he grinned. The wind buffeted his red hair as the dune buggy bounced and skidded over the sand hills. The dirt was coarse and slippery, falling away from the tires as the rickety piece of machinery navigated its way to a metal outcrop on the horizon.

There were eight shield generators placed equally around the rim of the dome-shaped enclose keeping the city safe from Mars’ vacuous atmosphere. This one was nestled between a low rise of ironstone, gnarled and ghastly as it poked through the ground in melted columns.

The buggy dipped over the last of the wandering dunes and found a gravelly expanse. It wasn’t like the rolled whitestone of estates back on Earth; this stuff was a razor sharp mixture of boulders and daggers from a mountain range that no-longer existed.

“God. Damn.” Helen gripped the metal bar over their heads harder, doing her best to remain inside the vehicle as it bounced again.

All of a sudden they were stopped. Smith swore, slamming the wheel with his hand in disgust. It wasn’t the wheel’s fault that the buggy had stopped, rather the exceedingly flat tire drooped over the gravel. He ordered everybody out and they went ahead on foot while he laid himself down on the painful gravel and began jacking the tire off.

As Helen had feared, the gingerbot was tracking her, striding up through the others so that he could not so subtly fall in step with her.

“Mike,” he introduced himself. Helen muttered her name half-heartedly at him. “Oh, I know,” Mike seemed amused. “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

Helen couldn’t help but wonder if this was a trick question to get her attention.

“Most people say I look just like him – my grandfather.”

That made her take a second look.

Pale skin mottled with blemishes, thick eyebrows with loosely curled edges forming a permanent expression of wonder, scrawny disposition made worse by well-worn attire, disarming eyes – Helen tilted her head.

Maurice Newton. Through and through. How could she have not seen it?

“Now you see him,” he said. “The rumours about you are true I see.”

Her eyes snapped away defensibly.

“If it makes any difference at all, it was my grandfather who told me about you. He thought very highly of a Ms Helen Magnus, perhaps he was even a little in love.”

Helen picked up the pace, almost falling on the uneven ground.

“She couldn’t help her curiosity – that was half the thrill of a lifetime with Helen,” as his grandfather used to say with a sad smile. “He died a happy man because of you.”

Her breath caught. She swallowed a sob, brushing away the beginnings of a tear. Of course he was dead. She knew that. Hearing it though – having it confirmed as an absolute certainty, that was something else.

*~*~*

Nikola coughed. A thick layer of black smoke oozed around him full of singed paper. He couldn’t move, forced to lie there on the floor and wait for the encroaching flames. Vampires were hardly creatures with exceptional healing power, but even the most resilient of them could not survive an inferno. Nikola was only half-vampire, if that. He could see the end of his life coming – taste it in the smoke and for the first time since that night in Oxford he realised how much he wanted to live.

They had been young then, a thousand years ago hidden away in their ad-hoc laboratory. The terror he had felt then as the needle’s contents spilled into his veins had returned to him. He could see auras of red inside the smoke and feel fronts of heat creeping toward him. This is not how the great Nikola Tesla wanted to die – helpless and alone.

His work bench collapsed. He heard it slam into the ground and snap in half taking what remained of its contents with it.

“Not like this!” he screamed out.

*~*~*

“So this is the one of the famous shield generators,” she ignored Mike’s previous comment as they reached the metal cone. It stuck out from the ground, angrily pointing at the sky with its sharp tip.

“Clever little thing,” said Mike, kneeling down beside it. As it turned out, Mike was the shield specialist, taking after both his father and grandfather. Technology was in love with him, obeying his most gentle touch.

He traced his finger over the machine’s sinister tip, carving out an intricate pattern on its cone. It was a form of code – unlocking the outer shell of the device. Helen watched closely should she need to mimic him later.

“It really shouldn’t do that,” he commented, frowning in concern as the usually invisible shielding above them flickered.

Helen looked up, catching a ripple of purple ride along the roof of the dome, showing her its contours for the first time.

“Power fluctuations,” he said, inspecting a readout on the machine’s screen. “It’s been going on for months now. I’m not talking about slight changes in output,” he shook his head at her. “Just then we lost 87% of the power required to keep the roof up, the module shifted to its backup batteries to maintain the shield which is what caused the flicker.”

“How long do the batteries last?”

“A hour, maybe. It depends on how often they’re used.”

“But we’re back on mains now,” Helen looked up to where she knew the shield was. It was back to being an invisible curtain against the morning sky.

“Yes. For the moment we’re back on the main power supply but I hate to think what would happen if it failed for any great length of time.”

“It was only this unit that was affected,” Helen noted.

“On this occasion. I have a live feed back to my lab on Earth. Nearly every unit has reported similar power fluctuations. It’s why they called me. Why did they call you?”

Helen was taken aback for a moment. Mike wasn’t nearly as pleasant as she had summarised. “They need me,” she answered, “for all the things you can’t predict.”

“I thought it was because of him,” replied Mike. “They say that you’re the only one he listens to. The only one that can control him. No one would ensure this operation without you along to babysit.”

“What on –” she was about to say, ‘Earth’ but stopped herself. “What are you talking about?”

“Him. The man who built these this system in the first place. Nikola Tesla.”

Helen stopped dead. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“He should have been here to meet us,” said Mike. “As I was to understand it, the man’s never late.”

4

SMOKE AND SAND

“God, you’re an absolute mess. You’ll have to lose that moustache, singed to bloody oath.”

“Yes, thank you for your – ” Nikola rolled over, coughing violently. The smoke had worked its way deep within his lungs, blackening them. “Assistance…” he finished. Nikola’s long suffering neighbour had dragged him from the burning laboratory, down the stairs and out into the freezing snow.

Rome never changed. Millennia had passed it by calmly, as if wandering in and out of its marble streets while the rest of the world dug its feet in and battened down the hatches. Nikola buried his hands in the white powder. This was not the first time his life’s work had burned to the ground, reduced to a pile of smouldering rubble. It certainly wasn’t something that got easier to watch.

“Is there any good news?” he asked, ignoring the painful burns on his hand. They would heal.

His neighbour shook his head in amazement, “You really are an optimist.” Nikola assured him that he was just crazy. “Well, aside from the obvious fact that you’re alive – still. I swear I’ve known you for forty years and you never look any different. Yeah I know, don’t ask,” he caught himself, “the only other positive thing I can think of is the letter left for you this morning. I was on my way to deliver it to you when I found the whole place ablaze.”

“A letter?” Nikola lifted his head from the ground. Flecks of ash drifted over, spiralling with the snowflakes.

The neighbour eyed Nikola’s burnt hands, “Would you like me to open it?” Nikola glared, snatching the letter before growling, dropping it in the snow. “That’d be a yes then.” He unfolded the letter carefully, holding it up to the glow of the burning building.

“To Mr Tesla, owner of patent 3029A0,

Your presence is required for immediate repairs…”

“That’d be right,” hissed Nikola. “They never pay me for anything, skimp on materials, make drastic changes to design, and then want help when it breaks.”

“Are you going to be quiet so I can read this?”

*~*~*

The shuttle dropped him roughly in the desert, miles from anywhere. Nikola eyed the landscape. It was eerily quiet and choked by peripatetic dunes. Sol was at its brightest, shining high above but at this distance it was more like a light bulb than a star. Had it not been for the shield encapsulating the area he would have frozen to death very quickly in the faint milieu of light.

He waved sardonically at the awkward craft as it rose back into atmosphere with a storm of sand. The red particles embedded themselves in every nook of Nikola, staining him a general red. He hadn’t been on Mars five minutes before he decided against it.

“Horrid planet…” he muttered, attempting to dust himself off.

The rendezvous appeared to have failed as there was nothing to ‘rendezvous’ with other than a curious rock which Nikola approached, tilting his head in curiosity. It was a vaguely round protrusion, weathered on one side by the endless grinding of sand storms. Tesla had seen a lot of rocks in his time. During those few decades he’d spent seducing a geologist, identifying rocks had become an unwanted skill. This was no rock.

He got within a nose of it, rubbing away at its surface with the sleeve of his Victorian style jacket. Underneath all the grit was an ochre colour – naturally smooth. Nikola stretched out his tongue, resting its tip on the strange surface. Instantly he felt the pull as the surface tried to suck all the moisture in. Bone – a very large lump of ancient bone.

*~*~*

“These doors ain’t gonna hold the water,” an engineer hurried through the unground facility, upsetting piles of paper scattered over the office desks. “We closed them as soon as the pressure spiked but we’re losing integrity in the tunnel. It’s going to bleed out into the surrounding rock and when it can’t do that…” He came to a halt in front of the senior engineer. Professor Robert Hill was newly appointed after the sudden death of Dr. T. Edwards and currently having the worst possible day.

“We’re going to have a very pretty water feature in the middle of town…” Robert rubbed the vein between his eyebrows. By, ‘very pretty water feature’ he mean that the entire city would be drowned in thousands of litres of raw Martian water and they would lose the food gardens, essentially bringing an end to humankind’s attempts at colonisation. “What about the expert we sent in to assess the damage?”

“Ashley Magnus,” the engineer shook his head. “We had to close the tunnel doors. She didn’t make it.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” Robert took a step closer to the rattled man. “Come on, I don’t have time to be subtle.”

“It’s the boss’s kid. Video footage shows him following Magnus into the tunnel just before the accident. He didn’t come out either.”

Robert felt ill. “The force of the artesian basin will eventually break our pumps. Get those drills working on an evacuation tunnel for the water – I don’t care how rough it is, as long as the water has another option. At least we won’t all drown.”

*~*~*

The dune buggy skidded over the sand in a crazy curve, nearly tipping over before coming to rest beside Tesla. Lowering their sunglasses, the driver eyed the man running his hands over a rock. It appeared that the rumours were true – the man was a complete nutter/eccentric –whatever.

“You Tesla?” the buzz-cut Major asked, well aware that the possibility of it being anybody else was slim.

Nikola spun around with his eyes agleam, “Did you know that there was life on Mars?”

The Major did away with his shades completely. “Yeah…” he replied slowly, as if it were the most obvious thing ever said. “Get in.”

“Fascinating,” said Nikola, as he slipped into the passenger seat.

“Someone wants you dead.” The Major shifted the car back into gear, racing down the side of the dune. They were headed for one of the shield generators on the outskirts of the liveable area, a good ten minute drive.

“I would be offended if they didn’t.”

“The government has taken extra precautions, changed most of your arrangements since the incident at your laboratory. We, your security, would prefer it if you didn’t lean out over the door like that whilst the vehicle is moving…” The Major grabbed the back of Tesla’s coat with one of his enormous hands and yanked the man back into his seat. “Appreciated.”

“You should be more worried,” said Tesla, preening himself, “about what you’ve already got in the car.”

That made him laugh. “They warned me you’d be trouble.” Nikola stretched out, resting his feet on the dash. “It’s a rough ride,” he cautioned.

“And so is life,” Nikola replied, closing his eyes.

*~*~*

Helen was not pleased by the news and had set to pacing around the shield generator as Mike sieved through its error log.

“I’m going to make a catastrophic error if you keep that up,” Mike lifted his eyes to the distressed woman. “They said that he was a colleague of yours – your reaction suggests that there is more to that story.”

“Got a thousand years?” she hissed back. Mike mistakenly took that as a joke.

“Oh, here he is now – or is that our car… no, it’s definitely him.” They both stood as the buggy approached with a red trail of dust swept up behind, stalking it.

As the car stuttered to stop, Helen couldn’t help but think about a similar scene back in Egypt, 1929. Humans may have moved to another planet, but they didn’t change.

“You’re going to regret this,” Helen whispered to Mike, as she caught sight of Nikola sporting a moustache.

*~*~*

John Druitt took the stairs three at a time, gliding down toward the depths of the Ecological Science Building. He was trailed by a security team two flights above, doing their best to catch him.

“Oy!” one of the grey-suited men yelled, puffing as turned and began the next set. “I said stop!”

He could see the final emergency door. John hit the landing and pushed into the engineer’s level. Half a dozen shocked scientists froze at the sight of the imposing man who was scanning the room.

“Where is she?” John growled.

One of the men, dressed in white pants and matching lab coat, shifted to the front. He was wearing a bright red hard hat, clutching a clipboard. “I am Professor Hill,” the man said.

The pursuing security team finally caught up, piling in through the door behind John in a grey blur. Several of them grasped onto John, pretending to have him captured.

“No, no…” Robert raised his hands, trying to calm the security detail. “Let him go. I was about to call him anyway.”

They did – but very reluctantly.

“Please, my office is this way.”

With the news Robert was about to deliver it wasn’t going to make a difference whether or not he had protection. Druitt was either going to help him – or kill him. It was as simple as that.

5

ACCIDENTS AND ACQUAINTANCES

The dust swirled in front of the buggy, temporarily enveloping it in a red blur which stung Helen’s eyes as its edges wafted out. She heard two doors slam. Mike straightened up beside her, wiping his greasy hands on his shirt as they both watched the dust.

A tall silhouette was the first to emerge. Like a slender shadow, it slinked toward them with a confident air. There was no mistaking that strut – the way each foot seemed to glide before landing or the rigid line of his shoulders greeting the world like a wall.

“Nikola Tesla,” said Helen, self-consciously fixing her hair.

A gentle wind kicked the dust away revealing Nikola, his escort and the buggy that was parked crookedly on the embankment. Helen had to do a double take – sporting a thick moustache and attired in an early 20th Century suit, he appeared as a distant reverie – a shadow from her past merging with the present. It was the same feeling others must experience upon seeing her.

“Did you know,” he announced as soon as he had come to a stop in front of them, “that there was life on Mars?” Nikola seemed genuinely taken with the concept, eagerly awaiting her answer.

Helen couldn’t quite believe it – three-hundred years and that was the first thing that he chose to say to her. She frowned and briefly looked away, running her eyes of the desolate border between the sky and dirt.

“Do you,” she inquired, whipping her head suddenly back with a storm of hair flying over her shoulder, “participate in television, newspapers, radio?”

Nikola ran a finger thoughtfully over his moustache. “You mean, other than inventing it?”

“It’s a worry…” Helen trailed off. Nikola took a few steps closer, dipping his head in.

“What is?” he asked, menacingly.

“You, Nikola.”

He went quiet. Yes, he was the first to admit that he led a solitary life, often cutting himself off from the rest of the world for exceptional lengths of time but he had always figured that that had something to do with the world ignoring him. Mutual apathy. Thus, the world’s events were often lost on him and the passage of time made trivial.

“But you still love me,” he ventured quietly, almost too privately for this very public meeting.

Helen couldn’t help it – she rolled her eyes dramatically and let a grin slip over her lips. “A thousand years,” she began, “and you think I’m going to admit to that in the middle of a god-awful Martian desert?”

He matched her grin with a line of sharp teeth. “It really is awful, isn’t it? I thought that Mars would be more pleasant, like a beach in the southern ocean.”

The far-too-cool-to-be-standing-here-ignored Major stepped forward and slapped Nikola on the back. “Introductions are over, time to work.”

Helen twinged, aware of Nikola’s dislike of physical contact. The military officer was just lucky that Nikola’s attention had already roamed to the field generator behind them.

“Look what they did to it…” Nikola exclaimed, pushing past Helen and Mike (whom he was yet to acknowledge). He ran his hands along the outer casings of the machine, stroking it like a favourite pet. “What a disaster.”

The rest of them assembled in a semicircle around him. “Can you fix it, Nikola?” Helen knelt beside him.

“I could re-design it,” he muttered. “But this needs to be put out of its misery.”

“We can’t do that, Nikola,” she replied. “The life support for the planet would fail – thousands of lives.”

“What did they do?” he asked himself out loud. “Scrounge up the cheapest, flippant excuse for an engineer and let him violate this beautiful design.”

Mike cleared his throat loudly. “That would be my grandfather.”

Tesla snapped his head up and narrowed his eyes madly at the scrawny, red haired individual. He looked vaguely familiar, like a bad scent that had embedded itself in the fabric. “You’re a Newton,” he hissed, as if the very words left a sour taste.

“Nikola…” Helen cautioned, sensing trouble. “Fate of the planet…”

Mike and Nikola took an instant, violent dislike of one another.

“Fine,” Nikola said at last. “It will take me a while to determine what’s wrong. You will have to leave me with it.”

Mike snarled, unhappy with the thought of his machine being left in the hands of this horrid person. “I don’t trust him.”

“Thank you,” snapped Nikola, “for the vote of confidence. I might just destroy it to spite you.”

*~*~*

“Please take a seat, Dr Druitt,” the Professor extended his arm in the direction of the minimalistic chair, half pulled out from the desk. Hill’s office was brightly lit and lined with one way glass . At its most basic, it was a corner of the lab that had been sectioned off, pretending to be an office but really, Robert Hill had only been here a few days and none of the items inside the room were his. Mostly he felt like a trespasser, borrowing his superior’s office.

John sidled into the office, ducking under the low doorway. The scientist ducked around the other side of the desk and sat awkwardly in the chair, hinting for him to do the same. John didn’t sit. He knew that something very serious had gone amiss and he was going to find out.

“As you wish,” said Robert, folding his hands nervously in his lap. “I have just been informed that the water pipes connecting the underground water with the gardens has ruptured. We are taking measures to avert damage to the city but we’re still not sure if we will succeed. The danger to the Martian colony is quite real.”

“The whole city felt the rumble,” said John simply.

“For some time now – several months, we have suspected foul play on our technologies. Someone has been sabotaging our basic services. The last case was anomalous damage to the water pipe. A Ms. Ashley Magnus was called in under contract to assess this damage.” The man opposite shifted uneasily as his dark eyes glossed in unsettled fear. “She was doing this when the first pipe ruptured. We waited, as long as we could,” Robert protested, as John turned and went to leave, already understanding that his daughter must be dead, “but we had to close the doors to save the city.”

Unchallenged, John raged out of the office and back up the stairs to the main building’s foyer. It was large and sleek, with granite walls and twisted columns with no purpose but honouring the early human architecture. The sun had risen high now – its pathetic light streamed in the heavy glass doors betraying the emptiness of the building. Everything seemed hollow on this planet. It had about every feature a loneliness. Though a few inhabitants tried to makes homes out of it, Mars had lost its life long ago and it spent its time in mourning, crying through its red tides.

As he pushed out the doors and into the street, John made a vow to the planet itself – he would find who was responsible for his daughter’s death, and he would make them suffer the unimaginable loss.

*~*~*

“Do you think he’ll be all right – out there alone?” Mike tried not to squash Helen into the opposing door of the vehicle as they turned the corner sharply. They hadn’t left Nikola entirely alone – the Major was there, watching over the landscape like some kind of predatory bird keeping its prey.

“You mean,” said Helen, over the noise of the engine, “do I think that your precious shield generator will be okay left alone in his company?” Mike shrugged in the affirmative. “Yes. You may not like him,” she continued, clinging onto the head rail for dear life as their driver came too near a protruding rock, “but there is no soul in the human race better at what he does.”

“Yet still I worry,” he sighed. “Is he really the man that –”

He was stopped by Helen’s vivid eyes, glaring at him. “Yes. But don’t say anything. There is one thing that the man’s ego doesn’t need, and that’s stroking.”

“I wanted to ask you something else –” Mike began, but he did not get to finish for the buggy was thrown sharply to the side where it reared up on two wheels and threw its two passengers onto the sand. After this, it flipped entirely with the driver still fighting the wheel. It careened along the side of a mound until burying its bonnet and pivoting upright. The driver toppled limply from his seat, snapped his back on the bars protecting the seats, and then hit the ground.

Helen stirred first. She had not lost consciousness, but her vision was blurring and several parts of her body throbbed with the impact. Something had happened, but she couldn’t recall anything but the frightening rush of sand next to her.

There was a black shuttle hastening toward them, gliding silently over the broken landscape. Helen lay there, watching it approach – unable to move.

UNTOLD SANCTUARY

SANCTUARY OF THE MOON

by ellymelly

TABLE OF CONTENTS

01 Nothing but Lies

02 Tracks in the Mud

03 Empty Tombs

04 Buried Citites

05 Lockdown

06 Room with Columns

1

NOTHING BUT LIES

It was a humid afternoon, clinging to the end of summer. Ashley ducked under the roar of the helicopter as it flung a fresh sheet of water over her face. The blades beat the surface of the nearby river, sending shallow waves onto the bank which was thick with weeds and unpleasant refuse from the last town before the rainforest.

Finally, the noisy machine lifted off the ground and headed toward the low lying mountains behind her. Dripping, she rang her pony tail onto the ground, flicking it over her shoulder before doing the same to her coat.

She waved at the pair of small children who had moved in for a closer look, half hiding behind a stand of shrubs. They had strayed from the village, following the black chopper as it sailed in close. The pair ventured out and waved back at the blonde woman, grinning with bright eyes against dark skin.

Ashley knelt onto the damp grass, slipping her backpack off. She dug through it, quickly finding her father’s journal. Flipping through the delicate pages, Ashley scanned each one until she caught sight of it – a map, roughly drawn by her grandmother and beside it a line of instructions. It didn’t look particularly forthright but if her grandfather could find the Sanctuary of the Moon using this, then so could she.

Turning it around so that the North symbol lined up with her compass, Ashley started searching for matching landmarks and soon found the Smouldering Match – a dark line of smoke leisurely trailing into the sky from a volcanic outcrop. An eagle soared over head, catching her eye as it enjoyed a warm air current. She wished that she could join it, play on the air for a while away from the world and all its trouble.

Instead, she gazed at the jungle in front. The knee length grass field that she was standing in ended fifty or so metres ahead. The dark green jungle loomed beyond, like a wave rearing up on the shore.

*~*~*

They relocated detective Joe Kavanaugh to one of the guest bedrooms where he happily fell into a deep sleep. His injuries were minor and not in any immediate need of attention. Helen closed his door and turned to John, Henry and Nikola who had been shadowing her through the corridor.

“Follow me,” she said sternly, though they didn’t need to be told. All of them could feel the air tensing around the brunette as she strode ahead, clearly upset by the turn of events.

She led them to the medical lab, ushering them into a line along the glass enclosure where Will sat on the edge of the hospital bed. When Helen had seen John and Tesla appear in her foyer, she had been inches from Will’s skin with the tip of the needle. Its contents would have killed him quickly and painlessly but her instinct told her to stop, that this couldn’t possibly be the end for him, and she had been right.

“I want you to tell me again,” she said to Nikola, who had broken the line and instead reclined against the desk containing print outs of all his files. He eyed one of the piles, folding his arms across his chest with disapproval.

“This one,” he nodded at Henry, “has parroted my research correctly. I have strong reason to believe that there is a small community of vampires living in the Peruvian rainforest. The closest civilisation is the water-locked city of Iquitos. If Ashley’s smart, she’ll stop there for a guide. Sadly, Ashley has the only map so once we get there, we’ll be wandering blind.”

“How did she get her hands on a – you gave it to her… If this is one of your desperate attempts to get your claws on vampire blood, Nikola, then I am going to kill you myself.”

“I assure you,” he replied, “that although it might be true that I’m making the best of the circumstance presented to me, I did nothing as advantageous as orchestrating it. It was your pet sand creature that attacked me in the middle of the night, remember?”

He had a point. “There are no copies of the map I presume…”

“None.”

“Helpful, Nikola.” Helen glanced at Will as he bent forward in pain. It was starting again. He didn’t have long. “You’re coming with us. Pack light everyone, we have a plane to catch. Not you Henry –” Helen caught his arm as he headed for the door with the others.

“But I’ve been researching this. Helen, I know the data. You might need someone with this information – you can’t just trust that man.”

“And you trust his research? For all you know Henry, he may have left that there for you to find. We have Nikola, and for the moment at least, our goals are the same. The fewer people we have with us, the faster we can move. I don’t want Ashley out there alone.”

“You know, ‘that man’ is standing right here…”

“Stay out of this, Nikola,” Helen glared at him. He bowed out of the room with a smirk.

“Helen, you’re going to need me,” pleaded Henry.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But Will needs you more.”

*~*~*

Ashley surveyed the river cutting through her path. There had been unseasonal rain, and now rivers were popping up that were not labelled on the map. This one was about three metres wide but gushing with a frightening velocity. If she missed the bank, Ashley would be washed in its current god knows how far off course.

There was no choice though, she would have to cross it.

Her backpack went first, flung across the gap where it landed safely on the other side.

“See, not so hard,” she said to herself. If her backpack could do it…

Ashley backtracked, taking a run up through a patch of clear, but muddy ground. She took one last look at the murky river as it raged past and then dug her heals in, launching herself at it in full run.

Her legs stretched out, striding through the air as her arms clawed forward until she hit the opposite bank. She landed on the ground hard and immediately started sliding down its inclined bank toward the river. The ground was covered in silty mud that was nearly impossible to get a grip on.

“Urgh, come on!” she hissed, as she felt water rushing over her boots.

*~*~*

Helen tightened her belt, drew her long, weatherproof coat around her and concealed an assortment of weapons on her body. John rested against the wall beside the front door, watching the large clock tick away the time as they waited for Nikola. Their bags were ready to go and the car was out front, prepped to take them to Helen’s private jet parked in a dark corner of the airport.

“What could possibly be keeping him?” Helen paced over the floor.

“He was never particularly reliable,” commented John, readjusting the tape Helen had strapped over his face where the creature’s claw marks cut deep.

“Will you two ever get over each other?” she shook her head. “Sometimes I think that this jealously was more about competition than actually loving me.”

Henry bounded into the room, kitted out in jeans and a jacket with heavy boots and a bundle of bags.

“Henry, we discussed this,” said Helen sternly, eyeing his travelling clothes.

“Mr. Tesla is gone,” he panted, out of breath from the run down the hall. “I checked all of the motion senses and security cameras. He disappeared into the library and never came back.”

“Typical,” grinned John.

“Don’t you dare enjoy this,” Helen instructed. “The reality is that without him, we’ve got no chance of finding Ashley – what is it Henry?”

Henry held up a bundle of papers. “I know where he’s going, Helen. I can do this. Will’s dead if we don’t leave now. Worse than dead.”

Helen shifted her gaze between the expectant Henry and the impatient John, who shrugged his approval.

“Ready to leave?” she nodded at Henry’s bags. “Let’s go then. Next time I see Nikola, he better have a bloody good explanation.”

*~*~*

Ashley looked like a mud monster that had crawled out of some festering swamp. She sniffed her arm where the mud was starting to dry into a shell and crack off. This was just like the old days, she thought, tracking abnormals in their native environment. The only difference here was that she knew that the abnormal in question was way smarter than her, worse still, she wasn’t just hunting it, she wanted to talk to it.

“Right map,” she held the book with slightly muddy hands. “A little help would be good.”

There was no path to speak of, only a trickle of water running over a twisting line of boulders cutting through the foliage. She clambered over each one, sliding on their rough surfaces until she reached their top and could stare out over the next fall of jungle.

Suddenly, the ground underneath her gave way. All she saw was the stunning view vanish to black as her body curved, freefalling. She held onto the journal, pulling it to her chest as she hit the soft ground. Ashley’s vision blurred, her thoughts fractured by the fall. Above was the bright hole where she had fallen through the weak earth. Tree roots dangled around her, one brushing over her face. She moved it aside, sitting up with a groan.

An avalanche of dirt drained off of her – not that she could get any more filthy…

“Urgh…” she rested her head on her knees, closing her eyes. “Ouch.”

It was a while before she located her torch and began inspecting her situation which couldn’t possibly be a good one. The ground which had given way was four – maybe five metres above her head. Initially, she thought that she might be able to climb up the sides of the hole, but the earth was too soft. The tree roots, though prevalent, pulled free every time she tested their strength.

With the obvious route of escape failing her, Ashley turned her attention to the ground level. The hole extended into the earth around her, almost like a cave. On closer inspection, she found that one of the side walls had been propped up by timber. It was soft and mostly rotten but at one stage it had definitely been a doorway of sorts. The inside of it was blocked by a recent fall of dirt from above, flowing out into the main room. Perhaps it would be possible to clear a space through that.

The rest of the floor was bare. There was nothing at all that she could use as leverage to climb up toward the hole at the top, not even a well placed bolder like the thousands that she had trampled over to get this far.

“I refuse to die in a hole,” she told herself firmly.

Returning her attention to the ominous doorway of wood, Ashley began to dig into it with her hands. She kept her torch off, conserving its battery unaware of the tunnel waiting beyond.

2

TRACKS IN THE MUD

Helen waited on the phone, impatiently tapping her fingers against the plane’s window until the tone rang out and Ashley’s message service clicked on. Helen ended the call; another message wouldn’t make any difference to the eighteen unread ones already in there – no doubt having a nice chat about why their intended recipient wasn’t answering.

“Her phone does work, doesn’t Henry?”

Henry was tucked into the chair opposite, watching the clouds waft past as Helen’s private jet skimmed in over the mountains. He had an unsightly blue rug scrunched up under his nose which he had to fold back to speak.

“Yes, like I said,” he mumbled, simultaneously hungry and sleepy after the sixteen hour flight. “She’s set up on the global roaming thing. If her phone’s not working it’s because she’s dropped it, or drowned it, or one of the many other new and interesting ways that Ashley Magnus had discovered to damage technology. I’m a particular fan of her work on the microwave.”

“Sorry Henry,” Helen realised that she’d been pestering everybody onboard for hours and it was starting to grate. “I’m just worried.”

The plane shook again, falling through an air pocket. Unstable weather went with the territory. High mountains created turbulence – at least it meant that they were getting close.

“Me as well, doc.” He didn’t admit to leaving a few of his own messages on Ashley’s phone. “But we’re gonna find her. We know where she’s headed –”

“Roughly…” added Helen, with an ever-so-slightly raised eyebrow.

“I can do a little better than ‘roughly’.” These days Henry was constantly in the presence of a large pile of paper. He had brought Tesla’s print outs with him – not all of them of course, only the ones that were difficult to acquire. At the moment they were neatly filed away in his shoulder bag. “As long as she doesn’t get lost, we should all end up at the same place and you can ground her then.”

Helen really hoped so, otherwise her daughter was out there alone, about to wander into the lair of the most dangerous Abnormal that ever lived.

*~*~*

Far from walking, Ashley found herself clawing forwards through the dirt – torch clenched between her teeth whilst she tried not to dribble all over it.

She was in a bit of a tight spot – lodged between a mound of dirt and the roof of the tunnel. The hole that she had dug for herself was on the small side and so she had to squeeze painfully through it, nearly getting stuck on the way.

“Come on hips,” she grunted.

Finally, she emerged, dusting herself down unnecessarily. They layers of mud and dirt on her were never going to leave her voluntarily.

She perched on the tunnel side of the mound, with her legs dangling over the rise of dirt in front. Prying the torch from her teeth, Ashley panned its light over the area in front. What she found was a narrow, half collapsed tunnel lined with the same trestles of wood as the entrance. Whatever this place had been, its previous life was long buried.

Ashley slid down the mound onto the semi-solid ground, landing in a puff of dust.

“Well, this is better,” she said to the tunnel. At least it showed promise – in other words, she couldn’t see the end of it which meant that it had to lead somewhere.

She progressed through it, slowly at first but soon her patience wore thin and Ashley entered a jog. The air got staler as the tunnel took her down further beneath the ground. Maybe she had been wrong, perhaps this was a mining tunnel and the exit was back the way she had come. What if it was an abandoned shaft, a hunting trap, some useless idea or any number of unhelpful things?

‘Always look before you leap…’ Wise words she usually chose to ignore. In her defence, it was more of a ‘fall’ than a ‘leap’.

Not ready to give up, she took a few more deep breaths and settled into a pace. She was mid-step when she felt it – the lower part of her ankle buckle and roll. Orthopaedics. She couldn’t count the number of times her mother had begged her to wear them yet still she insisted on going without. It was times like these, when she was trapped in a collision course with the eager ground, that she wished she’d listened to her mother.

“Ow…” she skidded to a halt, losing her grip on the torch as her hands spread out, taking the impact. “No, no, no –” Ashley watched as her torch began to roll away from her, catching the sharpening slope of the ground. “You get back here!”

She was on her feet, half-limping half-hopping in pursuit of the escaping torch, grimacing every time that she tried to put useful weight on her sore ankle. It wasn’t seriously injured, just refusing to co-operate with her. Her torch seemed content to continue this chase, gaining speed and distance from Ashley.

Soon Ashley couldn’t see the ground in front of her – only ahead where the torch’s light bounced, unhelpfully illuminating more walls of dirt.

“Don’t make me replace you with a Maglite,” she stumbled on.

It didn’t seem to care for her insults, vanishing from sight as it dropped over the edge of something that Ashley was yet to reach. Darkness, pure and black engulfed the tunnel around Ashley. She brought herself to a sudden stop, reaching out to the wall beside.

“Shit…” she whispered.

*~*~*

They took a boat upriver from Iquitos. Their petrol motor jutted and spluttered its protest at being picked for the trip, but Dr. Helen Magnus had paid good money for its services so their guide whacked the plastic cover with his stick and it quietened.

Henry sat up front, cross-legged on the bow of the small fibreglass boat. He gripped the pale blue bars, dislodging the old paint that had never really adhered in the first place. The wind was pleasant, whipping across his face in something that felt awfully like freedom.

The Amazon rainforest sprawled out ahead, climbing up a set of mountains in front of the river. Beside them, the last field of grass was swiftly running out. Farmers waved to them from the shore and packs of children gave playful chase along the bank.

Helen had her phrase-book out, doing her best to direct the guide to the place on the map they needed to be. It was slow going, like her father – Helen had always been mediocre when it came to foreign languages.

The guide was shaking his head at her last suggestion. At first she thought that it was her poor pronunciation, but the grey-haired man took the phrasebook from her and flipped it open to a page.

“No thank you,” he said. What he meant was that he would not take them past open field. The boat was already slowing, making a gentle curve toward the muddy bank thick with reeds and animal tracks.

John suddenly reached over and relieved the arguing pair of the map.

“We knew we’d be in for a walk,” he said, stoically. “Ashley will have done the same so our chances of tracking her are better if we start where she did.”

Henry’s sense of freedom soon took a turn when he found himself face to face with a sinister line of trees reaching out to him with sticky leaves. The boat had pulled up right on the edge, where the rainforest reared up at them.

“Buck up little one,” John’s hand startled Henry, as it landed on his shoulder. The tall – strange man shook Henry in a ‘friendly’ manner, no doubt his version of encouragement. “It’s not the trees you need to be afraid of.” He leant right down to Henry’s ear and lowered his voice to a whisper, “It’s me…”

Henry gave a small yelp and bounced away, finding himself in the shade of the rainforest. It was cool and surprisingly enticing after hours baking on the runabout. John gave a quiet chuckle, glancing over his shoulder as Helen came marching toward them.

“That’s the spirit Henry,” she said, striding past him and John.

*~*~*

Detective Joe Kavanaugh opened his eyes with a groan. The world hurt and his head most of all. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep in the strange room, but there was daylight creeping between the drapes as the smell of fried eggs swirling around the bed.

The blur of last night began to take shape as he sat up. Tunnels and creatures; gunshots and bickering voices – finally he remembered.

He stumbled across the dark room, took hold of the heavy folds of material and pulled them open, revealing a bright morning over the city. His eyes stung in the sudden light. Joe blinked furiously, turning his head away until he felt his skin warm.

There was a silver tray on the table beside the bed. Its contents were covered by an ornate lid with steam creeping around its sides. Breakfast.

*~*~*

“She never ever listens…”

Helen Magnus had her knees buried in a soft layer of mud beside an angry river. Rough tracks, half washed away led into the current.

“They continue over there,” John pointed to the opposite bank where a skid mark had dislodged a section of weed and leaf litter. “Give me your hands…” he stood between Helen and Henry with his palms outstretched.

They were both hesitant at first, but soon clasped tightly to John.

It was over in a flash. A sharp, dreadful moment as they teleported to the other side of the river. Henry fell over, clutching his head in pain. Helen shook it off, forcing her eyes to focus and not slip into the enticing darkness.

“That’s nasty…” Henry whimpered, clambering back to his feet. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“You would rather take your chances with the river?” said John.

“Yeah,” replied Henry, straightening, “that’s what I’m saying.”

Helen was frowning, twisting the map in every direction possible until she turned to the others. “This is the wrong way,” she said, holding the map up for them to see. “We should be further that way,” she pointed to their left, “up where that line of rocks starts.”

Henry leant backwards, trying to see around the large tree beside him. He didn’t know how Helen could find anything in this mess. There were trees, ferns, creepers, spiky plant things he didn’t know what to call, and general obstacles everywhere. He was struggling to find his own feet.

“It could be the map,” said Henry. “Ours is something that Mr. Tesla drew himself. Ashley has the original.”

“This,” began Helen unhappily, “is why I don’t trust that man.” That, and he had a habit of disappearing when he was needed most.

“Do we follow the map, or Ashley?”

Helen’s eyes flicked between Henry, John, the map and the tracks in the mud.

3

EMPTY TOMBS

“You are very late,” Tesla inspected his nails. He was seated on a large boulder, perched at its top high above the pair approaching through the undergrowth.

Helen stopped, panting as she lifted her head. Through the light covering of leaves she spied an individual who was soon to die.

“Nikola…” she whispered, narrowing her eyes at his preened form. He did not look like he’d spend hours trudging through muck but then again, Nikola had a talent for cleanliness.

Henry beat his way through the forest behind Helen, swearing at a particularly sticky plant that refused to let go of his arm. It suckered onto his skin, stuck fast.

“Nasty little good for nothing piece of ancient shru-” he ran into the back of Helen, nearly knocking them both to the ground. Helen stumbled forward.

“How many times, Henry,” she said, without taking her glare off Nikola. “Eyes up.”

Henry pealed the possessive frond off of his skin with a displeased grimace. He hated forests, trees, large wild cats, slippery rocks, humid air, insects – anything that crawled, really. It was only the two of them now; Helen had sent John off after Ashley’s tracks while they stuck to the map. Helen had wanted to go after Ashley herself, but Henry wouldn’t leave the map and she couldn’t trust John on his own with Henry. At least this way, John’s motivations were headed in the right direction – find Ashley.

“Oh great,” Henry’s mood deteriorated further when he saw that ‘Tesla person’ impossibly balanced on a boulder.

“I’m been here for whole hours,” Nikola gloated, pulling his knees up to his chest, enjoying the pleasant breeze and vantage over the jungle. They were at the summit of a small hill that wanted, ever so desperately, to be a mountain.

Helen fought through the remainder of the ferns and strode out into the clearing, planting herself at the base of Nikola’s rock. She tilted her head back to speak. “I’m going to need a very good reason not to kill you,” she said, unhooking her gun. Helen snapped off the safety and aimed it straight at him.

Harsh, thought Nikola. “Only one?” he challenged. “My dear Helen, I can give you many reasons to keep me alive but I dare say one will suffice.”

“I am still waiting for it,” Helen ignored Henry, who was trying to remind her that Nikola was useful and possibly better kept alive.

“Impatience? That’s a new one for you.”

A loud ‘crack’ startled hundreds of birds who took to the air in a great curve of white, screaming as they flapped away.

“You know, that hurts my feelings…” Nikola dusted flecks of limestone off his suit. Helen had made a sizable hole next to his leg.

“Whoops…” she muttered darkly. “I appear to have missed. Care to go again?”

“Ashley’s not here,” said Nikola. “Haven’t seen her and that’s a bad sign because she had a decent head start on us.”

“Where is she?” Helen’s gun lowered slightly as Nikola edged himself forward and slid off the rock. It was quite a distance to the ground and he landed rather ungracefully in a heap.

“Ow… Well, if we’re lucky she’s gotten a bit lost – you know what girls are like. Map reading isn’t their strongest attribute.” Helen’s gun re-aligned with him. “Or,” Nikola decided that being shot at point blank range wouldn’t be fun, “she’s already inside.”

“Inside what?”

Nikola’s arms stretched out, beckoning them forward. “The sanctuary,” he grinned. “This way…”

*~*~*

Joe checked his appearance in one of the full length mirrors scattered throughout the Sanctuary’s hallways. There was a nasty cut above his eye but the stitching was holding. It was very important that he looked normal. Airlines were picky these days.

Making short work of a flight of stairs, Joe turned the corner into Helen’s office, gently opening the door and slipping inside. He felt like a small child, breaking into the headmaster’s office as he crept over to Magnus’s desk, eying every shadow with suspicion.

The flowers on her desk were dying, dropping petals over her desk. One unopened bud wept, dipping down where it hung over a mournful statue. Joe was looking for something very specific, hidden amongst her records which she kept locked in the desk drawer. A small black granite figurine on her desk caught his attention. He reached for it, holding the object firmly as he smashed the lock on desk with one, quick blow.

There wasn’t time to waste now. Someone would have heard that.

Joe pulled the drawer open and shuffled through a pile of papers until he found a thick folder. He pulled it out and opened on the desk. Yes, this was it; information on a campsite in the desert dated three days ago. He took the whole file, folding it under his arm as he made his way to the window.

*~*~*

Nikola pulled his unhappy entourage to a halt.

“Four – hours – of torture,” Henry gulped from a water bottle and then continued. “And this is where you take us?”

There was an eerie layer of mist burying them from the waist down. Towering above, sheltering the forest world from the fading afternoon light was an imposing cliff face. Its black surface was smooth and shimmered, as if moving with a life of its own. It looked like black glass excised from the bowels of the earth.

Nikola reached out, touching one of the carvings which framed the entrance to the cave. It was a small white circle embedded like a jewel. There were hundreds more clustered along the vertical edges. Some of the markings were circles like the one he had beneath his fingertip, the others depicted stages of the crescent moon.

“It looks real,” remarked Helen, eyeing the cave’s entrance. “I’ll give you that.”

He lay against the rock, pressing his cheek and palms onto the cool surface. This felt like home, thought Nikola. His ancestors had found a measure of sanctuary within this cave, he wondered if it would bring the same peace to him.

Henry’s head had developed a worrying slant as he watched Nikola embrace the sinister looking façade. “He’s gone all strange and stuff on us…” he said.

“No,” Helen corrected him. “This is normal. Let’s go Nikola,” she plucked him from the wall and deposited him in front of the cave entrance. “Vampires first.”

“I could – I could just wait out here…” Henry hadn’t moved from his spot in the mist. Everything about this idea smelt bad. There was something sinister swirling around him – and it wasn’t the mist.

“There’s no point in remaining outside, Mr Foss,” Nikola straightened his coat, buttoning it all the way to his neck. “They know that we’re here.” He darkened his eyes so that he could see better in the half-light of the cave. Helen took a more practical approach, fishing out her torch as she stepped into the shadows.

Henry shivered involuntarily. “Well, that makes me feel much better about the whole, ‘let’s wander into a dark, scary cave’ thing.” He lost sight of the other two as they ventured into the cave. Suddenly alone, Henry’s feet kicked into action, propelling him in pursuit despite his commonsense telling him no.

*~*~*

Ashley curled her fingers over the mossy edge, gripping the delicate roots of dark-loving plants. The tunnel in front ended where the ground had been torn away. Her torch was far below, a tiny point of light glowing like a distant star.

“Shit…” she whispered, running her hands over every surface that she could reach. There had to be a way down and it wasn’t long until she found it – a damp strip of wood tied onto two lengths of rope. Moving her hands down further, she found more pieces of wood forming the basics of a ladder.

Ashley was eternally grateful that she couldn’t see this ‘ladder’. Given the way it felt in her hands, she never would have allowed herself to clamber over it, grimacing at every tremble and crack it gave in protest.

‘This is such a bad idea,’ she reminded herself halfway down. The ladder agreed, one of its boards snapping away from her foot. Ashley clung onto the ropes tighter, feeling for the next step as they groaned – squeaking and unravelling.

Eventually, her feet hit the ground and she was reunited with her torch. Ashley shined it back over to the ladder she had traversed. Damn, she wouldn’t be going back that way.

The ground beneath her was odd in that it bared no resemblance to the tunnel above. Down here she had to fight to find her footing on the smooth bed of river stones, polished by the small stream at the centre. It was clear that at some point the river had raged down here, filling the entire chasm.

She wanted to whistle her awe of the size of the place, but decided that the last thing she needed was a startled flock of bats freaking out. The water at her feet was running, trickling with distinct purpose over the white rocks. It had found a way out, Ashley was sure, so she followed it.

Ashley’s ears pricked up and she paused, turning slowly back toward the ladder. She listened carefully to every drip of water and shuffle of dirt. The more she concentrated on the silence, the louder the tunnel became but she didn’t hear it again – her name whispered in the darkness.

She avoided the water, clambering over the rocks and pebbles. Without sunlight, the cavern, cave, mine – or whatever this place preferred to call itself, was freezing. The water carried ice-crystals along in its current. Whenever she panned her torchlight over its surface, the beams scattered into shards of colour. There was something else in the water too – flecks of gold, tumbling over the stones and accumulating in pools around the edge of the river.

Rivers of Gold, that reminded her of something. She took a moment, seating herself on the rocky ground. Ashley pulled out her grandfather’s journal from her jacket, flipping through the damaged paper until she came to the map. There was nothing written on it about falling down large holes, which confirmed her suspicions that she was well and truly lost but a few pages on, she found an entry that peaked her curiosity. It was about the Seven Cities of Gold, searched in vain for by expeditions since 1150. Apparently her grandfather suspected its location to be in South America rather than North America but never had any success in finding it himself. Here it was, the part that she remembered, the cities sat by the edge of a golden river which carved out shimmering tracks across the land.

“Rivers of gold,” she whispered, eyeing the water. “Another day, perhaps.”

*~*~*

“Ash-leeeey!”

John extended his top half over the hole, careful not to let his weight tilt him over the edge. It was a long way down and from what he could see, someone had taken the plunge into its depths recently. Ashley’s tracks ended at this hole and he had scouted the area ahead to no avail.

He called her name again, but there was no reply from his daughter.

*~*~*

“Why haven’t you been here before?” Helen stayed a few paces behind Nikola as they explored the entrance of the cave. “You clearly knew how to find this place. I’m surprised you could resist visiting the homeland of your ancestors.”

Nikola lowered his eyes to the glittering floor but didn’t say anything.

“Don’t tell me,” continued Helen, with a look of satisfaction. “An army of vicious killers born from your blood no problem but one full blood vampire – you wouldn’t dare face them alone.”

He stopped, and whispered very quietly to her. “If you knew what you were really walking into,” he said, “you’d be afraid too. Now please, a little hush.”

“What did he say?!” shouted Henry from behind, dashing into the cave after them.

Nikola sighed.

*~*~*

The plane touched down twice. Its first landing was brief, a mere taste of the ground as it bounced from the gravelly airstrip back into the crosswind which nipped the plane’s wings. The second time, the pilot grounded the plane with such force that the passengers gripped their seats in alarm.

Bit rough, Joe looked out the window, checking that nothing had caught fire.

Travel was like that around these parts. You arrived and you had to be happy with that.

Joe stepped out into a desert wind, bracing himself against the funnels of sand burning his exposed skin. The rest of the passengers scurried away, ducking into waiting cars parked in the open by the airstrip. The terminal was dark inside its locked doors and broken windows bandaged with helpings of duct tape. It was a god awful place with nothing between it and the full force of the desert lurking just over the rise.

“Doctor Kavanaugh – of Oxford University?”

Joe hadn’t noticed the tall man approach from the side. Most of his body was covered with layers of cloth, a sensible idea. Joe waved and nodded.

“I am Professor Lierdly from the expedition. We spoke on the phone. My car is over there,” he pointed at the only vehicle still braving the dust. “This way please, there’s a storm coming.”

4

BURIED CITIES

The black mountain range stuck out from the sand like a set of knives. Its thousand faces of polished rock interlaced to form a sinister barrier – sometimes catching the sun in a blinding glare. Joe could see the remains of Magnus’s campsite nestled at the base of one this monstrosity. From what he could tell at this distance, there was nothing left but ruined tents and a makeshift airstrip, gradually disappearing beneath the sand.

“We told them,” said Lierdly, from the driver’s seat. He was barely holding the wheel as the car shook its way down the gravelled track, riding a ridge. There was a dune to their left, working its way toward the road in a surge of burning sand. The professor pointed at the speckling of tents obscured by a layer of ‘liquid-air’. It’s what they called the turbulent air hugging the ground which distorted anything further than arms reach. “We say, ‘nothing to find there but dirt and rock’. My associate even offered them a share in our site – we could use the extra funding, but that crazy woman wasn’t interested and now look, all that’s left of them. They abandoned less than a week ago. In a month there’ll be nothing.”

“Crazy indeed,” replied Joe. That sounded like the Helen Magnus he knew.

They pulled up at Lierdly’s archaeological site, framed by a tent city. White linen flapped in the breeze, snapping sharply like whips cracking in Joe’s ear. People hurried everywhere carting books or screaming instructions at their satellite phones. One man tripped in his haste, scattering a box of identification tags in front of Joe and Lierdly. He swore in Dutch and then set about plucking each one from the sand while at the same time hissing behind him at someone in a tent.

On this side of the mountain range to Magnus’s camp, Lierdly and his team had set up shop beneath a series of tunnels burrowed into the rock. There more than a dozen of them poking out in no particular arrangement.

“We thought they were tombs,” said Lierdly, pointing at several starting barely a foot off the ground. Each was just over a metre high and roughly made. They could have almost been mistaken for natural caves except the rock cleaved in hexagonal pieces, and these were circular holes. “But they just go on and on. I had one of the boys take a wander and he found nothing for kilometres. Whatever’s buried in there, if anything at all, it wasn’t mean to be found.”

“Superstitious?” Joe raised an eyebrow.

“No…” he averted his eyes to the sun, “You can’t do what I do for a living and give in to that kind of thinking.” Lierdly shifted, resting his hands on his slender hips. “I’d never have made it into my first tomb. Some of my workers, locals, they think that this place is cursed. It’s the same story wherever you go in this country. This is cursed. That is cursed. Don’t touch that, the sky will fall. Mostly, I think that they don’t want us sniffing around in case we find something about their past they don’t want to know. Perhaps that is the curse.”

“Do you mind if I have a look for myself?”

Lierdly shrugged. “Go ahead. Let me know if you get attacked by a mummy. Can make good money out of that sort of thing.”

Joe’s laugh turned into a shiver as he hopped up the rocks.

*~*~*

“Is it supposed to be doing that?” Henry backed away from the cave wall nervously, as another flicker of electricity sparked into life next to his ear. There was an ever-present crackle in the background getting louder as they progressed.

“You ask me,” said Nikola, sniffing out the darkness, eyeing it cautiously, “as if I do this kind of thing often…”

Helen had her gun raised, realigning it to every sound no matter how small. “It wouldn’t be a first, Nikola,” she said in a whisper, as she stepped behind him. “You’re always claiming an affinity with these creatures.”

“Ancestry,” he corrected her, shuddering as her hair tickled across the back of his neck. He hated that she did that – always on purpose, to unsettle him and remind him who was really in charge. “A different thing altogether.”

“If you like,” she grinned, as he ran his hands over the back of his collar.

“Seriously though,” Henry had stopped at one of the walls and was entranced watching the electricity flow along tiny tracks in the rock, almost like veins. “This is not normal.” He reached his hand out to the surface, lowering it slowly to the fluid patterns until – “Ow…” he shook his hand. “Ow, ow, ow…”

The spark had been quite spectacular, lighting Henry in a sudden flash.

“You once hand-picked this thing as a protégé?” Nikola widened his eyes in disbelief as Henry muttered something about, ‘being okay’.

Helen shook her head. “It was more like an adoption,” she confessed. “What do you know about real vampires?”

Nikola shrugged, “Not much. Their records are, regrettably, destroyed or lost.”

“But you have your suspicions,” Helen prompted.

“They were civilised,” he said, “but civilisation millennia ago is not what it is today.”

“You really are worried, aren’t you? Meeting our sand creature deepened your fears that vampires have a – how would you put it, viscous side?”

“They had a talent for survival in an age noted for its brutality. Yes, it worries me. As does this…” He pointed at the currents of electricity running over the walls.

“Nikola…” she reached out and grabbed his arm with her free hand. He stopped, turning to find her eyes wide, glistening in the torchlight. “Where’s Henry?”

*~*~*

Ashley stopped, balanced on the bank of pebbles to the right of the stream. The water ended at two giant doors which towered to the roof of the cavern, out of reach of her torchlight.

“Sheee-it…” she exhaled, taking a step back to take in the sight.

The doors were made of a heavy wood, intricately carved with a life-size freeze of the jungle stretching across them. Plants with their curled leaves protruded while hidden beneath them, creatures prowled. Carved trees stood at their real height, vanishing into an elaborate canopy. Two snarling jaguars faced each other in the middle, gnashing their curved teeth at each other mid-pounce. It was unlike any artwork she had seen. It was so real that Ashley hesitated to take her eyes off it in case the creatures came to life and leapt free.

The doors were not infallible though. Along their base, the water had cracked and discoloured the wood. Fragments of gold caught inside the fibrous surface making them look as if they had been dipped in liquid gold. It was like an embroidered curtain, sealing the cave. Ashley had never felt so small.

The water had not backed up at the door. Instead, it was running under it. Ashley stepped into the freezing water, grimacing as it sank through her boots and swelled around her ankles. Her skin reddened, burnt by the cold as she waded in deeper. The river’s depth had been deceiving. Soon it was up around her waist as she reached the centre of the door, holding her arms up above her head.

“Bad idea,” she grimaced as the cold became a stabbing pain. Her backpack was waterproof, and floated defiantly as she threw it into the water. It followed the current and hit the doors, bobbing against them.

There was a second current in the water. Ashley could feel its tug on her lower legs in the deep water, beckoning her forwards.

“Moment of truth,” she said, more to convince herself than the empty chamber. Ashley reached down under the water, following the line of the door. Her fingers slipped over the golden edge. A foot under the water, the door ended leaving a gap just big enough for her to slip under.

Ashley gripped onto her bag, forcing it down under the water. It fought against her but as soon as it crossed onto the other side, Ashley took a breath and submerged, following it through.

The cold was unbearable, piercing her with such force that she thought she must have fallen victim to an ancient death trap. She kept her eyes clenched shut as she hugged her backpack to her chest, letting it pull her up through the water.

They broke the surface together. Ashley coughed, wiping the water from her face before opening her eyes. She was swimming now with the water deepening beneath her. Ashley brought her torch above the water. As with the previous room, there were banks of rock on either side. Ashley swam, forcing her stiff arms to stroke their way toward the shore.

*~*~*

They turned around together but neither could see any sign of Henry.

“Henry?” whispered Helen, about to backtrack before Nikola caught the back of her coat.

“No, no… wait,” he said. Nikola tilted Helen’s torch, pointing it up toward the ceiling of the cave. There was nothing but a small flock of napping bats, swaying in their sleep. “I think this is a mistake,” he said, not letting go of her coat. Helen wasn’t sure if it was for her own safety or his.

“Where’s Henry?” Helen demanded.

“I don’t know,” he replied truthfully. “But nothing got past us, I am sure of it, which means that whatever it was didn’t have to.”

“Teleporting? Like John?”

“It wasn’t John,” said Nikola. “Stay close, I mean it.” He didn’t just mean ‘within an arms distance’. Nikola wouldn’t let Helen stray any further than their shoulders touching. They stepped in time with each other, following the cave as it sloped downward.

“There is something down here,” she said, blinking at the darkness. Helen could hear movement, subtle but quick as it changed positions. “I think that you should say something.”

“Like what?” he had morphed slightly further towards his vampire form. Nikola was a ghastly combination of pale skin, sharp teeth and large, black eyes that Helen hated to see.

“Anything. Otherwise whatever’s home is going to think that we’re trying to sneak in…” Nikola was silent, trying to work out how that differed from what they were actually doing. “All I know,” continued Helen, “is that when things sneak into my house – it doesn’t end well for the ‘things’.”

“Well you say something then!”

“This is your idea!” she prodded him sharply. He buckled temporarily, curling his claws.

“Fine. Tell me what to say and I’ll say it.”

“God, you are such a child.”

*~*~*

The desert light was absorbed by the tunnel until it was nothing more than a bright circle in the distance. Joe had to duck, crouching his body to fit inside the tunnel. It smelt stale which was no surprise given the fragile bones of desert creatures he continuously crushed under his shoes. They had curled up and died all over the place, hiding from a sandstorm and forgotten to leave.

Lierdly had given him a small amount of supplies including a strong flashlight and tent pole, ‘for the cobwebs’. Joe could think of other uses for a length of wood. He gripped the stick with one hand, aiming it at the tunnel like a prehistoric caveman might have done.

The tunnel worked its way into the mountain, sometimes constricting into a space barely big enough to crawl through and at other times intersecting with several tunnels in large, domed spaces. Joe left himself messages in the sand floor so that he wouldn’t end up walking in circles. The deeper he progressed, the more well-worn the tracks became almost like he had been skirting through the side streets and only now finding the highway.

Eventually he found himself in a tunnel tall enough for him to stand with three others beside him. He was not the first to venture down these catacombs. Many kilometres inside, the air became putrid. Joe buried his nose in his sleeve as he closed in on the source of the smell, fighting the urge to by physically sick.

A skeleton, partially decomposed had reclined against the wall. It was difficult to know how long it had been there. With dry desert air and few scavengers, his decomposition might have been greatly slowed. His clothes were native to the area and he looked peaceful, like the remains of the animals.

Joe did not linger, pushing past the horrible sight before a mysterious urge to sleep befell him.

*~*~*

Ashley sat on the bank with her knees pulled to her chest, shivering. Her body had the slightest tinge of gold from the water and she could still taste its metallic edge. If Henry had been here, he would have made a quip about that James Bond film.

This room was different to the last. Instead of a rough cave surface, she found perfectly cut stones stacked tightly together to form smooth walls. She couldn’t comment on the ceiling because it hung well out of reach of the torchlight.

Instead of a river, there was a deep pool of water filling the cave edged by a low wall, maybe half a foot tall at best. On the top of this barrier was a trail of crescent shaped lights embedded in the stone. They did not shine brightly but like glow-worms, their collective light gave the water which they encapsulated a soft aura.

As her eyes adjusted to the softer light, Ashley saw the first hint of structure emerge from the far side of the underground lake. There were buildings, several stories high, packed tightly together in a crowded facade. Her torched flickered. She hit and cursed it until its light reappeared. She may as well have held a candle to the room. There was city down here, buried away from the world. It was silent – abandoned long ago.

This, Ashley presumed, was all that remained of the Sanctuary of the Moon.

5

LOCKDOWN

“Neat…” whispered Ashley.

She probably should have gone for something a little more epic, but as she clambered over the low wall of lights and onto the paved streets of the city, words refused to form in her throat.

The Sanctuary of the Moon was empty, deserted long ago by whatever creatures had chosen to make their homes here in this underground world. There were, however, remnants of them. Ashley had stumbled across a pile of bleached bones cluttered in a corner where two buildings didn’t quite meet. The sad skeleton was the first of many as she progressed up the main street.

There was a steady trail of rats ambling along the gutter, scratching against the stone floor as they headed toward the pool of water Ashley had climbed out of earlier. She avoided them, keeping to the centre of the road where her torchlight mingled with the occasional glowing shapes on the dwellings.

It was more like a hive than a city, with its buildings scrunched together, rising and falling with the uneven floor underneath the sinister dome of the cave. Some of these had crumbled, bleeding onto the streets with rivers of rubble and dust.

Very soon, she found her eye drawn to claw marks etched into the walls and ripped bodies with scattered weapons. The procession of time could not conceal the violence of their deaths.

Ashley stopped at three intertwined remains, tilting her head from side to side as she circled them like some wandering bird of prey that had missed the feast.

“Unpleasant,” she commented, nudging one of the outlying bones with her boot. The trio had killed each other in some kind of brutal fever. Bony fingers could still be seen clasped around the neck of one, locked in an embrace even through death while the victim had plunged a short dagger through the chest of a hacked skeleton which, to her surprise, sported a sizable tail.

The extra limb was a collection of naturally duplicated vertebra, tapering toward a softly curved tip. The last few bones had been pulled out of line, no doubt by hungry rats.

Ashley retrieved her gun and then secured the backpack around her waist with several of its buckles. This place gave her the creeps and it was a long, lonely walk through it to the back wall. She didn’t know quite what she would find up there, but all the roads trailed off in that direction – it was the rats fleeing from it that made her worry.

*~*~*

Bigfoot’s gentle breathing was interrupted by a snore. Not quite stirred from sleep, he rolled over on the uncomfortable lab floor and curled into his coat. He couldn’t see Will, crouched at the glass in front of him, deciding how best to escape from the glass cage.

The restraints that had held him to the bed were now lying, chewed through, on the floor. His transformation into a sand creature was complete. When Will looked down at his skin he saw it ripple with uncertainty as it adjusted to the changing background. There was a strange dryness to the back of his throat that made it difficult to do anything but grunt at things while the lights of the room glowed especially bright. The details of the world had become intense; feeling – smell, touch – everything was a thousand times stronger.

Will sized up the sleeping creature on the other side of the glass. He rocked forward and touched the glass with an extended finger. The surface was cool – fragile even…

Bigfoot woke to the sound of shattered glass raining over him. He opened his eyes and saw a thousand scatterings of light reflected off the tumbling beads of glass as the window of the observation room fell forward with Will flying through its centre. Bigfoot had just enough time to roll before the larger shards of glass stabbed into the floor around him.

“Argh!” he groaned, as two jagged pieces cut through his fur.

Will hit the ground with the glass. Sensing the first whiff of freedom, he straightened and surveyed the room with golden eyes slit through the middle. His original abnormality – the gift of observation, had now become a serious weapon. Will could pick out every tiny detail of an environment in one turn of his head. Possible escapes leapt out at him while he kept a watchful eye on the figure writhing in pain on the ground.

“Will…” said Bigfoot, trying to stand. He clasped his paw over his arm to stop the bleeding, but the brilliant red dribbled around his fingers and onto the floor. “Will,” he repeated, pleading at the creature who was presently eyeing the door to the lab.

Will’s lips curled into a sinister grin as his body flickered in and out of camouflage.

“Listen to me,” continued Bigfoot, stumbling to his feet. He made it three laboured steps before he had to fall against one of the tables for support. “You’ve got to fight it.”

Will felt that he should know this hairy creature struggling to stand so he closed his eyes for a moment and tried to think. There was a flicker of something. A memory? A thought – he didn’t know. He wanted to be free and that desire overwhelmed everything else.

Instead of finishing off the creature, Will simply turned and pushed through the lab doors – throwing his head back in the sudden escape.

Bigfoot let himself crumble back to the floor where he crawled through the scattered glass to the other side of the room. He pried open the cabinet and dug out a set of bandages, wrapping several layers of them tightly around his arm until he could feel neither the pain nor the seeping of sticky blood.

He had to warn the detective sleeping down the hallway before Will got to him and somehow protect the other Abnormals but first, he had to lock the Sanctuary down and prevent Will from escaping into the city where he would no doubt begin picking out prey.

The computer in the lab did not have security access, so Bigfoot injected himself with a large dose of painkillers and made for the door. He paused at their ajar surfaces, sniffing the air for any sign of Will before gently pushing them open.

The hallway was empty save for a broken vase that had been knocked off a hallway table. Bigfoot, barely able to walk, threw himself at the opposite wall of the hallway, fumbling for the door to Ashley’s office. As someone mostly unaware of their office, she had not bothered to lock it.

It was a room neglected, ignored by its reluctant owner and left to sit in solitude most of the year. Its desk was bare save a lamp and computer with a wandering screensaver. The bookshelf on the opposing wall was not Ashley’s but her mother’s, built to house a special collection of bound letters written by her many associates over the years.

Bigfoot woke the computer, which, overjoyed by the attention, jolted into life with a cheerful beep.

A few minutes later, Bigfoot heard the bars on the windows clang shut and the double bolts on the doors lock firmly into place. Steel doors were sliding over the larger areas and coded doors between levels locking into place. The Sanctuary had turned itself into a prison, with him and Will locked inside.

Will, already on the ground floor, dropped to all fours and hurtled along the ground toward the main entrance. The carpet beneath him folded and slid off to the side as he rounded the corner and ploughed into the solid door as the large steel bolt slipped into place. The door shook with the impact, but remained resolutely closed.

Trapped, Will snarled, baring several rows of razor teeth to the security camera above. Bigfoot watched on, busily wrapping his wounds tighter.

*~*~*

“Do you trust me?” whispered Nikola, taking her free hand within his clawed paw. His skin was freezing, sending unpleasant shivers over her skin whenever his claws grazed her.

“Is that a trick question,” she replied softly, still holding her gun firmly to the darkness in front.

“Whatever happened to us, Helen?” he said, as they edged very slowly deeper into the cave. The light of the entrance behind them had almost vanished and now it was his torch and the electrical currents over the walls that lit the way. “You used to like me.”

“I do like you,” she hissed back. “I would have shot you already if I felt anything less than affection – as perverted as it may be. Incidentally,” she continued, “I believe it was you who last tried to kill me. This little expedition of yours may well end both of us.”

“Oh please… this wasn’t my idea. You have that ‘detective’ to thank for all this.”

That caused Helen to come to an abrupt halt, ripping her hand away from him. “What on earth are you going on about?”

Nikola’s black eyes gleamed in the torchlight which he pointed directly at her. She ducked away from the glare.

“Seriously?” he said, almost unable to grasp Helen’s naivety. “You don’t see it? Vampires – even that bastardised sand creature you tried to keep as a pet, are not animals. They are highly intelligent beings that don’t waste time. If the detective was bait, then he had already served his purpose. I for instance, would have killed him once I reached the tunnels but instead, what do we find? He is safe and well after half the night spent alone with it. There was a reason for that, Helen.”

“He wouldn’t…” but, she realised, then again Joe had more to gain than any from the sand creature. This was personal for him. He spoke ancient Egyptian, he was not afraid of the creature and after she had refused to disclose the location of the tomb, he had become especially curious. “I,” she sighed heartily, truly unimpressed with herself, “never learn.”

“An endearing quality,” Nikola grinned. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

“For the sake of argument, then,” she flinched as he took her sharply by the arm, anticipating her answer.

“Close your eyes…” he said darkly, leaning toward her.

For the last five minutes, Nikola had sensed a presence hunting them through the caves, scant feet from them at any given moment. Despite his considerable observation skills, he was yet to catch a glimpse of his pursuer. Something had changed though. The assailant had gone from observer to assassin, more than once he had felt something brush over the back of his neck, considering how to sever his spine. Nikola Tesla may be hard to kill, but he had a sneaking suspicion that ‘beheading’ might just do it.

He didn’t want her to see what had to happen next.

With considerable force, Nikola knocked Helen to the ground. She stayed down, flattened against the cave floor perfectly still with her eyes slammed shut.

Nikola’s ears twitched as he heard fabric swish to his right and a shadow turn out of sight. He reached out with his clawed hand and ripped a strip free – the first tangible proof that there was, indeed, something else with them.

The rippling of electricity intensified, flickering and flashing in the air accompanied by a continuous crackle.

He bowed his head, and when he lifted it, his transformation into ‘vampire’ was absolute. Barely recognisable as this creature of the myths and fear, he leapt up to the roof, lingering on the cold rock amidst a few sleeping bats, before falling on top of a tall, slender figure.

Nikola had not expected the frailness. The creature crumbled beneath him, groaning as Nikola’s hands tightened around their body. Layers of cloak and a muddle of movement rolled down the slight incline of the cave until they hit a wall in a huge flash of light. Electricity poured from the cave wall through them in a shower of light.

Helen, unable to resist, opened her eyes a crack to see two heads glare at each other, encircled by shards of artificial lightning. One was Nikola as she remembered him – true and frightening in his vampire form. The other was an older man with twisted features and a permanent snarl. As she looked closer Helen saw that the other man’s features had sunk toward his bones in a horrid venture between life and death.

The two vampires rolled off the wall and the cave fell back into darkness. For a moment, Nikola though he had the pursuer beat.

“We don’t want to –” he started to say, but found himself thrown off in a sudden surge of power. Nikola yelped as he slammed into the wall next to Helen and hit the ground in a shower of glittering dust. “Hurt you…” he finished to himself.

“Look out…” whispered Helen, as she saw the other creature straighten and turn to face them.

Nikola pealed himself off the ground.

“You should not be here…” the creature hissed. Its voice was cluttered with age, scratching through his throat. The ancient vampire blinked its sharp eyes and then disappeared from sight.

Nikola swore.

“This is bad, isn’t it?” said Helen, moving to get up.

“Stay down,” he snapped sharply. “The only reason I’m not dead is because he’s curious.”

Swirls of dust kept kicking in the air, disturbed by the vampire’s feet as he teleported from corner to corner to unsettle his uninvited guests.

Maybe, thought Nikola, it was time that he tried Helen’s approach. “This is a Sanctuary?” he asked the darkness, not sure if he should expect a reply. “We come here only to search for a missing friend. We mean you no harm.”

Silence. More crackling from the walls.

“We know what you are,” Nikola continued. “We desire your help. This isn’t working…” he shot at Helen.

Helen sat up, but didn’t go so far as to stand. “For your help we can trade information on the history of your people.”

Though they couldn’t see it, the vampire’s interest peaked.

“And what of them?” said the disembodied voice, bouncing off the uneven surface of the cave.

“Grant us safe passage, and we will tell you all we know.”

“Safe passage?” the voice scratched and died off with amusement. “You have intruded into sacred ground, we are now negotiating the manner of your demise.”

“Please,” Helen said, “a friend of ours has inadvertently trespassed. We are here only to find them and return safely home. We mean you no harm.”

“Harm?” the vampire hissed darkly. “Do not speak to me of harm.” In the cave ahead, they saw a faint outline of movement as the ancient vampire slowly paced toward them. “For thousands of years I have watched my people die – cut down, tortured,” it paused to take another laboured breath, “hacked apart in fields as they fled. You cannot know what it’s like to watch children burn, smouldering into the dusk while the skeleton of your empire blackens.” They could see the creature now, standing tall with its full length cloak dragging on the ground. “You may forgive me then, if I grow wary of human promises.”

A tear steadied in Helen’s eye. “I have seen such carnage,” she replied. “But please, she is my daughter.”

This seemed to stir a memory – and a distant smile. Not so long ago there had been another like herself bravely venturing into this cave. “There was a man here once before, on behalf of his daughter. You remind me of him…”

6

ROOM WITH COLUMNS

Joe’s body froze mid-step. The catacombs had come to an abrupt end – miles of narrow tunnels culminated in an empty, circular room which was bare of everything except its sandy floor.

“Impossible…” he hissed, turning in endless circles.

He had been so sure, absolutely positive that this would lead him to the tomb of the Priests of Amun, lost for thousands of years. They were not tombs for sleeping bodies dreaming of dead worlds, but crypts to keep monsters in – monsters who were very much alive at their time of imprisonment. If he was ever to find his father, it would be amongst the angry faces of its prisoners.

The walls were painted in ochre colours and scrawls of ancient writing marched up and down it, raving stories about underworlds and gods that now lay quiet. Joe advanced, stepping carefully through the sand, holding his torch aloft.

“Urgh!” he cried, as Joe felt the sand beneath him fall away. His stomach lurched and his arms flailed wildly as he was sucked through the floor into darkness. He had just enough time to gasp a breath of air in the light and catch site of one of the wall murals laughing silently at him.

Then, the only proof of his existence was a torch half buried in the sand in the empty room, with its light gradually yellowing. Eventually it clicked off, and the room returned to its sinister peace.

*~*~*

The ancient vampire’s eyes were black like Nikola’s, but in the depths of their pits were hints of red. These blood-stained flecks ran over Helen, inspecting every inch of her as she spoke. The tiniest beads of sweat on her skin wreaked in the vampire’s nostrils while the grazes on her cheek and neck gave way to trickles of blood. Every minute that this breathing creature survived was a testament to the vampire’s strength of will.

“Quiet now…” the vampire curled his lips into a snarl. “My manners have slipped in these long centuries alone. If you wish to leave this place, you must do so now. Leave me be.” His voice cracked like the electric currents behind him – deceptively fragile in its fluctuations.

Helen and Nikola glanced at each other.

“I cannot leave,” insisted Helen, “until I find my daughter and the man that was with us before.”

“You cannot stay!” it screeched, vanishing and reappearing at the far wall where electricity swelled around it. Its plea echoed over the walls in horrid waves of agony. The vampire hid his dripping fangs behind his cloak which he raised over his head, blocking his guests from view. “You cannot stay…” he whispered to himself. The oaths of peace he took long ago were brittle now. Hunger and despair had weakened him and now he could feel the clawing of his nature begging him to kill.

Nikola recognised the symptoms and took Helen by the arm. She resisted but he lifted her toward him and growled into her ear, “Don’t…” He dragged her from the cave and led Helen back out into the mist-laden clearing. A few birds called bravely, piercing the air in short stabs.

The cave entrance was still within sight, leering at them from the cliff face.

As soon as he let go of her, Helen raised her hand and clouted him hard across his face. This time, he did not react. His vampiric form made him stronger than her, though he usually chose not to show it.

“Helen,” he said, gradually fading back to the Nikola of old. “He was going to kill you. Me as well, I suspect.”

“I don’t care…” she replied, turning and heading back to the cave. He shook his head and caught her jacket, clutching the leather firmly. Helen whipped around, striking him again and with her other hand, raising a knife to his throat. “Out of my way,” she warned.

The cold blade on his neck was a familiar touch. It was not the first time that Helen had threatened his life, and he doubted that it would be the last.

“You will have to use it,” he assured her.

“I’ve lost two people in there,” Helen steadied herself, pressing the metal harder onto him, “and I am not leaving them to die!”

“I hear you,” Nikola replied, if anything, gripping more tightly. “There other ways into this Sanctuary, I am convinced of it. He,” Nikola referred to the vampire, “had not seen Ashley or Henry. His thoughts were loud enough for me to hear fragments of them. He is an old creature, tormented by the world and he will not let us pass.”

“Where are these other entrances?” she said, loosening her hold on the knife. It caught a beam of sunlight, blinding him with the brightness.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “Though I believe our only course of action is to return to Ashley’s tracks and proceed from there. The Sanctuary of the Moon runs deep through these hills, tunnelled out beneath the ground. It is possible that she has inadvertently found a way in.”

*~*~*

Although Will could no longer speak, he managed an unmistakable nod at the security camera. I am coming for you it said.

Bigfoot set the computer to monitor all cameras for motion so that he could detect Will’s progress through the mansion. He could no longer see him on the screens though, as Will has mastered the art of camouflage and torn off his clothes rendering him all but invisible.

He was more creature than human now, Bigfoot could feel it, and this hybrid species seemed always hunting for revenge. Bigfoot couldn’t stay in this room, though. There was no way to defend himself or capture Will amongst the computer, empty desk and lone bookshelf.

Taking a calm breath, Bigfoot opened the door and peered out into the corridor. It was too late to seek out the detective. Will was fast now, and it wouldn’t be long until he returned to this level. The great, hairy man swung around to the right and returned to the medical room where he gathered a large amount of sedatives, several needles and three rolls of bandages. He was about to go for the tranquiliser gun – locked high in the cabinets above the main work desk, when he heard the door at the end of the corridor slam.

With no choice, Bigfoot clambered toward the small, side door which led into the storage area of the level. In five steps he was in front of the equipment lift. Bigfoot slid open the door to the small enclosure and crammed himself painfully inside. As a space meant for trays of testubes, it groaned angrily at Bigfoot’s imposition.

Will, in a strange disturbance of light, rounded the corner and caught sight of Bigfoot forcing down the door of the lift amidst a tirade of curses.

“Come on…” growled Bigfoot, bashing the metal shell as Will raced towards him, claws digging into the polished floor.

Just when Bigfoot had begun to entertain the prospect of being ripped apart, the door shifted and the lift shuddered into action, taking its heavy load down toward the basement.

Will pulled up short as the door slammed near his nose. His sharp eyes flicked to the gage on the wall beside, betraying the destination of the lift.

Bigfoot knew that he would reach the basement first – there was no doubt of that. As fast as this new Will was, he couldn’t fall through the levels of the floor like John. That said, there would not be enough time to achieve anything before his inevitable arrival.

He clutched the lift control protectively to his chest, whispering and coaxing to it as the lift slowed towards its destination. When the final thump of motion sent painful ripples through his fur, Bigfoot hit the button for the top floor. The deceit would buy him some time. Not much, granted, but he hoped that it would be enough to save both Will and the Sanctuary from destruction.

When it released him on the library level, Bigfoot stumbled as fast as he could up the corridor toward the marble staircase. He left a nasty streak of blood behind him where it trickled down his leg. It was no good, he thought, knowing that a child would have no trouble hunting him, let alone an instinctual killer.

*~*~*

Joe grimaced and rolled onto his side.

He had expected darkness – the deep, constricting blackness of the world beneath the earth. Instead, he found the gentle din of a hundred wall lamps lit along the side of a great chamber. Their soft glows provided tiny halos of light against the immense stone walls that spread high above him and deep below the pile of sand beneath.

It was like the debris from a giant hourglass and he had been poured through it, landing at its peak.

He could feel a bruise spreading over his chest where he had hit the sand. It burned under his shirt as he sat himself up and took in the spread of the underground room. It was lined with red pillars, three stories high that were severed several times with ornate gold bands. Around their girths were painted figures cowering from the sun or drowning themselves in the blue hint of Nile.

Joe peered forward in search of their bases, but the floor of the room was difficult to make out in the faint light. With nowhere to go, Joe shifted himself forward on the pile of sand until he started to slide.

Just as a great sheet of sand dislodged itself around him, accelerating his motion into an unstoppable fall, Joe caught sight of several silver bullet casings tumbling along with him. He reached out and caught one of these heavy pellets as it hurtled past, staring at it curiously as the ground below approached.

“Where did you say that you were from again?” Will eyed the short-haired blonde suspiciously. She was taller than him, quite brunt in her approach to conversation and determined on breaking the very delicate electronic device on Henry’s desk.

“I didn’t,” Samantha Carter replied,recoiling as the object let off a series of sparks and began to smoke. “Crap.”

“Please don’t touch anything. Technology’s very sensitive about its feelings around here.” Will re-opened the folder that she had given him, skimming over the fine print. It looked decidedly like a poorly written cover up.

That was exactly what it was – an excuse for Colonel Samantha Carter to sniff around this so called ‘Sanctuary’ for their missing Goa’uld that had been running amok in the city.

“Listen,” Sam took a few steps forward, more than invading Will’s comfort zone. “You don’t have to like me, you just have to show me around a bit. Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“It’s not that I don’t like you, it’s that I don’t trust you. That, and my boss isn’t keen on me giving the grand tour to unnamed military personal.”

“I’m a doctor,” Sam corrected him. “Military’s a hobby. Now tell me once and for all, do you, or do you not have an Abnormal with glowing eyes and nasty temper?”

Will was about to reply when Sam pulled a zat gun from her within her coat and fired it just shy of his head. He turned in time to see their newly acquired (and supposedly safely secured) Abnormal buckle and fall to the ground, eyes aglow.

“Never mind,” said Sam with a satisfied grin. “Found him.”

“You know,” said Will, “you remind me of someone.”

UNTOLD SANCTUARY

LOVE IN THE TIME OF SCIENCE

by ellymelly

TABLE OF CONTENTS

01             Storms and Lecture Notes

02             Universe in the Lake

03             The Start of Something

04             Breaking In

05             Taking a Turn

06             The World’s an Experiment

07             Vivisection

08             Secrets, Lies and Stolen Truths

09             Sanguine Vampiris

10             Child of the Storm

11             Unbreakable

12             Rats to the Slaughter

13             First Impressions

14             The Invisible Man

15             Dampier’s Notes

16             Haunting Immortals

17             Sherlock

18             Missing Time

19             Dreamscapes of the Insane

20             The Age of Light

21             Bloody Nights in London

22             Watson’s Meetings

23             In the Attic

24             Ruffle of Feathers

25             Nikola and John

26             Modus Operandi

27             In league with Thieves

28             The Promise

29             The Five

30             Diamonds and Stars

31             Revenge at its Cruellest

32             Revelations of Love

33             A Father’s Return

34             It Ends Here Tonight

1

STORMS AND LECTURE NOTES

A ruffle of wings settled on the window. Their blur of white faded from the air as the creature turned its elegant head and nestled its beak between the layers of feathers, knocking droplets of water free.

The storm over Oxford hadn’t decided what to do, so instead it loomed, slowly grazing over the twinkling gas-lit streets. The glow of the city was just enough to light the underside of the storm in the absence of starlight. One day the city would be brighter than the moon itself, even if it was only a faint smudge at the present.

A pair of bright eyes watched the sky, scanning the clouds as they rolled through each other. He could feel their friction and smell the droplets of water tumbling – ripping electrons free. It was a scene alive with expectancy, like two lovers drawn apart, desperate to rejoin in what could only be beautiful disaster.

He breathed in the energy, waiting for -

A river of light cut through the heavens and dove into the earth with perfect silence.

The air around it burnt.

Expanded.

And began reverberating through the sky towards his window.

He felt the world shudder.

The shutters rattled and the pigeon hopped onto his outstretched arm in a frightened flutter.

“Sh…” he cooed, tracing a finger down the back of its neck. It nipped him affectionately. “This is the best part.”

“You’ll catch something from that thing,” Helen climbed into the university’s attic, sitting on the floorboards before swinging her legs up through the hole.

“I thought I told you not to come up here?” he replied, still patting the bird.

“You say that every day, but you never mean it,” she closed the hatch and strolled over to the window, keeping her distance from the stray bird scaling Nikola’s shoulder. There was a storm raging over the city but it had not reached them yet. She could feel its cool wind kicking through the open window onto their faces. “We’ve got evening class.”

Tesla lifted an eyebrow. “You’re here because?”

Helen shook her head, turning her back on the window. Nikola had transformed the attic into a dorm. He had a bed pushed against the far side of the misshapen room – meticulously made, and had then proceeded to fill the rest of the room with whatever he could scavenge from the engineering laboratories. Mostly it was a concoction of wire – bundles and bundles of it.

“I’m here because I was the only one the professor could convince to come and get you.”

“Come here…”

She frowned. “Not if you-” but she realised her mistake, Nikola was talking to the pigeon. He cupped the creature in his hands and knelt down onto the floor, as if hiding from something.

A moment later Helen screamed but no-one heard it above the roar that shattered the windows. She fell to the ground, holding her ears and slamming her eyes shut as the small room became a beacon of light. The thunder pounded through her very soul until she thought it would break.

Suddenly, there was nothing.

She opened her eyes to see a glowing ball of light, spinning slowly in the centre of the room. It shimmered with what looked like shards of lightning branching off in quiet rumbles. Helen thought that she heard it hum. The ball-lightning didn’t stay suspended for long, and Helen had to leap out of the way as it rolled through the air straight into the solid wall where it dissipated and vanished.

The room returned to darkness and Helen turned her head to Nikola’s quiet laugh. He opened his palms and the pigeon flew out into the storm just as the first sheet of rain hit the walls.

“Can we go now?” Helen hissed, clearly frightened by his little show.

Nikola nodded. “I’m done…”

“You’ll be well and truly done when the professor finds out you put a lightning rod on the roof!”

*~*~*

Night class was easily the most poorly attended of all the physical science classes. A quick turn about the room made its avoidance plain.

The professor, stunted and balanced on a high stool at the front of the room, slanted over the black board scratching illegible diagrams in-between a series of annotations that lacked internal consistency.

By default, the front bench was left empty.

It wasn’t that the few students that bothered to show disliked being close to the board, or feared looking too keen – indeed, in different circumstances the front would be an ideal seat if only to have a fair chance at deciphering the board… In this case though, the stench leaching out of the professor’s jacket was almost visible on the air. Like a noxious gas, it kept students at a safe distance.

A rumble of thunder woke Nigel Griffin. Snorting, he rubbed a hooked nose on his sleeve and nestled head back in the warm ditch of his arm. Several of his books were considering a leap of faith from the desk but there was one book the world would never take from him; his diary. Not because he kept secrets in it – he was not a particularly secretive person – no, this book contained a detailed list of all his appointments and lesson times. In his first year, he’d misplaced this book, spent the day wandering around in a lost state and finally ended up locked in a cupboard. Not something he was keen to repeat.

At the back stage-right corner was the rigid figure of James. Unlike the others who were either asleep or scribbling madly, James Watson narrowed his eyes and observed his peers. Every so often he tilted his head, changing subjects. The lecture board continued to fill but he didn’t feel the need to lift his feathered pen for there were far more interesting things afoot than the eternal motion of the planets.

The twin doors of the lecture room flew open with a gush of wind, startling those that had been napping. A young woman with a dishevelled mop of golden hair dragged a wiry gentleman behind her, depositing him in the nearest seat. She nodded at the professor and then collapsed next to Tesla, opening her book where she quickly set to work copying the board.

Nikola rolled his eyes, spun around so that he was lying lengthways across the bench, and promptly went to sleep with his head irritatingly in her lap. Helen ignored him, brushing her hair out of the way.

“Mr Tesla?” the professor had stopped writing to stare expectantly at the empty section of bench hiding Tesla.

“Yes, sir?” came the half muffled, mostly bored response.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about a bolt of lightning hitting the south end of the building, would you?” his very large, white eyebrows furrowed. The professor knew that the young boy was fascinated by the sheer intrigue of raw current – with good reason. He had what could only be described as affection for it. A relationship that was proving dangerous for the integrity of the building.

There was a long silence in response. The professor shook his head slowly and returned to the board.

“Let me know if you remember…” he muttered, picking a new piece of chalk.

Nikola, blissfully looking forward to his sleep, shut his eyes and started planning frictionless power systems. He’d just managed a smile when all the air was forced out of his lungs by the sudden impact of a heavy book on his chest. Coughing, he sat up with a start.

“What the…” there was a sizable text book in his lap.

“Niiice of you to join us,” a deep voice rolled over the air. It belonged to a tall, strong-cut face with a square chin and deep brown eyes. The eyes trailed to Helen, hovered there for a moment, and then returned to the shocked Nikola.

“And who are you?” Nikola dusted off the book and laid it on the bench. He coughed again and then groaned, feeling his skin burn from the impact.

“I’m new,” replied John. “Well, not that new. This is my fourth class but the first one that you’ve attended since I started. Helen said that I should return your textbook and thank you for its use.”

Nikola opened the cover and saw that it was, indeed, his. Not that he’d opened it. His name was written in Helen’s careful handwriting.

“Thank you John,” whispered Helen, risking a glance.

“You leant him my book?” Nikola frowned, lowering his voice so that the ominous student couldn’t hear.

“Don’t worry, I relocated the spiders nesting on it,” she smirked. “It’s not like you missed it, Nikola. Now quiet, I have to get all this down.”

“It’s rubbish anyway,” Tesla shifted the book to the side as he scanned the board. “There’s a new theory about to be published that shows the earth is much older than that.”

“Maybe, but right now I need you to stop speaking.” She prodded him with the tip of her quill, which hurt quite a bit more than she meant it to.

It worked though. For at least two minutes Nikola didn’t say a word.

“Helen?”

“Sh…”

“Can I plagiarise your assignment on Inheritance and Mendal?” he inched in a bit, rocking ever so slightly until Helen flicked her damp hair over her shoulder and glared. “That’d be a no then,” he sighed, making the bench back into a bed.

*~*~*

Helen’s essay on Inheritance and Mendal mysteriously made its way into Tesla’s attic accommodation several days later where it was promptly skimmed, re-worded and presented in class where it received a B-.

According to the professor, Nikola had been marked on his ability to acquire answers.

James Watson, a creature who Nikola rarely spoke to except to taunt, held his own paper up so that it’s A was glaringly obvious.

“Your motor still bursting into flames?” inquired Tesla, ripping his own assignment into a thousand pieces.

James seldom bothered with more than one word, “Presently.”

“Excellent news. Let me know when your life goes up in smoke.” He tipped his hat and headed out the main doors to the garden.

Watson watched the strange man vanish into the morning. “Indeed…” He was about to waltz off down to the dining hall when something beautiful caught his eye. Ms Magnus, daughter of the currently discredited but once well-thought-of physician, was making her way toward him. At first he thought he must have been inadvertently standing in the way of her target but every time he took a subtle step she realigned her trajectory.

“’scuse me,” she started, quite out of breath.

He’d never spoken to her before now, except when handing out things in class and that one time they’d said an awkward, ‘hello’ in the corridor. James tried to look as pleasant as he could, shaking off his usual icy disposition and general dislike of conversation.

“Yes?” he managed, slipping his brass glasses into a more stable position, higher up the bridge of his nose.

Helen’s hands settled on her hips as she caught her breath. “I’m not wanting to disturb you,” she began, albeit a little suspiciously, “but – I was – wondering. You’re good at anatomy, if I remember?”

Not the first question he thought he’d be asked by the daughter of a doctor. “Presumably.”

“Would I be able to borrow you, for a little while? No more than an hour or so. If you’ve got time, of course.”

James clasped his gloved hands behind his back and nodded, curiosity getting the better of him.

2

UNIVERSE IN THE LAKE

James Watson crossed his legs, collecting his things into a neat pile beside the library table.

The university library was a conglomerate of too many years spent tacking buildings onto one another without the slightest nod to style. This haphazard maze was divided into two main sections known to the students colourfully as, ‘old’ and ‘new’. Anything vulgar built within the last fifty years fell into the latter category.

The old section was where James preferred to spend his precious time. He liked the sandstone walls, tinted green from centuries of rain and moss – it wasn’t attractive but they brimmed with character. Gothic chandeliers were strung between the towering bookshelves where a single librarian sorted through a trolley of books, painstakingly ordering them onto the shelves. Its aisles were cave like, dwarfed by thousands of books recording a history of human thought.

Today, however, he had been dragged to the new section of the library. It was bustling with near-sighted students snerching books from the shelves and piling them into towers on their friends’ arms. James raised his nose. The smell of varnish and ink permeated the air and tested his patience as he waited for Ms Magnus to return from the cabinet housing recently published papers.

“Still alive,” he made the observation of himself, when she finally returned.

Helen Magnus held several folders tied together with green and gold ribbon.

“They don’t like us borrowing these,” she began, sliding them onto the dark wood table before taking her seat opposite. “New publications except for this one,” her finger tapped the folder on top, “unpublished work by one of the university patrons. We’re especially not allowed to borrow this.”

His eyes tracked over the name on the cover, ‘Karl Landsteiner – On Red Blood Cells’ James had never borrowed anything from the library before, so this restriction did not concern him.

Helen undid the ribbon and gently spread the folder’s contents into a fan as you would a pack of cards. They were roughly printed on fine tissue-like paper with sketchy diagrams and hand-written annotations scattered throughout the text. Hesitantly, she folded her arms onto the table and leant toward James, searching him for something.

He stared curiously back with mellowed-brown eyes. A casual passer would not guess their sharpness but Helen was no casual bystander.

“I’ve been working on something for a while,” she said softly, “but I am wise enough to recognise my limits. The subject which intrigues me is young to the world and so the information I have been able to acquire is either scattered, incomplete or contradictory. Truth is, I need someone who has spent time on their own investigation of the subject matter.”

He wondered how she had known.

“Like me?” he replied, his voice softening to silk.

“Exactly like you.”

Helen Magnus had surprised James Watson already. His private obsession into the workings of the human body was not public knowledge.

“You intrigue me, Ms Magnus.”

“Helen, please,” she corrected him.

“Helen, then. You have my attention but not my trust. Frontiers of science are often a viper pit and my good sense is telling me that you are a very cunning participant in the workings of the world.” James paused. “However,” he added with a smile when he saw that she did not flinch at the accusation, “there are worse partners to be had. I’d like to know one thing before I agree to help you. How did you find out about me?”

Her eyes shone.

“That was easy my dear Watson. Someone had been borrowing the campus’s supply of glassware – that, and I cornered your dorm mate in the corridor.”

“Secrets do not become him,” said Watson of poor Nigel. The universe had entrusted him with the awful burden of honesty and no way to hide it.

*~*~*

Nikola found himself hovering over a small stream trickling its way around the rocks at the front of the university. He followed it through hedges and encroaching lawns all the way around the side of the building and out into the rear gardens where it ended in a freezing pond.

The back of the university looked like a long, blonde-stone rectangle lounging on the iridescent green slope. Several floors high, the university was dominated by a library at its centre with sweeping iron windows and Juliet balconies.

The garden was hemmed in by the city on all sides whose noise and dirt was kept at bay by a cast iron fence too tall to scale and capped in fleur-de-lis. A planting of Plane Trees hid most of the city in the warm seasons with their dense branches of soft foliage. It was nothing like home, but Tesla preferred it to the building.

He glanced back at the rock prison with a grin when he saw the shattered windows and singed stone from the lightning strike. It would take them some time to dismantle the lightning rod adhered to the roof above his room.

Nikola Tesla knelt down to the eerie pond. The creek fed into it in a gentle, metre wide channel with a steady current at its centre and slow water lulling by the banks. Croaking in the long grass Tesla could hear his prey – namely smallish green frogs. He would need at least four for his next experiment and he had just the thing to acquire them.

*~*~*

James shook his head to quiet Helen’s constant stream of hushed questions.

“It is not safe, in my experience, to mix the blood of species,” James flipped through Landsteiner’s notes. “This explains why it is even dangerous to attempt transfusions between humans. The success rate is a little under half – not a mortality rate that appeals to me.”

“Damn,” Helen whispered, defeated. She had read the same thing a thousand times but she had been really hoping that the papers had been mistaken. She was about to pack up everything and vanish when James withdrew one of the folders and spun it around to face her.

“With an exception,” he said, enjoying the way her bright hair slid over her shoulders as her head snapped up. “I have found a measure of success in swine. It is an undocumented phenomenon drawn from principles in this report.”

“Could you show me?” her elbows took the brunt of her mass as she bridged the distance between them.

“Of course. I highly doubt that your motivations are sheer curiosity and I guarantee that you’ll find nothing further but mysteries until you start asking honest questions.”

Helen frowned. James Watson would not be as easily manipulated as she had hoped.

“Show me this experiment and I’ll let you in.”

Two great minds sized each other up and settled upon a joint disquiet.

“Tonight then,” he said. “My lab is prepped. If you can stand the disorder, you are welcome to join me.”

*~*~*

Tesla’s frogs croaked to themselves, hopping around the woven basket that he had borrowed/stolen from Helen.

He lay on the grass, staring into the black water with an absent set of eyes. He thought about the rocks of the building grinding into dust, melting and being remade into mountains only to be pulverised at the end of the world. Then they would be a swirling cloud of particles, wandering into energy until even that dissipated – stretched to infinity. As far as he could determine, nothing was permanent in this existence. A life, memory and even the very soul is gone in the whisper of a breath.

Except for this.

Nikola sat by the edge of the stream, watching the eddy currents swirl along the bank like tiny galaxies following the tide. He imagined the speckles of dust on the waters’ surface as the endless bank of stars sliding by and the ripples of the insects touching its tension as the endless propagation of gravity waves.  Suddenly, what no man could ever hope to see was before him. Nikola looked at it and smiled casually, blowing a leaf across the water.

The scene was spoilt by a splash.

A muddy ball bobbed in the pond, destroying the subtle patterns of the water with a series of concentric waves. Tesla fished it out, taking hold of a nearby tree and stretching over the water until his cuff dipped into it.

“Urgh…” he muttered, dragging the ball back to the bank where he found a short, untidy student rubbing their nose in expectation. Tesla held the ball up to the snivelling creature who moved to take it, but Tesla withdrew, holding it well out of reach. “And who are you?” he asked.

The boy was visibly out of breath. Behind him, a line of others were assembling at the top of the hill, clearly waiting for the ball.

“Ni-gel,” he puffed, reaching again for the ball. “Com’on, give us the ball back.”

Tesla, who was both slender and tall, had no imminent desire to oblige him.

“I know you,” he said. “Aren’t you the one that snores through late class?”

“Hey man,” Nigel Griffin replied, “at least I bother to attend.”

Tesla considered this, but was sure that there was little difference between absence and snoozing. Bored of this creature, Tesla threw the ball over his head, back up to where the others were waiting.

“Run along now,” Tesla shooed the student away from his presence. When he was gone, Nikola sat back on the bank only to notice a trio of frogs hopping happily to freedom. His basket had been knocked open by the ball. “Wonderful…” he growled.

“What is?” A flurry of black lace and blonde hair settled on the grass next to him. Helen lifted her hand out of the path of an escaping frog and soon found her basket upturned and suspiciously empty. “Did you steal my basket?” she raised her accusing eyes at Nikola, but he was engrossed in the stream bubbling along at their feet. “I’m going to pretend that you gave me an eloquent apology and really good excuse,” she picked up her possession, dusting the grass of its lid.

As usual, Nikola had not said a word to her. She liked that. His silence was approval. Had he wanted her gone, Nikola would have made her keenly aware of it.

“You’ll have to find your own way to class tonight,” she continued. “In my opinion, you should make an effort to be there. It’s the least you can do after causing damage to campus property.”

Nikola lost interest in the water and instead, lay back onto the grass, staring at the grey bank of clouds rolling over them. He felt a fleck of rain on his cheek as Helen joined him, stretching onto the lawn.

“Good,” Helen sighed.

*~*~*

The night was thick. Instead of raining, the clouds had fallen to the ground in a cold mist that hid everything but the uppermost level of the university.

Helen rested against the window, seeing nothing but a grey blur from the ground floor. The clock behind her ticked loudly and then chimed. Evening class was starting but Helen had no intention of attending. Instead, she waited by the window for James Watson.

3

THE START OF SOMETHING

He stood behind, watching her for several minutes. James couldn’t explain it or even reason why, but there was something distinctly sinister about Helen’s silhouette against the arching window that made him hesitate.

“Oh,” Helen was startled when she found James leaning on a doorway. “I worried that you wouldn’t come.”

“I am a man of my word,” he said, offering her his arm in a gentlemanly manner.

He led her up the double marble staircase and around to the main student living quarters. Helen had never been allowed here partly because she was a young lady in Victorian England but largely because she still lived at home with an overprotective father.

“There is nothing to concern yourself with,” James assured her. “The dormitories are as dull as any level.”

She rolled her eyes, far from threatened as he pulled up at his room. He knocked first, but as he expected, Nigel was downstairs, nodding off happily in the lecture.

*~*~*

John was surprised by the entrance of Nikola Tesla, gracing the lecture with his presence halfway through. What surprised him more was the absence of Helen.

“Damages to the structure of the university tower have been deducted from your account,” the lecturer informed Tesla as he took his seat. “And the engineering lab would like their coil of copper wire returned as soon as you’ve untangled it from the roof.”

Nikola ignored the professor, instead flipping open a journal. Much to the astonishment of the room, he diligently began copying the contents of the board in a tidy font.

John found his eyes glancing at the door throughout the lecture but Helen never showed. There was another conspicuous gap in the bench belonging to an ever observant, rarely spoken James Watson. John narrowed his eyes, no-one had dared to take up Watson’s seat. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

*~*~*

Helen held a handkerchief over her mouth and nose as she stepped into James’s room.

There was a bitter smell on the air that slipped down her throat, sticking halfway down where it became pure vile. She gagged, bending over in shock as she simultaneously struggled for breath and tried to avoid it.

“You get used to it,” said James, closing the door behind them. He slipped a hand around Helen’s waist and lifted her back to her feet, holding her until she regained composure. “Please, this way.”

The room was a long rectangle, more like a tunnel reaching for the small window at its far end than a proper dormitory. Someone had jammed a cloth in the window’s frame, sealing out all light and air – or maybe, Helen reconsidered, sealing the terrible stench inside.

Two beds, one immaculate and the other a mess of blankets and notes, were pushed as far as possible toward the door in such a way that she had hit her leg on one as she followed James deeper into the room. A line of oil lamps burnt along the right hand wall, sitting along a narrow shelf. Each one had a bulb of oil beneath them, glowing in the firelight. She could smell the citronella now. Helen followed a black trail of smoke with her eyes and saw that along the ceiling were a series of black circles to match each lamp.

Four desks hugged the back and side walls in a U shape. A single line of glassware spanned them. Beakers, tubes, flasks, burners, heat mats, distillers, stirring devices and scaffolding were joined in a fragile arrangement. Liquids of different colours bubbled, cooled or trickled in their respective containers.

Rats. Filthy, wild, black street rats scurried about in cages stored beneath the desks. She could hear their claws on the soiled newspapers and their teeth testing the strength of the wire. Beside them was a roughly made wooden box open at the top. Helen approached it cautiously, half kneeling on the dusty ground. It was full of hay which, to her great worry, was moving.

“Our lucky winner for today,” said James, sliding the crate out into the open. Something small and pink was moseying about inside, trying to forage for a stray piece of carrot. “Hold this please.”

James handed Helen a slender knife so sharp that it cut through the air as she took it from him. He pushed her back gently as he reached into the box, his hands disappearing into the dried the grass.

“Come on,” he muttered, as the animal slipped out of his grip with a high pitched squeal, thrashing its chubby legs. Watson expertly wrestled it onto the nearest table, holding it down with one hand whilst waving Helen over with the other. He clicked his fingers at her, not lifting his eyes from the piglet.

Helen realised that he was after the knife, so she placed it in his outstretched hand, turning her head sharply when he cut down into the creature.

*~*~*

Paler than usual, Helen moved quietly through the empty corridors of the university. It was almost eleven and far too late to return home. Her father wouldn’t be pleased but he expected it – Helen was often absent on Thursdays after late class. Usually Nikola would drag her back to the attic to bear witness to his latest show. He wasn’t one to enjoy the company of people, but he still needed someone to share the world which he discovered with – someone other than the snowy pigeon that haunted his window sill.

Her stomach was still turning, but she could not deny the excitement she had felt as the first real science began to unfold. This was it, she was doing something of worth, Discovering, investigating and it thrilled her in a terrifying sense.

Helen found a small notebook at the foot of Tesla’s attic but no Tesla. That was odd. She had never known him to be anywhere but here outside of class – or perhaps the roof though he always left the stairs down in case she dropped by. Not that he’d ever admit to it.

“You’re drenched!” Helen exclaimed in a whisper, as a decidedly drenched Nikola traipsed down the corridor toward her half an hour later, seemingly caught up in his own mind. He didn’t notice her concerned frown until Helen put a hand to his head to check his temperature. He was freezing.

“Did you know that the university has a pool?” he said, louder than was acceptable for the hour.

“No I didn’t,” she eyed him with great concern. “Don’t tell me you went swimming in the middle of the night! Of all the things to do…”

He fished around with a hook for the latch to the attic. Finally he caught the ring and pulled hard, bringing the ladder-like stairs folding from the ceiling in a loud groan. Without a word, he scaled the stairs leaving a trail of water behind him. Helen hitched up her lace skirt and followed him, carrying the book under her arm.

“This yours?” she held the leather bound item aloft as soon as she reached the attic. Nikola was busy lighting oil lamps – most of which were scattered over the floor. The book looked like a possession of Tesla’s – immaculate and generally unused, but the handwriting was conspicuously tidy. Out of curiosity, she gave some of the pages a quick read and found that they were lecture notes. Very un-Tesla indeed.

He continued to ignore her, strolling straight over to a tangle of wires she presumed to be his latest experiment, dripping all the way as a stream trickled from his woollen trench coat. Helen shook her head, put the book on the floor along with her bag, and came up behind him. Before he had the chance to protest, Helen had slipped the coat off of his shoulders and hung it by the window to dry. He was left in a white collared and cuffed shirt which stuck to his wet skin. Semi transparent, hints of muscle and skin were visible as he crouched down. His silk tie – blood red with gold oriental patterns, was still snuggling around his neck – all be it a little damp.

Helen’s own clothes hung around her ankles as her full length embroidered skirt caught a gust of cold wind sneaking in through the now glassless window. Taking a bundle of pins from her bag, she tacked her ringlets out of the way and changed into a spare pair of rubber boots that Nikola left in the corner. It was a necessary precaution when in Nikola’s presence to insulate one’s self form the ground should he take a fancy to a passing electric current. It wasn’t particularly ladylike, but then Helen had never been a typical lady.

Nikola began handing her things as soon as she sat down on the floor as if she were an extension of him. He didn’t ask her where she had been for half the night, but she felt the need to explain herself.

“I’ve got a little project of my own,” she began, though he didn’t stop to listen. “Of a different kind to yours. More in biological sciences – Watson is –”

“Not worth your time,” he interrupted, “and not as clever as he lets on.”

“Yes, I am aware that the two of you disapprove of one another. Do you want to hear my story or not?” she reached out and touched his hand, trying to get his attention. A light jolt of electricity jumped through her skin, dissipating down her wrist.

“Sorry…” he muttered, moving his hands away from her. “It does that. When you’re on the floor the boots don’t –” He had a habit of not finishing sentences.

“I’m going to go,” she said quietly, putting the experiment gently on the floor. “You’re busy and you don’t need me disturbing you with senseless chatter. Goodnight Nikola.”

Nikola felt the layers of her dress ruffle past him, dancing over his skin. The flames of his lanterns dimmed as she walked by them, striding through the room. He stared down at coil of wire in his hands, closed his eyes, and then put it down.

“Stay,” he whispered, just loud enough for her to hear. “Please.”

Helen stopped, halfway through changing her shoes. “You don’t need me,” she said. “And you never wanted me here in the first place. I should have left a long time ago.”

Nikola got to his feet. In the moon and lamp light, still drenched, he looked strangely off guard. He was more alive when he had a brilliant idea, she could see it in his eyes – that glint of something she wanted so desperately to see. A truth on the horizon, revealed in an instant. It was what she searched for, why she wanted to be a scientist and what excited her about Nikola.

“I need you to hold this…” he pointed at an object on the ground but kept his eyes on her. The truth was that Nikola didn’t require anyone to help him, but he needed her. Ever since she had found him at the beginning of the year, staring out from his attic window, he had needed her. “Your experiment, tell me about it,” he offered.

Helen eyed him for quite some time before finally rolling her eyes, deciding to stay.

“Later,” she said, returning to his side. They sat down together, their eyes occasionally flicking to each other but never at the same time.

“Don’t leave me,” he said softly, not daring to look at her in case she disapproved.

Helen didn’t leave. She stayed there all night by his side as he created a motor with a new kind of electricity, one more powerful than any the world had seen. By the time he was finished, Helen was asleep on the floor beside to him, resting her head in her hands which still clutched onto the useless piece of wire he had given her to hold. He smiled – something he would not let her see him do.

Finished, he picked her up gently and carried her to the small bed in the corner of the attic, laying her on it. He found a warm blanket and placed it over her, then blew out all the lamps, and reclined against the floorboards for the few hours remaining before day broke.

*~*~*

Helen returned home before breakfast, depositing various items in the foyer before staggering upstairs to change. Her father, Dr. Gregory Magnus, was waiting for her at the breakfast table, reading through the newspaper. He didn’t say anything, but Helen could feel his disapproval glaring at her through the print.

“I have to leave in an hour,” he announced, as Helen sipped a cold cup of tea. “Will you be back this evening?”

“Will you?” Like father like daughter. Gregory was often missing, out on expeditions or simply gone without explanation.

Gregory sighed, folding his paper. “You’re too much like me,” he muttered.

4

BREAKING IN

The latch on the front door of the Magnus apartment dropped, crashing into the lock. Shortly after, her father’s shadow tracked over the leadlight windows in the morning glow. A horse drawn cart rattled over the cobblestones, skidding on the dew. An old man with a curved spin hushed the gas streetlights and a trio of feral dogs sniffed the curb, hunting a long vanished mouse.

Helen finished her tea, calmly draining the china cup. Her heart was beating fast and a shiver working its way across her skin. Finally, she thought, now that she was alone with the house.

Helen’s hand hovered over the brass handle leading to her father’s study. Hesitation – something she was known for. The door would be locked. Her father always locked his study door, mainly to keep prying eyes like hers at bay. Sure enough, upon trying the handle Helen found it stuck firm.

Undeterred, she slipped her fingers into her hair, pulling out one of the pins still nesting amongst her curls. With practised ease, she fed it into the lock, turning it slowly until one of its bent ends hooked over the locking mechanism.

She leant against the door, pushing it open despite the angry squeal unleashed. It was like trespassing on sacred ground – crossing Gregory’s office. Helen did it quickly, heading straight for his desk. She skirted around the side of it to the front section, nudging his leather chair out of the way. There were three beautifully carved draws along its front. Helen picked the one in the centre, jiggling it open. The old wood was damp and stuck to the tracks but she wrestled with it until her eyes fell over its contents.

A dozen or so letters were scattered on top. Digging through them, Helen’s fingers expertly hunted for the silver key hidden at the back of the draw. She held it up to the light and smiled. It was attached to a gold-thread tassel which would hold its own against any respectable treasure.

*~*~*

Watson reclined against the cool brick wall behind his bed. He was seated on top of the covers, fully clothed with his feet hanging over the edge and a silk scarf around his nose to dull the stench. He liked to consider himself an early riser, never wasting a moment of the day, but Nigel Griffin put him to shame, up well before the sun even considered peaking over the cloud banks.

With half an hour before breakfast, James kept himself busy reading through the folders Helen had been so kind as to point out to him in the ‘new’ library. He borrowed them, in the more loose sense of the word. Nikola would call it ‘acquiring’ and Helen might go so far as ‘stealing’ but Watson considered it a necessity for the greater good of knowledge. Besides, he would return them well before anyone noticed their absence.

Helen had been right. The information on the subject was a mess of internal contradictions held back by the technology of the time. Several writers expressed frustration at their equipment while others had spent a good portion of their research time building more sensitive equipment rather than running tests. Work was going slowly. Helen was interested in knowledge at the very edge of the horizon, perhaps even beyond it.

“Awake already?” Nigel Griffin had opened the door tacitly, slipping into the room unnoticed. He headed for his makeshift wardrobe, ducking into it, searching for his overcoat.

“Of course,” James replied, choosing the last folder.

Nigel slung the coat over his shoulders, retrieved a satchel – checking specially for his diary, and then returned to the door frame.

“We need to open that window,” he said, resisting the urge to hurl. After the fresh air of sports field, his dormitory was almost unbearable except for – he sniffed again, more carefully this time. There was a new scent wading through the usual putrid haze. It was a faint perfume – oddly familiar. “Someone’s been in here…” he said accusingly, wrapping his fingers around the door. “That blonde woman – you haven’t…”

James lifted his eyes from the file. Their meaning was clear, but he backed them up with a stern, “Of course not.”

His dormitory companion raised a scruffy eyebrow. “Right…” he decided to leave the subject alone. “Well, four of us are going into town after breakfast to replace our quills. We’ll divert to the river if we can. I’d invite you along to join us but your default answer in cases such as these seems to be an irritated, ‘no’.”

James’s silence confirmed Nigel’s assumption.

The silence was too silent.

Their room was usually a quiet ruckus of animals, buried in crates and cages along the far wall yet all Nigel could hear were the rats chewing at the bars.

“What happened to the George?” he asked, worried.

“Can you obtain a new pig whilst you are in town?”

Nigel had his answer, and he was not happy about it. George was a pet, though apparently not to James who seemed to lack affection for anything alive. “I’m no errand boy,” he glared, forever sensitive of his less than privileged upbringing.

Perhaps he should have asked first, thought Watson, but he had not been aware of Nigel’s attachment to the creature. “But you can?”

“Of course I can,” muttered Nigel, slamming the door shut.

*~*~*

Helen climbed the stairs to the attic, ducking under an ill-placed beam. She struck a match and the dark landing flickered into light. With her spare hand, Helen slipped the key into the lock and entered the attic. Before anything, she lit one of the hanging oil lamps.

The attic was not your typical laboratory. It had a makeshift feel about it, accentuated by the overturned trunks posing as desks and the tightly packed crates lining the wall in a bookshelf of sorts.

She breathed deeply, inhaling the smell of knowledge. It was a heady mix of parchment, ink and burning oil. Helen thought that it was beautiful, in a forbidden manner. Her father never brought her up here. When she was eleven years old she assembled the courage to ask about the room at the top of the stairs. He told her that it was empty. Helen Magnus learnt two important lessons that day. One; Gregory Magnus was an accomplished liar and two; there was something of great value hidden away in the attic.

It was another three years before she found herself standing in exactly the same place, staring out at the room with a flame working its way down her match.

“Ouch…” she dropped the match. It burnt itself out before hitting the floor.

Helen stepped over it, striding to the largest of the trunk-desks. In the low light, she skimmed over its chaos of objects. Her father had never been neat, but this place was an exceptional mess, even by his standards.

It was odd then, she thought, when she saw a cleared segment of desk with an envelope laid out with its writing facing the attic door – opposite to the rest of the items. She bent down toward it, struggling to read its address in the waning light.

‘Helen’, it read.

She jerked backwards, glancing nervously at the door behind to make sure that she was alone. Helen checked the writing on the envelope again. It was definitely addressed to her. She looked more carefully at the way it was presented on the desk and it became clear, it was left there for her to find.

Predicting that she was already going to be in trouble, Helen lifted the letter up, turned it over and then slid her nail under the wax sealing it. It snapped off and letter unfolded.

‘To my dearest Helen,

‘Time was short for us. I imagine that I have become one of your father’s stories by now, woven about in that restless imagination of his. You enjoy his stories I’m sure as it gives him pleasure to tell them well. It was my hope that one day he would tell you our story – maybe that day has past. It is difficult, addressing a time that will not come for so long and for me, never at all.

‘It was my instruction that he keep one story in particular from you for as long as possible. If he has given you this letter, then you have already begun to notice the subtle changes within yourself – they said that in time you would.

‘Helen, you have a gift. Do not let anybody tell you otherwise. It is precious, unique and it is yours alone.

‘When you were fourteen months old you crawled onto a window sill and fell, three floors to the street. Against all expectations, you lived – unharmed save a scar behind your left ear. Indeed your injuries were mild and what little of them you had, you recovered from in days rather than months. The doctors did not know what to think, and so abandoned your case, putting it down to an act of God but your father and I watched you very carefully from then on.

‘You never got ill, Helen.

‘Your father studies, or I should say, has an interest in the extremities of humanity. He has seen variations on our form which test the very definition of what it is to be human. Some of his creatures are beautiful, others frightening.

‘He learnt that a small percentage of us have an abnormality. In all of his creative genius, he called these people, ‘Abnormals’ and began to devote a great deal of time and money studying them. Soon he discovered that he was not the first to cross this path, and together we uncovered a history of human diversity through antiquity documents up until the present day.

‘It became clear, like a flash of light across an evening sky, that you too, are one of them.

‘Time for you, will be an endless walk. It is your gift to move through its ages, free of the fear mortality brings.

‘Forgive me, for not being there with you.

‘Your mother.’

*~*~*

Helen stood in front of the small oval mirror. She lifted her hair away from her ear, and turned her head to the side. A thin red line curved across her skin. Her fingers hovered over it. Was it even possible? To live forever – Helen refused to believe a word of it.

5

TAKING A TURN

She stacked her notebooks calmly, tying them together before slipping them inside her father’s leather satchel. Nothing had changed. It was only a letter. A letter from the past which meant nothing. Helen Magnus repeated her thoughts, wanting more than anything to believe them.

The tears on her cheeks had gone cold. She wiped them off, unsure of how they had gotten there without her approval.

It was mid-morning and the city was thick with bodies trying to reach their respective destinations. The university was within walking distance, visible where it rose above the other buildings. She could see its two spires, reaching up toward the sky with their tops stained darker sandstone, almost like the smoky peaks of mountains.

The sight of its steadfast walls drew her in. She had never felt an attachment to the place that she’d had to fight to step into and even harder to stay, but all of a sudden there was no place that she’d rather be than inside its hostile walls.

Helen joined the crowd of students trailing in through the gates. Aside from the wives of professors taking a turn around the gardens, she was the only lady making her way toward the building. The men noticed this, turning their heads ever so slightly as she walked past them. Most averted their eyes, returning to their conversations, maybe even throwing in an aside about the outrage of allowing a woman to study. It was a select few that greeted her with a smile, tipping their hats.

The truth was, the university had never officially allowed her to study within its walls. She was neither enrolled, nor on any attendance lists. She was just a woman that happened to sit inside the lecture rooms, furiously taking notes and handing in assignments for the interest of the professors who read them, not out of duty but curiosity.

“Helen,” a friendly voice approached. It belonged to Mr. Druitt, the mysterious student she had met several weeks ago, lurking in the hallway outside night class.

“Still lost?” she raised her eyebrow challengingly. They were both supposed to be in class already.

“Would your opinion of me lower if I confessed to it?” he smiled, a few strands of soft hair falling over his eyes. It made her return the smile with a slight flutter in her stomach.

“It would make me suspect of your directional skills,” she confessed, climbing the steps in front of the main doors to meet him. John was hiding in the shade of the overhang, watching the crowds scurry by. It was a favourite past time of his.

“Truth hurts,” he offered her his arm, which she took, wrapping her fingers gently around the stiff fabric of his coat.

Helen rolled her eyes, letting John escort her around the passageway which hugged the edge of the building protected by an overhang of ornately carved wood. “This is not the way to class,” she noted, to his amusement.

“No it’s not,” he admitted. “But I could not resist taking the long way.”

They did not say anything else, content to walk quietly in each others’ company.

*~*~*

Nikola kept a vigil by his attic window, brushing the remainders of the glass from its frame. He didn’t care that the shards tumbled over the roof tiles and onto the passersby below. She hadn’t come to class and he could not understand why it bothered him so much.

He had been alone all of his life, ever since the horse had reared up and pounded his brother from this life. Every time he closed his eyes he heard those hooves and saw his frightened sibling scream, reaching towards him. That had been his life until Helen had appeared, slipping into the back row of night class.

Now, when he closed his eyes, sometimes he saw her smile.

Nikola’s bony elbows dug into the corners of the window, propping his head up as he stared out at the city beyond the university’s gates. A few pigeons played on the breeze, soaring high above, hunting scraps. He watched them wistfully.

One broke from the flock to cruise by his window, buffeting his face with the flap of its wings.

“Not now,” he whispered to it, waving the attentions of the beautiful creature away.

*~*~*

They sat on the seat beneath one of the ancient plane trees. Its limbs spread out over the lawn, decorating it with shadows that shimmered in the breeze, rearranging themselves in an endless tessellation.

Helen’s arm was still locked beneath John’s, kept safe. He wanted to say, ‘You’re very beautiful…’ but didn’t dare. This woman’s reputation preceded her by two city blocks and screams of genuine terror so he settled for, “It’s a beautiful day.”

She agreed, stretching her free arm along the edge of the bench. Neither of them cared about the class going on inside the building. It was a sacrifice worth enduring and it was completely unintentional.

“Oh my,” Helen half-jumped at the chiming of the clock tower as it rang out over the university garden. “I should have been in the library hours ago.” Poor Watson, he would be waiting for her. “I really must go,” she said, freeing herself from John.

He stood with her, still smiling at the way she fussed.

“Would you like company on your long journey?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she replied quickly. “I find the walk reasonably short under normal circumstances. There has been enough diversion for one day.”

“Harsh,” John stepped back, allowing her passage.

She gave him a little wink, “The truth always is.”

*~*~*

James Watson had forgotten all about Helen Magnus.

His nose inched further and further toward the bindings of his latest find – the published journal of Claude Bernard. It was in French, which suited James. Languages were like songs to him. He learnt their rhythm until their lyrics unfolded and he could hum along in tune.

‘Medicine, like any other form of science, can be reduced to its mathematical base. Quantifiable principles, natural laws, predictable results – all of these should be applicable to the natural sciences as readily as to the mechanical world. It is only that the laws of natural things outweigh their counterparts in complexity that we are yet to discover their detail.’

Watson trailed his finger over the lines of text. He agreed. The world around him was full of detail, some of it too small for him to make out. There had to be laws to govern it otherwise the world he knew would fall to chaos.

‘It is possible to observe the crossings of these two worlds. Inside the human body are systems not unlike machinery. Their processes are quantifiable – especially those of the heart and blood. Like a machine, the heart pumps the life source around the body in accordance with a set of laws detailed in the following. Vivisections reveal these internal movements of the body. Pealing back the layers of a living organism such as a frog allows us to study these mechanical phenomena in great detail.’

Watson would copy these experiments, cruel as they were. He had to know about the world – every detail he could pry from its claws. His hunger for it would not rest. The secrets of life, more than anything, satisfied his ravenous curiosity and allowed him nights of peaceful sleep in a world he would one day be able to explain.

“Splendid, you are still here.”

Helen dragged a heavy chair halfway across the floor in a loud screech. The librarian glared viciously at the blonde, but Helen Magnus wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention. She pulled her seat beside the window that James had chosen to occupy and collapsed into it, digging through her bag for a notepad.

The dreadful noise of old wood grinding against polished floors shattered the world he had retreated into. James looked up.

“I apologise for the –” she checked the clock hung above the desk where the librarian was stamping a pile of books with more force than was necessary. “It really is getting quite late,” she realised.

“It depends upon the length of your day,” replied James, returning his nose to the pages.

Helen was not used to being ignored, which was exactly what James did every time his head sagged toward the pages of a book. He had more interest in the writings of dead men than her bright eyes and curious mind. This realisation did not distress her, if anything, it intrigued her. Being taken for granted was refreshing.

Without a word, Helen produced a small, loosely bound book and balanced it atop her notepads. She made certain that its title was concealed as she began to read, giving her best impression of intrigue.

It took half an hour before James could bare the secret no more.

“I must know what you’re reading,” he said, attempting to lift the cover. Helen slid her hand over it, pinning it down.

“Nothing that would interest you,” she replied, flicking the page over.

“You are a tease, Ms Magnus,” James closed his own document, holding its cover up for her inspection. “I see that we will have to learn to share if we are to get on.”

She did the same with hers, and the pair exchanged documents.

“How very generous of you, Mr Watson,” she opened the new book dramatically. Her victorious smile shrivelled when she realised that the book was in French. Too embarrassed to confess, she suffered, skimming for equations and trying to make sense out of the few words she could understand.

“Are you unwell?” James touched her hand gently, catching Helen’s attention. She looked pale, though her cheeks had flushed bright pink. The combination made her eyes more blue than any he had seen.

The world blurred a little and Helen realised that she was not well at all. Her head was light, tasting the edges of sleep while her limbs dragged, feeling heavy.

“I don’t,” she stammered, raising a hand to her head as her books slid down her dress to the floor. “I don’t know…”

James lunged forward in time to catch the young woman as she tilted, falling from her chair.

6

THE WORLD’S AN EXPERIMENT

The students at the table opposite looked up, quills hovering over their pages dripping ink as they watched the woman collapse into the waiting arms of a young man.

Blonde ringlets scattered over James’ shoulder as her head settled on his coat. He was on one knee, easing Helen out of the chair and fully into his arms so that he could lift her. Although Helen was a slender thing, her dress and adornments with their yards of fabric tested James’ strength as he carried her through the library, curled over his shoulder.

Helen wandered in and out of consciousness, sometimes opening her eyes a crack to see the hallway flood past in a haze.

He did not delay, turning and making short work of the staircase leading to the top floor of the university. She mumbled something that he couldn’t make out as he reached the end of the stairwell, reshuffling her in his arms as she began to slip.

James arrived in the narrow corridor, barely wide enough for him to carry Helen through. There was an arched window at the far end, dusty and scratched from centuries of neglect. Above him there was a square opening in the ceiling, blocked by a folded set of stairs. With Helen still in his arms, James wrestled with a hooked rod, stretching it up to the ceiling where its sharp end caught the hoop of metal. He yanked it down and the stairs unfolded, revealing the entrance to Tesla’s attic.

“What in the…”

Watson heard a voice above startle.

“Mr Tesla, your assistance please,” James called out, moving Helen to his shoulder so that he could climb the ladder, albeit awkwardly.

Tesla tripped and fell at the sound of his stairs unfurling. Someone heavy was climbing them, about to peak in through the hole in the floor. Nikola picked himself up and raced over, sticking his head through the attic where he found James heaving an unconscious Helen toward him.

“We cannot both come through. Can you reach her waist?”

Nikola was caught off guard by the intrusion, muttering and spluttering that he could. He reached down and took hold of Helen. Seated at the hole’s edge, together Nikola and James managed to navigate her into the attic. She ended up in Nikola’s lap, laid across him.

“Move your legs, Mr Tesla,” James shoved the dangling legs to the side as he tackled the last few steps of the ladder. He was out of breath but far from broken. “Come on, we need to lay her down properly.”

Nikola stared at Helen’s limp body, struck dumb. He didn’t notice the gentle rise and fall of her chest, or the pink flushing beneath her cheeks – all he saw was her still form, dead in his arms.

“It’s Helen…” he whispered, not able to tear his eyes away.

“Well spotted. Now bring her over to the bed. Today, please!” James added sharply, when the young man refused to move.

Staggering to his feet, Nikola made his way to the bed, laying her onto the unmade mess of sheets. James knelt down beside Helen, taking hold of her wrist. Nikola sat on the floor next to James, leaning in toward Helen with a frightened look. He had never seen anyone faint before. Its similarity to death alarmed him.

“She will be fine,” said James, moving to her forehead. She was hot, but not worryingly so. “Do not fuss,” he waved Nikola’s hands away from the sheets he was trying to clear. “She needs air, not panic.”

“What happened?”

“I have no idea,” admitted James. “We were in the library talking and she collapsed. It is not an uncommon condition amongst women – there is probably nothing wrong except it being a particularly warm day.”

Nikola shook his head. “She’s not like that,” he insisted.

“Well,” said James, “she is today. Bring me some water.”

That disgruntled Nikola. He was not used to being treated like a common servant but for Helen’s sake, he obliged the brusque man. James took the glass from him and roused Helen with a splash of water. She sat up with a start, gasping for air.

“Steady on,” James tried to calm her as she clung onto his arm with such force he thought it might break.

“Urg…” she coughed, rasping for air as if it wouldn’t go in. James supported her back with his free arm, pushing her ever so slightly forwards.

“Nikola,” he hissed in the young man’s direction. “Take her other hand.”

Nikola’s eyes wandered to Helen’s flailing hand. He reached out and she caught it.

*~*~*

Helen sipped the glass of water, wrapped in an unused blanket Nikola excavated from the cupboard. She had stopped shaking but still looked unwell. James was over by Nikola’s experiment, kneeling down for a closer look at the unfinished motor. Ordinarily, Nikola would have shrieked and chased him off, afraid of intellectual theft but on this occasion all he did was give a disapproving glance in the other man’s direction.

“Where were you?” he asked Helen, taking the glass from her as she finished. She didn’t seem to understand the question so he asked it again.

“Oh,” she had forgotten about John and their time spent in the garden. “I decided not to come. I was running late as it was and I didn’t want to disturb the others.” It was a bold lie, and Nikola wasn’t fooled. He had lost count of the amount of times Helen had pulled him through the doors of late class with no regard toward the other students.

“This motor will never work,” observed James from in front of the small, metal and wooden object. It looked nothing at all like his own project which, incidentally, had a habit of catching on fire.

“Yes it does,” Nikola snapped over his shoulder. “It’s finished – has been for some time now.”

“Impossible.”

“A certainty, I assure you.”

“Show me.”

“Never.” Nikola was on his feet, about to pace over to James and remove him from the presence of his precious motor. “That is the future,” he declared. “Careful you don’t tread on it.”

“It is a school project,” James corrected. “And just like the rest of us, the professor will grade it and send you on your way.”

“Leave it, Nikola…” Helen had reached up and caught hold of Nikola’s coat. “He is just playing with you. James – enough. Nikola is not one for your games.”

Though neither Helen nor Nikola caught it, James had smiled, satisfied. He had proved something about Nikola that he had always suspected. The world was an experiment to James. He showed no distinction between places and people, if there was something worth learning, James would find a way to learn it regardless of the social consequences.

“And what about your little project?” Tesla tilted his head in a bird like manner. He asked Helen, not James.

He was interested now, thought Helen. Jealousy did that to Nikola.

“It’s not your cup of tea, Nikola,” she replied, letting go of him. “Wishy-washy voodoo, I believed you called the science once.”

“Well, now I am interested,” he was speaking to Helen, but glaring at James, following the man’s every movement as he paced around his floor-bound lab. Nikola just knew that he was going to step on something important. Some people had no respect for other people’s property or the delicacies of –

“I can hear you thinking, Nikola.” Helen scorned. Sometimes Nikola’s eyes betrayed his thoughts more loudly than his lips. “You know, if the two of you could get over whatever it was that set you against each other in the beginning, you’d be the best of friends.”

“An event that will never come to pass,” Nikola assured her. James agreed, accidentally crushing a small coil of wire with his boot.

“All right,” Helen spilled out to avert disaster as James kicked the object aside, “we’re investigating blood compatibility amongst species.”

Nikola spun around, running a wandering finger through his moustache. “Why?” That sounded like a perfectly horrid thing to do.

“Why anything…” she retorted, getting a little snappy herself. He was always like this with anything she did, as if she didn’t have as much right as him to possess curiosity. “The topic was raised in one our assignments and –”

“We did an assignment on blood?”

“No Nikola, you didn’t, but the rest of us did. As I was saying, my father helped me a great deal with the research – it’s a passion of his.”

“Blood is a passion of your father’s… now I really am worried.”

Helen shook her head in frustration. “You can be cruel, when you want to.”

*~*~*

“Remind me what he’s doing here…” James stood in front of his dormitory door, unwilling to open it with Nikola so close by. It was night, ten minutes before their lecture but instead of assembling in the corridor they had decided to carry on with last night’s experiment. Helen’s idea, though she had hidden it well, prompting James into the suggesting through a series of calculated questions. He had forgotten though, how he had agreed to have Tesla present.

“He’s going to have a look at your equipment – see if he can fix that electrical system so that we can carry on with the experiment. Remember? It didn’t work last time.”

Nikola grinned menacingly from behind Helen’s shoulder. No doubt the medic had it all wired backwards. Nikola wasn’t thrilled about spending more time in James’ company but he was curious to take a look at what these little Frankensteins had been up to.

“Well, you are responsible for it at all times,” James eyed Helen sternly, unlocking the door.

*~*~*

The professor was somewhat dismayed. He was used to empty seats. It didn’t bother him that students dragged their bored bodies into his lecture at all hours, hobbling and grumbling as they took their seats. He accepted the empty front row as a compromise between knowledge and social standing. Their lack of interest in the natural world would evolve and one day they would all become decent scientists.

He sighed, turning to face what remained of his room. There were four seats in particular that he didn’t like to see empty yet there they were, abandoned. It wasn’t what they were missing that worried him, it was what they were up to. Even though they didn’t know it yet, the professor could already see that the absent four possessed the streak of curiosity at the heart of brilliance – a dangerous thing to leave alone.

John Druitt had been racing to keep pace with the writing on the board when the professor threw a piece of chalk at him.

“Check your hearing,” the professor said, before adding in his soft, wafting voice, “Would you mind finding the others?”

John frowned, “Find who?”

The professor flicked his eyes to the empty seats. “Off with you,” he turned back to the board, picking a new piece of chalk.

John blinked dumbly, waiting in vain for further instruction. He closed his text book and packed away his things. Find all of them?

*~*~*

“You’re late…” Nigel folded his newspaper, throwing it off to the side as the door to the dormitory opened. His eyes widened when a young woman followed James in who in turn was trailed by the horrible man from the pond.

“Urgh…” Nikola held his nose, “It smells ghastly in here.”

“It passes,” said Helen, stepping between the beds as she followed James toward the laboratory end of the room.

Nigel waited for them to settle in front of the desk at the far end.

“I’m not gonna name this one,” said Nigel, pointing at the box of hay.

“Probably wise,” replied James.

Nikola eyed the box, catching sight of a hint of pale pink flesh. “Why aren’t we naming the pig?” he asked, but found no answer amongst the scientists.

7

VIVISECTION

“Ouch…” Nikola shook off a large spark that snapped over his skin. It left a nasty scorch mark which he attempted to rub off on his jacket to no avail. “There,” he declared finally, as the tangle of equipment spluttered into life. The room was brighter now, baking under the glow of the arclight. “All it takes is a little bit of love.”

“He’s not bad, Helen,” James muttered, nudging the young Nikola out of the way. “I’ll give you that.”

The four of them closed in on the large experiment table which sprawled along the end of the room. It was creaking under the weight of the new equipment Nigel had been busy setting up for their experiment. Despite his manners and clumsily large hands closer in nature to paws, Nigel was a perfectionist when it came to science. His rough approach yielded reliable results, much to the frustration of James.

“Shall we?” James beckoned Helen closer. She came to his side, followed instinctively by Nikola who squeezed himself in next to her.

Soon, all four of them had arranged themselves into a crowded line either side of James, staring intently as Nigel produced a basket. He reached inside and withdrew a startled creature. Nigel passed over the squirming frog, holding it steady as James wrapped his fingers tightly around it like a clamp. Nikola smiled at the frog, peering back into its dark slit eyes. It was a beautiful creature with two oversized yellow orbs for eyes and extremely long legs which it was using to bat at James’ hand leaving trails of sticky liquid on him.

James flinched, appalled by the creature.

“The book, Helen…”

Helen knelt to a large pile of books on the side wall, scanning down their spines until she dug her fingers between them and extracted her desired victim. She laid the book open on the experiment table next to James.

Nigel unrolled a leather satchel to reveal a sinister arrangement of implements tucked inside its pockets. Nikola’s breath caught as he scanned the faces of James and Nigel nervously.

“What kind of experiment are we doing, exactly…” he asked. Helen was packed in tight beside him, staring on eagerly as Nigel loosened the buckles holding the metal objects in place. The look that laced her eyes frightened Nikola – he had never seen that grin upon her lips before.

James tipped the frog onto its back as Nigel selected four long, tapered needles – holding their slender shafts up to the light.

“Good quality,” commented James, as he unfolded one of the frog’s legs, holding its squirming appendage to the table.

“Only the best,” Nigel replied, threading the sharp metal through the frog’s skin, nailing it to the wood beneath. The creature croaked in protest. Panic rippled through its body as Nigel selected another needle.

Helen gasped quietly, finding Nikola’s hand. He barely noticed the brush of fingers over his skin as he stood transfixed, watching as each of the frog’s legs were secured. Next, James selected a medical scalpel and cut a shallow slit down the centre of its chest. Nigel pulled the skin open, pinning it out of the way to reveal its inner workings.

“Oh my god!” Nikola’s throat clenched over. His stomach lurched as the little creature’s heart beat steady, pumping the lifeforce through its splayed body. It was still alive.

“Now,” said James indifferently, “we inject the sample.”

Nikola’s body convulsed. He broke away from Helen, stumbling halfway through the room before hurling his lunch over the floor.

Nigel’s nose tweaked. “Nice,” he muttered over his shoulder. “Do us a favour Helen, don’t bring your friends along for the show next time.”

“He’s not like us,” she snapped, before venturing toward Nikola who was coughing and shuddering. “Calm down,” she whispered, placing a hand on his back.

“This is wrong,” he rasped, pushing her off. “What are you doing here Helen? God…” Nikola fell to his knees, cradling his head. Helen caught him. Her arms slid to his waist and she held Nikola tightly from behind.

“Get him out of here,” hissed James, trying to ignore the distraction. According to the book, they didn’t have long to complete this experiment before the frog gave up the last of its life.

No one had noticed the door to the dormitory creak open. John, with his hand still clutched around the door’s frame, was taken aback by the scene. The stench of the room was unbelievable, toxic and nauseating as he breathed it in. Helen was over by the wall, clutching a very ill Tesla. His pale face was the first to spot John. Nigel and James stood with their backs to the door, leaning over some kind of table immersed in the bright glow of the electric light.

“What…” John opened his mouth, but no more words came out.

Nigel’s eyes rolled dramatically as he swivelled around, turning to face the confused figure lingering in their doorway. “Another friend of yours?” he accused Helen, clearly displeased by the constant interruptions.

John stepped forward, dodging the beds cluttered in the walkway. There was something struggling on the table. Something small –

“It’s a living creature,” he said in horror, when he saw the tortured body of the frog breathe. Half a dozen elegant needles held it in place, quivering. A set of organs were nestled in its open body on display for the room. “This is the work of demons,” he growled at them, before striding over to Helen. “Come on,” he grabbed her sharply, pulling her away from Nikola. “We’re leaving.”

“John!” she struggled, trying to free herself as she was dragged unceremoniously through the room.

“Take him too, if it’s not too much trouble,” James pointed at Nikola, who had managed to stumble to his feet.

“Let – me – go!” Helen wriggled free, flicking her hair back over her shoulder. “What are you doing here John?”

“What am I doing? Our lecturer sent me to find you. I’ve searched half the university and where do I find the elusive Miss Magnus? In the men’s dormitory with these three!” He pointed at them, angrily.

“That’s not fair,” she replied. “What we’re doing is important.”

John shook his head. “This is not what science is about. That poor creature – what good will it do you other than a passing curiosity? What does its suffering buy you, Helen?”

“I can show you, John,” she said calmly, offering him her hand. “If you’ll let me.”

*~*~*

The carriage rattled to a halt. Its two passengers alighted, stepping into a torrent of rain which had buried the footpath beneath a sheet of rancid water. There was no thunder or lightning in tow, just clouds choked with moisture, alleviating themselves on the city of Oxford.

Helen hid under a hooded jacket, dodging a stray dog as she opened the ornate door to the townhouse and disappeared inside followed closely by John. Dripping, she turned up the gas lights. The hallway flickered into view. John undid his soggy coat and hung it on the hallstand.

“Come on,” she beckoned him down the corridor toward a set of stairs leading up toward the ceiling.

“My father is more than a doctor,” she confessed, taking the steps carefully. Helen held a lamp aloft in one hand and gripped the fragile railing with her other. She ducked under a stray beam of wood at the landing. John only ducked lower, already slouching his tall figure. “His passion for the workings of the human body led him to startling discoveries…”

He watched her slide a silver and gold key into the lock. Its beauty put the old door to shame. Helen turned the key until it clicked. “He likes keys,” she added, “something about the unlocking of secrets.”

“And treasure,” added John, as the door creaked open revealing a dark expanse.

After lighting the hanging lamps, Helen rifled through one of the upturned desks until she found a leather diary.

“My father’s life work,” she said, running her thumb lovingly over the book’s spine. “Treatments and cures to all manner of afflictions. The deeper he dug into the intricacies of humanity, the more disturbed he became. John, we’re not divine beings – humanity is greater than that, more diverse.”

“This is not good for you,” John approached, but she stepped away, opening the journal to reveal a detailed sketch of a frightening form. It was a creature, hunched with hardened skin, cracked like scales with spines of bone along its back.

“What he found shocked him,” she continued. “A world full of monsters.”

“There are more things in this life than we should know,” he replied. John’s voice was low and steady, as if trying to coax a wild animal out of its den. Helen was not one to be lured. “Just leave this,” he said softly, “and come with me.”

“You don’t understand,” Helen replied firmly. “They were not monsters – what my father found. They were people born with anomalous conditions. There is so much to learn – how can I ignore it?”

They made their way back downstairs and seated themselves in Helen’s modest lounge room. The room was dim, lit by the hallway behind. The rain outside fell harder, pounding into the glass windows with such force that Helen could feel each drop pounding through the air. John edged forward beside her.

“Listen to me,” he eyed her sternly, cupping her tiny hands in his. “There is something higher than science –” she was about to groan, “and that is morality. Before every step ask yourself not, ‘is this progress’ but ‘is this right’. That is the mark of a true scientist, something your friends have yet to grasp. You have talent. Do not waste it on these digressions.”

“Hardly a digression,” she protested. “This is the work of lifetimes.”

“But not yours,” John’s hand moved to her cheek, tenderly stroking it. Amidst her vehement defence, a tear had slid down her cheek and was going cold when he brushed it away. “Find a better way to study them, these anomalous conditions. You are brilliant,” he grinned, and she finally smiled. “So prove it.”

Eventually she nodded.

“Will you help me?”

They stood up together. He let go of her and allowed himself to be led to the front door.

“Nothing would please me more,” he admitted, collecting his coat and stepping back out into the storm. He descended the first of the three steps from the door, levelling his height off so that he could stare directly at her. He lingered, a breath shy of her lips. Helen blushed and retreated into the house, ducking behind the door.

*~*~*

It was no easy thing to sell benevolence to the others…

“Absolute absurdity – the woman’s gone mad – women in general,” James had said, snapping his book shut before finally relinquishing it.

“We’re returning this one to the library,” Helen replied sternly.

Eventually they came around. Helen’s talents extended beyond science into the realm of persuasion. As for Nikola, he seemed content as long as they weren’t torturing frogs. They set a regular date to meet and explore the world of science beyond their lectures – every Thursday evening. The unnamed pig became a pet, saved from an unpleasant fate.

Helen set about organising the dormitory into a proper laboratory. She pilfered whatever she could from the old man in charge of the university’s supplies, stockpiling it along the walls of the dorm. The library suffered heavy losses with all of its lost books ending up safely piled in Nikola’s attic except for one casualty, sacrificed in the name of science or as Nikola often insisted, ‘a completely accidental accident’.

Their collective name also came about via accident. As they made their daily strut from the lunch rooms to the garden, one student set to calling, ‘them five!’ as they passed. They travelled in a pack now, and the name stuck. James tweaked it a bit of course, improving on its grammar.

‘The Five’ made them feel like they were part of something. They weren’t really but that didn’t matter.

Nikola’s opinion of Nigel improved, if only because he found the strange man particularly skilled at acquiring equipment. Honestly, Nikola had never had so much wire to play with which resulted in weekly direct hits to the building by cruising lightning storms. Helen had less luck with Nigel, choosing to keep out of his way. He made no secret of his dislike of her; often neglecting to greet her is she arrived in a group of flat insulting her intelligence at every opportunity. James and John – now there was a curious bond. They were never particularly fond of one another, but their intellects delighted in the challenge. Deconstructing the other was an entertainment that they could sustain happily for hours and whenever they got bored with that, they returned to their other favourite past time, a shared dislike of Nikola.

*~*~*

It was another late night. Helen was tucked into a chair, half asleep as she read through a stolen library journal. A loud ‘crash’ startled her when the front door flew open and her father hurried in, slamming and locking it behind him. Gregory Magnus went directly to his study where he collapsed into his chair and began furiously writing a letter.

Helen closed the book on her lap and crept to her father’s study. She hung in the doorway, watching him tilt a candle over the folded letter, letting its wax drip. He pushed a seal into it and sighed heavily, wiping his forehead with his sleeve.

Her father was filthy. His clothing had been torn and soaked in mud. There were scratches across his forehead, some of them bleeding, and a deep gash over his hand which he’d covered with a piece of fabric torn from his shirt. She could smell the remnants of a peat bog and an overpowering dose of kerosene in the air.

“Father,” she whispered, catching Gregory’s attention. He looked up at Helen as if he’d forgotten all about her existence.

“Helen – go to your room at once and lock the door,” he instructed. Gregory undid the lid on one of the crystal vessels containing scotch. He did not bother with a glass, swigging directly from the bottle. “Quickly!” he hurried her, when she failed to move.

Helen hadn’t seen her father in weeks and now he turned up, looking like he’d spent that time crawling through sewers.

“Why?” she asked, stepping into the room. Gregory would have none of this, flaring into a rage uncharacteristic of him.

“This is no time for, ‘why’!” he yelled, swiping the letter off the desk and burying it in his coat. “Do as I say and I’ll come back for you.” Gregory fled toward her, snatching the metal poker from beside the fire on his way. “I am sorry,” he said, calming enough to kiss his daughter on the head. “But you must hide. Promise you will do that for me. Take this,” he added, withdrawing a small package wrapped in damp brown paper and fastened with string. “Hide it. Keep it safe.”

There was a terror in his eyes that halted her questions. Helen simply nodded and let her father vanish back onto the streets, consumed by the night.

8

SECRETS, LIES AND STOLEN TRUTHS

Helen turned and took the corridor at a run, flinging the door to her bedroom open, not caring as it slammed against the wall. She held the mysterious parcel tightly as her eyes searched the room. Shelves, trunk, lamp-lit desk – all too obvious. Her heart pounded. She had never seen her father afraid before – fearful, yes, before any new experiment his eyes would widen, darken with the wonderful dread that the unknown provoked but tonight he had been truly afraid.

She caught the door as it bounced back and locked it, sliding down its surface until she hit the ground.

“Think…” she eyed the room until a smile flicked across her lips. Cedar drawers; well loved in this and their previous life. Helen crawled over to them, sliding the bottom one open. She buried the parcel deep in the back, concealed by veils of lace and garters where no self-respecting thief would dare follow.

Helen had intended to stay put – hidden safely away as her father had instructed, but as the seconds itched on she couldn’t bare it. Helen unlatched the door and returned to the foyer where she pulled a jacket from the hallstand and wrapped it around herself.

The trees, sparsely placed along the avenue, shivered. Their wet leaves glistened like a thousand mirrors to the moonlight until they broke loose and fell away just as fickly, blanketing the ground. A wind kicked over Helen as she dodged soggy newspapers, tumbling over each other. She stepped between the soft circles of light beneath each lamp post. Her father was ahead, paused at the crossroad, unable to choose between the cracked veneers of stone walls.

Few people had the courage to venture into the streets after dark. Thieves swarmed like rats over the city, driven to desperation by an uncompromising age of enterprise. Even Oxford, the city of dreaming spires, could not escape the modern age with its silent class, rippling through the evening, flickering and dying. Helen knew that she hovered only just beyond their reach, only a few pounds from poverty.

Gregory Magnus chose the side street on his left. Helen closed in, bringing herself to a stop at the corner where she found a shadow and sunk into it. Archways and barred windows leaned over the street, boxing her and her father into a tunnel. The public lighting ended halfway down the cobble stone road leaving a sweeping shadow cutting off the remainder from existence. Beyond that curtain of darkness lurked all kind of street creature. Gregory approached it, tentatively walking along the dark edge.

Helen stepped back, making sure that she was hidden as the forms of several men emerged out of the shadows in front of her father. First, they appeared as a series of ghostly faces but gradually they grew into a set of well dressed businessmen. Her father turned to face them, drifting backwards cautiously, drawing his company out into the light.

“Doctor,” said one of them in greeting, slinking ahead of the others. He was a tall man with a leg that threatened to buckle with every step. He leant heavily on his cane as he spoke, “Trying to escape?”

Gregory chuckled nervously, checking the buttons on his coat before wiping a smear of mud off his neck with a handkerchief. “Of course not,” he replied. “I was – was looking for you.”

The remainder of the ‘pack’ waited behind, never quite making it into view. Helen stretched herself along the wall, inching closer. She was able to make out most of the conversation even though all parties kept their voices hushed.

“I am curious to see what our money had bought,” the man continued.

“You lied to me,” Gregory pointed sharply, white handkerchief still in hand. “I have done some of my own research – run into a few old friends. The Cabal may be a private research organisation but you are also in partnership with one of the most evil businesses this side of the century.” A train rattled past in the distance, screeching to a halt at Oxford’s new station. “You think that people won’t learn what you’re doing? The money that you paid me was no better than blood.”

The man glanced down at the pavement, lowering his voice into a harsh drone that broke intermittently as if his veneer of civility was cracking with it. “Enough of this time wasting.” His eyes returned to Magnus. “Where are the samples?”

“I destroyed them.”

He laughed. “That is your plan, Doctor?” he sneered, with an air of disbelief. “Poorly execute a lie and then expect me to simply let you go? You are a man of science, Magnus. I know what that means. Those samples are too important to your personal agenda to simply destroy. If you hand them over now, I may even let you keep one – as a gesture of good faith for our future business dealings.”

“I already told you, I destroyed them. Our arrangement is finished.”

There was a subtle tap of his cane on the ground. The others jumped forward, taking Gregory by the arms. They flung him against one of the walls so hard that he groaned, jarring in pain. The man rubbed his face, tired of people who fought the inevitable. Progress didn’t pretend to be pretty – it was brutal.

“One more time, Doctor,”

This time, a curl lingered on Gregory’s lips as his weatherworn face grinned at the night. “You will never find them…” he whispered in defiance.

The man reached into his coat and brought out a gun, cocking it with a sinister click. Helen gasped loudly, covering her mouth too late to stop the noise reaching the huddle of gentlemen. They heard it, snapping their heads around to see a blonde woman hiding on the corner of the street, watching events unfold with more than a passing interest. Gregory saw her too and his heart sank.

“Bring her…” muttered the man.

Helen turned, hitched up her skirt, and bolted through the street, narrowly avoiding the hooves a a passing night-carriage which skidded to a halt behind her in a cloud of dust. The two men to follow navigated around the whining horse as it reared up.

“Whoa, whoa…” the coachman hushed, as the carriage tilted dangerously.

The park wall’s sandstone ripped her skirt as she half-jumped, half-fell over it, leaving tattered ends of lace flapping in the wind. Her pursuers cleared the wall easily, hitting the grass at a run as they searched and quickly found her not far ahead.

At night, the park was pitch black, protected by walls of trees keeping it well out of reach of the street lights. There were people moving about within it; lovers hiding away from the world, beggars curled up against the cold with animals stealing scraps from the grass beside them.

The ground was soft under her feet, and though Helen was a strong runner, her dress tangled and caught under her feet. Soon she was tumbling down a gentle hill with her arms flailing as wet mud coated her. She was headed for a shallow pond which lay under the only gap in the trees. A perfect reflection of the moon was disturbed by a drifting duck, leaving a wake behind its furry form.

Helen’s world was a blur of cold, pain and blackness until the men plucked her from the ground and held her until she could stand.

“A little ‘thank you’ would be nice,” said one of them, still panting. Helen was trying to scratch her way free of them, shouting to anyone who would listen. “Water that cold, you might be dead.”

They dragged her back to the alleyway where the leader had been prompting Gregory for information, as evidenced by the fresh bruises.

“Claim’s she’s a working girl…” they said in unison. Helen looked the part with filthy, torn clothes, and ratty hair limply blowing in the wind. Her father didn’t dare look at her.

“Bring her with us?” it was a question posed by one of the men that had stayed behind. His knuckles were red.

The leader waved them off. “She’s cheap.”

“So what do we do with her, leave her here?”

Helen averted her eyes as the leader left her father and hobbled toward her, leaning heavily on his stick. “What did you see, sweetie?” he asked her, suggestively.

“Nothin’,” Helen mumbled, wincing as the two beside her tightened their grip.

“We better be sure,” he whispered back, leaning over her. She didn’t see his free hand raised above her head, about to come down sharply.

“Wait,” Gregory pushed off from the wall, stumbling forwards. “Wait,” he repeated. “Let her go – I’ll get your samples back.”

“Back?” the tall man withdrew his hand and eyed Gregory curiously.

“I scattered them so that you would never be able to locate them should precisely this happen.”

“But, if I let this working girl go – you’ll get them for me? Why?”

“That is my business,” said Gregory. “I need two weeks.”

“You try my patience, Doctor. I’ll give you one week and if you don’t present with the samples you promised and we paid for, then our next meeting will be less pleasant.” The man flicked his eyes up and his company threw Helen unceremoniously to the ground.

*~*~*

Helen and Gregory sat opposite each other, staring across Magnus’s desk in silence for a long time. She realised now that the secrets she thought that she knew about her father were pitiful in comparison with the truth.

He had taken hold of his quill, running the white feather through his fingers in an endless pattern. Gregory had no idea how to begin an explanation for his actions – his entire life. He tried several times but none of these attempts reached beyond a small clearing of his throat.

The firelight flickered behind them. Helen could not take her eyes off of her father. She decided to approach the issue from the side, step carefully around elephant.

“The Cabal, they are a private research facility – research into what exactly?”

This is the conversation that Gregory had spent his life avoiding, ever since the death of his wife Patricia, all those years ago in South America. “I am not certain,” he replied. “Though I suspect their interests are similar to mine.”

“Which are…” he was being intentionally cryptic, and Helen was sick of all the secrets.

“Helen,” he replaced the beautiful quill in its holder. “You have tremendous potential as a scientist. The lecturers must agree, otherwise they would have chased you off long ago –”

Helen stood from her chair, pacing away from the table in frustration. Slowly she turned, approaching once again but this time with an expression somewhere between tears and desperation.

“You,” she started, placing her hands on the table, “are the most talented medical researcher I have ever known and yet you keep your most important work hidden from the world. From me.”

Gregory didn’t know how to respond. Somewhere along the way his daughter had grown up, changed from a little girl with a fascination of the world into a scientist as driven as him. Her questions had simmered for a decade and now they burnt their way past him. He looked away as she continued, unable to face her sharp eyes.

“If you truly believe that I have potential father,” Helen leant even closer, resolute in her plea, “please help me achieve it.”

He had sworn never to do this but he had never been able to refuse his daughter anything. She was intelligent, a little too much so for her own good. If he didn’t share with her his secrets, she would hunt them out anyway. Without guidance – Gregory shuddered to think what she could become.

Gregory took his daughter’s hand. He led her to the far back corner of his office to a door that she had never been through.

“The attic you know about by now,” he said plainly. “I admit, I let it happen but it is nothing but a storehouse for old notes and relatively benign research.”

Helen couldn’t explain why, but she felt betrayed.

“This,” he continued, as he unlocked the door revealing a staircase leading down to an underground level, “is the reason the university will no longer let me step inside its walls. Do you remember, when you were a small child the two men who came to visit me on your fourteenth birthday?”

“They were afraid of you,” said Helen. She remembered the argument.

He nodded. “Maybe. I told them that they had limited their imagination. In truth, I think it was their wallets whose limits I had reached. The board at the university could no longer endorse my research and so I was forced to look for financial assistance elsewhere. The Cabal offered me a grant that I could not turn down. There was no money, Helen. It was the only way that I could continue.”

“I still don’t understand what it was that was so terrible.”

Gregory led Helen down the stairs. She held a kerosene lantern in her hand, lighting the way for both of them. Her father switched keys and unlocked the final door but stopped shy of opening it. Helen thought she heard scratching and crying from behind the door, not unlike the sounds of James’s room that first night.

He handed her the key. “Once you enter this door, you are on a path that cannot be reversed.”

9

SANGUINE VAMPIRIS

Helen raised the lantern, extending it into the room. Yards of heavy fabric lined the walls, tacked on to the ceiling and left to hang all the way to the dusty floor. Occasionally there was an outcrop of shelves made of solid, dark wood. Some of them had fine-netted wire nailed across the compartment and locks through their handles. As she stepped toward them, she realised why; rat-like creatures scattered away from her light, huddling in the corners of the bookshelf amongst scraps of food.

She panned the lantern across the laboratory where it caught the edges of a table. It was a bare thing, lonely at the heart of the room. There were networks of grooves carved into it which led to a tin bucket on the ground where dark patterns of a mysterious liquid were layered in stains.

In the far corner, the light picked out a pair of golden eyes which opened slowly, staring back at her. Helen stepped closer, slipping from her father’s grasp. She had gone this far – Gregory could not stop her. All of his secrets were now hers to share.

Two curved horns, half a foot long, tapered into sharp summits. They protruded from scarlet fur, bunched tightly together in uneven tufts. Like a cat’s pelt, it had two layers – a harsh, needle-like exterior with yellow tips and a second, downy coat which kept the creature warm. Except – it wasn’t fur, but feathers.

Gregory lit two of the lamps hanging from the ceiling and the room flickered into light. Helen raised her hand to her mouth to cover a gasp. A pair of wings – fragile sheets of skin, were folded onto the creature’s back. She could see two enormous paws as big as tea-saucers which it used to rest its head on while a tail curled around its body, twitching as Gregory whispered thing to it.

Helen thought that it looked just like a –

“Dragon, yes,” Gregory whispered. “At least, that’s the conclusion I have come to. I found this poor thing four months ago while I was in London. It was, well, smaller then, but how could I leave it in alley? My guess is that it was dumped by a black market animal trader – they swarm around the Cabal, making their pickings on capturing and selling Abnormal creatures.”

“No,” she whispered, unable to get over the ‘dragon’ part of her father’s sentence.

“It is an Abnormal, Helen.” He took his daughter’s hand, resting beside her as she continued to watch the creature. It eventually grew bored of the intrusion, closing its golden eyes and returning to sleep. “The cornerstone of monster stories since man picked up a pen. This,” he pointed in particular at the dragon, “is a species of reptile yet sadly I do not know where to return it. I doubt that it was born in London’s streets… There are hundreds of creatures like him, hidden away or captured by agencies like the Cabal for private research. They – they torture them and destroy whatever’s left. I can’t keep him forever, though,” Gregory added, frowning as he lowered his eyes.

Helen read her father’s journals but this – this was beyond what she could have dreamed. Worlds were unlocking, secrets unravelling and she found her heart pounding against her lungs.

“Helen, the blood samples that I acquired are from an Abnormal that not even I believed could exist. I stumbled across them once, many years ago now and decided that they were too dangerous to approach again. Vrykolakas, strigoi,upír, impundulu, Sanguine Vampiris,” Gregory rolled the words, hushing them as if each syllable was fear enough. “Vampires…” he whispered to her, like a bedtime nightmare crawling into a corner.

“Their blood is one of the most powerful substances on Earth and the Cabal would like nothing better than to get their claws onto it. They paid me exceptionally well to collect samples. You, have one of them.”

Helen guessed it to be the mysterious package her father had left in her care earlier that night.

“I entrust you to study and learn from it in my absence, while I hide the remaining two where the Cabal will never find them. All of this,” he waved his arms over the room, “is in your care. Now, listen carefully, these are resourceful people. They are going to come looking for me after the week is up – but you are a woman, my daughter. Use that, feign frivolity, make them believe that you know nothing more than needlepoint and they will leave you alone.”

She nodded very slowly. That night, her father was gone. He left a half-dried bundle of petals, shrivelled but alive as they clung to the vine creeping out from the pot. The wild rose had suffered from its journey, but its tortured form perked as Helen drizzled water over it.

*~*~*

James and John were displeased with each other after a minor disagreement over the origin of Vampires.

The five of them had found themselves an abandoned corner of the library – the old side, of course, as it was James’s turn to pick a nook for their weekly discussion. He paced in small circles between the shelves, a book resting open in his hand as he read the lines of text aloud to his audience.

Helen was listening, but with an air of discontent. They were mocking her, all of them in their own subtle ways, ever since she had told them of her father’s research. Nikola was at her feet, apparently preferring the floor. He was asleep and snoring quietly with his head balanced uncomfortably between two encyclopaedias of ancient history.

It was John who took the greatest interest in James’s speech. He was reclined in one of the library chairs which they had stolen from the main room and stowed in their private corner. Over the hour, his feet had stretched out on top of the table allowing him to balance a book on his knees which he glanced at several times, awaiting his turn to rebuff James’s argument.

“And as softly thou art sleeping

To thee shall I come creeping

And thy life’s blood drain away.”

James was enjoying this, far more than was reasonable. He had always be a showman, albeit only to a select few. He traced the lines with an outstretched finger –

“And so shalt thou be trembling

For thus shall-”

“Really,” interrupted John, aware of the poem’s conclusion. “Is this appropriate, considering our company.” He deliberately kept his eye away from Helen, knowing that her frown had twisted into scowl. James ignored him.

“For thus shall I be kissing

And death’s threshold thou’ it be crossing

With fear, in my cold arms.”

The book snapped shut, waking Nikola.

“You get the general idea,” Watson laid the book on the table beside John. “And that, my dear John, is the beginning of the Vampire in Literature. Case closed.”

John sighed heavily.

“There are no such things as ‘vampires’ – except perhaps in farm boys’ drunkin’ stupors.” Nigel squeezed between two shelves with a fresh arm of books. “And perhaps your literature,” he conceded, handing James another book.

“I don’t know,” James inspected the man on the floor beside Helen, as Nikola yawned at the room. “Nikola’s pale enough to be one, especially with those sharp teeth he likes to flash.”

“Excuse me?” Nikola replied, sleepily. “Did I provoke you in some way?”

“Your existence provokes me.”

“Your reading bores me,” he retaliated.

“I agree with Nikola, for once,” John added, flipping through the pages of his own book. Stirring the room was the pastime he liked best.

“Enough. Enough. Enough.” Helen rolled her eyes and fell against the wall of books, sliding down it in defeat. She landed beside Nikola in a swirl of dust. He flinched in alarm, holding his breath.

James was not finished with Nikola yet. “I particularly enjoyed cruising through your latest work of poetry-” he said, slipping a scrap of crumpled paper from his coat. Nikola recognised it at once, and coughed in panic, stumbling to his feet – an action which failed as one of his legs had fallen asleep.

“My – what?” Nikola grunted as pain constricted his leg muscle, rendering him useless as James straightened the paper. “How did you – where did you get that from?”

“It was just lying on your floor last time you invited us to that spectacle of yours.” James’s finger still hurt, burnt by an ‘accidental’ passing of current which Nikola had spent hours making certain that it would do precisely that.

“That is private,” Nikola hissed.

James began to read. It was a scant few lines of scattered birds and thunder storms, beautiful enough in construction. Nikola clawed his way back to his feet, his cheeks reddening with every word falling from James’s lips.

He lunged once, but James dodged him easily. John threw his head back in a silent laugh, delight ripping the corners of his mouth into a broad smile. Nigel turned away. It wasn’t that he liked Tesla – more that he didn’t hate him.

“Fine,” Nikola’s voice wavered, his usual pride shaken. “Keep it.”

He left, sidling out between the rows of books and back into the main library where he finally vanished from their sight.

“Excellent,” Helen curled her knees up to her chest, pinning her skirt down beneath her arms. It billowed uncomfortably around her. “Look what the two of you have accomplished – not very clever considering neither can coax a current from a coil… You realise, Nikola was going to help you. He wrote up the notes on his motor, they were in his pocket.” Helen returned to her feet and collected her things from the table beside John. He shifted his feet as she approached. “Enjoy your spoils, gentlemen.”

Before leaving, she approached a stunned James and took the paper from between his fingers.

Nigel had kept quiet, his arms still laden with books. Often, especially at times like these, he liked to think of the other four as elements of nature – as strong in their opposition as their passion. They did not mix but could not keep apart either. It was an impossible system that would eventually destroy itself. Nigel could see that day approaching but he hindered its arrival as best he could by keeping the shaky peace.

*~*~*

Their way of apology was to entertain Helen’s ‘vampire’ tale as truth. Nigel’s idea.

“We’ll have to get a look at it,” James said, lowering his voice though the four of them were alone in the dormitory. “See if this sample really contains special properties.”

Helen had not forgiven them, but was nonetheless keen for their help.

“I won’t move it,” she replied. “The Cabal could be watching the house – you would have to come to it.”

“It is not as if you live in India,” smirked Nigel, hinting that the others should show more enthusiasm. They did, eventually acknowledging that they could probably meet in two day’s time.

“What about Nikola?” asked James, feeding the pig rooting around its box.

“I will speak with him,” said Helen sternly. “It’s been almost four hours; maybe he’ll have forgotten your joke.”

Helen doubted it, but she went to the hallway where Nikola’s attic lived anyway. The stairs were up, pulled well out of her reach.

“Nikola…” she called, loud enough for him to hear. It was afternoon and last classes of the day were drawing to their end. All but one room in his hallway was empty, and it was far enough away not to be troubled by her efforts to catch Nikola’s attention.

He didn’t respond, but she knew that he was up there.

“If you proceed with this, I will be forced to climb out the window and up into your room the hard way,” she threatened, casting her eye over the window to gauge whether it was possible to carry out the threat. To her amusement, it seemed that it was. A latch, not a lock, secured the window and when open, it would be big enough for her to scramble through.

“Nikola?” she tried again.

*~*~*

“Will he come?”

John was packing his things, preparing to leave. It was a decent ride to the inn which he was calling ‘home’ until the university approved his residency.

“Why are you asking me?” John paused, turning to Nigel. “I guess, Helen will probably convince him – she usually does. Tomorrow?” he changed the subject. “The meeting’s on the grass by the oak tree. I’m hoping for a fine day.”

*~*~*

She heard the footsteps first – light and quick across the ceiling. Helen turned as the hatch to the attic rattled, opening out into the hallway. A set of stairs slid down to her. She couldn’t see Nikola anywhere above. Usually, he waited for her with a smile, or outstretched hand beckoning her up.

Nikola was located by the window, brushing fragments of broken glass of the sill. He had been doing that for weeks, but there always seemed to be more of it.

“There you are,” she said, approaching cautiously.

10

CHILD OF THE STORM

The first soft flecks of rain hit Nikola’s cheeks, lingering for a moment on his pale skin before sliding along the contours of his face. They dripped onto the window sill as Helen paced slowly along the opposite wall, carefully unfurling the scrap of paper with Nikola’s poetry. She placed it on the floor beside his bed before making her way to the window.

“Leave…” he said coldly, staring out at the city. It was growing dark now. The thick clouds quickened the hours, sending Oxford into premature night. For once, he didn’t want the storm. His experiment was not ready, left as an unfinished heap of metal on the roof.

She was going to tell him that the others were sorry but there was little point – it was not true and he would certainly not believe it.

“I know that you need help,” she said instead, “and I already promised.”

Sometimes he hated her memory.

“It’s too late,” he said, staring at the swirling clouds. “The rain is here and next – the lightning.” If it attracted a stray shard of electricity before he could fix it, then there’d be a great smouldering mess on the roof to contend with.

“When did a little rain hurt anybody…” she smiled, crossing the room.

To his confusion and distress, Helen nudged him away from the window and quickly climbed out of it, ignoring Nikola’s protests.

“Helen!” he said, in distress, as she clung to the wooden joins and searched for three stones protruding from the building’s facade. She had seen him use them a dozen times to climb the short distance to the roof. The light drizzle was cold and made the rocks slippery but her grip was firm and in a flash, Nikola was left with an empty window. “Mad, mad woman,” he muttered, stepping onto the sill in pursuit, forgetting his anger.

*~*~*

“Hypothetically,” said Nigel, pulling another blanket around his back. Their room was always cold despite the dozen or so lamps they kept lit. “If this sample of blood really is what Helen says, how are we going to test it?”

James tapped the nib of his quill on the edge of the ink bottle. He was seated at a desk shoved unkindly against one of the walls near their beds, scratching out a late assignment.

“Really, Nigel,” he said, with a measured voice, “I didn’t think that I would need to remind you of Doctor Magnus’s reputation.”

“I don’t follow,” replied Nigel, even though he did. Tales of Helen’s father were colourful and abundant, but he was interested to know James’s take.

That was enough to distract James. He set the feather down and turned up the lamp next to him so that its flame flickered brightly.

“Doctor Magnus,” he began, with a theatrical air, “was head of the medical board here – until four years ago. He drove several colleagues to resign their post and a further to be transferred. Word was that his experiments made the money men squeamish – not an easy thing to accomplish. Officially, he retired into obscurity but a man of his standing and position should have been enjoying his glory years. No one in the industry would touch him after that. Most think that he lost his mind, myself included.”

“You’re a harsh judge of character. Still, I’m curious – hypothetically of course… Is it possible that there could be a shred of truth? Doctor Magnus may have been insane but Helen –”

James shrugged. “If this blood of hers is real, we would have to test it on a living thing.”

“Good luck getting that idea past John, he has a tight grip over Helen these days and Nikola will probably hurl again.”

“I thought that rats might be an acceptable halfway point to all parties.”

“Inject a rat with ‘vampire’ blood. Now there’s a notion for your fiction books.”

“You are enjoying this…” James couldn’t help but smile. Nigel rarely found pleasure in life, so to see his lip curl in wicked plotting was a welcome change. “I guess we shall find out.”

*~*~*

It was higher up that she had expected. The university’s roof sloped sharply and Helen found that she had to slip her hands between the terracotta tiles to steady herself against the wind as she worked her way toward a contraption of wire mounted on a relatively flat rise ahead.

Nikola had been right about the storm. From up here, she could clearly see it brewing over the city – churning into a dark mass of vapour. Every now and then it rumbled.

“Careful,” Nikola muttered behind her, scampering across the roof. He had done this a thousand times and navigated the slippery tiles easily.

“They just let you leave all of this up here?” she said, pointing at his experiment. Helen regretted letting go of the roof, stumbling before Nikola caught her hand and led her to the relative safety of the platform.

“Strictly? No…” he admitted. “But I think that one of the professors is curious so they let it go.”

“Our professor? Maybe he just wants a decent excuse to have you expelled,” she lifted an eyebrow curiously, as she stepped onto the platform with the experiment.

“I am undecided,” Nikola grinned. He handed her several wires and balanced a long antenna on her lap while he dug through his experiment, connecting bits of it. “You’re no help at all,” he said to her, when he tried to retrieve the antenna. Helen had the wires twisted around it in infinite loops which he struggled to undo.

Nikola worked frantically, with the rain getting heavier. She hadn’t meant to, but Helen found the sight of Nikola in a full suit, perched on the roof like a curious bird – dripping wet and tangled up in cords to be highly amusing, especially when he overbalanced. She stifled a giggle, dodging his glare as cold wind made the rain more unpleasant.

Soaked through, they finished setting the experiment. Helen and Nikola took a step back, staring for a moment at the fragile thing reaching up toward the crazy expanse of sky. It was hard not to feel the enormity of the world behind the city – to see civilisation as a small scramble on the landscape sheltering under a sky to which humanity could lay no claim.

“I see why,” she started, “you spend your time up here.”

*~*~*

James jolted, smearing ink over his page as the thunder continued to roll on outside their window.

“That was close,” he said. The walls of the building were vibrating softly, rippling with the thunder. “I don’t think that James is going to get his meeting outside tomorrow.”

“Must be a beautiful show,” Nigel pointed to the only window in their dormitory which remained blocked by cloth and wood. “A shame – I think I may go and watch the storm for a while.”

James shrugged, attempting to salvage the page. “As you please,” he said. “Would you mind,” he nodded at the pile of paper beside Nigel’s bed, “if I skimmed through your notes?”

*~*~*

Three rivers of light appeared from the cloud above and snaked their way in jagged steps toward the ground. Their light cut through the heavy rain as they intertwined, crossed each other and flashed several times in silence.

Nigel watched the shards of light, waiting for the inevitable lashing of air which always coupled the beauty. He held onto his notes tightly, not daring to leave them unattended in James’s company.

*~*~*

After the light, Helen could barely make out the dark lines of the roof. She blinked the rain from her eyes and turned to Nikola.

“Can you hear that?” he said, staring out into nowhere. Helen frowned, all she could hear was the rain lashing at their faces and the occasional gasp of thunder as the lightening approached. “That sound…” Nikola seemed lost to the world as he raised a hand up to the storm, moving it through the rain. He could hear hooves pounding into the wet earth – a distant cry as a horse rose up on a child.

“Nikola!” screamed Helen, as he tilted dangerously forward.

Nikola snapped out of the memory as another flash of light strangled the darkness from the sky.

“We should go,” he said, fearing that he had waited too long. The storm was here and they were still balanced precariously on the roof next to a lightning conductor.

*~*~*

Nigel was on the ground floor, pacing along the protected walkway of the eastern wing of the building. He thought he heard a woman’s voice cry over the thunder of the storm. Frowning, he edged toward one of the archways, leaning into the rain enough to see the opposing rooftop.

He saw two shadows make their way across the rooftop. They looked so fragile, scampering in the face of such a storm.

Helen and Nikola, it could be no-one else. Nigel shook his head as they neared the edge of the roof. Then, from nowhere, a stream of light ripped through the air and blinded him. Thunder, so heavy that Nigel felt his soul take shelter as it beat against his body. He dropped to the ground in a scatter of paper, holding his ears as the ground shook.

*~*~*

The tiles on the roof shattered beneath them. Helen fell first, grasping desperately as she began to slide toward the edge. The world was so bright – she could not see. The air splitting beside her was so violent that the end of all things may have only been a step behind. She couldn’t hear Nikola, falling behind her, his hands forgetting the roof and reaching only for her.

Suddenly there was nothing beneath her. The light vanished leaving only the violent reverberations and the sound of tiles plunging four stories to the ground, exploding on the pavement below.

Her body jerked as Nikola caught her arm. The sudden weight pulled him over the edge with her until he wedged his hand between the guttering and brought them to a stop. They hung there in the rain, swinging gently.

Out of a daze, Helen realised that she would soon hit the ground far below them. Nikola had caught onto her sleeve and fabric was stretching, beginning to rip away from its seams.

There was nothing Nikola could do except grimace through the pain as the sharp gutter edge cut into him.

The rain beat down harder as another wave of thunder brushed over them.

Helen tried to reach the wall with her other hand, but she was too far out to do anything but graze the cold rocks with her fingertips.

Now the gutter protested, snapping two of its bolts sending Helen and Nikola two feet closer to the ground. Nikola hung on, but Helen’s sleeve ripped open. She reached up with her other hand just before Nikola lost his grip.

There was blood trickling down Nikola’s wrist. Even with two hands, Helen could not hold on. Another gust of wind would be enough to knock her free.

“Nikola!” she shouted over the noise.

Nikola swallowed, feeling her slip further. “Helen…” he whispered, as she fell from his hold.

11

UNBREAKABLE

Nigel vaulted over the low stone wall and out into the storm leaving a volley of papers churning behind him.

Every echo of thunder made his body shudder as it continued to rumble in the sky above. The ancient gods were at each others’ throats, tossing bolts of light and snarling into the dark. He could hear their violence – the clashing of swords and procession of Grecian boots through the clouds.

The lawn was partly submerged and Nigel struggled to cross its muddy expanse. Once he stumbled, landing on his knees amidst a blur of water. That’s when he saw it again – a horrible image that he could not shake. Nigel grunted and made it back to his feet.  He pushed forward, heading toward the other wing of the building where he had seen a shadow fall.

He raised his arm against the weather, inhaling more water than air. Nigel couldn’t understand why the world moved so slowly or how it was possible to count the heartbeats out of step with his breath while the droplets of rain hesitated, lingering for a moment before striking his face. Whatever tempo the world was supposed to dance to, it had been offset since that lightning strike.

Nigel found her almost at once, laid awkwardly on the cement pathway surrounded by broken roof tiles. The sky flashed again and again, vanishing the world in an eerie light. Nigel paused, water streaming over his eyelashes. Helen’s blond hair had scattered around her head, glistening in the rain as if full of jewels. Beneath this carpet was a dark puddle, diluted by the rain into a general crimson aura.

She must be dead. It was all he could think. Her stillness held back his breath as he bent down to Helen and placed his fingers lightly beneath her chin.

He waited, ignoring another dart of light above as he searched for a faint glimmer of life.

“Oh gods…” Nigel startled, as Helen opened her lips and took a gasp of air. He whipped his hand away when her eyes slowly opened, staring blankly into the night.

“Nikola?” Helen whispered. Her vision was a muddle of indistinct forms but she could sense someone leaning over her, shaking.

“Nigel,” he corrected Helen, reaching behind her head. He wove his fingers through her blood stained hair until he cupped her skull gently and eased her off the ground with his other arm around her shoulders. He searched for the wound responsible for the bloody mess on the pavement but found nothing except an acute tenderness to his touch.

She flinched away from him.

“I feel – strange,” she said, as he forced her to sit.

“I am amazed that you feel anything at all,” he commented, glancing up at the roof of the university. It was a long way up to the damaged pipe, jutting out from the rest of the gutter. Beneath Helen was a sea of blood from a so far phantom wound. He had to get her somewhere safe and dry and inspect her more closely. A fall that large – there had to be repercussions.

“Wait,” she protested, as he lifted her from the ground. It was a struggle for Nigel. He had never been a strong man but in this he was determined. “Nikola…”

Nigel searched the dark walls of the university but the pathways were empty. “He’s not here,” he said, heading for the main gates where the occasional coach hurried past with a crash of hooves.

Helen turned her head, gazing over Nigel’s shoulder back at the silhouette of the building. There was no light in Nikola’s room. She remembered his hand, trembling with her weight as she swung from the building.

“He was…” she started, but Nigel had reached the road. He waved a one of the coaches over and bundled Helen inside of it.

*~*~*

He took her home.

Nigel set Helen onto one of the wooden chairs in the dining room and quickly fetched a basic medical kit from Doctor Magnus’s cupboard by the stairs. He returned to find her inspecting a ringlet of hair, curiously gazing at the red tinge that it had taken on.

“Let me,” he said, pulling a chair next to her. Nigel held a warm washer to her forehead, wiping the mixture of mud and blood off her porcelain complexion. For the first time, he noticed her beauty. He’d always thought of Helen, perhaps unfairly, as a vindictive woman manipulating men to her causes via her obvious charm. John thought that he was crazy, but Nigel held firm to his belief that there was a sinister edge to Lady Magnus. He often saw glimpses of it in the corners of her eyes when James slit his way through another test subject. She had even swayed the impersonal Tesla, coaxing some form of affection from him however reserved it might be.

Nigel wouldn’t go so far as to say that he was entranced by her, as the others were, but maybe he could admit to being just a little curious.

“How perplexing,” he said, running the washer down her neck following a trail of blood. “You appear to be unharmed.”

“Maybe it’s not my blood?” she offered, catching his hand as it dipped a touch too low on her neckline. She would never guess that it had been an honest accident.

“It’s yours all right,” Nigel discarded the cloth in the tray, “but search me as to how.”

They were both soaked and starting to feel the cold. Nigel was the first to rise, unbuttoning his coat as he headed to the fireplace. He busied himself lighting it, preferring to keep occupied as the awkward silence continued between them. Though they had spent many hours in each other’s company, they had never spoken alone and found themselves completely at a loss as to how to behave.

Finally, a flame flickered up through the logs and the first radiations of warmth spread into the room.

“You should change your clothes,” he mumbled at her. She nodded and vanished out the door. He heard her footsteps trail down the corridor until a door creaked open.

So this was the house of the great Robert Magnus? Nigel had already picked out several unusual ornaments hanging from the opposite wall. He hovered overed the fire, drying his shirt and pants until she returned to the dining room looking more like he was used to.

“Thank you,” she said, not taking that last step into the room, “for your help. I shall be fine now.”

“Helen, you are about as far from ‘fine’ as is possible.” Another silence. Nigel stifled a cough with his fist, turning back to the flames. His nose wanted to run, a curse from his childhood that led people to believe him perpetually in ill-health. “Now that I’m here,” he spoke to the fire, forcing Helen to venture into the room to understand him. “Would it be possible to see this mysterious sample of yours? I admit to being curious.”

Distraction – she welcomed it. “Certainly.”

Helen led him through her father’s office and down the stone steps to the basement. She caught him linger at the sight of the lab door, running his eyes over the solid planks of wood sealing its contents away from the world. They both held lanterns to the darkness as she unlocked the door and pushed it open.

The door revealed a black hole not unlike the gaping mouth of a cave. Nigel’s nose tweaked at the musty smell, heavily laden with mould spores. Helen dashed in front of him, wasting no time lighting several lanterns. The room now revealed certainly looked the part of a mad scientist’s den. As James had described Robert Magnus, this scene suited him well – mysterious curtains, hanging lamps and equipment he didn’t want to know about. He’d almost accepted this as quite respectable – until a creature in the corner of the room growled.

“Holy – you did not mention that,” he raised his lantern in the direction of the frightening creature.

“When I said, ‘Abnormal creatures’,” said Helen, with a smile he had seen used on unwitting victims of hers before, “what exactly did you think that I meant?”

She had him there. In truth, he’d never really taken her stories seriously. “Honestly Helen, what is that?”

Eventually Nigel got over the dragon – even daring to stroke its feathered coat. Finally Helen presented the sample of blood and even his untrained eyes could see that it was special with its silken liquid swirling gracefully, its colour more rich than pure ink and its viscosity something between mercury and honey.

“I – wanted to apologise,” he offered, brushing his fingers over the glass holding the sample. “We did not have the best start.”

Helen nodded, but did not offer an apology of her own.

*~*~*

It was late afternoon of the following day when three gentlemen met in a dormitory, exhausted.

“Did you find him?” said John to the others, holding his side. It pained from running circles around the hundreds of intertwined corridors, ducking into every door in search of the missing man.

James and Nigel shook their heads, equally dishevelled.

“He’s not here,” James folded his arms, “or if he is, he’s lost a good deal of weight. I asked everyone I could find. Granted,” his hidden hand couldn’t help but dip into his coat pocket where a small gold watch nestled. “Most of them had no idea who Nikola was in the first instance…”

“I called him the ‘mad one’,” quipped Nigel. “Mostly they just shrugged. If they did see him, they apparently don’t remember. It’s like he’s completely invisible to other humans.”

“I think that we should try to take this seriously…” James frowned in Nigel’s direction.

“What is there to do?” Nigel retaliated. “He is gone and short of searching all of Oxfordshire –”

“Helen’s not going to be happy,” John sighed, interrupting Nigel. “We’ll never hear the peace of it if he doesn’t show tonight.”

*~*~*

John arrived at Helen’s door first, just on the edge of dusk. The streets were full of business men making their way home from work and small children frisking pockets with nimble hands. The gas-lighters had started their rounds, cruising between the lamp posts with a taper as the smoke of the factories sank back to the earth, tarnishing Oxford’s air with a bitter taste.

The city’s forest of spires prodded at the darkening sky. Their sandstone had blackened in the relentless weather which chose to rain most of the time making them appear sinister against the skyline.

“Did you find him?” was Helen’s first question, as she let John step past her into the house. He shook his head.

“Helen, I am sure that he is fine,” he tried to reassure her.

“You clearly don’t know Nikola,” she replied sharply. “He is never fine.”

“Tomorrow I will speak with the university heads myself if he does not arrive within the hour.”

She seemed to be satisfied with this – for the moment.

“Helen,” he reached down for her hand, which he took gently in his own. “There was something that I have been meaning to discuss with you…” he trailed off, glancing nervously at the floor rather than her confused expression. “Before all of this.”

His skin warming beneath her palm distracted her from John’s words. She found it difficult to focus on anything other than the slightest movement of his fingers and his quickening pulse.

“When I heard about what happened yesterday – I – I realised something – important that,” he ventured a glance at her, regretting it almost immediately as his throat closed over. He coughed, swallowed and tried to continue. “And my timing is – well – regrettable but – James?”

Mr Watson strolled into Helen’s foyer with an air of importance. He had changed his waistcoat, apparently reverting back to his wealthy upbringing outside the university walls. This particular item of clothing was a luxurious shade of red, edged in golden thread.

His sudden arrival caused Helen and John to part, retreating to opposing walls of the entrance hallway.

James tipped his hat at them before removing it entirely.

“Afternoon,” he said in greeting – fully aware that he had just disturbed the pair. “Nigel will be here shortly. Are you certain that you are well?” James tilted his head slightly at Helen. She was paler than usual except for a bright flash of pink through her cheeks.

“Not you as well,” she turned away. “Honestly, I am surrounded by three old women.”

“Only two at the present,” James winked.

12

RATS TO THE SLAUGHTER

They waited the full hour but Nikola did not show. With the evening well underway and the moon striding above the city, the four young scientists descended the stairs to the underground laboratory.

Settled into various locations around the room – John by the door, Nigel knelt beside the dragon, James in front of the wire-faced bookshelves and Helen leaning on the central table – James theatrically spread his arms as if introducing some great Shakespearean work to his audience.

“I give you,” he bowed low, to the others’ amusement, “Exhibit A.” James Watson lifted the lid of the heavy wooden box by his feet. His surprise was a collection of furry creatures running from wall to wall of the box in a messy clamber.

“Rats…” Helen eyed James warily, leaning over the box with her mouth turned down in repulsion. “You brought me rats?”

James did not understand her dejected tone until Helen held a light to the shelves beside them where five well fed rats, significantly higher in class, were busy devising their escape. He merely waved her off and said, “The more the merrier.”

He rounded hers into his box and placed them on the experiment table. The scratching and squeaking intensified until John had his doubts that the box would hold.

“I still don’t like this,” muttered John, watching Nigel prepare the metal needles and Helen walk the sample of blood over. James dipped the needle carefully into the enticing liquid, slowly drawing it up.

“Rats are a menace,” said James, tapping the shaft of the needle, “the city will be well rid of them.”

There was a rose leaning over the lips of a vase, slowly dying in the softly lit laboratory. It had dropped several petals on the main table but its perfume remained heavy, sweet and intoxicating. It masked the sour smell of the air and had not been there the last time Nigel had called.

John smiled at the wild rose, admiring its fragile and fading beauty. He wanted to hold the delicate thing in his hands but he knew that the slightest touch would destroy it.

Nigel held the squirming rat securely in his hands. It lashed out at him with sharp teeth and knife-like claws, but he expertly clamped down, rendering it still as James pierced its side. The creature screeched unhappily, kicking its toes as James injected a small amount of the source blood into it. Once finished, Nigel carried the rat to an empty compartment on the bookshelf and locked it inside.

The four scientists closed in, observing the shocked creature for several minutes. To their surprise, the rat did nothing – absolutely nothing of interest except clean its ear with a flexible paw.

“That was anti-climatic,” remarked Watson, still brandishing a full needle of blood. “Shall we do the others?”

“Of course,” replied Helen. “One subject is hardly a balanced test. We shall do them all.”

John closed his eyes and rested back against the closed door. He heard them repeat the process again and again with all seven remaining rats and set them in the cage together. When John finally roamed over to the others, he found the rats seated quietly on their back legs, sniffing the air.

“Those are the most docile rats I have ever seen,” he said, staring through the wire. The rats didn’t even notice him trace his hands over their enclosure or feel his warm breath on the air. “Are they in shock?”

“Quite possibly,” said James, handing the empty needle to Nigel who wiped it, wrapped it in cloth and tucked it back in the medical bag.

“Give it time,” Nigel said, joining them. “When we administer medication to animals on my parent’s property it can take up to – did you hear that?”

The others looked at him curiously.

“Hear what?” queried Helen. Her blond hair was hitched out of the way, fastened by dozens of soft metal pins. Every now and then the lamp light caught one, making it flicker.

“Could have sworn I heard some kind of banging.”

It dawned on them as a collective.

“The Cabal?” whispered John, as Helen moved toward the door.

“They watch the house,” replied Helen. “A man in a brown suit, topper and cane stands at the corner in the mornings and late afternoon.”

“Was he there today?” John handed her one of the lanterns.

She shook her head. “No, I thought that it was strange.”

“Let us go,” said James, hinting at John and Nigel. “Perhaps they won’t be so bold.”

“Absolutely not,” she said sternly. “The last thing that I need is to cast suspicion on myself by entertaining three men at this late hour.”

“Very well,” said John, “but we will accompany you to the door all the same.”

*~*~*

Helen waved the shadowy figure she assumed was Nigel off as she approached the tortured surface of the front door. She could see the others, scattered in dark corners ready to pounce on her command.

The door knocked again. It was urgent – demanding and not what she had expected of the Cabal whose figures had always been imposing statues.

She took a breath, holding it in her chest as she unlatched the door and drew it open a crack.

Although the night was clear and the rain of late banished to the edge of the horizon, the first thing that Helen heard upon opening the door was the steady drip of water. She stepped to the side, opening it further to reveal a man shivering in her doorway.

“So,” he started, his voice shaken, “it is true then.”

He had seen her eyes still and glazed, covered in a layer of mist – her hair about her face mingling with flows of blood as she lay there. The sight of her, shattered on the pavement below him amongst the ruined tiles was one that he could not move. Helen Magnus had been dead. He had seen it, felt it – mourned it and, until this point, believed it.

“Nikola…” she said, but he avoided her hand, edging away. “You look as if you have drowned,” Helen observed his state. “We have been so worried, Nikola, where have you been?”

Nikola did not wish to talk about his whereabouts. What he wanted was a very particular answer from the woman glancing nervously behind her at the house.

“I know what I saw,” he said softly.

“We,” she stared, stammering as movement stirred in the house. “We shall talk later, I swear.”

*~*~*

After, Nikola was ushered in and offered a change of clothes – which he naturally declined. Nearly against his will, he was herded to the basement. James managed a vicious aside, sprouting something about ‘wandering souls causing trouble’ to which Nikola darkened his offended temper.

“I take it that I have missed the show,” said Tesla, observing the empty table with Nigel’s bag already packed and stained brown in patches.

“The opening act, perhaps,” replied Nigel, waving Nikola over to the ‘bookshelves’ where the four of them had assembled. “Oh dear…” he sighed, upon arriving. At the edges of the cage were two suspiciously still furry bodies, feet-side up with their mouths left agape from a final breath. “We lost two – not that I can say I’m surprised. They were scrawny things to begin with.”

Though he was positive that Nigel had just insulted his choice of test subjects, James kept quiet and instead observed that there was a drizzle of blood on both the deceased rats’ noses. He deduced, therefore, the cause to be internal bleeding from one or multiple organ failure.

“And what of the others?” Helen asked.

James shrugged. “They seem fine at the present. That one,” he pointed at the rat huddled in the far corner, scratching feverishly at something, “is a bit rabid for my liking.”

“I don’t know,” said John, tapping on the wire near a particularly docile rat. It was plump, seated and staring off into space. “This one looks about ready to depart from life.” It did not bother to flinch as John proceeded to rap beside it. The creature’s beady eyes gazed up at the soft lamplight beyond its bars, considering the world it had never noticed before and reflecting on its captivity.

Nikola refused to come any closer being generally repulsed by rats and all other creatures of the gutter. He did, however, notice the gentle tickle of hairs lifting from the back of his hand, standing erect. Static electricity he mused, though he could not determine its source.

Suddenly there was a snap and coruscation near the edge of the wire where Helen and James were leaning in close. They both jumped back, as did the rat which had grazed the wire with its claws and caused a serious spark of electricity to erupt.

The rat was as shocked as the humans. The action itself had not hurt but it had certainly been frightened by the loud crack.

This time, Nikola rudely parted his way through the others and folded his lofty figure over to bring his eye in line with the rat. It was not fat as John had assumed, but rather ruffled. All of its wiry hairs were sticking out making it appear like a pompom with teeth and a tail.

“Do it again…” he goaded the rat, which to everybody’s surprise seemed drawn to Nikola’s keen eyes.

Slowly, its paws hopped closer – stopping all the time to sniff the air and shake its whiskers.

“What are you doing, Nikola?” asked Helen, bending down beside him.

“An experiment of my own,” he replied. “Here we go…”

Again, the rat touched the wire mesh producing a violent spark of electricity. This time it squeaked angrily, and retreated back beside the two dead rats where it set about cleaning itself.

“Well,” observed James, “it certainly wasn’t doing that before…”

“Incredible…” said Helen. “The source blood must have – I don’t even know how, allowed it to – Nikola, could you help?”

“I am not a naturalist,” he said frankly. “Though I can only presume that it is drawing on the natural potential difference between the ground and air and converting that into static potential energy.”

“But what Helen asked was how,” John grinned menacingly.

“Perhaps you would be so kind as to take a stab yourself … or is your position in this group merely ornamental?”

“Not to interrupt,” said Nigel, “but that rabid one of yours James, is getting rather close to – oh!”

They all watched on in horror as the rat in question flexed its claws, creeping up behind one of the ordinary rats and then, without warning or hesitation, leapt on top of it, sinking its teeth hungrily into its kin’s neck.

“That’s horrible!” Helen held a hand over her mouth as the rat drew blood, crushing its victim with powerful jaws and unusually sharp teeth. Its eyes were jet black orbs, enlarged as if someone had cut a planet in half and stuck them in place between the fur.

The victim rat expired. Its final kicks died silently while its plight went unnoticed by all but the blasé rat which backed away when the murderous gaze of the rabid one fell upon it.

“Christ,” said Nigel, “did you see that? Ferocious furry bastard. Sorry, Helen…” he apologised, for swearing in the presence of a lady.

“Amazing –” began James, but he was interrupted.

“Not my first choice of words,” John said, as the violent rat set its eyes on the electrically charged one.

“Well, if you would allow me to finish,” he turned away and roamed over to the experiment table as if in some kind of enlightened trance. “Amazing how it displayed characteristics reminiscent of rumoured vampirial behaviour. We can only assume that there is some truth in the myths and that, more importantly, this is indeed a pure sample of vampire blood.”

“Two results,” said Helen, “two deaths, one uncertain and three nil results, then.”

“No…” James pointed at one of the previously unnoticed rats. “Not uncertain. I don’t know what it is but this specimen has changed.”

“So what do you think?” Helen joined Watson at the table. She laid a hand on the satchel of equipment, stroking the leather suggestively.

“I’m in…” James could hardly contain his grin.

“In what?” Nikola shifted his gaze between the pair, trying to make them out as they began to pace around the table.

“Helen, you cannot be serious,” John came up behind her, reaching for her hand. “See sense.”

“My decision, whatever it may be,” shot Helen coldly, “does not require your consort.” Her interest returned to James, “The possibilities are wondrous.”

“Excuse me,” Nikola began to pace from person to person, “what are we discussing?”

“Helen has a point,” admitted Nigel. “What we have just discovered, it is an opportunity that may well pass us by in a hurry. With the Cabal due on your doorstep,” he turned to Helen, “we are not guaranteed possession of this sample indefinitely.”

“I do not want to spend my whole life wondering…” James carefully picked up the vial of source blood, holding it to one of the hanging lanterns. A thing this beautiful had to be dangerous but there was more to its silken liquid than horror, he was sure of it.

John’s temper rose. “This might be your whole life,” he pleaded with her, “if we get this wrong. It would be unwise to make our judgment in haste.”

“Judgment on what?” Nikola slammed his fist down on the table, causing the vase with the rose to shudder and fall, crashing to its demise in a storm of petals.

13

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Three of the petals skimmed off the edge of the table, caught in a swirling current of air and then, after several graceful tumbles, they were laid to rest on the dusty floorboards.

Helen and James’s shoulder’s brushed. They stood united in feverish curiosity. The source blood had ensnared them with promises. It was a trap carefully laid with delicate snares that shuddered every time their eyes wandered in its direction.

James tilted the vial. He watched as the blood moved in luscious currents. Inside he saw a shimmering universe of stars, hidden places and secrets yet missed the darkness which crept out of sight.

While James’s motivations may have run to his physical advancement, Helen sought only knowledge. She wanted to know how far the human blueprint could be pushed – where the boundary between us and the beasts lay – why she was different and if, as her father had hinted, this blood posed a cure for her condition.

“They are going to experiment on themselves,” said John, pulling away from Helen. He was deeply disappointed in her lack of self restraint. Maybe he was foolish, but he had believed her to be different from the others.

Nikola’s face faded even further to a shade approaching pearl.

“That’s right, isn’t it?” John directed his accusation at Nigel, who looked away and muttered something that sounded like, ‘yes’.

John waited for Nikola to break into objection – dissolve into one of his fits of logic declaring Helen and James to be insane. Instead, Nikola clasped his hands behind him, catching his damp cloak so that its violet silken lining quivered elusively in the candle-light.

“Why?” Nikola asked calmly, as if inquiring on the nature of two chemicals reacting.

“What kind of a question is that?” snapped John fiercely.

“A valid one,” replied Nikola in a sudden sharpness, “which was not directed to you.”

“If we go around calling ourselves ‘The Five’, pretending to be a unified group, secret society or whatever it is we’re calling ourselves this time, then the question was directed at the room.” John raised his finger accusingly in Nikola’s direction. “The proposal is preposterous! Inject ourselves with something rumoured to be the most dangerous substance on earth – after watching several of the test subjects die and another turn murderous? No – it should not be done. We make fools out of ourselves, not scientists. The sacrifice,” he looked especially at Helen, desperately seeking for the woman he remembered from the park in her cold blue eyes, “is too great.”

“Everyone makes sacrifices for their profession,” said Nikola simply, sensing that Helen had begun to sway to John’s passionate words. When it came down to it, that was all the man was – one of words. John had never had any scientific credit in the group. He was always the organiser, liaison or walking map to the various towns he had travelled through. His contacts had been useful but now he was beginning to see the other side of science and its practitioners – the side that stood on the cusp of white cliffs, pondering the fall.

“Your coat is a beautiful weave,” Nikola observed. “Tell me, do you often think of those who cowered in the half-light, spinning its cotton into delicate patterns before giving out their breath?”

“To know…” said Helen simply, in reply to Nikola’s question. Her answer was elegant but true – the answer that she should have given him the first time he had asked her about her work.

“And you – Nigel?” Nikola was not surprised when he reluctantly agreed with Helen. Nigel always sided with the majority, like a swing voter trying to not to get swept away by a rip tide. “Then we are in agreement?”

Four of them nodded but the fifth shook his head angrily. “Certainly we are not!” shouted John.

“You want to know about Flash,” said James, highly amused by the way Nikola had been courted by the biological sciences. ‘Flash’ was the name he had decided to give to the electrically charted rat. “Morality is not a question you care to consider, then. You prefer old fashion intrigue.”

“Begging your pardon, but my morality is in a better stead than yours at the present.”

James frowned. Nikola couldn’t possibly know about… James’s eyes searched Nikola’s but he would have had more luck with a lump of coal. No-one had seen him leave those nights, escaping over the university lawn in the soft moonlight except perhaps for Nikola, whose window faced the gates and – and James had to admit that it was possible.

“And yes,” Nikola finished, “naturally the behaviour of the rats intrigues me. I consider it my duty to discover the unknown,” smiled Tesla, “and I suspect that Helen would proceed with this experiment whether we were present or not, gentlemen.” He was right, she would have. “Which leaves us little choice.”

*~*~*

“The rats?” Nigel asked, as he unwrapped his medical bag once again and prepped the equipment.

“No change,” replied James, who had isolated the vampire rat and was now watching it tear at the bars. It was a feisty thing. The others were disturbed by its constant, high-pitched squealing and gnashing of its teeth over every surface.

“Not here…” said Helen suddenly, stopping Nigel. “Hidden away like this, it is not a fitting setting for what we are about to undertake.”

“She doesn’t want to die in a cellar,” winked Nigel. “Not classy enough for the lady. Where then?”

They settled on the lounge room. James arranged the chairs, Helen lit the lamps, Nigel prepared the equipment, Nikola drew all the heavy drapes shut against the night and checked the locks on the windows while John made a nuisance of himself, sulking in one of the lounges.

Helen strode through the room. Her ornate dress dragged behind her, shifting the dust while her golden hair trailed down her back in soft ringlets, some of which had been messily pulled out of the way. All of them watched as she took her place on the chair. Her breath quickened, rising and falling with her chest as hear heart thrust her own blood faster.

She heard the scratch of material on the chair’s back as John knelt beside her. He had not said a word to her since the decision, instead choosing to bow his head so that his face hid beneath several stray strands of hair.

“What are you doing?” inquired Nigel, as Nikola paced over and relieved him of the needle.

“Forgive me,” he said, “but if anyone’s going to be injecting this into Helen, it is to be me.”

“But…”

“We can’t very well let John do it as he would likely waste the blood to vex us,” Nikola was satisfied when John’s head snapped up in scorn. “There’s a strong possibility that James would splay Helen’s arm for entertainment and you, I apologise for saying, have a heavy hand. No – I shall do this and that is the end of it.”

By the light, Nikola drew the heavy needle from the vial, twisting it slowly in his fingers. It brimmed with blood. A spare droplet formed on the needle’s sharp, metallic tip, fattening until gravity tugged it free. He turned slowly with the needle held aloft. The room had grown silent. As he moved slowly toward Helen, the sound of his shoes over the floor seemed to pound in their ears. Nigel shifted behind her chair, hawking the experiment eagerly.

She was frightened.

“And fury shall become us,” said James, “knowledge, burn us and the world scorn us for the truth.” He moved respectively out of Nikola’s way as if he were carrying a newborn rather than a syringe.

“It’s ready,” said Nikola, coming to rest beside her. She stopped her breath entirely, desperate to appear calm. The colour in her face betrayed her to the others.

“You don’t have to go first,” Nigel offered. It was, after all, strange to let the woman place herself in danger ahead of the men, of which there was a considerable number present. “John or I could have a go to start…”

John lifted his eyes disapprovingly as he was yet to decide upon his own fate. Still, he would allow himself to go first if it would save Helen.

“He’s right,” said James, “no need for unnecessary heroics. The side effects are completely unknown.” In humans, at least.

“Thank you gentlemen,” she finally took a breath. Her voice remained steady as she spoke, “But this experiment was of my design. I should be the one to prove its worth.”

“Helen,” John took her hand urgently. “You are certain?”

“We’ve risked too much to turn back now. We need to know. You may precede, Nikola.” She looked down and took another breath as Nikola ran his finger over her arm, nudging her sleeve out of the way. The pit of her arm trembled as the needle poised above her naked skin and his thumb slipped into position, resting on the plunger.

She could feel his heartbeat through their touching skin. It was raging, tumbling blood around his limbs but apparently not into the hand that refused to move. Nikola’s eyes flicked up. They were large and clear, giving her this final, silent chance to withdraw. He waited but she held her gaze fiercely.

Nikola slowly lowered his eyes to her arm and, with a hesitation of his own, brought the needle to her skin.

Nikola did not wait. Immediately he pushed it through her skin and began to expel the blood. Helen flinched. It was freezing – like icewater flowing into her – seeping through her veins as Nikola’s thumb pushed down determinatively on the plunger. As soon as he was done, her body shook. A sharp pain pulled her arm muscles tight and she heaved in shock, reaching blindly for Nikola and John’s hands. They both held onto her as the muscle contractions worsened and she fought to keep the pain at bay.

Nigel shifted, unclasping his hands and circling round the chair and over to his bag where he hunted through it. James did not move, instead he committed every detail of her reaction to memory. Nikola hastened a glance at John, both were lost for action as the pain turned to agony too extreme for Helen to bear.

“We’ve got to make it stop,” said John, as Nikola threw the needle to the ground and placed his other hand behind Helen’s back, forcing her forwards. “What are you doing?”

“She cannot breathe,” he replied. “Help me…” his elegant fingers had begun unlacing the back of her corset. John tried to protest but Nikola raised his voice angrily, “She’s dying, Druitt!”

“Here,” James pushed through them and set about undoing the thousands of layers of ribbon with more skill than the others would give him credit for. He muttered halfway through about the absurdity of female attire until the bodice loosened and Helen gasped. “She looks better,” he said, when Helen’s breathing settled.

“Are you all right?” John lifted a hand to her face. She nodded.

“The pain is stopping,” she said. “Ah –” she closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on what she was feeling, “slight tingling in my arm and it was cold, very cold…”

“Metallic,” whispered Nigel. “Look at the way it glistens in the light.” He pushed the vial of blood aside next to the smelling salts which he had unnecessarily excavated.

“I am fine,” she let go of both men by her side. “It was just a shock. Well…” she flicked her hair back over her shoulder. “Who’s next?”

Nikola’s head fell into his hands as he collapsed to the ground beside the chair in relief. “A moment, please,” he begged her, as he leant against the chair.

“I shall go next,” James volunteered himself. “If you please, Nikola…” he pestered the man on the ground.

The others followed in quick succession, with John falling last – still muttering his disapproval as the needle sank through his skin. Their reactions were all the same – nothing. Aside from the initial prick, the four men had no supplementary side-effects to the injection. Much like the rats, they stood dumbly, inspecting their arms for irritation but found nothing except a small hole.

“That’s it then,” said James. “Whatever is done is done.”

“Now we must wait,” said Helen quietly. She still felt uneasy – ill even.

“We will stay with you tonight,” said John, and the others quickly agreed – as much for their own sakes as for her. Nobody wanted to be alone, for fear of what they had done and what they might become.

14

THE INVISIBLE MAN

“Urgh…” Nigel stumbled, dropping the books tucked under his arm as a sharp pain stabbed through his gut. It lasted for several minutes, pounding in ever-increasing waves. “Damn…” he whispered, kneeling down for his books once it had passed. Briefly, he wondered if it had been his ill-looking lunch but soon the dread sunk in and he realised the horrifying truth.

“Oh, it’s you – not a very polite entrance,” James commented, returning to his book as Nigel took his seat in one of the abandoned chairs. The screech of its wood over the floorboards was still busy reverberating off the tightly packed bookshelves when Nigel swallowed and rubbed his forehead.

“There’s something wrong with me,” said Nigel hurriedly, as his stomach turned again. “Are you listening to me?” he added, when James continued pacing disinterestedly, stopping only to pull another book free.

“I heard you,” he replied serenely, “I am only surprised by the length of time it took for you to reach this conclusion.”

“This is no time for jokes,” Nigel leapt up and snatched ‘Rights of Man’ from him. “I think I’m in serious trouble,” he added solemnly, “and I don’t know what to do.”

*~*~*

“They’ve been no more fatalities,” whispered Helen under her breath to her neighbour, as the lecturer scratched various instructions on the board for them to copy. James, who had never sat in the second row before, shifted uncomfortably. “However…”

“‘However’ is not good,” he replied, knocking his quill from the inkpot. “Great god…” he grabbed for it and then promptly shifted out of the way of the ensuing ink trail. “Would you mind moving up a little?”

The lecturer cleared his throat, scratching the chalk harder on the board as the students re-arranged themselves noisily.

“You’ve got it everywhere,” scorned Helen, as she inspected the black stains on her fingers.

“There are reasons why I sit alone,” he admitted. “The rats though, they are all still alive?”

“Yes,” she nodded, and then paused. “Except for the one that’s missing. Its health you’ll have to guess on.”

James mouthed, ‘escaped’ as Helen went on to explain that one of the rats had levered open the bars with a spare scrap of wood allowing a mass exodus. She had rounded them up by hand with John’s help but one of them could not be found.

“That’s not encouraging, on both accounts.”

“It scratched the floor of its cage up for the wood. I may not claim a great deal of knowledge on vermin behaviour, but it does seem out of the ordinary.”

James’s face twisted into discontent. He leant against the sloped desk, propping up his head with one arm. “And the macabre one?”

“Isolated,” she rolled her eyes and made a brief effort to copy the board’s notes. “Though it hasn’t touched its food. Why all these questions? You’re usually difficult to coax into speech.”

“Nigel…” he lowered his voice, doing his best to evade the pair eavesdropping from behind. “He didn’t feel well so I had a friend of mine examine him and they found a small lump growing in the left of his stomach.”

This time the lecturer did not attempt subtly. In an elegant sequence, he snapped his chalk in two and threw both pieces at James and Helen. The first they knew of this was the sharp impacts and white marks left on their foreheads.

“If you’re not going to listen,” he said to them, “at least keep yourselves to a hush.”

*~*~*

“Don’t move…” Nikola instructed.

Against her usually rebellious tendency, Helen froze at the top of the ladder. Nikola rarely joked and she had cause to fear his experiments. This particular contraption had all the marks of sinister device with its wiry limbs trailing onto the floor beside him and one particularly thick wire stretched between two structures like a bridge.

“Watching?” he asked her, without turning around or stopping his fiddling. Her silence was taken in the affirmative. “There’s a switch on the floor beside you, would you be so kind?”

Helen, still perched on the ladder, reached forward to the switch and flicked it. A snap of light gave way to an explosion of sparks. Nikola’s hands were caught on a live circuit which pushed raw current into him at such a rate that he couldn’t feel the pain. He jolted, shook and then fell backwards when Helen finally turned the switch off.

The blackened skeleton of the experiment smoked innocently as Nikola rolled over with a groan.

“I – never – said,” Nikola gasped between waves of muscle spasms, “to turn – it – on… argh!” he held his hands up for inspection. They were intact but lightly burnt around the tips.

“You need to be more specific!” Helen climbed into the attic. She swept the cords away from him as he sat up. The usually immaculate man was in quite a state with his mop of dark hair stuck out in a dark halo, black smudges of carbon highlighting his strong features making his eyes more clear than she recalled and he had acquired a slightly burnt smell to his person. “A right state…” she said, trying to clean him up. He merely removed a pristine handkerchief from his pocket and saw to it himself.

“That was a little too exciting for my liking,” he said, shaking off the incident. “Twenty kilo-amperes and I lived, that must be a record of some form.”

Helen shook her head in disbelief. Near death incidents seemed to be a frequent occurrence when in his presence. “I’ve come about Nigel,” she started, helping him to his feet.

He seemed surprised. “Oh,” he let go of her, “I presumed it was about that other matter. I have not forgotten your promised explanation, you see.” Indeed, Nikola did not forget anything that passed through Helen’s lips whether he desired to or not.

The roof, her fall – the thunderstorm. Yes, she did owe him an explanation. “It will have to wait,” she said, slinking over to the window which was still without its glass. “You really must see to this,” she added quietly, before giving the details of Nigel’s condition.

“No…” Helen caught him, before Nikola could speak again, “he’s not imagining it. I am aware of his tendency to accentuate his many varied medical conditions, but James had him inspected and there is a definite growth.”

“Nearly overnight…” Nikola said, slipping into deep thought. “There are creatures,” he started after a period of pacing from end to end of the room, “that have extra organs. A correspondent of mine has a certain interest in natural science. She has sent me several detailed drawings of –”

“She?” Helen raised an eyebrow curiously.

Nikola ignored her. “We know that these vampires or whatever you wish to call them, possessed abilities beyond our human grasp. It is natural then, that their internal structure may differ from our own.”

Helen turned her head and eyed Nikola keenly. A spark of truth flashed over her and she pointed in his direction, “You’re good…” she said, “exceptionally so.” Then she rushed past him, disturbing a cloud of black dust at his feet as she vanished into the manhole as quickly as she had come.

Nikola inspected himself, horrified at the filth accumulated around him. He had always been a clean person but today he found the concept of dirt intolerable to the point of absurdity. This morning the feeling had been so strong that he had made his bed three times and spent an hour washing.

*~*~*

“I’m evolving?” Nigel had been sat down in a remote corner of the library. Helen and James lurked off to the side, stealing looks at each other as their captive fought another wave of pain. “Am I dying?”

“It is impossible to tell,” said James. “There is no precedent for one species changing into another.”

He thought on this for a while, mentally cursing his situation. Helen interrupted, stopping at first to re-order her words.

“There’s another –” her voice trailed off, “explanation…”

“Which is?” Nigel prompted, ignoring the beads of sweat forming on his hair line. “Dammit woman, tell me what it is!”

“Uncontrolled mutation,” she shot back. “Cancer.”

“I’m afraid our only choice is to wait,” said James, “wait and see.”

Nigel threw his head back in despair and then said, “I want to look at the rats.”

*~*~*

After half an hour of intimate staring, James Watson was convinced that the intelligent rat was trying to communicate with him. The scruffy ball had run repeatedly back and forward inside the cage, pausing on each pass at the ominous lock holding the cage shut.

Next, it took its sharp claws and began to scratch and rustle about in the right hand corner of the cage. It became quite obsessed with this activity, repositioning itself, squeezed tightly against the wall. Finally James heard it – the quiet click of something as the rat dug.

James bent down, scanning under the edge of the cage door. There, at the underside of the corner was a brass pin holding the door in place. The rat scratched again and James watched as its claws brushed over the pin, knocking against it.

“Clever boy…” he whispered to it, placing his nose to the wire-fronted cage. The rat scampered over to him, staring back with huge black eyes. “But I’m afraid that I cannot help you. She…” he nodded over his shoulder in Helen’s direction, “would lock me up beside you if I tried.”

“James,” Helen had been watching him for some time now, out of the corner of her eye, “please – people will talk…”

He departed the cage with a wink and roamed back over to the experiment table which was now lit brightly by a huddle of candles around its far edge. Two of them were large and old, congealed with layers of dirty wax. Their wicks were rough, trimmed low to the wax and their flames danced wildly with the slightest passing of air.

“Research, gentlemen,” Helen unfolded a serious of private correspondence and laid the envelopes on the table. “Courtesy of Nikola.”

They were elegant sketches. Drawings of creatures, layer for layer through their workings right down to the cleaned bones.

“There are pages missing,” noted James, sorting through the elegant numbers at the corners of each page.

“This is all he gave me,” Helen said. “I believe that these might help us understand your condition, Nigel.”

“Fine hand, decorative curves on the tails and ever so slight pauses between sentences. A female – I would go so far as to say that the author is a lady.”

“It is not a mystery to be solved, James,” she warned. “Would you be so kind as to put your observational skills to the matter at hand?”

Nigel leant over the papers as if to inspect them, but diverted at the last moment to blow sharply on the mountain of candles, expiring several of them. “Bright…” he said simply, and then took several of the letters away to study. “I think that I shall write my family, just in case.”

“Have – you thought about a will?” James put carefully. Helen made a scornful sound beneath her breath, but Nigel was not offended – indeed, he was smiling more brilliantly than she had seen in weeks.

“Yes, James,” he grinned, “you can have the books but you’ll have all of hell to answer, namely my brother, if you try and strut off with the shelves that match.”

*~*~*

The pair of gentlemen left late that night. She lingered in the door, watching Nigel brave the softly lit street and James hail a coach from the corner beneath a streetlight. The seasons were changing, and the cold of the evenings was beginning to show a glint of tooth.

Exhausted, she fell into a deep sleep with the curtains drawn and her bedroom door locked. The windows rattled all through the night, jarring against the inconstant gusts of wind ripping the last Autumn leaves free.

They came for it that night. When she woke in the morning, the doors had been undone and the steps to the basement tainted with muddy footprints. She was not surprised to find the heavy wooden door kicked in, the lanterns overturned and the source blood absent.

The rats assembled themselves in a line along the cage, keenly observing as Helen stepped around the broken lamps and headed for the chest of drawers at the far end. There, she searched feverishly for Nikola’s letters but they were gone.

*~*~*

Nigel woke up screaming. The dormitory was dark – well before the approach of dawn into the window that Helen had cleared. James stirred in the bed opposite. He fumbled into action as the screaming subsided, fetching a match and striking it to the wick of the lantern on the floor beside his bed. He picked it up and blinked back sleep with bleary eyes.

“Nigel?” he asked worriedly, as shapes began to form in the soft light. Nigel’s bed was empty. Its sheets and pillows were piled oddly in a mound and as he inspected the rest of the room, he found that nobody was there.

Figuring it to be a reverie, James roused on himself and went to blow the flame out when Nigel’s voice spoke.

“Sorry to have woken you – bad dream, ‘been having them since that night.”

James sat up straight and took a second, closer look at the Nigel’s empty bed. After a few quiet minutes, he whispered to the room, “Nigel?”

“No…” came the sharp, half mocking reply at once. “Karl Marx – of course it’s me.”

“Where?”

“Where what?” replied Nigel, shrugging at the confused James.

Some truth dawned on James as he saw the sheets of Nigel’s bed stir, apparently of their own accord. “How are you feeling?” he inquired delicately, of the empty room.

“Much improved,” Nigel had not felt pain since he had gone to sleep that night.

James’s eyebrows furrowed. “Interesting…” he mused.

“How so?”

James tilted the wood-framed side mirror in Nigel’s direction. “You seem to be lacking a reflection…” he said quietly, as Nigel shrieked again.

15

DAMPIER’S NOTES

James tightened the cord of his dressing gown and then lit all the lamps in the dormitory. Next, he strode up to Nigel’s bed and prodded the air approximately where his friend should be. The ‘thin air’ yelped and then scowled loudly, lashing out with stubby fingers until James stepped back, hands raised, and apologised.

“Just checking…” James excused himself, retreating from Nigel’s grasp. “I-” he tried to speak but eventually settled on, “I am speechless.” He wasn’t quite sure what else he was to think. His friend’s skin had taken on the patterns of its surrounding, constantly shifting to match either the bed sheets or the paint-stripped wall behind. About the only thing remaining to prove Nigel’s existence was the shadow stretching out over the floor.

Nigel was taking the progression of his condition poorly. He had James’s mirror clasped tightly in his hands and persisted in moving it about, analysing himself from every angle. No matter how many ways he tried to see himself, Nigel had to admit that he simply wasn’t there.

“This is terrible!” he declared, tossing the mirror across the room where it hit the floor and shattered. Nigel looked expectantly at James but quickly realised that he would have to speak if he wanted attention.

“What do you expect me to do about this?” James replied, tucking his hands into his dressing gown pockets. “It is the middle of the night – sleep on it, and we will think of something in the morning.”

“You aren’t serious,” Nigel tucked the sheets around his legs. It had become cold of a night now – bitterly so. “I can’t just forget about it and go back to sleep!” he protested. “I’m in-god-damn-visible!”

“Then you best get used to it,” snapped James sharply.

Nigel’s resemblance to the background was not perfect. Whenever he moved it took a fraction of a second for his skin to catch up to the change which meant that when moving the wall seemed to lag. However, when perfectly still as he was now, you could not pick him even when you knew where to look.

“We wait ‘till morning,” James insisted, folding himself back into bed. “Then I will provide you with all the assistance you require. I swear it; you shall have my undivided attention.”

*~*~*

It was an exceptionally long, awkward silence. None of them were sure what to say or do and it seemed that James’s idea of ‘help’ was simply to deliver Nigel to Helen’s doorstep and absolve himself of the matter.

“He looks fine,” said Helen, finally. It was true – Nigel sat in the oversized armchair with both hands clinging onto the leather arms like grim death. His clothes were oddly pulled about him as if he had dressed in a hurry and he was a bit pale – Helen would admit to that.

“Well it’s stopped now, ‘asn’t it…” Nigel scolded. He knew that he should be pleased with the sight of his skin but he knew that this present state would not last.

“It’s true,” confirmed James, standing by the fireplace. There were a few hot coals left glowing from the previous night. “I swear, when we set out this morning he was a walking suit – nothing more.”

“She doesn’t believe us,” said Nigel, reclining into the chair. “I told you this would happen. We should have come when it first started.”

*~*~*

John was alarmed by the sudden turn of his head as a hurrying passerby caught the edge of his shoulder. He scowled at once, looking for an apology which he realised would never come as the short man hurried off down the morning street, weaving between the high-hats.

He was about to turn and continue on to his lodgings when he felt his breast pocket and found it light. The miscreant, whomever he was, had taken his purse and papers. With no choice, John dodged two old gentlemen calmly and then launched into a pursuit of the creature he could just catch sight of in the distance.

It was a noble pursuit – spanning many Oxford blocks. At times John felt that he was within arm’s reach of the man and could make out the flurry of heat to his cheeks, perspiration sticking his hair to the broad forehead and the darkening collar of his coat. The hat had long ago departed him, lost somewhere in the street behind as the pair took a turn around the busy corner and found themselves directly in front of the university gates.

“Stop!” John cried out, as the assailant pushed through the iron gates (which were as yet unopened) and dashed along the path leading to the main doors. John could not understand the man’s sense, for surely the university was a trap for any thief to enter.

In the straight, the man was quick and reached the door with extra time to breathe. The heavy wooden things, ornately carved and difficult to open had just begun to close when John slammed his hand firmly into them and heaved them open once again.

To his great distress, the foyer was empty. Without students pattering through it, the room felt harsh and cold with little love shared by the swirls of marble. He had all but lost hope of pursuit when a distant slamming door set him back on the trail. The thief had run up the main staircase and along the passage to the old section of the library – which was also shut up at this early hour. The doors had been forced and were easily re-opened. Once inside John’s eyes trailed across the intricate networks of shelves that were lit only by the morning sun coming through the windows. This effect cast long shadows through the room where one could easily sneak.

He spent the next two hours – until the librarian shrieked in horror at the damage, trying to find the thief but there was no trace of him unless he had made himself into a book.

*~*~*

A great plane of sand stretched out in front of him. It was neither brown nor red but some shade that couldn’t settle in the morning light. His body was freezing. The cold twisted into his limbs and turned his sinews rigid. It wasn’t until he felt the rising sun behind him that he felt his joints shift and his legs able propel up over the ridge and down the other side of the dune.

There was a line of shadows following him. As they drew closer – gaining on him, he realised that they were caused by a struggling group of woman and children. Their exhaustion had wrenched their faces into soulless masks which traipsing endlessly toward the horizon though it always seemed to stretch out of reach.

They were running from their past. An entire civilisation had taken foot and fled and he was among them – leading them. A great sorrow washed over him. The only thing that awaited them was a slow, drawn out death which he moved them ever forward toward.

Nikola gasped – awaking in a fit of tears and despair. He had been there – marching across some wasteland with a child clinging to his shoulder.

“God…” he whispered, catching sight of the first weak beams of morning light through the open window. His breath swirled up through the air, condensing in the cold. It had been more than a dream – it was as if he had actually been standing in the desert, conscious that he would die soon. That desperate sense of hopeless determination took a while to shift as he gathered up the blankets and buried himself, trying to return to sleep

Eventually he gave in. Dressing quickly, he washed his hands again and again before making to the library where he sneaked a few books under his arm.

The librarian, old lady that she was, watched him suspiciously – craning her neck every now and then in his direction. Nikola fitted himself into the rock-lined window sill which looked out across the oval and onto the main gates. The grass was starting to die off and its brown threads had a pink lustre about them in the early light. Two pigeons picked over the expanse, fluttering at each other in jealous love.

He had a heavy book in his lap. Toward the end of it, he found a passage on the great ancient land of the early rulers. His finger slipped along the map from the old city of Cairo west, toward Minqar Abd an Nabi. Where expired rivers baked to dust, the old map showed nothing but unnamed desert – poorly drawn. Still, he could not shake the feeling that he had been there, touched its sand and watched the sun rise over its horrid scene.

“To ne može biti…” he whispered. ‘It cannot be!’

*~*~*

“What of this other complaint,” offered Helen, unsure of how to proceed with no symptoms apparent, “is it possible to examine you again?

Nigel was reluctant at first, but did not desire to be turned away. As much as he despised the fact, he suspected Helen to be the better medic of them all. Her father’s blood was strong in her veins and sometimes even, he could see a bit of him in her eyes. His own father, Professor Samuel Griffin, had been a great friend to the elder Magnus. They shared a friendship whilst on the Oxford board but Griffin, like all Griffins throughout their generations, were wise with money and reluctant to watch it drain into endless pits. Nigel did not know of Helen’s knowledge on the matter but it had been Professor Griffin who first suggested that Magnus’s funds be cut in favour of the more lucrative organisation – the Cabal.

They laid him out on the table in the lab – a thing which disturbed Nigel greatly given the morbidity of the object. It was cold and hard beneath his bare back and brought alive all the hairs of his skin so that they stuck up against the air. Helen did not seem to take much note of him as she approached with her hands covered by a pair of cotton gloves. In so many ways, she looked like a magician about to conjure secrets from the world before their eyes.

“Lay still,” she cautioned, as she pressed down on his chest, feeling his ribs one by one before moving to his stomach. Soon he noticed that she was counting, carefully inventorying his innards in a manner that would have disturbed him had he not expressly allowed this.

Then she paused, feeling again and again the same area of his side. As she prodded, he felt a sharp pain.

“Intriguing,” she said curiously, digging further into his side creating great, stabbing, violent pains that racked the centre of his body.

“Careful – Helen,” James lifted a hand towards her arm, but she avoided him easily muttering, ‘Yes, yes, James – don’t fuss around me.’

Then she did something that surprised the others. Without explanation, Helen ducked out of the room and hurried through her father’s office and into the main hallway where she quickly began the ascent of the stairs toward the attic. Since its uncovering, she had not bothered to lock it. It had become another dead secret between her and her father which no longer required breath or keys.

Once inside the dark room, and after lighting a single lantern, she fetched a single precious letter from beneath a heavy book. It was the sole survivor of Nikola’s collection. On it was an impressive piece of ink-work. Stretching to the very edges of the page, which were of the thinnest paper, was detail of a sea creature. The hand that had written details along the margins was not the same as the one whom had written Nikola the letters. This was a piece from a coveted collection – which is why Helen chose to protect it.

A small life-like sketch in the bottom corner represented the octopus in its pre-autopsy glory with the ever-so-slightest humour in its eyes and twist of its tentacles which curled into a border. Beside it was the signature, W. Dampier.

She returned to Nigel who had now straightened and begun engaging in harsh words with his companion. Helen interrupted them, presenting the document.

“It is as I suspected,” she said, thoroughly pleased with herself. She drew them to a detail of the creature’s skin which under extreme magnification showed sacks of something which the detailed key explained were responsible for the animal’s camouflage. She directed them further to an addendum which wrote, ‘other examples of this cause are the contractions of specific muscles which can alter the pigment of the skin’.

Without warning, Helen sharply stuck her hand into Nigel’s stomach. He winced, contorting his face in sudden pain – though the others couldn’t see it. With a wicked grin upon her lips, Helen surveyed the bodiless suit which writhed about on her table.

“Do you require a repetition, or are we convinced of the lump’s purpose?”

“Quite convinced,” hissed the air where Nigel sat.

“Indeed, indeed…” repeated James, finding a new sense of respect for the woman.

“And they have taken the rest of the letters?” Nigel asked, as the pain grew less and his skin gradually found its form, first in waning patches but eventually settling into a solid covering.

“Everything, I am afraid,” she lied. Helen had saved the smallest of samples – a single vial, once fluid ounce; practically nothing…

“Am I dying?” asked Nigel. He replaced his white shirt and began latching it closed. Helen shook her head kindly. He didn’t think that he would ever see compassion drip from her in his direction but in this case it overflowed and spilled into the corners of her eyes.

“No,” she said firmly. “You are very much alive.”

16

HAUNTING IMMORTALS

“What is it, exactly, that you are doing?” Nikola finally looked up from his leather-bound book. John was on his stomach, attempting to see under a set of shelves pushed flush against the back wall.

John withdrew his hands from under the shelf and propped his sizable figure onto his knees. “Nothing,” he replied evasively, clawing his way up the shelf to stand. A large cloud of dust flew off him, wafting into the air where several beams of light cut through them. “Shouldn’t you be up in your attic, playing with the birds?”

Nikola was prepared to ignore the insult. It was John’s usual custom to construct as many of them as possible until one stuck and this morning he would have to do better if he wanted a reaction.

“It is not like you to wander from your domain…” John continued, wiping his hands on his trench-coat.

Nikola inspected his unwanted company with disgust and then said, “I don’t have a ‘domain’.” He turned the page of the fragile Atlas calmly, “You make me out as some kind of bat kept to its cave.”

“Ah but Nikola,” John grinned, “you cannot fly away.”

“True, but I am uncommonly good at sprinting from harm. Give me walls and I shall scale them, have no fear. Good morning,” his tone changed as his eyes flicked away from John and travelled over to the clutter of desks beginning to fill with nervous students. Amongst them, Helen Magnus weaved her way through until she arrived at Nikola and John.

“I hoped to find you here,” she said to the both of them without preference. “I have news that you must hear at once – but not here…” she added quickly. “Nigel has inadvertently made a discovery that I think shall intrigue you.”

Nikola had already closed his book and laid it on the stone windowsill with no intention of returning it to its proper place but John bowed his head and said, “I’m sorry, but you must excuse me. I have an urgent matter to attend to that cannot wait.” Without further explanation, he hastened past them and vanished out of the library, trailing a hand over the side of the doors as he went.

“Urgent matter?” asked Helen curiously, as Nikola slid off the sill.

“No good asking me,” he said. “John shares only what he thinks will injure me.”

“Perhaps it is best that we are alone,” she stepped to the side, hinting that they too, should leave the library. “As we have that other matter to discuss.”

*~*~*

Nikola did not appreciate the crispness of the morning until he found himself strolling through it with Helen by his side. Added to his usual attire was a warm white scarf that hung evenly over his buttoned coat, a set of black gloves and a tall hat which made him appear unnaturally lofty and ever so slightly elegant. He had not offered his arm, so instead Helen stayed close with her hands clutched in front of her.

The limbs of a beautiful oak bent in front of them, infringing on the path with red leaves. Some of them had fallen loose and scattered over the stone. Nikola ducked, reaching up to his hat as they navigated it.

“I have practised so many ways of telling you the following,” she started, “but in the end I decided that it would be best just to show you this-” Helen fetched an old letter from somewhere in the folds of her dress. She offered the sad looking envelope to Nikola until he took it from her.

Without any discernable change in his countenance, he removed the document from its casings, unfolded it carefully and read it through. He handed it back to her as they disturbed the pair of pigeons he had seen earlier – they were still playing in the dew laden grass, fetching each other gifts.

Although he did not say anything to her, Helen could tell that he believed every word that he had read.

“Your letters,” she offered, after it was clear he would not make a comment, “I am ashamed to say, have been stolen.”

This time Nikola stopped and dipped his head. Helen was not sure if it was anger or despair that ripped a sigh from his chest.

“I am sorry, Nikola,” Helen said earnestly. “They took everything, including the blood.”

For the first time since the night of the experiment, Nikola caught her in a fierce gaze. The curtains that hid others’ souls were absent from his steel eyes. Whenever they chose to look, they betrayed every flickering desire he had ever dreamed.

“It is of no great matter,” he replied, even though she saw a kind of torture wrack his heart. “I fear that there is worse awaiting us.”

Helen shivered with the turn of breeze.

“Our ages past are full of blood,” Nikola continued, “so much that the ground must be stained by it and rivers flow below the earth in gushing torrents of sorrow. Life approaches like an ocean stirring in the distance. Its crests mark our suffering and the next wave is arching up to meet us, I can feel its icy spray on our necks.”

She reached out for his hand but instead he took hold of her wrist and stepped closer.

“The answers are inside us now,” he held on to her tightly. “Their manifestations will either be salvation or destruction.”

“And me?” she asked, combating his imposition by lifting her free hand and laying it on his cheek.

“I can’t make you out,” Nikola leant slightly into her touch. There was warmth beneath the leather gloves and a gentle comfort.

Two sets of wings brush past them, grazing their clothes in a white blur as the pigeons scattered into the greying sky. The morning’s beauty had passed and now the clouds revealed their true, solemn shapes as they lapped at the city.

*~*~*

John waited patiently for his coach to wrestle through the traffic. The horses fidgeted at the long stops, pulling at their leather reins and shaking their heads as if in despair at the line of carriages in front of them. The street itself was soft from the past rains. Wheels venturing too near the gutters found themselves digging great grooves or veering violently.

It was well after ten when John was jerked forward. The coachman alighted and opened the door. A storm of discarded newspapers scraped past him, churning against the buildings in a filthy storm.

There was a crowd in front of the police station’s doors, with at least a dozen officers reaching over their colleagues to retrieve some form of handout. Once they obtained this document they retreated along the front wall, reading it intently with fingers brushing over their moustaches.

“Excuse me,” John said, merging into the seething crowd. He was taller than them and easily located the front desk. “I would like to report a theft,” he announced loudly. The chatter of the crowd was overbearing.

One of the crowd’s elbows accidentally stabbed into his back as they swelled, knocking John into the desk where he dislodged a tower of paper. The pages slid over each other as the fanned out over the bench in front of the disapproving secretary. John muttered an apology, quickly straightening the paper when their heading caught his attention. While the secretary processed his theft report, John plucked one of the pamphlets free and began to read.

Echo
London, U.K.
31 August 1888

HORRIBLE MURDER IN WHITECHAPEL.
WOMAN SHOCKINGLY MUTILATED.
HEAD NEARLY CUT OFF.

A tragedy, even more revolting in its details than that of George-yard, and surrounded apparently with circumstances fully as mysterious, has just occurred at Bucks-row, a low class neighbourhood, adjoining Whitechapel-road. Passing the Essex Wharf, in Bucks-row, at about 4.30 this morning, Constable Neale, 97J, found lying on the pavement there the dead body of a woman. On further examination her head was found to have been very nearly severed from her body. A horrible gash, fully an inch in width, extending from one side of the neck to the other, completely severing the windpipe. The lower portion of the abdomen also was completely ripped open, causing the bowels to protrude. The woman was at once conveyed to the mortuary, where she now lies. She is apparently about five and thirty years of age, with dark hair, of medium height, and with small features. Her clothing, which was examined by Inspector Helson, is scanty, consisting only of a threadbare cloak with a hood, a brown dress, and a petticoat, which bears the mark of Lambeth workhouse. The woman has not yet been identified.

It is thought that the woman was assailed by some man with whom she had been in company. Her front teeth had been knocked out, the woman probably having received a kick in the mouth from her assailant.

“Horrid, isn’t it?” said the secretary, handing him a form to sign. Momentarily stunned, John stared at the story.

“Yes,” he finally said, setting the paper back down with the others.

*~*~*

“When is your father coming home?” John asked Helen, later that day.

Helen was seated opposite him at the dining table, sorting through armfuls of notes while he quietly sipped a cold cup of tea.

“Lord knows, he doesn’t tell me,” she replied, as another pile of papers were deposited in the box on the floor – successfully sorted.

“It is not good for you to be alone,” he continued, finishing his tea. “A young woman, by herself – there must be some relative with whom you could stay?”

“John,” a grin crept in, “you wouldn’t be worrying over me, would you?” He was silent to her accusation. “The Cabal have been at my door for weeks, sometimes beyond it – what has brought about this sudden sentiment?”

“Nothing, only – well I read of a terrible thing that happened in London yesterday and it just made me think.” He didn’t know why, but Helen’s house never seemed safe to him. The windows were too high with easily broken glass, the doors were not set with heavy hinges and any man of reasonable fitness could manage to climb the outer wall to the unprotected windows above.

She set aside her work and reclined in the chair. “James…” she cautioned.

*~*~*

The dune fell away with every step, sucking in his feet and allowing them to be lost in the unbearable heat of the sand. In the distance he could hear the steady approach of drums.

“Stop it!” he yelled, hitting the wall fiercely with his hand. Nikola forced his eyes to see the empty room around him rather than the shimmering expanse of desert sky that refused to shift from his sight. It was like another reality was trying to creep into his world and take over. He felt anger with every part of his body – overbearing hatred that wasn’t his, and thirst, the likes of which he had never known.

A hot trickle of blood rolled over his wrist. Its heat snapped Nikola back into the real world. He inspected where he had cut himself on a sharp protrusion of stone. The scarlet changed course as he turned his arm, spiralling around him. He tilted his head. Light refracted through its various layers giving it a jewel-like appearance. There was even a smell to it that he had never noted before – some kind of metallic underlay that infected the very rivers and towns of the modern world.

There was something else…

Nikola brought his wrist up to his mouth. He could feel his skin creep and a shudder through the edges of his fingertips – “No!” he jerked backwards, slamming against the floor.

*~*~*

Helen frowned wearily at her rat. It was laid out on the table of the basement, wheezing and twitching its whiskers with no real interest in life. Its features were skinny and sharp with numerous bones protruding from its fur which itself had become patchy. The murderous rat – which had hastily dispatched of its kinsman, was now barely able to draw breath.

She had provided it with a buffet of food but it refused to touch any of it. Fearing for its survival, she had even set it free but it would not leave her care. She sat with it through the afternoon and into the evening. Eventually it stirred and with great effort, crawled over to her hand, for she had fallen asleep on the table with it not far from her, and curled up against her skin then fell asleep. There they stayed, one asleep and the other, for eternity.

John opened the door quietly. The candle Helen had left burning was now a decorative mound of wax with a small flame. She was awkwardly sprawled between the chair and the table with her arm outstretched. Her face was obscured by a mass of golden hair but the gentle rise and fall of her figure told him that she was peacefully asleep.

He should have woken her, but he didn’t have the heart. Instead, he crept quietly to the table and gently quashed the candle.

*~*~*

“Does anyone else notice that we’re losing all the rats? I’m sorry to say it,” continued Nigel, during another uncontrolled fit of invisibility, “but that nagging fact does not bode well for us.”

“Well, so far – only you,” James pointed out.

Nigel shook his head, “Don’t tell me that you haven’t felt it – James…”

“I will admit,” said James after several struts around their dormitory. It was several days after the death of the last rat and Nigel’s invisibility had become more frequent and prolonged. His unexpected disappearances had frightened a maid, causing her to faint and to their great fortune, forget the reason. “That after the initial prick I had the strangest sensation. My mind was full to the point that I thought my scalp would give way to the pounding of my brain against it.”

“And then?” Nigel prompted.

“Then, something snapped. A floodgate opened and there was room for thought. Since then ideas which have been held stagnant for so long have evolved and spun themselves into tapestries ready to be written out.”

“You – are – so – full of it.”

“You asked…”

“It’s Helen I’m worried about,” Nigel changed the topic. “She seems – indifferent to the whole affair.”

“Are you certain?” James grasped a nearby quill and ran the feather through his fingers. “She suffered worse than all of us in the start.”

“Like a fever,” Nigel continued, “and fought it off.”

“A natural immunity to the blood. I wonder if she knows?”

“A woman always knows their body better than a man. I only question why she hasn’t told us yet.”

“Neither of us have been particularly kind to her. I often wish we’d started differently.”

James scratched the nib of the quill across the desk without ink. It left a single, slender mark from one end to the other. Nigel frowned at it, nudging closer for a better look. James made a second stroke, which crossed over the first in an elegant, two sided curve.

“Sanctuary,” James said, hinting at the design. “It was on the cover of the book I have just finished. I don’t know,” his voice seemed to linger slightly, “the thought appeals to me, of this place as a form of Sanctuary we can retreat to when the world fails to understand us. A house of knowledge.”

“Or a cramped, poor smelling dormitory,” Nigel corrected. “I think that you’ve been left alone with your books too long.”

“I find the need to guard them – you have heard, I suspect, of John’s theft. He lost a wallet and his travelling papers.”

“He’s not the only one to suffer a thief. I was down visiting my mother – she is regrettably ill at the present, and I turned to help her from the park bench when some shadow made off with my best knife from the medical kit – father will have me for that.”

“The age!” sighed James dramatically. “We shall have to bolt the doors and release the hounds…” He couldn’t help it if there was an eager glimmer in his eye.

“I think that it’s time we took you out,” said Nigel, hauling James from behind the desk.

17

SHERLOCK

London was bleak.

An unpleasant level of cold crunched his joints together in protest and forced James to retreat into the corner of the carriage where he enticed the little warmth that could be found between the worn leather and tattered curtain.

“See…” said Nigel enthusiastically, opening the window and sticking his head into the rush of air.

The coach made a sharp turn and in amongst the narrow streets they caught a glimpse of the Houses of Parliament – almost new with their cream sandstone blocks standing proudly. Only a few scaffolds remained, tangling at the far corners.

While there remained evidence of the 1834 firestorm in the approaching streets, the official grounds of the state had scrubbed and rebuilt diligently, burying the tragedy. The ruined buildings had been substituted with those of the modern age. Strong, tall and impressively intricate – these replacements were meant to represent the new era of humanity – the Victorian era. James thought them vial.

“You should not be doing that in your condition.”

“Nonsense,” replied Nigel, defiantly, ducking back inside with flushed cheeks. “I’m in agony – which means I won’t be vanishin’ into thin air anytime soon.”

“Is that your professional opinion or Helen’s?” James said, rubbing his hands together for warmth. It was rash to be acting on such whims at times like these. For all they knew, their altered state of health could present a danger to others and themselves – and he wasted no time reminding Nigel of it.

Just as James’s stomach decided that it had had enough of the constant rocking, their ride ended abruptly in front of a line of shops with people milling quietly about, ducking from door to door. The instant that he stepped down from the coach, James decided that he desired nothing better than to be back in Oxford, sitting quietly behind his desk with a book or two.

“Can I leave you here for a moment?” Nigel inquired, shepherding his friend toward one of the coffee houses nestled between the cold brick façades. The bitter smell was almost enough to turn James to the gutter. “I have a moment’s business to attend to and then we shall have the day to explore. You won’t – wander off… or get into trouble, I trust?”

James ignored the accusation – which hardly instilled confidence in Nigel.

“Go – if you will,” James stretched his arm out to the street in front. His warnings be damned. Nigel slowly took a few steps forward, apprehensively joining the crowd. “Fool…” he muttered under his breath, after Nigel disappeared.

James pulled his coat in tight as another gust of wind ripped through the street, funnelled by the narrow lanes. ‘Grey’ was about the best compliment he could pay London. Compared to the seasonal mood of Oxford which melted between green and amber all the way through to snowy white depending on the season, these streets were inherently dull. The mess of the horses and the ever-present drizzle of rain made him sigh loudly with disapproval.

Bored, James slighted the coffee shop and instead began to pace down the street in the opposite direction, ambling into nowhere.

*~*~*

The pile of books in Nikola’s room grew. Documents that he had scoffed at, slept through or shunned now lay open on the floor where he sieved through them, nose to their pages which turned with such hurry that they disturbed the candlelight.

What was left of the morning had now passed over his window and sent his den into shade and cold. He lay across the floorboards, sheltered in this half-light. His mouth pained and, as children do, he had set to chewing things to quell the irritation as his teeth became more and more protuberant. Like a glistening row of knives, they grinned at him whenever he caught his reflection on a piece of broken glass from the window. The sight horrified him. His sullen cheeks and pale skin recoiled in fright and if he was not mistaken, there was a darkening of his fearful eyes with shadows as if he had stolen them from the room.

Nikola struggled with reality – sometimes he felt the hot sand slide beneath him, scorching through his stomach and tearing his skin away in vicious gusts but then at other times, the cold boards of the room in which he lay returned. It was a never ending reverie, a flickering mirage which could not settle – a disturbing place between two lives in which he felt tangled and yet further removed than ever.

His fingers slid over another paragraph as he tried to read its words again. It told of horrible stories and dark places of the earth’s soul where creatures of the twilight crept, kept alive by the blood of the living. Nikola’s body shook. Icy waves ran over his skin, draining its colour further. Somewhere in the distance there was a pounding of hooves, separate to these other dream worlds. Their rhythmic thunder bound his thoughts together as he shook his head and the pages of the books returned to sight as the candle burnt out.

There was a commotion at his window as a set of wings stirred, hopping along the sill. The pigeon ruffled its feathers and let out a gentle cooing as it danced around for his attention. Nikola did not detect the intrusion, and instead shook off another wave of pain until he noticed an unnatural taste on his tongue. Horrified, he felt a warm trickled down his chin and realised that his teeth had pierced through his gum.

“Hush – away, away!” Nikola waved his hand at the pigeon when it pecked him sharply.

*~*~*

Finally James made it out of the cluttered streets and into an open square. A bell nearby tolled, announcing the morning hour. Several people perked up and scurried away, realising their lateness as James strutted over the pavement.

He was halfway though, in the very centre of the square where two Peterhead granite fountains bubbled happily, when he felt the hairs on his neck twitch.

An enormous flock of grey, dirty looking pigeons flocked at his feet but refused to take flight as stepped through them. They bobbed their heads en mass and a few flapped as they skipped away. Filthy creatures, thought James, he could not understand the old women throwing seed at them from the edge of the fountains – but no amount of walking could shake the feeling off. Eventually, James was compelled to stop turn around where he found a sight that startled him.

“Excuse me, do you mind?” he said, to the tall man bent double with his nose almost grazing James’s shoe.

The strange man who had been casing James down the street and into the square stopped and, ever so slowly – like the wheels of a train first seeking motion, righted himself. He had at least a foot on James’s height but was so slender that a strong enough breeze would more than likely have been his demise. He wore a simple brown coat, sturdy shoes and carried a sharp gentleman’s stick which at present tapped threateningly on the ground.

“And you are?” James inquired, when the man did nothing but tilt his head and stare intently.

“I am not here,” he replied, with a scratchy voice.

James wrote the creature off as a poorly skilled thief. He eyed the man in warning and then continued on his way. He thought he was free until the tall man’s shadow sauntered up behind and resumed its pursuit. This time, James did not stop. He spun around, continuing his motion as he stepped carefully backwards. His, for lack of a better term, ‘stalker’ was not only following him, but mimicking his step in length and pace but all the while keeping his eyes locked on the muddy leather travel shoes.

Suddenly, the man’s head snapped up and he went to speak. James though, felt his heel catch in a misplaced stone and before he knew it, he was tumbling backwards. The ground was solid and cold. It dazed James for a moment when he found himself sprawled over it. A few Londoners grinned smugly as they passed to which James angrily glared.

“Are you all right?” said the thin man, not offering his hand.

James muttered under his breath as he staggered back to his feet and began dusting off his jacket. “Who are you?” James repeated sharply.

“The bigger question is not who I am as the answer to that is apparent to me, but rather, who are you, sir?”

“Someone who finds you intensely irritating,” James replied, deciding to step past the thin man and return back the way he had come. He had had enough of this city, and its inhabitants. This time though, the man extended his cane and tripped James who snarled fiercely as he landed on the ground again.

“Mind your step,” said the man, innocently drawing his cane behind his back, out of sight.

James didn’t bother getting up. “Fine, you have my attention,” he said, sitting on the pavement. “I am James Watson, soon to be a doctor in trade – now what is it that you want?”

“Oh yes,” the man replied, “I know that you a doctor. How long have you been in London?”

“This morning, but I assure you, I shan’t be back in a hurry.”

“From whence did you come?”

“Sorry –”James shook his head, wondering why on earth he was answering this rude man’s questions. He returned to his feet in a huff. “Good day to you sir, whoever you may be.”

“Sherlock Holmes…” the man offered, extending his hand before James could flee. “But you’ll excuse me if I don’t shake on it.” His hand trembled as he withdrew it and Sherlock quickly hid it in his pocket. The man’s fragility was not only due to his height – there was a definite fracturable quality about his features which, like a mirror, were sharp in their reflection but easily shattered.

“Oxford…” replied James, still wary of him. “Are those all your – where are you going?”

Sherlock Holmes had nodded at James’s answer as if some great truth had spread its wings before him. Now, he was making a speedy get away through the square, sending large flocks of birds into the air.

*~*~*

When Helen could not find Nikola, she retreated to the one place she could always trust to keep him.

Though it was mid-morning, she found his attic consumed by shadow. The candles he usually kept lit and the lamps that burned sweet, foreign oil had all been snuffed or burnt to the floor where they sat in sad yellow puddles.

From the darkest corner of the room, she heard a soft pigeon coo.

“Nikola?” she whispered, stepping through the scattered books littering his floor like some great ocean. He was there, curled up against the wall with a giant book held open in his lap. Nikola was reading intently when the pigeon scared and alerted him to her presence. “How can you read in this darkness?”

“I do not know,” he replied quietly, not leaving the page. “But I can.”

The sight of him brought her to a pause. He was half dead – drawn out and pale looking. Had it not been for the steady breath leaving his chest and movement of his lips, she would have assumed him lost. “You are ghostly…” she said gently. “Please, come down with me before you make yourself ill.”

“I fear,” he replied after a moment, “that it may be too late for that. In these matters, knowledge will be our greatest ally – and I must seek it out.”

She saw it now – it was a neither a mood nor a fever that had taken hold of Nikola these past days, but some dark force. “And what do you know?” she asked carefully.

Nikola’s especially dark eyes closed, blocking out the room as he spoke. A great curve of sand stretched across his vision and in the distance, he thought he saw a fleck of green nestled between the rises of glaring heat.

“Lives that are not my own…” he started. “I have been living these dreams for days now. They are too real – disturbingly so. I cannot shake them even in the daylight hours and they are full of approaching dread. My head is consumed by hatred but I cannot place its cause. I am thirsty and starving yet I cannot bring myself to eat because the thought of it sends me into fits.” He opened his eyes. “Where are your thoughts?” he asked her, when he saw that Helen had turned her head to the open window. A soft breeze was blowing her golden hair across her face, caging her features behind its ringlet bars.

“That the impossible is true,” she replied, “that you have lived these things before. I have seen accounts like these written in my father’s journal.”

“Either you are correct,” Nikola said, beckoningly her closer, “and these memories will turn me mad…”

Helen sensed that he had not finished. “Or?” she prompted.

“Or you are wrong, and I am mad already. Will you sit with me a while? Maybe my grip on this world will be stronger if you are nearby.”

Helen hesitated. “Only if you let me light the lamps,” she whispered.

*~*~*

This time it was James who did the following. He tracked this, ‘Sherlock Holmes’ through the bustling crowd and down a main street where a smaller crowd of police officers were occupied with pushing back onlookers. They seemed to part as Sherlock approached. Two officers in particular nodded their heads at him.

“Holmes…” they said quietly together.

As this mass divided, James discovered the cause of their congregation. There lay at their centre a ghastly sight.

“Oh … Christ in hell…” James turned his head over his shoulder in horror. When he dared look back to the body on the pavement he had to fight the urge to collapse. In plain sight was the naked remains of what he could only assume had been a woman. She was laid open, sliced apart like a slaughtered animal. Dark pools of blood had dried around her form in a kind of grotesque halo. Parts of her were separate and others entirely missing.

Sherlock Holmes was not fazed by the atrocity of the sight. Calm as you like, he paced in circles round the corpse paying particular attention to the boot tracks left through the blood. He measured their spacing with his own step and shook his head solemnly in disappointment. There were a few muddy stains accompanying the footprints to which he paid particular interest.

“You are a police officer,” noted James, tapping Sherlock on the shoulder.

Sherlock had quite neglected to notice that his suspect had followed him. “Certainly not,” he scoffed at the idea. “My trade is private.”

James shrugged and returned to the body. “This is truly the most horrid thing I have seen,” he said kneeling close to the body. Several of the officers warned him away, but Sherlock appeared over his shoulder and hushed at the others.

After a great while, Sherlock spoke quietly, no longer able to bear the intrigue. “You have a thought,” he said, “I see it pacing about your mind.”

“These are not the incisions of a mindless violence,” admitted James finally. “They are purposeful strokes executed with patience and proper tools. I fear that you have here something more sinister than a crime of passion.”

Sherlock Holmes was not a man to grin. His features were too drawn for joy, his lips too thin to smile and the lines on his face unable to do justice to the mood – still, there was a flash of something across his eyes that betrayed his passion. There was nothing better for a man of observation than to catch onto the first scent of the hunt.

“Very good,” said Sherlock. “My conclusion also.”

“And for reasons I have yet to learn, earlier you suspected me of the crime but now – now you have learned something of the killer and of me.”

“You observe keenly.”

“As do you…” The air seemed to thicken with dark grit. Instead of grey – the streets felt decidedly dark and threatening.

“Come,” Sherlock beckoned James to his feet, “we shall speak more of these dark things.”

18

MISSING TIME

“You are particularly smug…” noted Nigel, when he finally found James lounging at the back of a coffee house. Granted, it was not the one which he had left him in but Nigel appreciated the gesture.

“Smug?” James raised his well kept eyebrow, “Surely not…”

His dark hair, usually swept neatly over his head and around his ears, was out of place. Several repressed curls had broken free and twisted at will, acquiring odd angles with the side of James’s cheek. Nigel spied patches of dirt on James’s jacket which also bared the glaring addition of a gold pocket watched pinned to his breast pocket – very unlike the Watson he knew.

Nigel collapsed onto the chair beside him. The room was pleasantly dark and warm, quite ‘den-like’ and full of swirling clouds of cigar smoke. He was feeling moderately better and quite enjoyed the dim light.

“What did you do?” he asked with an air of suspicion, placing a small parcel on the table and calling for a drink.

“Nothing that would interest you,” James replied. “Your work is done, I presume,” he said, observing the brown paper item tied half-heartedly with ribbon, “but I am sorry to say that I cannot leave London yet.”

Nigel frowned, taking a second look at his friend. His drink clinked down on the table as he leant forward and replied, “Come again?”

“Business of my own will delay me for several days. I will catch the train back to Oxford when I am finished.”

A quick breath of laughter filled the room as Nigel raised his hands aloft in cheer. “Nice try,” he grinned, hunting out a glass of water lingering on the edge of the table and taking a sip. “Nice try… Time we left I think, this London air’s getting to you,” but James was sincere and merely matched Nigel’s glass with a wink and drained it – ignoring his bewildered companion.

*~*~*

“And where is he now?” John and Helen sat in a quiet corner of the garden.

The sun was high but its weak sphere lacked the warmth of the months past. It hung over them wearily as the Earth spun ever away from it in a constant slight. Everything was gradually going quiet – the trees turning to skeletons, crickets silencing their calls and the dogs of the street retreating to their hovels in the bleak patches of thicket behind the town.

Helen adjusted her white gloves and then pulled her shall in tight around her shoulders. It kicked up in the breeze as she turned to John with her soft reply. “In his room,” she said, “I cannot wake him.”

“Call the doctor-”

“I daren’t,” Helen replied quickly, taking hold of John’s arm as he went to stand. He looked back at her, confused. “If you could see the state of him – Nikola scarcely looks human. Anyone we call would ask too many questions.” She was quiet for a moment, “I do not believe his life is in danger,” she added.

John slowly settled. “He is sleeping, that is all?”

“A deep sleep from which he can’t be stirred.”

“You should have James attend to him. He is the best doctor of us all.”

Ordinarily she would take offence but as much as it vexed her, there was more than common skill in James’s touch so instead, she nodded.

“I agree, but both he and Nigel are in London.” This time it was Helen who left her seat and began to pace across the fading lawn. John followed, coming to her side where he felt for her hand. “I have blocked out the light from his room as best I can and wrapped a blanket over him. The darkness seems to calm his sleep.”

John tangled his fingers in hers, stopping her progress towards the path. She was leaving him already, heading back to the main building. Worry was draining her complexion of all its beautiful colour, sucking the very life from her. He feared that she would wilt and die like the flowers had around them and fall back to the earth one petal at a time.

“Then we must wait,” he lowered his mouth to her hand and kissed it affectionately. “Please, do not worry – all will be well,” he insisted.

She caught him by surprise, dragging him toward her and draping herself over his shoulder in a desperate embrace. Helen wove herself around him, clinging passionately until he gave in and dipped his head toward her neck.

“I wish that I could believe you,” she murmured, as his arms tightened, “but this is all my doing. If I had not insisted that night –”

“Hush,” John drew away enough to see her face. He had always known Helen to be a strong force, fearsome even as she traced her way through the university halls like she owned their marble floors, but what he saw scant inches from him was a frightened girl. “I give you my word, Helen, everything will be fine. We will fetch James as soon as he returns and he can see to Nikola. For now – let him sleep.”

She pulled away. “Still… this has gone too far. Our rash actions are starting to exhibit consequences that we’re not prepared for. Nigel – I can’t even begin to understand what is happening to him. He may not show it but he endures hideous pain and James is disturbed by the heightened state of his senses. He sees things, smells them and hears them long before the rest of us. The minute details of the world are overwhelming him and unless he finds a use for his gift it will drive him mad.”

“Are…” he stammered, cleared his throat and started anew. “Are you all right, Helen?”

Helen nodded. “And you? I see so little of-”

“Do not worry, I am fine,” he insisted.

John waited with Helen as long as he could but as afternoon came and went, he was called away by an insistent professor and had not returned. It was now early evening and she was seated behind James’s desk in the dormitory. The room was much cleaner now that his animal captives had been let loose. Even the unnamed pig had been freed to Nigel’s farm where, she had heard, it played alongside her dragon – Helen could see that relationship ending in tears…

James had not given away his obsession with chemistry though – glassware littered the benches and if anything, had grown to plague proportions. Their bubbling contents released heavens knew what into the air whilst she was certain that he had left something growing in the Petri dishes nearest to her. The combination left her drowsy as she stared blankly at the wall in front of her.

She was startled when the door shuddered. It creaked open then closed and locked on its own without a soul passing through it.

“Helen?” exclaimed the empty room in fright. “What are you doing here?”

Blinking back sleep, Helen made out the faint outline of Nigel moving toward the cupboard where he promptly fished out a coat and wrapped it around himself causing a peculiar sight.

The bodiless coat approached.

“Not again…” sighed Helen. “That’s three times in a week.” His spells of invisibility were becoming more frequent.

“I know,” he replied. “And I had to leave my best clothes in London. People tend to stare at floating outfits. Had a hell of a time catchin’ a ride home like this.”

“Where is James?” she asked, setting the feathered pen which she had been using down on the desk.

“As always, I am glad to see that you desire my company.” If he hadn’t been transparent, she would have seen him avert his eyes to the floor in real despair.

“It’s not like that…” she insisted.

*~*~*

Nigel and Helen stood against the far wall of Nikola’s attic. Their backs were pressed painfully against the cold stone as they shivered, unnerved by Nikola.

He was awake and seated on the floor between two oil lamps. The curtain over the window had been pulled back to reveal the swelling moon, creeping into the sky above clouds. Layers of mist worked their way up the walls of the university, hiding the grounds in undulating river of cloud. Some of it had settled inside the room and snaked around Nikola, almost affectionately.

Nikola was reading from an old scroll which tumbled onto the floor with its unread end curled up. He had not given any indication that he was aware of their presence, nor had he spoken since they had begun watching him.

Helen and Nigel were speechless. If Nikola had appeared inhuman before, he was positively fictitious now.

His skin had sunk away from his bones and lost its colour. As he finger trailed along the lines of handwritten text it was followed by the scratching sound of his overly long fingernail which tapered into a claw-like hook. By far the most frightening change in Nikola’s appearance was his eyes. They were large expanses of jet black where his pupils had consumed the whole eye leaving only pits. They bared no expression as they diverted from the page to the faces of his audience.

Nikola lowered the scroll.

“You must leave,” said Nikola, in an impassionate voice that sent cold chills over the necks of Helen and Nigel. It was not a request, but a warning.

Nigel, who had been visible for a while now, stepped protectively in front of Helen. “We need to examine you, Nikola. I believe that you are experiencing a side effect of –”

“You must leave,” Nikola repeated.

Nigel hastened a glance at Helen before replying, “Why?” He knew his question to be unwise the moment he had asked it, for Nikola’s eyes expanded slightly while his head tilted to the side. If he was not mistaken, there was a row of sharp teeth glittering beneath the man’s lip two of which extended well beyond the others.

“Because I can hear your hearts thumping in my ears,” Nikola lifted a taloned hand, pointing at them. Though he kept his voice steady, it peaked ever so slightly with urgency.

A strong breeze through the window upset the lanterns. The room hovered in and out of darkness. Nikola was now standing as a single shadow, imposing on the room as he lingered by the wall where a couple of feathers tumbled by. They had not seen him move there.

Helen’s eyes strayed to a dark stain on the floor. Great streaks of crimson were smeared over the floorboards in front of Nikola, and, as the lights brightened and the chill-laden air settled, Helen saw a bundle of feathers in amongst the shadows.

Nikola remained deathly still.

“You best hurry…” he insisted. “My reading of our condition disturbs me but there is nothing we can do this deep in the night.”

“What are you on about?” Nigel progressed cautiously into the room. Helen had been right about Nikola, his body was riddled with something foreign – a dark spell or ancient curse.

Nikola ignored the dangerously close Nigel.

“Helen,” he did not look at her, instead choosing to turn his back on them and speak to the empty wall, “lock the hatch and don’t come back here until the first light of morning.”

“Com’on now,” Nigel was barely an arm’s length from him, “you’re scaring her, Nikola, let us take a look at –”

*~*~*

John stirred. The room was dark and empty save for a destroyed mirror resting against the wall and an odd collection of specimen jars. He rolled over, clutching his head as it throbbed in his hands. John swore, certain that he could feel his skin peeling back and laying itself over the dust-ridden marble.

He was in the spare classroom where he had met the professor only it was much later in the evening and all the lights were out. The professor too, had left long ago and now there was only John writhing on the floor in agony.

These headaches had worsened over the last week. At first he had thought them to be a side effect of the large volumes of wine he had taken to consuming but then they began appearing at all hours, increasing in severity. Two days ago he had had his first blackout – a complete wipe of his memory. He had found himself alone in Oxford’s park, asleep on the grass near the lake with no idea of how he had arrived there.

The truth literally hurt – he was suffering ill effects of the experiment. Like the others, pain seemed to be a common feature in their reactions. So far John was hoping it would be the only thing that he would have to endure.

Eventually the pain subsided and he was able to pick himself up off the floor. He headed to the double glass doors and leant against them, staring out at the evening. The moon lit the heavy fog and a few skeletal branches criss-crossed the star patterns. The nights were getting longer as winter edged its way in. Before long twilight would be the new day and the stars their main light.

*~*~*

Sherlock had brought his new companion to an empty room. There was nothing particularly special about the barren expanse of floorboards or single window that broke the otherwise grey walls, but the tall man retreated to an abandoned corner and puffed away expectantly on his pipe, motioning for Watson’s opinion.

James Watson waved away a thin trail of smoke and eyed the room carefully. The centrepiece of the room was a very obvious streak of blood smudged into the thickly layered dust.

“There has been no-one in this room,” added Sherlock, as James remained fixated on the floor, “since I followed the man whom I believed to be the killer here.”

“You’ve seen him?” James snapped his head around as his companion puffed another cloud into the room.

“After the first murder I took to lurking through London’s streets after dark. I was ready to give up my new hobby when I heard the poor lady’s screams. By the time I reached her, the man had completed his hideous business and was fleeing through the side streets. This townhouse has one entrance – down the stairs and through the door we entered. When the man did not reappear after many hours, I risked a peek inside and found things as you see them. He, whomever he is, vanished.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time a criminal has evaded capture.”

“No…” Sherlock replied, amused. “But I do believe it may be the first time that one has literally vanished into thin air…”

James followed Sherlock’s sharp eyeline and realised the reason that he had been brought here. The deep sheet of dust in the floor told the story of the night’s events. Like a book, it could be easily read. The man, the killer, had entered the room hastily with long strides and come to rest by the opposing window. He had lingered there, no doubt watching the sky until he stumbled backwards and fell to the ground. There were slide marks and great sweeps of clean floor near the blood stain where someone had sat and then – that was it. There was no more to the story. No tracks returning to the door or body in the room. The man had vanished, simple as that. Which was impossible.

“I see…” said James, taking out a handkerchief and wiping his forehead.

Sherlock lifted his head and exhaled a long trail of smoke. “I thought you might,” he replied.

UNTOLD SANCTUARY

PEOPLE OF THE SAND

by ellymelly

TABLE OF CONTENTS

01 Hunting

02 Brilliant

03 Footprints

04 Tight

05 Tag and Bag

06 Chaos and Sand

07 Travelmate

08 Magnus

09 Legacy

10 Buried in Glass Cabinets

11 The Beginning of Helen Magnus

12 Changing Skins

13 Bits and Pieces

14 Stalked

15 History Creeping

16 Whispers of the Tombs

17 Interview with a Vampire

18 Roaming Free

19 Beneath the Streets

20 Ancient History

21 Confessions of Murder

22 Friends for Life

1

HUNTING

The cobble street was difficult to pick out from the buildings that leant towards the road, drawn in by the occasional lamp post. The feeble gas flames flickering inside tried their best to warm the stone surfaces of their audience, but the dew was turning to frost. A delicate flake of snow slipped through the air, melting into a drop of water above the light. It hit a passerby who wiped the freezing liquid off her cheek, unimpressed by the weather.

Helen Magnus walked around the soft circles of light, preferring to hug the dark walls out of sight. Curious eyes watched from their bedrooms, safely tucked between the shadows.

Her sharp gaze scanned the abandoned street. The clawed feet of plump rats scurried away followed by the careful placement of a man’s footsteps.

Leather scuffed the pavement and her head snapped around, following the sound with her eyes.

“Why don’t you come out and get this over with?” she snarled, withdrawing a slither of metal from her waist band.

Almost seven feet of man reclined against a wall, John Druitt’s eyes peering up at the hollow ring of the new moon. “You can do better than that…” he spoke, not afraid of the night.

He was right, she could.

In a slick movement, her free hand slid into her belt and withdrew a pistol. Aiming it at the sound of his voice, she pulled the trigger, her eyes slamming shut with the noise.

*~*~*

“Are you certain you don’t need a doctor?” Will, cold washer in hand, felt her temperature once more. Helen’s cheeks were flushed and her dark hair matted with sweat. “Other than me, of course.”

She raised a hand and feebly pushed him off. “Immortal, remember?” she groaned, her headache worsening. “Where’s Ashley?”

Will placed his arm around her back, helping her sit on the edge of the four-posted bed. “You’re not going to like it,” he said. Will tried to wrap a blanket over her shoulders but she batted him away.

“It better not be Romania,” she muttered.

“Egypt, hunting the un-dead.”

“I don’t suppose she mentioned when she expected to be back?”

Will shook his head.

Not surprised, Helen exhaled with exhaustion. “No regard for anyone else’s plans. I brought her up better…”

There was a soft knock and the bedroom door creaked open. Bigfoot entered carrying a silver tray. The tea cups and saucers rattled against each other as he crossed the room, stepping carefully over the books littered around the floor.

“Mail as well,” he announced, after setting the tray down. He lifted up the serviettes and produced a worn envelope.

“It’s from Egypt,” said Will, astonished.

Helen frowned and opened it at once. “How long have I been out of it?” she asked, discarding the envelope which lacked a proper address.

“I was just getting to that. Eight weeks, give or take. We found you unconscious in a church graveyard.”

“Damn goblins again,” she muttered, sliding her finger nail through the top edge of the envelope. It slipped apart, revealing a soggy scrap of paper. Helen unfolded it carefully, laying it over her knees.

Will nudged in closer, tilting his head to the side to make out the paper. Lines darted everywhere in what appeared to be an erratic display. Trails of writing he couldn’t read were obscured by dribbles of whatever liquid the stains on the paper had been in another life.

“Pack your bags,” said Helen, taking a hurried sip of tea. “We’re going to Egypt.”

Will hunted out his glasses from the bed and replaced the on the bridge of his nose. “Never unpacked,” he grinned, helping Helen to her feet.

*~*~*

“There’s unsafe,” Will shifted on his arse so that the ceiling grazed his nose. The shaft or tunnel or whatever Helen said this was could barely fit their slender figures as they descended into the darkness. “Which I would define as unwise, possibly stupid behaviour resulting in injury,” he pointed to the weather-worn rope around their waists as the only thing keeping them aloft.

The crevice they were abseiling down wasn’t quite vertical but it was close enough to it that their feet failed to find footings.

Helen was in front, peering into the oncoming tunnel with a flashlight as best she could. “I can see where this is going…” she muttered.

Will twitched his head to the side. “Really?” he replied, wondering how she could see anything in that pitch.

She turned and pointed the light directly between his eyes. “I meant you train of logic.”

“Oh,” he blinked, temporarily blinded. “Well, after unwise we have ‘risky’ which I think we passed way back at those sinister doors at the opening of the tomb.” His feet slid on the polished surface. Egyptians really knew how to build their shit and worse, knew how to protect it.

“And what is this, then?” she asked, sneezing at a wafting of dust.

“Bad,” he sighed, shaking a sore hand. “Do we even know that this is the right tomb? It’s not like she’s sent us a GPS location.”

“She sent us plenty. Ashley’s down here all right, so is the thing she’s hunting which means we have to stay on our guard.”

“I’d feel much better if the big guy was here too.”

“He is here,” and with that she called out up the shaft. Bigfoot answered straight away, apparently they were almost out of rope.

“What do we do when this runs out?”

Something sinister crept over Helen’s eyes. Already at the end of her rope, she reached into a slip of leather on her calf and withdrew a blade. It caught a fragment of light as she held it to Will’s rope and sliced clean through it.

Will’s arms flailed as he started to slide down the shaft. Dust and sand flew into the air, blanketing him in a dense cloud. Holding his breath he splayed his limbs out and searched frantically for a hand hold. It was all over very quickly. Will hit the ground with a distinct thud, landing next to his flashlight which rolled lazily away from him as if nothing had happened. Unlike him, the maglite was indestructible.

“Watch out!” he heard, before Helen landed on top of him, knocking him to the ground again with a fresh layer of sand.

“Urgh…” Will rolled out from underneath Helen, gasping. “Magnificent plan, truly brilliant – just one flaw –” he pointed to the black hole that they had fallen through. “How does one get back now that the rope’s cut?”

Helen, already on her knees, rolled his flashlight back to him. “Our man at the top is tying our two ropes together as we speak. The new rope should make it to the bottom no problem, besides, Ashley will have more when we meet up with her. Who knows, there might even be another way out of here.”

‘Out of here’ was an interesting way of putting it, thought Will as he skimmed his light over the room. It appeared that they had fallen into some kind of large, empty stone room.

Attired in a mixture of nylon and leather, Helen paced around the square enclosure, running her hands along the walls. The fact that they were currently trapped in a dead end did not seem to bother her as she knelt down in the far corner.

“There are no mummies in Egypt – right?” Will blurted out, continuously scanning the dark edges of the room. “No walking dead wrapped in bandages poised to bring about seven plagues or anything. I mean, we are dealing with human mutations after all, not the supernatural.”

She smiled. “You are quite right,” she replied, pressing down on a stone with a small inscription at its corner. “What I think we’ll find down here are the People of the Sand. No-one’s ever actually found one before so it’s quite exciting. It’s no wonder Ashley packed and left when she heard.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Sand…” she whispered. “Ashley put a fair amount in the envelope.”

The blocks beside her rubbed and ground against each other until one fell loose, crashing to the floor leaving a human sized hole through to the next chamber. Will examined the hole warily with a frown. He could not help but note the assortments of weaponry poorly concealed around her hips, chest, thighs and arms. The backpack in its own right carried more ammunition than food which helped to feed the worried thoughts in his mind.

Will glanced down at his meagre flashlight until he realised that he was being watched.

Helen pointed at his hands and asked, “Out of interest, what did you bring with you?”

He thought for a moment, before answering, “Batteries…” They were for the flashlight. His biggest fear had always been being left alone in the dark. Helen though, simply nodded with a concerned look.

Will decided to change the subject as they ducked and shimmied their way through the opening, brushing curtains of century old spider webs aside. Hollow exoskeletons crunched on the ground as they walked. “Are these ‘People of the Sand’ dangerous?”

Helen shrugged, “No one knows. I presume so, otherwise, why hasn’t anyone caught one?”

“I’ve never heard of them before.”

“There have always been stories, passed along from tomb robbers all the way through caravan travellers who speak of a desert creature that comes at night. Usually they’ll take a camel or horse. The most interesting stories though, come from within the tombs.”

“I don’t like where you’re heading with this explanation.”

“Your objection has been noted,” she continued.

The low passageway ended and suddenly they found that they could stand. Helen’s ear piece crackled and Bigfoot’s voice was just discernable from the static.

“He says that he’s fixed our escape,” she relayed to Will as she paced ahead of him into the darkness. Will wanted to mutter don’t go but resisted. “Right, okay,” she turned back to Will. “The rope’s tied off and he’s going to throw down a couple of bottles of water. I’m just going to go and get them. You stay here.”

She scurried off before he could protest, leaving him alone in the unexplored chamber.

“I hate this,” he muttered, kicking the shallow layer of sand covering the floor. Will took a few steps backwards until his back hit the cold wall. It made him feel better, knowing that nothing was going to pounce on him from behind. The other three points of approach still bothered him though. He skimmed his light over the ground. Helen’s footprints were clearly visible in their tight circle and eventual return to the passageway, his own ended at his feet. There were a few small trails belonging to some kind of tomb dwelling critter, but nothing bigger than a beetle.

“Back!”

Will jumped forward in fright, throwing his flashlight at the sound in defence.

Helen caught it in one hand, a little offended. “These things can hurt,” she said, throwing it back at him just as hard.

“Ow…” he had missed. “I thought you were – something else.”

Helen bent over and plucked him off the floor by the scruff of his jacket. “You’re very skittish,” she commented. “Good thing I didn’t give you a gun or I’d be dead.”

“Tomb raiding is just not my thing,” Will dusted himself off.

“Well,” she smiled, pacing into the dark, “I hope you’re better at hunting because that’s what we’re really doing.”

2

BRILLIANT

“Morning baby,” Henry paused at the tank of murky water until a silvery face appeared. “Yeah, I know you love me,” he whispered at the mermaid who flicked her hair gracefully. Her features shimmered as the light struggled to get a hold on her skin.

Her deep eyes kept him there, staring dumbly at the tank. Henry often caught himself lingering here on his way through to the main office. The floor was full of all kinds of unimaginable creatures staring out from their enclosures yet he always ended up here, with his hand to the glass.

“Brought you something,” he muttered, breaking her mournful gaze. Henry opened his laptop, balancing it awkwardly on his arm. The screen flicked on revealing a grainy image of something remotely human. “Sandman,” he grinned, outlining the human figure with a finger.

She pulled away at first, swimming back into the safety of the water with a flick of her tail.

“No, it’s okay!” he put the laptop on the ground and pressed his nose to the glass. “Please…”

The mermaid tilted her head to the side before drifting closer.

“Just a picture,” Henry continued to whisper, until she was back in front of him.

*~*~*

Helen ran her hand along the wall as they walked forward, carefully placing one foot in front of the next. “The Egyptians weren’t just smart,” her voice had already begun to lower as they moved further into the tombs. “They were paranoid. Sand traps and spiked drops are the most common form of obstacle in places like this,” she held an arm in front of Will’s chest, preventing his forward motion.

Will raised an eyebrow curiously as she tapped the ground lightly with her foot where his next step was going to be. The ground fell away at once with a miniature avalanche of sand. Will coughed and leant over to the hole with his flashlight. A rather nasty set of spikes protruded after a short drop with sinister looking tips begging to stab something.

“Point made,” he said, stepping around it.

“You should have been there in Rome when we did the Colosseum. We had wild cats as well as ShiftCreatures – you know,” she put her hands up, “those things that grab you by the head?”

“What sort of coffee do you like?”

Helen stopped and frowned. “Creatures that grab you by the head and what sort of coffee do I like?”

Will shrugged. “Either you tell me what sort of coffee you like or I run back down that corridor and hide.”

“I hate coffee,” she sneered, “but I would be happy to discuss the long and magnificent history of tea if you –” Helen raised a fist in front of them and stopped dead.

Will had no idea what that meant but presumed that he was supposed to stop. Feeling very naked, he raised his flashlight aggressively as Helen withdrew a long knife.

“What?” whispered Will, sinking behind.

Helen flashed her light across the ground. “Footprints,” she pointed at the dips in the sand in front of them. They were small but far apart, made by something running.

“They just begin,” she whispered, stepping forward. “Unless –” she lifted her eyes to the ceiling and found a small opening. “Ashley came through here.”

“This is Ashley?” Will asked, wondering how some non-descript indents in the ground could be identified.

“Size six-and-a-half, slight in-turn on the left foot; can’t tell you how many times I’ve told her to wear her orthopaedics.” Helen picked up the pace to a brisk walk. “Wherever she’s going, she went there in a hurry – and with company…” she pointed to a second set of prints which appeared every ten metres or so in a tight bundle of three.

*~*~*

ERROR – search results = 0

Henry glared at the screen – Google rarely failed him so spectacularly.

“But I don’t want to go upstairs,” he mumbled, sliding out his chair and grabbing his coat. Henry blew a kiss at the tank as he left, warmed by the flash of silver.

Three flights of stairs (because he refused to use the lift while alone) took him to the library. A level exclusively for books, many protected behind wire framed cabinets or hidden in wall crevices, circled a central desk. He tried his search again at the lonesome computer and this time was directed to a small row of books at the south-east end of the room.

The city shimmered outside with a thousand trembling points of light. They would start to go out soon as the hours lagged on, the office buildings first and eventually the angry taillights of cars. It was almost time to let the wanderers out – the abnormals allowed to roam freely. Henry preferred to call them ‘pets’ but was usually clipped sharply over the ears for doing so.

Tucked away in a dark corner, Henry found what he was looking for. Grunting, he extracted a dusty A3 book and flopped to the floor with it. Deciding that ‘here’ was as good a place as any, he flicked to the index and scanned for anything scary.

“Mummies…” he repeated, finding something interesting. “Close enough. Yo Bigfoot,” he spoke into his earpiece. The simple looking communicator was actually a complex set of relays connecting him directly with his colleagues at the scene in Egypt. He waited patiently for the satellite delay, skimming through the text.

“Foss,” the signal was a bit crackly, but it was defiantly the big man. “You took yooour tiime.”

“How’s the sand?” Henry smiled, scratching his chin. He’d forgotten to shave and appeared, by his standards, a bit scruffy. He made a note to look into that before the boss got home.

“Good for the liice,” Bigfoot joked, although he really wasn’t much for jokes so it could have been a serious comment. “Did yoou find that book?”

He winked though there was no-one to see it. “Tell her to load the heavy stuff, these things she’s onto aren’t very friendly. This book calls them, ‘wall climbers’ but I think they’re the same thing. Claws and teeth – sensitive to light, the usual aggressive temperament of an abnormal…”

Bigfoot growled a little, resulting in a smile from Henry.

“Cool it fuzzy, you don’t count, obviously.” He flipped over to a random page. “Oooh… hope you don’t run into any of these.”

“Goodbye Foss,” the radio crackled out.

“Nasty little beasts with fangs and everything ouch,” he ripped the device out of his ear as it pitched. “You could’ve said you were hanging up…” he pouted, rubbing his ear.

“Maybe I could help with that…” the silken voice trailed off as its owner paced out of the shadows. John Druitt’s leather coat caught a few traces of the city light filtering in through the cob-webbed windows.

Henry dropped the book and spun around to find Helen’s creepy ex lingering by the window.

“She used to keep this place better,” John dragged a slender finger through a trail of dust on the top of a low shelf. “Many things change over time.”

*~*~*

“And what are you planning to do with that?” Helen watched curiously as Will rolled his thumb over the lighter’s metal wheel. A sharp spark later and a slender flame dented the torchlight.

“I lied before – when I said I only brought batteries. I have this too.”

“All our problems are solved – we can finally go home because Will possesses a lighter.” She shook her head in amusement. “Seriously, what are you doing with that other than wasting time?”

“This…” he grinned, holding it up to a small crevice in the wall beside. For a few moments the flame did nothing except tremble. Then, in a sudden rush of light, it caught hold of an accelerant and zoomed off in a trail of light illuminating their surrounds.

Helen clicked her flashlight off, highly impressed.

“You’re not going to say anything?” Will failed to conceal a proud grin. “It’s okay, I know when I’m brilliant.”

3

FOOTPRINTS

“Ashley…” whispered Helen, stepping forward on shaky feet. The size of the tomb was immense – at least thirty feet to the roof and a hundred foot long. With several layers of steps weaving in around the lines of paint flecked pillars, there were many corners left hidden from view.

A steady creak came from above. Helen, momentarily forgetting the danger, descended the sand covered stairs and screamed up to the roof, “Ashley!”

Ashley was curled around a rope, dangling from a small metal ring in the ceiling. Her head was slumped forward and one leg hanging limp with a gash through her leather pants. She swung gently, like a curious pendulum or angel not quite fallen from the sky.

Helen watched a steady trail of blood drip out a line on the sand. It looked as if Ashley had been here for some time, injured and alone.

Will skidded in behind the circling mother, glancing nervously about the unexplored room.

“We’ve got to get her down, Ashley!” Helen continued to call, trying to get her daughter’s attention.

Her persistence worked. Gradually, Ashley began to stir. It started with a strand of dirty blond hair slipping over her shoulder to brush against her face, tickling her nose. Ashley shifted as her eyes parted, laden with sharp deposits of sand.

“Mum?” she muttered, trying to focus the blurry shapes running frantic circles beneath her.

“Don’t move Ashley, I’m coming up there.”

Will frowned with his head aimed at the ceiling. He wasn’t sure how Helen planned to get up there. Ashley was hanging from the centre of the room out of reach from everything; indeed, he still couldn’t work out how on earth she’d gotten up there in the first place.

He took a few steps after Helen and felt his ankle roll. Will landed on his arse in a cloud of dust and sand, coughing with surprise. That had hurt. Feeling around for the cause, he found a scattering of ammunition shells sinister enough to make him suspect Ashley as their owner.

“Helen, wait…” he said. Helen hadn’t even noticed that he’d fallen. It took him catching hold of her arm to gain her attention and even then, he wasn’t sure that she was listening. “Something went down here – these things are all over the place.” He pointed out several more piles of shells at variously locations all over the room. Either there had been a small war or Ashley’d found what she had been looking for.

Ashley renewed her grip on the rope, grimacing as her nylon-warn wrists and hands burned. Almost a day, that’s how long she’d been hanging on, hoping that the rusted metal would hold her in place. The left side of her shoulder was useless with a shard of hot metal burrowed into it. Damage from the scuffle itself was widespread and ranged from severe to superficial. To be honest, she was more worried about the claw marks leaving a scar than potential infection. That was the one thing the desert had going for it. Her adrenaline was all but gone and the actual pain was well established, seizing whatever functions remained.

“Get out of here…” she croaked, lifting her head up. Her mother and Will were scurrying over the floor beneath like a pair of rats, sniffing and hunting.

“I’m coming, Ashley…” Helen repeated, searching for anything that she could use to reach her daughter.

Underneath the layers of sand was an exquisitely tiled floor. Most of the walls displayed intact hieroglyphs, several of which Will paused at, if only in fright. Now that he looked hard at the room, there was something wrong with it. Tombs were tributes, houses for the dead to live on in – that much he had picked up from the History Channel. Will seriously did not want to meet the person who had chosen to live in this place for all eternity.

The trail of fire that he had lit in the corridor, circled the whole room. “Wait…” he breathed, eyeing the ochre urns nestled in several corners. The sand on the ground wasn’t flat as it should be, nor were Helen and his trails visible. The ground was chaotic – a whisper of what had taken place and was still going on…

There – it happened again, another set of footprints appeared in the sand from nowhere.

“Get out of here,” Ashley repeated, trying to catch sight of her mother. All she found was Will, standing rigid against the far wall with his head jolting at every new movement.

“Helen!” Will said, panic rising in his voice. His plea echoed through the room, creating a few more footprints over the floor.

Helen felt the cool snap of breeze on her neck before anything else. Turning, gun and knife drawn, she saw only a frightened Will limping to the side. Her eyes betrayed her – she knew that her guard had dropped and that now they were in deep trouble.

“Talk to me,” she instructed Ashley.

The figure on the rope wiped sweat and tears onto the back of her hand. “I’m really sorry, mum,” she leant her cheek against the rope. “I never should have come here without you. They all told me to wait but I wanted –”

“I’ll deduct it from your allowance,” Helen was turning in very slow circles, gradually edging back into the centre of the room urging Will to do the same. “Right now I need to know what you found down here.”

“You seeing this,” said Will, watching smears of sand stain the air. Helen nodded, tracking each one.

*~*~*

“Why do you want to find her?” Henry swallowed harder than he meant to, clutching the book protectively across his chest like a shield.

John Druitt continued his expedition through the room, turning things over with his elegantly long fingers. So far he thought that he was doing a good job of appearing friendly.

“Because, little Henry,” John leant over the low bookshelf behind Henry, sliding his elbows over the wood. “She’s about to walk into something that she can’t handle and I don’t much fancy the prospect of spending eternity alone.”

Henry scoffed. “You want to help her? I don’t believe you.”

“I may not be the ideal husband, but there are worse things in the world than me.” He watched the city lights start to blink-out through the window behind Henry. A pretty scene – the new moon peeking out from a cloud, silhouettes of night birds cruising overhead, kept his eyes aloft for a moment. “And she’s about to meet one of them,” he said, as if to the night.

He could be sincere, Henry would grant him that much. Still, this smelt of a set up. He’d had no indication from the others that there was trouble and for all he knew, John’s other personality was the approaching danger. “She told me what you did, all those years ago. We all know. Boss told us so that we’d never believe a word from you.”

John’s eyes flicked down, quietly burning. “I’m being pleasant right now, as an act of good faith but there are more ways that we could do this. My daughter’s in trouble – so are your friends. I’m prepared to cut you a deal on this.”

“A deal, like you slit my throat after I tell you what you want?”

“I wouldn’t make suggestions if I were you, Mr. Foss. They don’t do your imagination justice.”

4

TIGHT

“Hey, can you hear me?” Helen tapped her earpiece, still clutching a knife.

Will continued to limp toward her, his eyes darting at the sporadic movement around the room. She was beckoning him forward, trying to reassure him with her gun while wiping the area with it every few seconds. Neither of them had seen anything but sand – and you couldn’t shoot at sand.

“Juuust,” came Bigfoot’s reply in her ear, amongst a shower of static.

“Get out of there and meet us at the campsite. Leave the rope.”

Will’s eyes went wide as he listened.

“Are you iin trouble?”

Helen kept her gun high. “Just go!” she yelled, satisfied when the radio clicked off. “He can’t help us anyway,” said Helen to Will. “Ashley, I want to know if you can see anything from up there.”

Ashley, barely awake, lifted her head up and looked down on the scene. Her mother was in the centre of the room with Will cautiously making his way toward her. He was about to start his descent down the steps when Ashley croaked, “Wait – they’re all around you.”

Will stopped, his foot hovering above the sand. Helen’s eyes moved more gradually this time, lingering on every turn of stone.

“I know what you are,” she whispered to the room in a silken voice not dissimilar to someone she had once known. Helen was certain that the walls could hear her. “Have you ever used one of these?” She reached behind her and withdrew a charcoal hand gun with an inscription scratched over the butt. Will thought it looked an awful lot like the one usually found resting on the hip of a certain Detective.

“Present from a friend,” she explained, holding it up for him to see. “Safety is on,” she twisted it around. “As soon as you’ve got it, I want you to slip this clip and aim it at the wall behind me. Whatever you do, don’t shoot me.”

“I-” Will didn’t get a chance to finish the thought. Helen threw the gun towards him in a steady, underarm action. It cleared the first ten feet between them. Will extended his hands toward it in expectation, cowering as the weapon spun in the air barrel first.

A line of sand ripped up from the ground between them, plucking the gun from midair as if it had hit an invisible wall. It fell to the floor with a shower of sand and a new set of footprints. Will’s outstretched hands clutched the air dumbly as he stared down at the fallen weapon.

His hairline broke into sweat. “I really don’t like what’s going down here.”

“Don’t panic,” Helen replied, “just walk towards the gun very quietly and pick it up.”

“You said you knew what these things were,” said Will, clambering down off the first step. It was a difficult thing to do carefully as his limp and the stone’s uncertain edges hindered his movement.

“Chameleons,” she replied, unable to pick any out yet. Helen knew that there were at least three in the room; one behind her, one to Will’s right and another skirting around the ceiling.

“The best I’ve seen,” added Ashley, trying to keep her eyes focused. If she could be of help, she would. “At least fifty of them though they were a tad difficult to count properly.”

“Not a time for jokes, Ashley.”

“I’m not,” she coughed, her throat dry and sore. “They’ve got a community – if you could call it that. Pack, yeah – a pack of them.”

Helen’s heart revved up a beat, not only was the sand moving but the walls as well. Pillars, stairs, ceiling – every surface was shivering, refusing to settle.

“Pick a spot and stare at it,” instructed Helen, as Will reached the gun and saved it from the ground.

He flicked the safety off with trembling fingers and pointed the gun at the wall behind Helen.

“I don’t want to alarm you,” she began, her voice miraculously steady, “but you’ve got to wait for a clean shot.”

Will wasn’t confident that he could get off any kind of shot at all. He’d never been a gun man – he was a flashlight man, a book man – a penknife man even, but not guns. They were too heavy and unpredictable and added to that, he hated the thought of what might happen if he scared and squeezed the trigger or even worse, if he did nothing at all.

Picking a spot on the wall behind her, he asked, “Why?”

“Under these circumstances – small enclosed space with stone walls, bullets bounce.”

Ashley nodded in agreement though no-one could see it. Her shoulder pained again and she remembered seeing the sparks of her bullet ricocheting off the pillar and coming back for more. Flashes of limbs, dust and an air you couldn’t breathe, it was surreal to see the room so quiet when she knew the same creatures were there, waiting for their chance.

“You got anything left up there?”

“I’ve got a clip,” Ashley replied, though she doubted that she could reach into her waistband to retrieve it.

Helen did the math. “This is going to be tight.”

*~*~*

Emerging from the wooden ladder stronger than its looks, Bigfoot’s hair-laden hands gripped the stone opening and hauled himself out into the sun. A dry wind kicked over his fur, lacing it with sand.

“Good for the lice,” he grinned, as best his face would allow. He’d waited years to use that line and he was damned if he was going to let a lack of audience stop him. Foss didn’t count, he was just practice. Bigfoot ran all his best lines through him before using them in public.

Rolling onto his knees, he pulled the equipment up after him and set to work unpacking the satellite communication. He strapped the remainder of the equipment onto his back and held the transceiver aloft for signal which would be undoubtedly better up here above the ground.

A rich carpet of red stretched out in front of him. The dirt of this dust bowl was mixed with iron oxide – literally rust. At the edges of the impressive red sweep was a stark range of mountains, clawing up into the sky with water-stained sandstone which had turned a sinister black. The rendezvous point was at the base of the spire-peak. In the shadow of the cliffs, Bigfoot could see a few fires burning.

“Foss, are you there?”

He walked for a few minutes, re-adjusting his luggage until he settled into a comfortable pace. Something was in the process of going wrong in the tomb, he could feel it. Danger worked its way down his spine in a shiver; a prickle of hair lifting to attention at the slightest whiff of trouble. The big man knew that he was of no use to them on his own. The shafts were too small for him to fit through. If he could bring the camp site back with him fast enough, maybe that would help.

“Arrre you even listening to me? There’s trouble about. I’ll send you through what we aave as soon as I get to the camp. You better be online by then.”

Thousands of miles away, John Druitt set the radio back on the desk. Henry rubbed his fists over his brow, trying to press the correct decision into his head.

*~*~*

This time, Helen caught an outline seething into focus half way up the wall. A torso was twisting as its chest exhaled. The creature’s camouflage re-adjusted with the slightest delay giving her a tangible outline with which to track her weapons on.

It knew that she could see it. What bothered Helen most was that it didn’t seem to mind.

She followed its motion as it slipped along the wall only pausing when a pair of eyes widened in terror. Her gun had ended up aimed at Will’s nose with the creature dead behind.

Will was sure that he could see the bullet, nuzzled inside the barrel ready for its turn in the air. His body shifted to pause – no air, no thought, no movement.

“Helen…” he whispered, not sure of her intention.

“Do you trust me?” she steadied her arm and tilted her stance so that her shoulders and feet were square to him.

Will wanted to swallow but couldn’t find the courage. “I hardly know you.”

“Probably a good thing,” she curled her fingers around the trigger.

This is going to be bad, thought Will, in what was potentially his last thought.

Helen held her line of sight with sheer audacity. She would not miss. Helen Magnus didn’t know how to miss.

“Duck!”

5

TAG AND BAG

Will did as he was told and ducked as a bullet ripped over his head. He slammed his eyes shut and brought his hands over his face as he hit the ground, surprised to find himself alive.

Helen’s shot hit the stone wall in a shower of sparks, missing the camouflaged creature by inches. She swore as the bullet made a return trip, flying past her right ear before she could tilt her head away and then continued on to embed itself in a pottery urn behind.

The room moved at once.

“Get up!” she yelled at Will, as every surface shifted.

Will uncovered his eyes and saw a clawed hand skim over his skin before disappearing into the sand with a rush of air. He yelped and fumbled for the gun he’d dropped, picking it up backwards.

“Arse off the ground right now,” Helen screamed, as a blur of movement headed in Will’s direction. He rolled when Helen took a shot at the ground, both of them shielding themselves as it bounced off the floor and headed toward the roof.

Ashley condensed herself into a tight ball as the stray bullet made a close pass. That horrible sound had returned to the room, the one that sounded like sandpaper on wood. They were all moving now, more than before. She had listened to the creatures slip into the room for hours in the darkness as she hung on the rope, hovering out of their reach. The ‘People of the Sand’ the books had called them, but these were neither people nor sand. They were far more dangerous.

“Heads up mum!” Ashley called, as one of the sand people launched themselves from a nearby pillar.

You could see them better in the air.

Slender arms which ended in four clawed fingers, stretched in expectation of Helen’s person. Their skin was sleek and beautiful, rippling through colours during flight. The contours of their body suggested a muscular physique – supple like a feline but human enough that Helen could make out a wicked smile, spreading as their eyes opened.

They were blue – an icy contrast with the sand. Both were trained on her as their limbs closed in and the claws fanned out in a pre-grab motion.

The creature reached her before she could move, dragging her across the floor and down a step with the impact.

Will did a double take as Helen was wiped from view. On the step beside him, a figure sat up calmly and grinned. It had been there all along and now it was ready to play. Will heard it tap its claws and fold its knees in preparation for an attack. Without thinking, he pulled the trigger at point blank range, not bothering to aim. The creature snarled as its arm went limp. A steady trail of dark blood ruined its perfect camouflage.

This upset the others. Breaking their silence, they all stepped forward, crouching or crawling.

Helen used her feet to keep the creature at bay. It was held back by her legs, forcing itself towards her. Its long arms swiped, falling just short of her face but were getting closer with each pass as it used its weight to weaken her. Her instinct was to bring her gun around and shoot, but her weapon had been lost during the collision and all she had nearby was her five inch knife.

Turning her head to the side to avoid the creature’s attacks, she stretched her arm and groped for the knife.

“Damn,” Ashley whispered, as she tried to make it to her weapon. Her shoulder melted into pain as she unclipped the strap holding her gun in place.

Knife firmly in her fingers, Helen brought it toward the creature’s face. “Last chance,” she said, wondering if it could understand her.

It understood the serrated edge along the blade and the way that it caught the firelight.

Struggling for control, Helen called out to her daughter, “What do you want to do with them?”

Ashley, gun free and loaded, picked a target. “Tag and bag,” she called back. “That’s why we’re here.”

“I guess we’re taking you with us,” she goaded the creature currently trying to detach her face.

“Take them where?” Will gasped, backing away from his injured creature which continued to crawl toward him. It was taking its time, something that bothered Will greatly.

“Take them home,” replied Helen, gathering her strength.

Will shook his head. The room was full of them, most still watching the proceedings curiously as one might watch a fight. He had no doubt that they would join in when the temptation became too great. “Uh un… count me out of that one. You take this,” he pointed at the wild-eyed chameleon, “home then you can leave me here.”

The floor was covered in a constant layer of airborne sand as things raced across out of sight. Helen, mouth full of sand and eyes stinging, gathered her strength.

“Get. Off. Of. Me!” she huffed, bringing her knees to her chest before jettisoning the creature off across the room.

It squealed, shocked at the sudden action. Before hitting the pillar behind, it managed to twist its body in the air and land, clutched around the curved surface. With a wide-eyed glare, it quickly mimicked the pillar behind, barely visible as it scrambled up toward the roof.

A few others cried out, including the one closing in on Will. He brought the gun back up, aiming it at the creature’s head.

“Don’t kill it!” said Helen, getting to her feet. “We need one alive.”

“Does it have to be this one?” he replied, trying to ignore the cold eyes staring back at him. His question was answered when the creature slumped to the floor in a pile following a loud crack. Ashley nodded from her lofty position.

“Sorry, but that one was about to rip your throat open.”

“Ashley,” scorned Helen, “shoot to wound.”

“To hell with that!” Will leapt to his feet, seeing at least four more advance upon his position. He turned his head to the side and gripped the weapon with both hands. The trigger gave way beneath his fingers and suddenly he was spraying the room with bullets.

“No!” Helen went to ground, unable to do anything but hope.

The creatures darted, scattering away from the initial line of fire. Will realised his mistake too late as five rounds took on trajectories of their own. The first clipped his arm and he yelled out in shock. A creature on the wall fell to the ground, writhing in pain and a final shot found the nylon rope securing Ashley to the ceiling.

Her first thought was that it had missed. As Ashley continued to swing, the rope appeared unharmed. It wasn’t until the first strand snapped that she realised that she was in trouble. Even if she survived the fall to the tomb floor, her injuries would be serious.

Enraged, a creature behind Will hit him on the back, tearing strips from the back of his jacket along with several layers of his skin. Helen rolled onto her back, sore and winded. She saw Ashley swinging high above and the rope holding her there, unfurling strand by strand.

6

CHAOS AND SAND

On her feet at last, Helen screamed at the ceiling.

“Don’t move! There’s rope in the entrance room, Will and I will – urrumph,” a creature, appearing from the side, took hold of Helen’s arm – sinking its teeth through her leather jacket. Its jaws clenched down onto her bone, extracting a shriek from her usually brave exterior. Another slammed into the back of her knees and she slumped back to the ground in pain.

The creature’s head was black now, flaunting a dull sheen and crinkled surface. It horrified her that she appeared to be wearing it, like some aggressive accessory she might have owned a century ago. She tried to pull her arm away but found herself drawn toward the creature instead. Screaming, Helen kicked sideways at its head, hoping to dislodge its teeth from her arm.

Will made it to his feet, half limping – half falling forwards with motion. His back was searing from the creature’s claws while his arm dribbled over his shoes and into the sand. He could see Helen on the floor, struggling against a creature unsure if it wanted to be sand or leather. Its back legs were digging and scratching at the floor behind as Helen tried to drag herself from its hold.

Another ‘crack’ reverberated off the walls. A creature lost its footing, rolling down the steps beside him. Will looked up and saw Ashley re-aim her weapon at the creature attacking her mother. It was clear from her growl that she couldn’t get a clean shot.

Ashley’s eyes kept the creature lined up but she couldn’t stop her hand from shaking. She wasn’t nervous, or scared – her body was going into shock most likely from all the blood she’d lost. Added to that, she knew that her legs were well and truly tangled in the rope. She had made sure of it so that she could drift in and out of sleep whilst waiting for help. Now though, it presented her with a problem; with the rope gradually breaking, she would go down with it.

Will, with a decent line of sight on Helen, brought his weapon up and took a shot at the creature. Nothing happened. Wiping away the sweat stinging his eyes, he tried again, rolling the trigger as Ashley had shown in on his first week. This time he felt the click but it was soft and empty. He was out of bullets.

“Shit…” he muttered, tucking it into the back of his jeans without thinking. “What do I do?” Will yelled at the room, not caring what answered him.

Helen shouted Will’s name as she rolled on top of the creature. “At your feet! At your feeeeet!” Then she was gone again, with two creatures on top of her slashing and screaming.

Will looked down at his feet, wondering what help they could possibly be. There, to his surprise, he found the sleek form of his flashlight. He couldn’t help but grin.

Scooping it from the ground, Will hopped over the last few feet until he was right on top of scuffle. Raising it behind his head, he let loose, bringing a heavy blow onto one of the creatures. Now with one arm free, Helen took a swipe of her own, knocking the other one off of her.

“Thank you,” she said, gripping her arm with her hand to stop the blood gushing out of it.

“Mum…”

They both looked up and saw Ashley staring anxiously at what remained of her rope. There couldn’t be more than a few strands left. Instead of swinging, the rope had started to twist in tight circles, putting even more strain on the nylon.

The twang from the final snap dragged a heavy silence after it. Helen saw only her child, suspended on the air with a rope snaking off in a wild curve, thrashing out toward the wall. Ashley’s hands let go, reaching out like wings as the downward pull took hold of her. It was an action too slow to be real, as if the world had changed its motion.

“Ashley!” Helen threw her body carelessly forward, dodging a stray creature. Will followed, propelling himself with such force a creature bounced off his chest in fright.

“No…” Helen stood beneath her daughter as a scream filled the room.

Will, realising that Ashley didn’t stand a chance, knocked Helen out of the way of her fall. As they headed to the ground together, Helen frantically grouped over Will’s shoulder at the sight of her daughter sailing through the air. Then, a rush of wind kicked every granule of sand from the floor and the room vanished under a hazy veil.

It was if a jet liner had decided to take off beneath them except that they could see nothing as the roar encompassed them. Like lightening in the distance, Helen and Will were vaguely aware of a blue flash bleeding through the chaos. They couldn’t hear Ashley’s scream and yet they hadn’t heard her hit the ground.

Shielding their faces in each other as the sand and wind peaked, they felt themselves tugged sharply. Will held on tight as they both slid over the floor, unable to breathe or see. They were drowning in it; the sand and the chaos. Overwhelmed with the noise, Will failed to feel the creature’s claws, digging into his ankle with no intention of letting go.

Without warning – the room went quiet.

The wind stopped as abruptly as it had begun and the sand fell back where it belonged amongst the shattered remnants of urns and bone. Sand creatures were scattered everywhere, dazed and clumsy as they staggered about with their skins in flux, upset from the disorder.

The first thing Helen and Will did was breathe.

Helen opened her eyes. She found a pair staring back at her. They were blue – but not icy and clear like the sand people. These eyes were murky with flickers of grey and green blurring into watery disks. They were stark against the expanse of pale skin, sunken under a strong brow ridge as if sheltering from the world.

“Let’s go,” they said, reaching out a hand.

Without meaning to, Helen took hold and the world faded to black.

*~*~*

“Foss, you better aaanswer your damn headset or I’m coming over there to-”

“We are so, so – I can’ believe how utterly and totally, phenomenally, I mean TOTALLY screwed we are!” Henry’s panicked voice had trouble deciding what to confess to first. Unable to stop the topple of words spilling from his mouth, he continued to despatch information in fragments ranked via severity. “And then – he was gone. Druitt was outta here with a mean look and I think he was headed your way.”

“Back up and slow down.” Bigfoot waved the rescue party to leave without him. They were still unsettled by his appearance, most normals were. It was something he had gotten used to. It hurt, but less and less as the years wore on. “What do you mean ‘Druitt’? I thought we were dealing with Sand People.”

“I know,” Henry was surrounded by open books and handwritten notes, “and we are. But I was just sitting here and suddenly he appeared from nowhere and I mean one minute there was a window and the next minute – damn, scary bastard – my arse is so gonna die.”

“He triiied to kill you?”

“No – well, yes, but I mean that the boss is gonna kill me when she gets back. If she gets back. Of course she’s getting back – I didn’ mean that.”

Bigfoot finally found what he was looking for – a large, nicely curved slice of metal. He threaded it through the straps of his pack and headed out the tent flap. Evening was finally starting to approach the desert. The surrounds were darker than they should have been, sheltered by the wall of rock behind the camp. Permafrost clung to the tents, thicker at the posts. By the time they reached the buried tomb, it would be night. Bigfoot’s main concern was that the desert stories were true.

Most of the camp was on the move, heading toward the strange bump poking through the sand in the middle of absolutely nowhere. They are armed to the teeth, in some cases, literally. As residents of the desert, they had a pretty good idea of what was under the sand.

“Listen, we’ve got a few problems of ooour own. If Druitt turns up, we’ll deal with him. Call you back when we’re done.”

Henry gripped his headset, as if squeezing the life out it would keep it on longer. “Don’t hang up on me, don’t hang up on me, don’t -! Guh! Damn fuzzball, I hadn’t finished yet.”

There was a not so subtle scowl over the headpiece.

“You – still – there?” whispered Henry.

“Satelliiite delay.”

Henry had forgotten about that. “Did you,” he cleared his throat, “have something to add?”

“Yeah, prep the biggest cage we have. Helen’s bringing home a new pet.”

7

TRAVELMATE

The world reappeared with a sharp flash of light and jolt of electricity that raced up her spine and played havoc with her nerves. Helen clenched her eyes shut as she felt her head split into two. The sheer agony of jumping through a gash in space and time was overwhelming and it never got easier.

John held her hand, folding it beneath his fingers while he waited for her to wake up. He watched as she murmured and frowned, no doubt suffering through the pain.

Will was unconscious, draped over the lower half of Helen’s body whilst a sand creature twitched, teeth embedded deep in his ankle. It was currently a dusky orange, unaware of the deep mahogany floor boards of Helen’s library.

John tilted his head and eyed it curiously, wondering what new pet Helen had been hunting in the desert. Suddenly he felt Ashley start to slip loose from his shoulder. Shifting his daughter’s limp weight, John whispered Helen’s name. He wanted her to see this – wanted her to know.

Helen’s eyes shot open.

“Don’t,” she rasped, coughing and struggling for breath.

John let her hands slip from his hold as he stepped back, his placid look evaporating into a comfortable state of malice. He revealed Ashley, slumped carefully over his shoulder.

“Ashley…” Helen tried to get up but Will was heavy and her body was weak.

“Don’t bother,” he said softly, stepping out of her reach. “I just wanted you to see her – know that she was safe,” John finished with a strange smile forcing its way over his harsh features.

She eyed him in warning, “What do you mean – John!” Helen hid her face beneath her arm as John tore another hole in the universe. It was a violent action which ripped pieces from his soul, scattering them across time. To blame him for a gift that devoured the John she remembered was unfair but sometimes she couldn’t help it – especially when he had their daughter in tow.

“Stupid, stupid…” she beat at the ground. Ashley was gone again, dragged well beyond her reach.

“Ow… that hurts,” Will staggered into consciousness.

Helen tried for a second time to roll him off of her sore body but it was an action that was going to require his input. “Teleporting tends to hurt,” she said, slapping him hard across the face to snap him out of delirium.

“Oh god, that hurt more.”

She half heartedly apologised, helping him to lift his head and roll to the side. “You were crushing my bruised ribcage.”

“Remind me not to do that again,” he coughed up a mouthful of sand. Will’s face contorted in pain, “It really hurts…”

Helen rolled her eyes but then realised why Will was whining.

“Will,” she half-whispered, making a point of keeping her voice steady. “Keep still and – uh, tell me how many books are on that shelf over there.”

Will’s forehead crinkled up. “What shelf?”

Helen glanced over her shoulder and re-adjusted her point to a non-descript library shelf. “Just do it.”

Helen slipped her knees out first and then, with Will’s assistance, shuffled out from underneath him. She crawled around his body to the point where the sand creature had attached itself. Its body rose as it inhaled, causing a ripple of colour to propagate from its shoulders down its bony back. Helen’s hand stopped short of touching the alluring surface.

Craning her head, she saw a set of small, sharp teeth embedded in Will’s ankle amidst a mess of blood. Even in sleep this thing was biting down hard.

“Little bugger,” Helen cursed, to which Will tried to whip his head around and have a look, still unaware of his travelmate.

“What – what?” he demanded, squirming in vain.

“Nothing,” Helen roused. “Stop moving and count the books.”

Will’s attention was instead drawn to a set of footsteps approaching from the right. Puffing, a dishevelled Henry rounded the entrance to the library, stopped at the site of them and placed his hands on his knees breathing heavily.

“How – the hell – did you get – what is that!” Henry pointed at Will accusingly.

Will frowned, offended. “What do you mean, what? I’m not a ‘what’ I’m a ‘docto-ooraaargh!’” he yelled in fright, seeing the creature conjoined to his ankle. “Get it off, get it off, get it ow!”

Helen held him down with one elbow digging into his throat, “If you keep moving like this, you’re going to wake it up. Henry, go get the tranquiliser gun and load it with 4’s.”

“Hi Henry, how was your week? Good – yeah, heard you had a bit of trouble. No, it was nothing. Your deranged ex only tried to rip me into little pieces and feed them to the exhibits while you were gone but I’m over that now, no permanent damage. He did, however, take down most of our security network and release a few abnormals for good measure but other than that everything here is –”

“This century please!”

*~*~*

“Aren’t you going to help?” Helen and Will grunted their way down the corridor toward the lift, dragging the snoring body of the sand creature. It was heavy and awkward made more difficult by the fact that both of them were injured and sore. Indeed, the only reasonably healthy individual was waiting at the lift doors, holding them open with an impatient look.

“Nope,” replied Henry, one hand in his jean pocket. “Creature goes in the cage. Computer guy stays by the computer.”

She loved what Henry had done to the place whilst she was away. All the flowers were dead, weeping over the edge of the vases stationed along the corridors. He’d left the curtains drawn, most likely out of fear whilst several mice had escaped from her lab and taken up residence under the Inquiries desk.

“You’re perfectly replaceable,” she grunted, hauling the sand creature’s arse into the lift. Both she and Will fell against the iron-grated walls in exhaustion.

Henry hit the basement level button causing the lift to lurch into action, overbalancing Will who fell on top of the sand creature – squeaked in panic, and then returned to the elevator wall with an embarrassed look.

“Not likely,” Henry acted decidedly dejected. “One look at the job description and you’d have to increase the pay which brings me back to –” He stopped when Helen pushed herself off of the wall to tackle him with a hug.

A mass of dark hair obscured his view.

“Hi, how are you – missed you,” she grinned into his shoulder.

*~*~*

They deposited the sand creature in maximum security. The door to its cage clicked shut but Helen didn’t sigh with relief until the double locks slipped into place. It looked sad, lying there on the floor. In what she guessed was a rarity for its kind, the creature looked out of place – starkly alive against the dreary cell walls.

“One down. You’ve got about three more high security threats on the loose though,” Henry moved to one of the inbuilt display systems on the wall. A floor plan of the manor appeared on screen decorated with three flashing dots.

“First,” she straightened up, sweat streaming off of her. “I’m stitching the pair of us up,” she pointed at Will who continued to drip blood wherever he went, ruining her good carpet. They both looked a mess and in need of a decent cup of tea, or in Will’s case, coffee.

Henry watched nervously as the red dots moved about the screen. “I don’t suppose that I can…”

“Yes,” she wacked him on the back as she left the secure area. The whole level was too dreary for her liking. “You can come too.”

*~*~*

“You’re thinking about Ashley,” Will winced, as Helen smeared alcohol over the deep claw wounds on his back. “We could go and look for her.”

Helen shuffled through a metal tray. She was dressed in a white coat with her hair tied back while she attended to Will’s injuries which were quite impressive for someone who ‘didn’t fight’. Finally happy, she selected a dangerous looking implement with a sharp hook on its end. Will suddenly wasn’t so sure that he wanted to be fixed.

“John’s too clever for that,” she said, lining the horrific thing up where the bullet had clipped his arm. “He knows which strengths to play on – he’ll take her where I can’t follow.”

“She’s inured though?”

“I imagine so – though I didn’t get a good look.” It was clear that Helen didn’t want to talk by the abruptness of her answers.

“For what it’s worth,” said Henry, sliding off a nearby gurney, “I don’t think he wanted to kill her.”

Will looked away as Helen picked a layer of his skin up with the tool.

“Even so…” Helen trailed off. With John, even his best intentions had a habit of attracting the worst outcomes.

An alarm went off over by the door to the lab, filling the room with flashes of red. The emergency lighting kicked on a moment later, bringing the room back to full brightness. Henry tapped away on a nearby computer and frowned, deep with worry.

“One of the loose abnormals is having a go at the windows. They managed to trip the power in the process.”

“All right,” Helen’s eyes were back to their steady façade. “We better go and round them up before they do any real damage. Yes Henry, you’re coming too. Without Bigfoot or Ashley it’s going to take all three of us.”

“I’ll try and contact him again before we go,” said Henry, hunting around for his headset. “He said he was heading off back towards the tomb looking for you. Hopefully we’ll catch him early and save him the walk.”

*~*~*

A desert wind had blown itself in from nowhere. Bigfoot was certain that whole dunes were gusting over their heads. Their flashlights were utterly useless against the turbulent layers of sand swishing around like schools of ocean fish.

The desert people whom he had brought with him as part of the expedition were huddling on the ground with thick layers of cloth pulled over their heads. Whenever he passed one, he thought that they looked like boulders, thrown at random by the ancient volcano on the other side of the dune.

Bigfoot stopped when he felt a hand reach out and grab hold of his leg. Bending down, he saw another of those ‘rocks’. This one appeared to be shouting at him, though it was difficult to tell through the noise of the wind.

“Go to ground, mate,” yelled the man. Only the profile of his nose was visible underneath the layers wrapped around his head. “Only thing to do.”

For all Bigfoot knew, they had been walking in circles for hours. The desert man was right. Not even sand people would be out in this…

8

MAGNUS

The room was lit by a series of kerosene lamps stationed on mahogany desks, cut glass coffee tables and marble mantelpieces. A fire joined the glow, burning behind its ornate iron grate. There was a heavy smell of varnish on the air – almost intoxicating as it mingled with the vase of roses.

Some of the furniture was huddled to the side, pushed out of the way to make space for a central table covered in soft layers of bedding. Ashley shifted on top of it. The pillow supporting her head smelt like her mother’s coat.

Eventually her eyes opened, catching a glimpse of the firelight playing over the ceiling. She waited for the inevitable stab of pain to hit her forehead but it never came. Her body was numb, trying to move she realised that nothing but her eyes would respond.

Her heart picked up a few beats as she took a more careful look at the roof above. It was painted a shade of green her mother wouldn’t touch with a shorn off shotgun which meant that she wasn’t at home. Ashley breathed again, confirming her mother’s scent.

Concentrate Ashley, she instructed herself. Don’t panic, you’re not dead yet. Now where the hell are you? Closing her eyes she tried to remember the last thing that had happened.

A length of unravelling rope – sand creatures closing in underneath – her stomach turning…

A door closing to her right snapped her out of it. Ashley kept her eyes shut and pretended to be asleep as something bumbled about the room, tinkering with the lamps.

Minutes passed until the footsteps walked straight toward her and came to a stop. She kept her breathing steady but couldn’t stop the occasional twitch of her eyelids.

“Almost lost you there for a moment,” a deep, warm voice said. It belonged to a gentle looking man who walked off in the direction of a solid-looking desk behind her head. Its edges were handcrafted while its centre was inlaid with green leather. “I know that you are awake,” he continued. “No use pretending, young lady.”

Ashley opened her eyes to a brightened room. “I can’t move,” she stated, almost accusingly.

Although she couldn’t see it, the man smiled and retrieved a pair of spectacles from his desk drawer, stopping to skim through a few loose sheets of paper.

“You should be thrilled to be alive,” he replied, dipping a gold nib into a pot of ink before scratching across one of the pages. He gave one of them a small nod. “The state you were left in, even I’m surprised and let me reassure you – I’m not easily surprised. The things I’ve seen – ” he sighed and trailed off.

Ashley felt helpless, unable to move or see anything other than a small patch of ceiling.

“Now,” the old man said, grinding his chair over the floorboards, “have you got a name? Or shall I continue to refer to you as, ‘curious’?”

He tottered into view, leaning over her. His appearance made her smile, though she couldn’t place why.

“Ashley,” she offered, blinking as he waved a heavily creased hand over her eyes.

“Well, Miss Ashley, you’ll have to wait until that dose I gave you wears. Your movement will return in time so too, I suspect, will some of the pain. In the meantime, why don’t you explain to me what you were doing left in a crumpled heap on my front step?”

*~*~*

“I thought that you said this would be easy…”

Helen closed her eyes, inhaling deeply as she had taught herself. The action calmed her enough to respond to her winging accomplices.

“Will, have you ever known me to use the word, ‘easy’?”

Will re-adjusted his grip on the stunning stick that she had thrown at him on their way here. “Yes,” he replied.

“And what happened then?”

“Total carnage,” Henry filled in. “What – we’re talking about the snake thing right? Why are you all looking at me – is there some law against talking now? If there is you’re going to have to start issuing memo-upd-”

Helen reached across Will and covered Henry’s mouth with her hand, combining it with a stern glare. Will, now hemmed in, peered into the dark room in front. He could hear something scratching around.

“Ah…” he mumbled, hoping the others would follow.

What he could hear was a three-legged abnormal ripping its way through Helen’s lounge room curtains. Nicknamed, ‘Pain’ mainly due to its numerous irritating escape rampages, it had been a resident of the Sanctuary for many decades.

“Not my good curtains…” whispered Helen, releasing Henry and shuffling closer into the room. The clawed fur-ball was busy tearing its way between the folds of fabric.

She’d purposely plunged the manor into darkness to confuse the abnormals let loose by John. Usually it made them disoriented and easier to catch. It also made Will prone to falling over objects and landing splattered over the floor like some work of modern art.

“He’s not going for the cage…” Henry sighed, as Helen poked her nose around the corner, tranquiliser gun raised.

The ripping stopped and was replaced by a patter of tiny feet across the floor. Helen sharpened her eyes, trying to pick the creature out from the darkness. The group jumped at a loud ‘click’ followed by a sizeable clatter as the cage door snapped shut.

“Or maybe…” Henry clicked his flashlight on and ventured into the room. “We got it!” he yelped excitedly, as his light trailed over the cage now full of fur.

“Henry, would you just wait. We’ve talked about this!” muttered Helen, cocking her weapon before following. Will raised his stick and did the same.

“He’s kind of cute when he’s all locked up – aren’t you?” Henry tapped the edge of the cage as Helen flipped the lights back on. The curtains, as she had feared, were reduced to shredded strips of fabric.

“Don’t play with him – he’s not a pet. He is a form of human being.”

“Speak for yourself,” retorted Henry. Half the time he felt like another one of her pets.

The scruffy pile of fur had two sharp eyes and stood upright in the cage, feeding its spindly arms through the trap trying to pick at the cage lock. It knew what it was doing and, given enough time, would be out and free to continue its reign of terror.

“Come on,” said Helen, retrieving the cage. “We’ll put Pain back and leave SAM where he is. Ashley can deal with him when she gets back.

Pain rattled the bars, chirping loudly. Helen shushed it with such force that it cowered into a corner.

Will fell into step beside her as they travelled down the hallway. “Wait, who’s SAM?”

“Subterranean Animal Menace. By now he’s probably nesting in the attic.”

“We’re just going to leave him there? I thought that these were high security creatures?”

Will looked worried, Helen could tell by the way he gripped his stun stick. If he gripped it any harder he’d stun himself.

“He won’t be dangerous until he starts looking for a mate which won’t be for – two weeks?” she looked at Henry for confirmation. He shrugged. That sounded about right. “Besides, I want to take a look at our new guest before he – it, whatever, wakes up.”

Henry broke away from the party and headed off back to his office to try and raise Bigfoot’s camp. There was no answer from the man himself but he did manage to catch a woman at the campsite. The line was riddled with static but he heard her say that there were strong winds in the area interfering with communications and that she would continue trying to reach the party and call him back with any news. Henry wanted to leave it there. It had been a long day, for everyone, but his stomach had been sinking all afternoon.

*~*~*

“Feeling better I imagine,” the doctor helped Ashley take her seat at the desk. He had been right about the pain returning. Apparently in this place you got a choice between mobility and comfort. The choice was simple for Helen Magnus’s daughter.

“I can walk, if that’s what you mean.” Her eyes tracked over the room. What was absent was far more interesting than what was present. No computer, light bulbs or powerpoint’s of any kind. There was not even so much as a pen in sight. The sounds of the world outside the glass windows were different too. It was quiet except for the occasional rap of what sounded like hooves.

She shook her head, there was no way that -

“Are you all right, my dear?” The doctor leant forward in concern with eyes that seemed so familiar. “You shall have to remain here this evening. It is my professional opinion that you are not in any condition to wander about and if my suspicions are correct, you’re not from around here.”

Ashley wondered what had led him to that conclusion until she noted the differences between their attire. His jacket was an olive green, tapered in around the chest where it was buttoned up to a silk neck tie, held in place by a delicate gold clip.

“Who are you?” she asked. If she didn’t know better, Ashley thought that she might be on the set of an historical English drama. Indeed, the doctor sounded an awful lot like –

“Doctor Magnus,” he smiled, “but you can call me ‘Gregory’ if you like.”

9

LEGACY

Helen held the needle up to the light, checking for any stray air bubbles gliding through the liquid. There were a few, so she flicked the glass and pushed the plunger until the freezing liquid squirted out the end, splattering over the cement and down her fingers.

“All right, let’s see if you’re as hot as Will thinks you are – genetically speaking of course,” she said to the sand creature, as she approached the crumpled form on the bed.

It was still a sandy colour with granules of light and dark dots mimicking the surface of the tomb. Several scratches on its shoulders and ankles had healed but a deep gash under its ribcage remained open. She would have to attend to that when she finished collecting samples for her research.

Presently, Helen Magnus was after the creature’s blood – not much, just enough.

With its mouth open drooling over the sheets, the sand creature’s breathing remained steady and shallow as she slid the needle into its neck. A ripple of colour propagated from the spot where the tip went in – hitting the sides of its body and circling its limbs. It twitched a bony finger or two but did not wake.

“You’re not such a bad patient,” she cooed, withdrawing the first needle and taking another from the trolley beside her. This time it was a syringe with a hollow tube, ready to collect a sample. “Last one, I promise.”

There was something very old about the sand creature – like the musky smell on closeted jackets. They looked fresh but every now and again there was that hint of age, brushing over the air.

Its skin rippled again as she began to draw the sticky blood out. Through her plastic gloves she unintentionally felt the texture of its skin. It was fine, almost tissue paper and far more fragile than she had imagined. One slip with a sharp knife and it was open, as evidenced by the gashes.

The creature’s breathing deepened to something reminiscent of a snore. Every time its body deflated, a low drawl flowed out of its razor lined mouth like words.

Her needle full, Helen withdrew the metal from the creature and snapped a lid on its top. Satisfied, she pried off her gloves and placed everything in the trolley, preparing to leave the cell.

“All done here for n-” Helen blinked, looking back to the bed where the creature had been. It was empty though she could still hear the deep rustle of the creature’s breathing coming from the empty space. Helen checked the cell door, it was closed and the rest of the small cell remained bare.

This time, Helen forced herself to look more closely at the empty bed. Sure enough, there was a slight rise and fall to the air where the camouflaged body exhaled. Its disguise was near perfect.

Beautiful but deadly, she thought as it began to wake up. Helen decided it was time to leave.

The creature agreed, whispering something under its breath.

Helen tensed.

She let go of the trolley, pushing it aside as the sand creature’s hand scratched across her neck, throwing her to the floor. She hit the opposite wall hard enough to blur her vision. Everything was slurred, images and her thoughts. She was barely able to pick out the rising form of the creature as it stretched its injured limbs, licking a wound on its arm.

There was a rattle as the trolley and its contents sped toward her, pushed by the creature. Helen stirred and lifted her legs, taking the impact. It hurt like hell, but she refused to slip into unconsciousness.

“Bollocks…” she whispered, as the creature advanced. Her tranquiliser gun was on the table outside the cell – well out of reach. There was a set of keys in her back pocket and she hoped to death that the sand creature hadn’t learnt how to use them because in a moment or two, they would be at its disposal.

The sand creature fell to all fours as it grew closer, slinking from side to side. Helen wished that she could see something more than a quivering of air. It wasn’t right, dying in silence like this.

“There are other ways – to do this,” she pleaded, trying to hold her voice steady. She could hear the tap of its claws as it moved through the room and eventually the sound of its skin contorting with a subtle effervescence.

Its lips moved again, accompanied by a rolling tone.

“You’re right,” she closed her eyes, as a paw snapped her neck to the side.

*~*~*

Ashley had been watching her grandfather speak for the last half an hour without saying a word. He’d grown used to her stunned silence and resigned himself to offering her biscuits and tea instead. Whenever she accepted an item of food, he felt that they had made progress.

A shadow wiping over the room interrupted them as someone passed in front of the arched window. Ashley scared at the sound of the front door shaking on its hinges and then slammed decidedly shut. Her grandfather folded his glasses, placing them gently atop a leather-bound book and then nodded at her.

“If you’ll excuse me – that’ll be my daughter returning from the lecture. She’s a doctor you know, a better one than me. I should get her to take a look at you – check up on my needlework.”

His daughter? Oh, Ashley’s eyes went wide. “Wait –” she panicked, catching hold of his sleeve as he went to leave. “I-” she fumbled for an excuse, “would rather just rest, if you don’t mind.”

Dr. Gregory Magnus’s bushy eyebrows curled even more eccentrically. “Sure? I guess you’re right. It’s best Helen stay out of whatever’s going on – it’s a delicate time for her and you’ve got that look of trouble about you.”

Ashley couldn’t help herself frowning. Her grandfather thought she was trouble? That hurt a little.

*~*~*

She could hear her mother’s muffled voice after Dr. Magnus closed the door. It was utterly bizarre – she sounded younger – different, as if she were a completely different person. Well, she was a different person, Ashley figured. People were made out of their experiences and there were some crucial parts of Helen that were yet to happen.

Shaking her head, Ashley rose from her seat and stumbled painfully around the room.

“This can’t be happening,” said Ashley, astounded. Everything that she touched was real, too real to be a construct of her imagination. Turning a delicate china ornament under her fingers, she paused to read an inscription under its base.

Darling daughter

“Curious – isn’t it.”

Ashley almost dropped it. Saving the precious object in her palm, she rolled it back onto the mantle and twisted her head to the side. Her matted hair fell across her shoulder as her eyes picked her elusive father out of the shadows in the corner of the room.

John stepped out from the servant’s door, leaving it open should he need to leave in a hurry. His clothes matched the period – a heavy, multi-layered coat and shirt that ruffled toward the neck. The man though, was out of his time. His eyes were cruel and sad from too many lifetimes alone.

She turned warily, eyes flickering to the poker resting against the fire place.

“Curious how time can be walked through again and again,” John continued, edging forward “– trampled over like one of your grandfather’s exquisite gardens.”

“What are you doing here?” she hissed, afraid for the voices in the hallway behind the other door.

“Steady…” he cracked across the room without moving, teleporting to the fireside before she could move. He wrapped his hands around the poker and lifted it free. John slipped the warm iron between his fingers, turning it curiously. “That’s one way to thank me for taking you to see your relatives. It can’t be easy, having only one for so many years.”

“You didn’t answer my question. I’m what – kidnapped and you take me home? That makes no sense.” If she didn’t know better, she’d say he was taunting her, begging for a challenge. Then again, from what her mother had told her this could just be his natural mood.

“Your mother,” he began, using the poker to lean on, “she does medical examinations of all the abnormals in her possession?”

Ashley frowned. She was trapped in the past and he wanted to chat about work? “Most of them are struggling to understand their condi-”

“Even the dead ones?” he grinned, interrupting. “She kneels down beside them with a needle, those icy hands of hers picking a spot on their neck.” John laughed quietly, as if he could see Helen doing that very thing in front of him. “The way she lingers on them, wondering if this one will be different. You never thought to ask –”

“It’s for her research library – she told me. We document the abnormal gene pattern and I know that you know that because she told me herself.”

“Why?” he drawled the word out as if its meaning were crucial to his very existence.

Ashley frowned, “Why did she tell me?”

“No.” His reserved anger was forcing its way to the surface, “Why the research?”

She opened her mouth to give the ‘tour group’ response when he pushed forward into the room and raised a hand inches from her face.

“Wrong!” his eyes swirled, wild. “Your mother’s research began in this room when she was still a child. Living forever is a terrible curse – her father saw that early and used every facet of his knowledge to help his daughter. As she grew up, they discovered a whole world of people like us – twisted forms of human, creatures with talents to rival her own.”

“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”

“You’ve made it painfully clear that you’re old enough to know the truth but you have no idea what goes on behind the walls of your home,” his snarl was fierce, held back by something only just stronger, “and I don’t think that you really want to.”

*~*~*

Dr. Magnus kissed his daughter on the cheek after she’d taken a moment to calm down. “You were away for a long time.”

“Please don’t start,” she replied, sternly. “I don’t have the energy left.”

“So I take it they weren’t so keen on our research?”

“Narrow minded sparrows,” she threw her umbrella at the hallstand.

He couldn’t help but smile as his daughter tore the foyer apart – hats, coats and things flying roughly to their place. “It has been my long held suspicion that the world isn’t ready for you, Dr. Magnus.”

Helen shook her head. “I’m not a doctor, still an unwanted student I’m afraid. Is there someone here?” she added, hearing an object unsettled in her father’s study. Helen crossed the floor and stretched her gloved hand towards the doorknob.

“A patient,” he stepped in front of her. “They’re tired. I think it be best we leave them be. In the meantime, you can tell me about these sparrows.”

She sighed, the first lines of a smile creeping onto the edges of her eyes. “Very well.”

10

BURIED IN GLASS CABINETS

“You like the tropics, don’t you? Yeah…” Henry grinned. “I wouldn’t want to spend all my time in arctic water either I don’t care what Helen says about your native habitat,” he adjusted the dial, spinning it up a degree or two.

The heaters in the mermaid’s tank spun into action. She swished her tail, distancing herself from the huge outlets riddled with bubbles.

Will was ‘seated’ at the desk in the centre of the room. Well – more correctly, he was balanced precariously on the back wheel of the office chair which looked as if it would slip at any moment and vomit him onto the concrete.

“Is it wise to play with that?” snapped Will, nose deep in a folder. He hadn’t been with the Magnus household long but he presumed that there were rules against tinkering.

Henry stroked the glass. “What she doesn’t know can’t get me into trouble.”

“I may not be aware of the planet’s imminent destruction – doesn’t mean it won’t be trouble. What’s the deal with you and the mermaid? You’re always over there, whispering…”

“I don’t whisper,” replied Henry defensibly. “We talk. She gets lonely.”

Will suspected that it was something a little more than compassion. “If you don’t want to tell me that’s fine, I’ll just ask Helen when you’re not here.”

Henry smiled softly at the shimmering face in the water. She smiled back and then turned, vanishing into the depths of the tank. “Speaking of Helen, how’s she going with our friendly sand monster?”

Will dragged his eyes off the report to glance at one of the surveillance screens mounted over the desk. His face froze in a look of shock when he saw her crumpled against the back wall, a trail of blood beneath her.

A high pitched yelp preceded a thunderous crash as Will’s chair overturned.

“That good, eh?” Henry half-hopped, half-paced across the room with an extensive set of keys jingling on his belt.

Will pressed a hand to his head and felt something hot and sticky. He kicked the chair off and rolled forward onto his knees, taking a moment to rest his head on the savagely hard ground.

“Oh…” Henry paused, seeing a dribble of blood down the side of Will’s face. “Hey, you look awful.”

The injured Will glared back. “Thanks Henry,” he said, hauling himself to his feet. “We need guns.”

“Guns I can do,” he chirped. “But you’ll have to bulk bill the rest,” he pointed at Will’s pretty head. “I want it known that I was opposed to the whole ‘adoption’ thing from the start. Some abnormals were just never meant for captivity.”

*~*~*

The house was pitch. Lamps at each hallway had burnt down hours ago, their bitter smell sinking with the cold which snaked its way through open windows. All of the curtains were drawn against the full moon, though they billowed occasionally, caught by the evening breeze. As they parted, cracked rivers of light flashed over the floor, lingered for a moment and then vanished as the house returned to darkness.

Ashley stepped forward, her ears pricked in horror. Each footstep was like the earth shattering so she timed them with the ‘tick’ of the grandfather clock. After twenty minutes of this, she fell into a rhythm – step, breathe, wait, step.

Creeping up the centre of the hallway, she snapped a flame into life from her lighter. In the back end of the house, the snores of the Magnus household grew louder until she could pinpoint each sleeping body behind the closed doors lining the hallway. She wished that this was a different house – or if not, that she didn’t know one of the residents so well. Her mother’s hearing was as sharp as the knife under her sleeve.

Ashley’s delicate flame flickered as another gust of wind kicked the curtain at the end of the narrow hall behind her wide open. Suddenly ever surface glowed with moonlight, layers of dust scattering the light into halos. Relived, she caught sight of the attic door.

Holding her breath, she crossed past her mother’s door. A few more feet and she was slipping her fingers around the brass handle of the attic door, pushing it open. It revealed a darkened stairwell. Ashley extended her lighter in front of her but couldn’t see past the first flight of bare wooden stairs. She left the door not-quite shut and took hold of the banister, thankful that every step took her further away from detection.

Just when she thought the narrow stairway would go on forever, her head smacked into a low lying beam and she found herself slouching in under the roof. She could hardly see anything with her tiny flame – just the occasional outline of a shelf or an unlit lamp hanging dangerously low from its hook.

She took hold of the nearest lantern and held her lighter to it. In a rush of light, the room lit up and Ashley realised that she wasn’t just standing in an attic; she was standing in a laboratory. Lighting a few more lanterns on her way toward the main desk, she couldn’t help but notice the precariously stacked bookcases lining every wall, blocking out the windows behind them. Instead of books, most were filled with piles of notes. Ill-bound files with crumpled and stained edges threatened to teeter over lopsided shelves while several fragments of bone and teeth posed as ‘bookends’.

A series of desks, some merely overturned travel trunks, set the stage for a major experimental operation. Ashley recognised the familiar stench of formaldehyde and quickly discovered a row of glass displays filled with shrivelled forms. She held her hand over her mouth, trying not to look into their glassy eyes as she slipped behind the main desk.

Tossing aside useless pages, she rifled through until she found an unopened letter. Slipping it inside of her jacket, Ashley turned to her right and eyed the wall. As her father had said, one of the ‘bookshelves’ was covered in a wire-frame mesh, originally to protect against earthquakes in its native Italy. Now, it simply obscured the titles of the medical books squeezed inside.

Sliding a knife blade between the doors, she pried the latch free. They fell open with a drawn out cry and puff of dust. Waving the air clean she pulled out the books on the bottom shelf in threes and placed them gently on the floor. Halfway across the shelf, she found what she was looking for.

A small wooden cabinet with glass doors was slotted into the shelf, hidden by the books. She quickly slid the remaining books aside and examined her find. Ashley pulled the heavy item free of the shelf and carried it back over to the table where there was more light. It was a well used object, no doubt with many lives lived, none as obscure as its current one.

One of the cut glass panels fell out in her hand as she set it down on the desk. The contents behind rattled – not used to disruption. Ashley’s breath caught. At least a dozen vials of blood were lined up in a purpose built rack. She had been so sure that it was a lie – that everything her father had told her was poisonous rubbish – but he was right and here was the proof he had promised.

Shaken by the discovery, she hadn’t heard the hesitant footsteps or noticed the pair of horrified eyes watching her remove one of the vials and slosh the liquid around under the lamp. It wasn’t until Dr. Magnus gathered the courage to speak that Ashley realised that he was there, metres from the desk with a lamp in hand.

“Put it back,” was all he said at first. Ashley froze, staring back at him blankly. He continued, “What you have taken has no worth to anybody but me. You can have anything in this house, except that.”

Guilt crept in from nowhere – unlike anything she had experienced before. She could feel any chance of a relationship with her grandfather slipping off into the night like smoke, torn apart by the air. It hurt her to do this but for once, her father had a point.

“No,” she backed away from the desk non-threateningly. “I don’t want to hurt you. Let me leave and I swear I –”

“You cannot have what you have taken,” he interrupted, passion rising in his voice. “I will not let you take it. Return it and be on your way.”

Ashley shook her head, on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, reaching into the waist band of her pants where she found an antique gun. Study desk, third draw –anther thing John had known. She held it at her grandfather but made a point to aim slightly off so that should accident befall, he would not be hit. This was strictly for show. With her other hand, she hid the vials safely in a padded pocket.

Dr. Magnus recognised his gun but did not enquire. His hands trembled as his mind settled into a quiet kind of peace. There was something about the barrel of a gun which brought clarity.

He stepped to the side until he was able to touch a low table. He trailed his fingers over it, moving towards a silver letter opener.

“Stop!” said Ashley, barely breaking a whisper.

His fingers paused, scant inches from the ornate handle. “Young lady, I already know that you’re not going to shoot me,” he said, changing his hand’s direction until it slipped under a pile of paper, withdrawing a journal. It was a small book, frayed around the edges. Deep scars formed the only pattern on its leather cover. “You want treasure?” he raised the book. “It’s yours but I must insist you return that sample.” He threw the book at her. It landed on the desk but she didn’t move to claim it.

She shook her head. “I can’t give it to you,” each word forced its way out against her will.

“Don’t be so ridiculous,” he raised his voice. “I am offering you wealth that you will never see again and you are willing to give it up for something you can’t possibly use?” Her grandfather approached her, step by step over the squeaking floorboards.

Ashley forced herself to bring the weapon in line with his sparkling eyes.

“Ashley… Being different doesn’t mean that you have to hate – it doesn’t matter I guess. It is clear you made your choices long ago.”

“What are you talking about?” Ashley took a step back as he grew closer. Her blurred eyes were hot and the back of her throat caught on every breath.

“Isn’t this quaint…”

Both Ashley and her grandfather startled as John appeared in the room. He was beside her grandfather, pacing with his gloved hands clasped out of sight behind his back.

Dr. Magnus forgot all about Ashley at the sight of his former ‘patient’. “Mr. Druitt, what are you doing and how did you get here?”

“It’s all right doctor, I just want to have a nice, friendly word with your granddaughter…”

Dr. Magnus turned back to Ashley, “What-arr,”

Before either of them could move, John was behind Dr. Magnus with one hand under his chin, tilting his head painfully toward the roof while the other brandished a long, slender blade which he pressed to the doctor’s neck.

Ashley stepped forward at once, gun centred between her father’s eyes.

“Let him go!” she shouted, not caring who heard. This was out of control. “I said, let him go. I’ve got what you asked for, just leave him.”

“She’s a bit rough around the edges,” sneered John into the doctor’s ear. “That bit’s from me. Look a little harder,” he bent the doctor forward so that he could see Ashley better. “Recognise those eyes?”

11

THE BEGINNING OF HELEN MAGNUS

Dr. Magnus swallowed. The feeling of the cold blade over his delicate throat was nothing compared to the glint in the young girl’s eyes. Yes, he had seen those eyes before – every time he paused in front of the mantle where the spotted mirror reflected his own aging face. They were his eyes. Unmistakable. Hers were clearer with flecks of someone else but still -

“I don’t-” he went to speak, but John pressed the blade more firmly to the doctor’s skin.

“It doesn’t matter how,” John said, bony fingers pulling one of the doctor’s arms behind his back so that he could not struggle. Ashley’s father made sure that his body was shielded by the old man, should Ashley take a shot. “I know that you don’t believe me, Dr. Magnus, but this is all for the best. Now Ashley, please come over here and we can be on our way.”

“Not until you tell me why they’re doing this.” She meant the research. According to John, her mother and grandfather did more than nurture an interest in abnormals – they sought them out, hunted them down if necessary, all for this small vial of blood.

“He does it,” John meant her grandfather, “because he loves your mother and wants her to have a normal life. He doesn’t see her like I do – recognise what she is. It would be a crime to rip away a gift like hers. A billion average lives so that just one random mutation could deliver her to the world. I – on the other hand, am not so fortunate. My body is breaking down, unable to cope with its ‘gifts’ as unnatural as they are. She helps me when she can but for others like myself, what we require is a genetic stabiliser. That’s a rare thing, Ashley. So rare that throughout your mother’s extensive life she has only come across one creature that possesses this trait and it’s right there…” he lowered his eyes to where she had concealed the vials of blood.

Ashley turned her body, sharpening her aim.

“So you see, doctor, although it’s a noble set up that you have here, for these samples to be of any use, they have to take a little trip through time. I promise that we’re not really stealing them, after all, from one Magnus lab to another… Take the book as well Ashley, it was, after all, a gift from your grandfather.”

Ashley let a tear roll down the side of her cheek, not game to loosen the grip on her weapon to wipe it away. “What creature,” she hissed.

“John, whatever you, Helen and the others did– it doesn’t matter anymore.” Doctor Magnus knew that his daughter was not like himself. She was never satisfied by the answers he gave her or the natural progression of the scientific community. He also knew that she had not been at a lecture this afternoon – nor any Thursday afternoon. She was with them – with John.

“It matters to me!” John roared. “It’s killing me and Helen knows it! She said that she would help me – that she would search forever.”

“I hate you,” Ashley interrupted her arguing relations. “But I don’t want to shoot you,” she said to her father. “I want to know everything, your side. Please, leave my grandfather alone. I will come with you if you just let him go.”

John eyed her with such ferocity that her skin went cold. “All right,” he rolled the words, lifting the knife from the doctor’s throat. “Give me your hand.”

Ashley lowered her weapon, not quite to the floor as John’s blade hovered at a safer distance. With the journal in her free hand, she inched closer, stepping around the desk where the lamp continued to fill the attic with soft light.

“See,” whispered John. “All friends here.”

He had almost released the doctor completely when Ashley reached his hand. Fingers brushing over each other – the door at the bottom of the stairs slammed open with a crash that shook the room.

Ashley’s finger, still resting on the trigger of the heavy gun, jerked.

She felt the ‘click’ before it was drowned under the blast of the gun which jolted her arm upwards. Everything paused – the haze of smoke from the barrel, her father’s mouth locked open in shock and the breath in her grandfather’s lungs. Ashley blinked, her lashes falling over her red eyes releasing another sticky tear.

The world was black. Forever rolled past and she was sure that the universe had forgotten her, leaving her in the dark where she belonged. Her head split with pain as if part of her was breaking off. She screamed, dropping the gun as the darkness flashed to white.

Helen Magnus, half dressed in her pale blue cotton dressing gown, slammed the door open and took the steps to the attic three at a time. Her bare feet were cut by the nails and splintered wood, leaving smears over the steps. She didn’t notice as she neared the glow at the top. Hushed voices mingled with the dusty air, one of them belonging to her father.

It was past two in the morning when she had heard the footsteps creep past her door. Helen lay awake after that, listening to the sounds of the house, thinking that she had imagined it. Then – then she had heard her father’s bedroom door creak open and him shuffle out.

The noises persisted. She was certain that she could hear papers shuffling somewhere above her head and floorboards groaning.

Fearing the worst – an academic thief after her father’s research, Helen slipped out of bed and followed the voices down the hall.

Now, rushing up the steps, she felt the crack of the bullet rip through her. The noise echoed off the small space. Her thoughts became a world of their own, deafening her. Pressing against the wall with one hand she screamed, “Father!”

Before she could reach the final step and see around the corner into the attic itself, the room flashed a bluish white. Shielding her eyes, she stumbled into the brightness. Helen thought she saw two figures evaporate. They were gone a moment later, taking the light with them.

The lanterns were little better than candles afterwards. It was under their soft glow that she saw her father, his back to her, standing in front of one of the desks. Helen stopped at the top of the stair, her breath coming in laboured heaves.

“Father?” she repeated softly. The gush of air that had accompanied the flash had set the papers into the air. They continued to flutter down around her father.

Doctor Magnus’s legs crumbled beneath him. He lunged for the desk but his body had no strength. It was as if it didn’t belong to him anymore. The world had reclaimed it and all that was left to do was shut his eyes as the floor approached.

Helen threw herself forward catching her father just as he hit the floor. She cradled his head in her arms, calling his name over and over even that she had known that he was dead from the moment the gun was fired.

That was when she saw it – the sleekly shaped metal lying unwanted on the floor beside the desk. Placing her father gently onto the floor, Helen Magnus crawled forward toward the gun…

“Helen?”

It was scorching hot at the edge of the barrel so she trailed her fingers down toward the butt. Wrapping them firmly around its base, she lifted the item from the ground, feeling its weight in her hands. There was something alluring about it.

“Come on Magnus – Henry – stun it again!”

With one hand over her chest to stop her heart breaking through, Helen rose to her feet. Her eyes skimmed over the room as if it were a dream, the edges blurred through her tears. She would find who did this. Helen felt strength welling up inside of her. Her eyes flicked to the lantern swaying in front of her. The flame wavered as she reached out her hand to it -

“She’s coming ‘round, get that damn thing off of her!”

Henry stabbed madly at the air around Mangus’s legs. Finally, he felt a jolt as the stunning stick founds the sand creature. It flickered into vision, screaming and clawing in pain as Henry slammed the cage door shut and Will pulled Helen free.

Helen mumbled something as she came to. Will, exhausted, was seated on the ground with the top half of Helen in his lap. Henry stumbled over to them, panting as he swung the stunning stick over his shoulder and rested it there.

“Close,” Henry breathed, as the sand creature continued to growl in its cell.

“What happened?” muttered Helen, her eyes finally open. Will’s hand was over her neck where a nasty scratch mark continued to bleed.

“You had a run in with the sand creature,” he replied. “Close one too.”

They helped her to her feet and began stumbling toward the lift. Helen had to be propped up on both sides, her arms around their shoulders in order to walk.

“Nearly killed ourselves getting you out of that damn cage,” said Henry. “Seriously, you should consider giving us a pay rise for life endangerment.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Henry,” replied Helen, with just enough strength left to chide them for taking their time to rescue her.

The sand creature shook off the stun, folding in all of its limbs as residual shudders rolled over its body. It narrowed its eyes at a camera just outside the cell bars. People were watching it, it knew that – but were they listening?

*~*~*

Ashley curled herself into a tight ball, rolling onto her side where she spent a few minutes just breathing. She was back in her house – left in one of the many corridors. Eventually she let out a sob, burying her face in her hands. She had killed her grandfather.

12

CHANGING SKINS

Helen checked the plasters on her neck, replacing one that had soaked through whilst she’d been attending to Will’s head. It was amazing how much damage you could incur without leaving home.

“What I can’t work out,” began Henry, hanging around the edge of the medical room whilst the other two continued to patch up. He juggled a few objects he had found on a nearby desk, ignoring a stern warning from Helen that if he broke anything his neck would be next. “Is why we can see it all of a sudden.”

About an hour ago, the sand creature, recovered from its ‘electro-shock therapy’ as Henry liked to call it, had taken on a maroon disposition. Instead of mimicking the surrounds of the cell, it seemed content to sit directly in front of the camera in full view as if it knew what the curious device outside its cell was for.

“It’s so creepy,” continued Henry. “I preferred it when it was invisible.”

“I don’t,” said Will. “At least we know where it is and what it’s up to.”

“You’re only sour because you shot yourself back in that cave.”

“It wasn’t a cave,” Will raised his finger threateningly, “it was a tomb – ow, that hurts.”

Helen held his ankle firmly as she poured liberal amounts of antiseptic over the teeth marks. She’d given him three shots as well, in case the sand creature was carrying anything nasty. Will was most worried about rabies, especially as Henry delighted in reminding him of all the adverse side effects.

“Do we know what it’s saying yet?” Will changed the subject.

“Got progress on that actually. I’ve had the digital recorder going the whole time,” he caught all of the objects he’d been playing with and returned them safely to her desk. “Live feed-” Henry tapped the keyboard in front of the monitor and then leant forward, adjusting the sound system.

A hoarse whisper filled the room. The baritone voice rolled in and out of the speakers, slightly out of sync with the creature’s lips. It was a continuous drone, sometimes hissing beyond their hearing.

The grin on Henry’s face was irritatingly bold.

“What?” Will slipped on his glasses, finally free of Helen’s sadistic repair work.

His grin broadened into ‘allknowingness’. “Ancient Egyptian…” he threw a small book at Helen, who caught it without looking. “Very old dialect. Want to know how I know?”

“Let me guess,” Will and Helen exchanged a grin, “you’re brilliant?”

“Yep – and more. I can speak it.”

Helen sighed wearily. “No you can’t,” she corrected him. “You can say two words and they’re the same two words I know, namely because you were in the room at the same time I was interviewing the college student with cognitive powers. Shocked you remembered them actually. Then again, she was a-”

“Beautiful lady?” Will finished Helen’s sentence.

“Precisely.”

“Hey…” Henry was somewhat offended by the implication. “I learn lots of things living in this place.”

“In any case,” Helen switched the sound off but left it recording. “Two words isn’t going to be enough to maintain a useful conversation with it – especially considering the words… We need someone with more experience. It’s going to be tricky though, considering the level of clearance they’re going to need…” Introducing a sand monster to a professor wasn’t top of her list of things to do this week. When she failed to return the last one, the university had not been very pleased with her.

“We could send the recording to one of the universities – have them translate it for us?” suggested Will.

“Good plan, until the creature says something classified,” Henry rolled his eyes.

Helen stared at Will for several minutes. He was resting his sore forehead on his knuckles, face scrunched up in thought. “What are you thinking?” asked Helen, slipping off her white lab coat. She threw it in Henry’s direction. He caught it and folded it neatly, laying it over her chair.

“Uh…” Will started, but wasn’t sure if he wanted to share yet. “It probably won’t work though.”

Henry slid off the desk and pointed to the door with both hands. “Can we move this conversation while he sorts through mindfiles?”

Helen nodded. They all headed out the door and down the corridor, en-route to Helen’s main office where comfy lounge chairs and warm fires waited.

Will kept one hand on the wall as they walked, not noticing as it trailed over mirrors and doors. “I know someone who might be able to help us and, as a bonus, he seems to be aware of some of the craziness going on.”

Helen narrowed her eyes, pulling Will away from the wall in time for him to avoid her good urn. “Please tell me that they’re cultured and charming…”

“More like sceptical and good looking…”

She sighed. “Close enough – urg, what was that?” It sounded like something scampering away into one of the hallway rooms as they passed. “The rats get bigger and bigger every time we leave the house in your fine care.”

“So I don’t like using mousetraps,” Henry retaliated as they continued. “Poor little things, all crumpled and fury. I can’t stand to see them like that.”

“Use one of the residents. There are several that come to mind who might be interested in a walk.”

“That is just disgusting,” muttered Henry, as the group disappeared around the corner.

Everything settled as the footsteps trailed off with the arguing voices. There was no sign of any rats – nothing hunting along the skirting boards or gnawing cosy homes into the wiring. A few withered petals tumbled to the ground from a crystal vase left unnoticed. One of the electric lights flickered, threatening to resign.

Tucked in one of the darkened rooms with only the bluish glow of moonlight for company, Ashley exhaled, collapsing onto the cold brickwork. Her mother, Will and Henry had heard her rushed escape but been too caught up in their own problems to investigate. Lucky for her as the only plausible hiding spot was under the desk – far beneath her dignity.

Her cheeks were dry but her eyes stung from crying. There was a subtle shake accompanying every action she performed which sometimes rolled over her, usually when she breathed.

Composing herself, she snuck a look at the hallway to confirm its empty status. Satisfied, she returned to the curious crack in the main hallway. Ashley ran her nails along it, following it until it ended abruptly behind one of the enormous, gold-edged portraits. She eyed the ancient duke up and down before embracing his frame, heaving him off the wire behind.

The portrait was taller than she was and heavy. Grunting, she struggled to keep it aloft for the few seconds it took to unhook it and lower to the ground. Ashley took a breath and then shifted it out of the way.

There it was. A door cut into the hallway wall. Its construction had splintered the plaster resulting in the telling crack. She’d walked past it a thousand times as a child, never questioning its presence. From now on she would question everything.

It wasn’t difficult to open. Finding it was clearly part of its security and being located in the Magnus household was another. Ashley pushed it inward. The motion carried her over its threshold until she threw her weight backwards – grabbing hold of the entrance way before she fell into the black emptiness inside the doorway.

“Woah… That’s a hazard,” she whispered, heart racing. The secret door appeared to open into one of the elevator shafts. Peering in, she could just make out the elevator amongst the steel scaffolding. Underneath her was the a three story drop to the basement floor and opposite, a small metal platform a good few meters away over the gap.

There was just enough room on her side to pull the secret door shut and balance on the plank of wood someone had cleverly built onto the wall. Getting back over the gap would be a bitch, but at the moment all Ashley was interested in was finding out what the hell was going on in her house.

She braced herself and then leapt over the elevator gap. There was a moment in the air when she didn’t think that she would clear the gap. Before she could panic, she hit the steel platform, landing rather gracefully on her feet.

*~*~*

There was sand everywhere; through his fur, under his skin and embedded in the delicate tissue at the back of his throat.

Bigfoot lifted his head free of the mound that had all but buried his body. It poured off of him, scattering in the light breeze. He coughed and rasped as he climbed out of the sand. Bigfoot rolled over onto his back and smiled.

The stars were out. It was a clear night in the desert and, most importantly, he had lived through the hellish storm which had raged for most of the night.

13

BITS AND PIECES

Detective Joe Kavanaugh dug his heels into the bitumen at the sight of an oversized hat tilted away from the sun. Its owner, a sleek – tall woman, lifted her eyes with a smile. He wasn’t fooled. Instead, he raised his hand and pointed, starting to back away.

“I knew -,” he accused her, in a tone unsure whether it wanted to be disbelief or curiosity. “Magnus…”

All the while Helen Magnus continued to approach, slinking along the sidewalk with her hands clasped delicately in front. “You know me?” she asked quietly.

“Know of you,” he corrected, backing into a street light. “I live here. No one with their eyes open can take a quiet stroll in this place without running into you.”

“Shame,” she whispered, closing the distance now that the detective was cornered. Helen stopped half a step past him, turning her head to speak. “We’d set out tea and everything.”

Kavanaugh rolled his eyes, leaning towards her. “You’re lucky that you’re cute and I’m curious, otherwise I would have ignored that not-so-subtle invitation.”

*~*~*

“I’m starting to hate this stuff,” sighed Bigfoot, pulling his paw free of the loose sand. No longer planted, he began to slide down the side of one of the ‘waves’ of sand. He dug his claws in but with nothing to grip, it took an ungraceful tumble to bring him to a stop.

Washed over by a passing dune, the entire area had been slashed into a blank canvas. It had even parked its shifting arse right over the entrance to the tomb, making a real nuisance of itself.

This would take him hours – perhaps days to find the tomb again, let alone excavate it. He tried once again to reach Helen and Will on the radio but there was nothing but scratchy static.

Three days – four tops they had left, buried under all that sand with a couple of bottles of water let alone what else was trapped down there with them.

Don’t think about it, he instructed himself. Find the rest of the group, start digging.

Find the rest of the group… Bigfoot shook his head free of sand and cast his sharp eyes over the area. Under the soft light from the stars, he could see several hundred metres easily and not one of them had so much as a footprint.

“Come on…” he muttered at nothing in particular.

*~*~*

“You know, when I was little I tried to climb over that wall,” Kavanaugh grinned, as he and Magnus strode through the electric gates. Just to the right, the wall was obscured by a large elm tree, knotted and scared from its many years enduring its patch of dirt between the wall and carpark. There was a little world created in the shadow beneath its limbs where several branches rested on the brick wall creating a canopy.

“Nearly killed yourself. I remember because your mother voiced her disapproval of my wall whilst retrieving you.”

He sighed with a light, embarrassed laugh.

“I’ve never seen so much blood come out of something so small,” she continued, as the gates clicked close behind them. They made their way toward the enormous double, half foot thick doors of the house.

“Jeez, they’re right about you – never forget a thing.” He stood to the side as she typed in the code to the door. It swung open with a warm breeze escaping from inside and a gentle glow that did not care for the cycles of the sun or moon.

“Shall we?” Helen turned back over her shoulder to make sure that he was following.

Kavanaugh stood stupidly in the doorway, just absorbing. He’d dreamt about the insides of this house his whole life – fantasised about what was kept behind its walls out of reach from the rest of the world.

Finally he nodded, returning to his adult persona as he paced into the foyer.

“Niiiice,” he eyed a set of antique chandeliers dangling down above a sweeping grand staircase. Ignoring Helen, he lingered in front of a gargoyle statue, mildly disturbed by the eyeless sockets peering back at him above fanged jaws.

“If you’re going to do this in every room…” she eyed him disapprovingly.

“I like old things,” he patted the statue. “Though this one might caution on the edge of creepy.”

Helen Magnus hustled the detective toward the nearest lift via the shortest possible route. His ability to wander around the fringes of locked doors was only matched by his unending need to touch everything. Finally in the lift, she exhaled, no longer having to hawk-eye his every breath.

Kavanaugh had his head down, peering into his crossed arms. The lift lurched, but neither of them jolted. In a way, they were very similar. They both stood in their quiet worlds, wondering and reflecting until the lift stopped and creaked open. The barred door rolled out of the way and the two of them stepped into a bare concrete corridor.

He couldn’t help but wonder what he’d gotten himself into as the labyrinth of corridors deepened and all the while they were watched by a security camera at every turn.

“It’s in here,” she said, pulling them both to a stop outside an unremarkable door.

Surprisingly, there were two people inside the room, both standing in front of an empty cell. One of them, a scruffy looking creature, waved. The other, Kavanaugh had already met.

“Ah, thought you’d be around somewhere Mr. Zimmerman,” he said. “Got your letter – obviously,” he raised his hands to the ceiling, palms up, as if to say, ‘I’m here!’

Joe Kavanaugh’s eyes fell to a bloodied bandage on Will’s shoulder where his sleeve had been rolled up out of the way. Actually, now he looked, all three of them were covered in injuries ranging from very serious to humorously trivial.

“What happened to you?” he asked Will, nodding at the shoulder.

Will glanced at it, winced and replied, “I shot myself.”

“And…” Kavanaugh continued, pacing right up to Will. He reached around behind him and retrieved the gun, still tucked into Will’s waistband. “Isn’t this mine?” The detective turned it over in his hands, brushing his fingers over it as if it were a precious object.

Helen took Kavanaugh by the shoulders and steered him toward the cell. “I was going to give that back to you. I swear.”

Kavanaugh opened his jacket and tucked the gun away. In front of him was a distinctly empty cell, something he’d travelled all this way to see via the unusual request of a doctor he hardly knew. There better be a good reason for it.

“An empty cage?” he said, unimpressed. Kavanaugh tried to move a little closer but Helen kept a firm hold of his shoulders. “You brought me all this way to see an empty cage?”

Henry fidgeted. “It was there a moment ago. Vanished when it heard the door go.”

Kavanaugh frowned, “Vanished?”

Will was being eyed sternly by Helen.

“I told you to keep it calm,” she hissed at them.

“We did!” they replied in unison, before Henry finished. “At least it’s still here.”

“Hold back, vanished?” the detective peered into the cage and thought that he caught a glimpse of something move. “What’s going on Magnus and why am I here?”

Helen reached forward and tapped the cage bars. “Don’t stuff around,” she yelled at the emptiness, and was promptly answered by a roar. The deep, guttural noise hurt their eardrums, distracting them as the sand creature made itself visible by leaping forward at the bars with its mouth open in warning. It wound its fingers around the metal rods and eyed Kavanaugh coldly.

Unlike the others, the detective didn’t flinch. He stood his ground, nose to the cell where the creature continued to hiss and scratch.

“Now this is something interesting,” he whispered, staring right back at the creature.

*~*~*

Bigfoot stared down at the ground at his feet. Grain by grain, it seemed to be draining away into a point – funnelled off into nowhere deep below.

He stepped back and knelt beside, just watching. Eventually the depression grew so that he had to shuffle out of the way where the ground became unsteady. A freezing wind backed over him and he considered leaving the curious phenomenon until, from its centre, a small mound appeared and the sinking halted.

Bigfoot raised his hand, ready to slap whatever was welling up through the sand. It grew closer and closer to the surface until three fingers burst through into night air, clawing their way upward.

He startled before clambering to his feet, standing over the hand, and pulling whoever it was free of their prison. A head popped up, shortly followed by the rest of the human body. Frans, one of the members of the expedition, ripped the material away from his face and gasped.

Bigfoot sat on the ground in front of him, shaking his head in disbelief. “Frans, you’re lucky my boss makes me look first, kill later.”

Frans nodded, holding up a ‘peace’ sign while his skeletal body enjoyed breathing.

‘Expedition Team, this is Base Camp, come in please. Over.’

Bigfoot frowned. After hours of radio silence, his mind had begun inventing its own. It wasn’t until the message repeated and Frans tapped him on the shoulder that he realised it was for real.

“Base Camp, this is Expedition Team. Over,” he replied, standing up for better signal.

‘Finally!’ the voice exclaimed. ‘Expedition Team, you are requested to return to base immediately. Magnus and team are safe repeat, return to base immediately. Over.’

“Confirm message,” he replied. “Expedition Team has been compromised by a sand storm. So far only Frans and I are accounted for. Suggest course of action. Over.”

There was a pause as if she were relaying information to someone else. ‘Expedition Team, head back to Base Camp. We’re sending out an aerial team in twenty minutes. Over.’

Big foot agreed. Deciding that the best course of action was to cut toward the desert cliffs in a straight line, heading for the firefly lights of the camp, they set out at once. After all the noise of the storm, the world seemed so quiet.

The big, fury man kept his ears pricked to the ground beside and his eyes searching for other survivors. Occasional trails of wind kept them turning in circles, checking their backs for another approaching storm. All they found was a calm, clear night and still ground, slumbering under the stars.

“Over there,” Frans pointed toward a small lump in the sand, incongruent with the surrounds. They picked up their pace, stopping just short of it.

Big foot reached down and, after a moment’s hesitation, brushed the sand off to reveal a sight that made Frans stumble to the side and hurl.

The severed hand tumbled to the ground when Bigfoot realised that it wasn’t attached to a human. “Jake,” he muttered, noting the tacky jewelled ring.

Frans coughed, trying to straighten. “There’s another one,” he pointed ahead to a longer bump in the sand, and again to their left where a tuft of hair was caught above the sand. “What in the gods…”

14

STALKED

The silken dunes were littered with imperfections – rises and falls, specklings of colour belonging to shredded cloth.

“By the sands,” whispered Frans, “mus’ be the whole lot of them.”

Frans, pitiful creature that he was, happened to be correct. Dozens of bodies slept, ripped apart and left in tatters by something fierce. Bigfoot kicked a layer of sand over the severed hand and turned back toward the cliffs where the settlement’s lights flickered. Above, a chill sank from the sky, immersing them before it settled at their ankles.

“We go now,” said Bigfoot solemnly, pointing at the spot beneath the black cliffs. Frans didn’t offer resistance, happily trailing him less than a step behind.

Bigfoot may have looked relaxed, settling into a firm pace, but he kept a sharp eye on the sands, inspecting every murmur of movement. Whatever had been locked in the tombs beneath was roaming free – hungry for sport since Helen had disturbed them.

“How your friends get out?” whispered Frans, slipping down a dune. He finished the distance on his arse, hands trailing over the cool dunes for stability. Beating the carefully trod Bigfoot to the flat, he scrambled to his feet and waited.

Bigfoot glared in Frans’ direction as he passed, silently instructing him to keep quiet. Behind, Bigfoot could hear restless movement, kicking through the sand. Strange, considering the breeze had died hours ago.

“Tried to tell you, the desert things never sleep. Been here since the gods’ time. They come, they kill and then they all creep back into –”

The big man, who was busy eyeing the night with caution, pricked his ears. Frans’ incessant chattering, nuisance that it was, had fallen quiet before reaching its natural end.

Bigfoot did not stop, nor did he turn around. If Frans was silent, then he was dead.

*~*~*

Helen watched Kavanaugh tilt his head, trailing his sharp eyes over the sand creature’s face. His calmness worried her almost as much as the creature’s curiosity toward the detective. It had chosen to remain visible, picking a reddish brown for skin which might be its default setting.

“Didn’t think I’d see one of these again,” he whispered, sliding his hands down the bars. “Been a long time…” Kavanaugh spoke directly to the creature which remained transfixed by him. It wasn’t clear whether it wanted to kill or speak with him – at least it was calm for a change instead of trying to rip their throats out.

“I’m – sorry,” Henry ventured a few hesitant steps forward. “You met one of these before?”

Will had that, don’t all look at me, I invited him because he reads and writes ancient Egyptian look about him while Helen moved in closer, slinking through the room until she appeared over Kavanaugh’s shoulder.

“We should talk,” she whispered into his ear, so that the others couldn’t hear.

The detective turned away from the cage to face her, a dangerous glimmer in his eye. “Something I’ve been trying to do since I was seven. Why else do you think I clambered over your wall?”

*~*~*

Heaving for breath, Bigfoot leapt from one crest of sand to the next, stretching his arms out like wings until he hit the ground and scrambled down the other side. The camp lights were bright now and the mountain well above his head, strangling the night with its imposing blackness. There couldn’t be more than two-hundred metres left to cover.

He was pursued by a haze of sand, whipping up in great swirls behind him. It was clawed into the air by a dozen sand creatures, scaling the dunes with incredible speed. They would catch him easily before he reached safety – rip him limb from limb.

Bigfoot pushed on, withdrawing a long knife from the folds of his desert cloth. He had waited until the last moment to do so because it made running difficult. With a final look at the camp, he stopped in his own storm of sand, and waited for them to arrive.

A line of sand cut diagonally in front of the others, thrown up by a rogue creature as it hunted impatiently. Bigfoot watched it, tightening the grip on the blade as the creature paused, then shifted direction. This time it headed straight for him. Seconds away, he swung the sword over his head and slashed down where the creature would be.

The ‘crunch’ never came. Instead, the creature dove into the sand at his feet and tunnelled beneath him, bursting forth from the ground behind. It wasted no time lashing his back, ripping his clothes open with liberal smears of blood.

Bigfoot howled, pulling the sword from the ground and throwing it in a sweeping arc behind him. The creature ducked, easily missing the blade. It fell backwards onto its arms and used its feet to kick, forcing Bigfoot to the ground without any breath left in his lungs.

Gasping, he sensed the creature circling him. Playing with him until the others arrived. Bigfoot could feel the group approaching. Their attack was calculated, calm even. The scout had gone to great trouble not to kill him, which the sand creature could have done easily on the first strike. No – this was revenge – and the group wanted it.

Sensing a chance, Bigfoot gasped, filling his lungs with air. Then he rolled onto his knees crawling forward a few paces. The sand creature guarding him snapped its head around. Keeping a careful eye, it crept closer, deciding how best to disable the prey.

In the split second it took for the creature to consider its options, Bigfoot ran his sword along the ground, inches from the sand. The swipe was so fast that its only mark was a metallic scrape upon the desert air.

The creature howled, collapsing to the side, separated from its feet.

“I’m not so easy,” Bigfoot muttered, throwing the sword away as he made a dash for the camp.

*~*~*

Helen’s study was warm. She kept a large fire burning in the corner, framed by a marble mantle and iron grate. The curtains were open, tied back with silk ropes so that the city could be seen to shimmer beyond.

Detective Joe Kavanaugh had imagined standing at this window, peering out at the world through Helen Magnus’s domain. What a different world it seemed, full of monsters and magic.

“This is not the first time that you have been in my house, detective,” Helen flicked through a creature profile lying on her desk before setting it aside. She dug through a desk drawer, retrieving several crumpled letters. “Your mother was very concerned about the time you spent here. She wrote several letters to that effect.”

“Can’t think why,” he chuckled, stepping back from the window. “She took me to Egypt when I was four on one of her college projects she and dad worked on during the holidays. According to her, this one was a little different.” Kavanaugh seated himself in one of the leather chairs opposite Helen’s. She sat as well, folding her hands in front of her on the desk.

“Your mother worked on translation catalogues while your dad kept records of the –”

“I know what my parents did,” he interrupted sharply. “When my father didn’t return that night I thought of it every day for the rest of my life. My mother lied to me about how he died, so did everybody else.”

A strange smile crept over Helen’s lips, barely detectable. It wasn’t sinister, merely one of understanding. “You saw one of them…” she said, her dark eyes glistening.

He ran a slender hand through his hair. “It came to the tent, just before – the creature was like nothing I had seen, rippling between disguises as if it lived in another world. I remember freezing, unable to breathe as it moved around the tent searching for something. The thing that gets me, even now, is that it saw me – I know it did, but it didn’t touch me.”

“You were only a child,” Helen said softly. “Not a threat to it.”

“But that’s not it at all,” he continued. “because it killed three other people that night, two of them were female students and the third was a baby left alone on the bed to sleep. You know what I think? They’re intelligent and vengeful. Old as well, I imagine, as they speak the dead language. That’s why you brought me here – as a translator. Isn’t it?”

Her lack of reply was all he needed.

“I’ll help you, but I want some answers, starting with why you haven’t aged in three decades.”

*~*~*

What Bigfoot couldn’t see from the dunes was a small plane, prepped and ready on the dirt road outside the camp. As he half-ran, half-fell along the road, he saw that the lights were an empty gesture, not belonging to tents at all but carefully placed flares. Everything was gone, packed away and evacuated.

A woman stood next to the plane, waving him forward.

Bigfoot risked a look over his shoulder and saw the creatures still following him a minute or so behind. With the last of his strength, he made it to the woman at the plane who pushed him into the craft as it started to move. She followed shortly after, locking the door as the plane picked up speed along the runway.

Nobody said a word until they were airborne.

“Magnus’s orders,” said the woman, shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe it was still attached to her body. “She’s not usually one to run and hide, but these sand things are fierce. There’s one waiting for you back home.”

Bigfoot didn’t bother asking how Helen and Will had made it out of the cave. He would have his answers after the flight. Right now, he was happy just to sleep.

15

HISTORY CREEPING

“Those are the terms,” Helen held out her hand. Kavanaugh took it, shaking firmly. He agreed to follow them and soon after, they returned to the lab where Henry and Will were busy running the blood samples Helen had collected from the creature earlier.

“Definitely human,” Henry pointed at a chart on the wall. “Granted, it’s a nasty, under-evolved pain in the arse with sharp claws and a hangover…”

Joe noted that the room smelt of disinfectant and blood. On the bench running along the back wall were the scattered remains of surgical equipment, no doubt from some hurried patch job. Helen, at the very least, had a white bandage around her neck with lines of red seeping through in a distinctly claw-like manner. Injures from the creature downstairs, he presumed.

He didn’t say anything, instead Joe chose to slink back and observe. It was something he was used to, hiding in the shadows and letting the truth surface during its natural course.

“They’re not, under-evolved Henry,” snapped Helen irritably, as she nudged his scruffy form away from the computer screen displaying the results of the blood-work. “Far from it. Look at the telomeres…” she zoomed in on one of the sub-screens. It quickly filled with sets of stunted tubes that looked a bit like hacked earthworms after an early morning feeding session – except that they had been stained blue. These were the creature’s chromosomes, and the white segments on each end, the telomeres. “They’ve hardly degraded at all and they are exceptionally long compared to modern humans.”

“I don’t understand,” Henry leant on the table beside her, examining the screen.

“Telomeres,” she explained, “are believed to be responsible for the ageing process. They are, for lack of a better term, ‘disposable buffers’ at the ends of chromosomes. When DNA replicates itself, it is not a perfect process. Bits are lost of the ends of the complex strands – the telomeres cap the chromosomes taking the brunt of this process. If not for them, the body loses information and thus, begins –”

“Aging?” Henry cut in.

“Exactly. This limiting factor is like a ticking clock for life forms.”

“If cells could replicate perfectly, there’d be no limit on their age?”

She shook her head at Will. “Sadly, that condition is called, ‘cancer’. These samples suggest an organism that has found a trade off between the two extremes which allows it a greater maximum lifespan. The People of the Sand will age and die like anything else, but it will take them a while. A long while.”

“What about you?”

“Different again, I’m afraid. These things possess a unique abnormality – if you could call it that. More likely they’re a rare species that bottlenecked into this isolated group living in Egypt.”

“Didn’t exactly get a good look,” said Will, throwing another file on the desk, “but I’d say that they have extensive chromatophore organs, allowing them to shift the colours of their skin like a squid. Nifty adaptation,” he added, “common in water dwelling creatures although there are examples of it throughout all branches of the animal kingdom.”

“So, how old is this thing?” Henry looked worried.

Helen was quiet for a while, running a stray hand through her hair up into where the black strands vanished into a clip. “It’d be a guess, but I’d say the sunny side of six millennia give or take a decade.”

Henry and Will stared at each other. That couldn’t possibly be good news.

Joe, who had kept quiet at the back of the room, finally spoke.

“Why don’t you tell them what it really is,” his voice rolled over the air, low and calm. It was directed at Helen. The detective returned a bleached jaw bone to its place as a paper weight and raised his eyebrows expectantly at her.

Will took exception to Kavanaugh’s tone.

“You don’t think that Magnus would tell us if she-” Will was interrupted by Helen’s hand on his shoulder. She nodded her head gently at him until he stepped aside.

“I merely have suspicions,” she replied quietly. “I would have to cross check them and even then –”

“Helen?” Will searched her eyes, but they were difficult to catch as they glanced to the ceiling, searching for something that wasn’t there.

“These are vampires,” Helen said finally. “Pure blood vampires.” She looked back at the screen where the test results glared back at her. It had been so long, she’d almost forgotten how much it meant to her to see vampire blood smeared between glass slides.

“You better be sure,” said Will, breaking the silence that had settled.

Helen agreed. “I’ll run the checks at once. If we’ve got a vampire, then we’ve undoubtedly got problems.”

*~*~*

Ashley had learnt more about her house from ten minutes inside its walls than in her twenty-odd years traipsing about the corridors. Passageways tracked all over the place down here – some were old and decrepit while others had been maintained. The banisters she used to cross the last set of electric cables had been put in recently. She could tell by steel nails – still shining proudly, clearly believing themselves to be platinum or some precious jewel.

Yes, thought Ashley, there was definitely something worth finding buried in the walls.

She ducked under an established spider web. The resident was busy folding silvery threads around a distressed bug and did not flinch as one of Ashley’s hairs caught on a sticky strand, sending shivers through the delicate structure.

Descending many levels of ladders, Ashley reached what she presumed to be the ground floor – maybe even just below it. The innards of the building were on display. Pipes and cords were tacked onto the walls, snaking their way in all directions. One of them was dripping, somewhere off in the darkness to her left. The hum of the cooling fans droned over her footsteps and every now and then, the lifts screeched into life, showering the area with sparks which zipped brightly through the air before flickering out.

In front of her was a maintenance door. She quickly scanned it with her torch and then pushed the handle down. It clicked but Ashley had to force it open, shielding her eyes from the sudden brightness within.

Her pupils shrank to tiny points as she blinked furiously, trying to accustom herself to the harsh lighting coming from several large fluorescent strips. On the far side of the room was a metal shelf divided into dozens of narrow segments. Each one was packed with files – many of which looked ‘well-loved’. Holding most of the attention though, was a heavy wooden desk in the centre of the room. It was a beautiful desk with inlaid leather and deep red-brown hues where its lacquer had aged.

This was her grandfather’s desk.

She approached the slab of wood slowly, unsettled by its presence.

The back of her throat went dry. It was as if he was there, peering at her from the other side with striking grey eyes made cloudy by too many years of despair. He had been dead for more than a century but she had only killed him hours ago. Her breath caught as she stood there for a moment with hot tears slipping silently down her cheeks.

Deciding to avoid the desk, Ashley turned her attention to a slender bench top at the other end of the room.

Open on the stainless steel surface was a folder with Nikola Tesla’s photo unclipped and lying loose over a set of typed pages. Her mother’s writing was scrawled in the margin of the top page and then again on the back of the photo.

‘Apologies,’ said the script on the reverse of the photo.

Also in the folder was a letter dated in 1889 and signed by Tesla. The barely legible writing scrawled to the edges of the page. It was smudged along an old fold-line and washed out at the edge. Still, Ashley could still make out some parts-

‘Not quite what we expected. That said, the outcome has intriguing application which I need not instruct your mind to speculate on. This changes everything … yours always, Tesla.’

Ashley shook her head and roamed over to rack of glass vials. She didn’t have to be a student of science to recognise the substance congealing in their bases. For each vial there was also a corresponding file stacked beside most notable of all however, was a file without a vial.

‘Subject Unknown – Pure Sample 0049’

Frowning, Ashley reached into her pocket and retrieved the set of vials that she had taken from her grandfather’s lab. Each one had a slender label wrapped under its lip. 0030 – 0009 – 0162 and 0049.

“Back slowly away from there and-Ashley?” Helen lowered her weapon, stepping into the room.

Ashley slipped the vials back into her jacket before turning around to find her mother in shock.

“Ashley!” Helen tucked the gun into her waistband and jogged across the room to scoop her daughter into a vigorous hug. “I thought – I don’t know what I thought,” she whispered, rocking Ashley gently.

*~*~*

“I was going to show you this place, I just – we never found the right time.” Helen pulled a couple of chairs up to the old desk in the centre of the room. Her daughter sat opposite but was strangely distant as Helen took her place on her father’s side of the imposing wooden object.

“How about now?” said Ashley sharply, flicking through several folders presented to her.

Helen, though composed, was wavering on the edge of her painful memories. This room was her soul – a reminder of everything that she had lost and why it was gone, those who had betrayed her and even worse, the many she had deceived. There were parts of herself that she had not intended to share with her daughter and they were all in here, scattered over the shelves.

“There are things I would undo if given the chance again,” Helen had Tesla’s file in front of her. She glanced down at his photo but not into his dark eyes. “I’m not proud of what we did all those years ago. We were impatient for progress and I was angry,” she had briefly touched on the experiments her and her colleagues had run on themselves, “– anyway, each of us has paid for the mistake. Some of us have fared worse. It’s killing– ”

Ashley’s eyes flicked up as her mother caught her sentence with a sharp intake of breath. It didn’t matter. Ashley knew how it ended. ‘It’s killing your father.”

“And you came down here to run a blood sample from one of those creatures?” Ashley deposited the files onto the table, flinching as she felt two of the vials in her pocket knock together softly.

“I have to be sure,” Helen folded her arms. “I keep this place a secret because even a rumour of what I do down here could tear the world apart. Organisations like the Kabal and motivated individuals would do anything to run their filthy hands over this information. Nobody but you knows of its existence. Nobody-” Helen eyed her daughters seriously, “Nobody but you knows of it.”

Ashley nodded. “Run the samples,” she instructed, rising from her seat and turning to wipe a tear before her mother caught sight of it.

*~*~*

Helen Magnus hunts vampires. She hunts them all of the time, in the back of her mind – stalking them while she sleeps. It possesses her and has done since the death of her father. They were his private passion, a species of human so biologically inexplicable as to tempt him into their lairs for a drop of heavy blood.

Vampire blood: it is a substance promising drinkers mythical powers. Helen has seen a whole vial of the mysterious red syrup. One night, along with four of her closest friends, she injected it into her veins and slipped into a horrible nightmare.

The stories got it wrong. Vampires are hunted for their blood, stalked in the day they are forced to roam by night, scurrying away from the moonlight in case it betray them to a human waiting in the shadows.

16

WHISPERS OF THE TOMBS

A young Gregory Magnus wiped a thick splatter of mud from his cheek, streaking it down his face. He was soaked through, dripping from what felt like his soul though it was only his half-unbuttoned shirt.

There had to be a way to reach the next rocky outcrop jutting from the forest five or so feet above his head. Constantly checking the intensity of the light filtering from the canopy, Magnus took a running leap at the lowest rock, grazing it with slippery fingers.

“Argh…” he winced, as his body fell against the wall with enough impact to bruise his ever-diminishing ego. “The things I do for that woman,” continued his muttering.

He rung out his shirt, which presently entered a state of temporary, unpleasant dampness. It wouldn’t be long until the next afternoon shower drenched him. The weather here was like London in that way, delighting in neglecting its populace – except here in this sprawling jungle, Magnus was the only populace. It made the continual misery too personal for his liking.

He flicked his eyes to the tiny patches of sky visible through the dense foliage, wondering if it could glance at him with a touch of pity.

A distant rumble of thunder laughed back at him.

It was hardly a path. The occasional conspicuous stone – a gnarled tree that if he squinted only just looked like a jeering face – a shallow stream of black and white pebbles; these, in his opinion, failed to constitute a path. ‘Wishful thinking’ was a better approximate.

Suddenly the strap of his leather shoulder bag snapped away from the rivets holding it to its overfilled contents. Magnus’s precious items scattered into the leaf litter, instantly speckling with droplets of water from the shivering leaves above.

“Excellent. Simply excellent.”

He scooped his things up, folded the soggy flap over them and then tied his useless shoulder strap around it.

Sarah Magnus had spoken nothing but nonsense to him, but she had delivered it with pleading eyes. The gangly man had never refused those eyes anything, not even when they swirled out of control, following a theory planing above reason.

“Three weeks,” Sarah’s eyes glanced down at the tea cooling. Wafts of steam lifted off the tea, swirling. Her silver spoon rattled on the saucer. “The translation is correct. We’ll find it, I promise.”

Gregory Magnus shook the memory of his wife’s eyes off, hoping that she was right. He couldn’t bear to meet those eyes if he failed to please them.

With strength he had never been credited with, Magnus hurled his injured bag into the air. The water-stained leather climbed through the light drizzle, up and over the rocks where it landed out of sight.

“Only one way now,” he said to himself, digging his foot into a moss-covered gap in the rock. Magnus curled his fingers around an exposed tree root and held on tight, lifting himself from the ground.

*~*~*

Storms threatened with the approaching evening. The world beneath his hips was buried in a heavy mist. It was like creeping through the clouds.

Gregory Magnus extended one of his hands into the intangible carpet. It was cold, coating his skin until it dripped with silvery vapour. Gregory Magnus had left Sarah in Iquitos – a water-locked city stretching out into the Peruvian rainforest. Distant relatives on her grandmother’s side were rubber farmers. Their descendents had agreed to let her stay with them locked up in a multi-levelled dwelling by the port with a view of the serpent-like river boats carting produce into the city. Her Spanish was close to fluent so she’d organised a guide to take him as far as the beginning of the map she had drawn for him.

Gregory looked at the pencil marks scratched into the paper. His map seemed more concerned with clinging onto life than it did with pointing the way.

Stumbling, he realised that he had ventured into a shallow creek, concealed by the mist. Now he shoes were as wet at the rest of him and the jungle experience was complete.

Hungry, exhausted and on the verge of giving up, Gregory vanished into the mist – smashing against a damp log. Slaters zoomed past his face, frightened by his sudden arrival in their domain. From below, the mist was even more euphoric than the world without a floor. Crawling over the log, he rolled onto the ground in a heap, panting and beaten. His bag proceeded without him, pushed forward by gravity’s irresistible longing.

There was a brief decline in front of him which ended in a gaping rock face. The bag, unfazed by the approaching cave entrance, tumbled into the dryness of the tunnel system.

The fate of his bag faded from his mind as Gregory stood up, crystal green eyes trailing over the ferocious cave. Severed away, the rock had been split open against the natural grain of the cliff. Along the vertical edges of this enormous incision were a serious of circles and crescents, accentuated by some kind of sticky white paint. These symbols appeared to glow free of their black canvas, wandering between forms like the phases of the moon.

He had found it.

*~*~*

Gregory located his bag marooned against a boulder a few feet inside the entrance. A shudder of coolness laid itself over his bare chest as soon as he stepped into the cave’s shadow. He bent down to his bag but paused –

The cave floor was dry and covered in a shimmering dust. Minerals in the walls had become powder but not lost their sparkle to time. He pressed his dripping fingers into the dirt, withdrew and held them to a stray shard of light.

That’s when he felt a breath on his shoulder, inches from his neck. In his fascination, Gregory had turned his back to the cave and faced the encroaching forest. Shuddering, he turned slowly.

Silence. Darkness. Cold.

He was alone with the cave and an imagination drowning in paranoia.

Magnus wiped his hand on the remains of his shirt and squared himself up with the cave. From his bag he extracted a cone shaped, wrought-iron object with a polished wooden handle. Into the top, Gregory stuffed a mix of dried roots and material which he quickly drowned in lamp oil. Holding a match to it, the top exploded in a ball of flame and Magnus had himself a torch.

Firelight wavered, reflected off the smooth surface of the cave walls. It was as if they had been polished. Even the ceiling, which towered above him into an endless peak, ever-narrowing out of sight, was smooth.

Lair came to mind as Gregory progressed hesitantly deeper. The forest and its dim, afternoon light had become a grey smear in the distance. Where his torch’s light faltered, blackness encroached until Gregory felt as if it would consume him and he would be lost forever to its silence. It was like an ocean that never moved – a wave captured before crashing over the deck of a listing ship. He cowered before its sinister expanse.

The torch’s flame bent sharply, flattening into an orange line. Darkness edged forward. The mysterious gust of wind switched course, whipping past too fast for the flame to catch its oxygen. Gregory turned away from the wind, protecting the flame with his back. It reached once again for the ceiling and the cavern brightened.

His shoulder was warm.

Gregory gasped, turning in tight circles.

In his frantic movements, his eyes caught flecks of white from the edges of the room. Strewn against the cave walls were pieces of bone – bleached by time or crushed into the shimmering powder they had been scattered over.

17

INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE

Ashley held the remainder of the vampire blood to the light while her mother waited for the final print out of the test results to stutter from the machine.

“Okay, let’s go,” said Helen, ripping the flimsy sheet of paper free. Ashley placed the vial with the others on the rack and followed.

The door of the secret lab took the brunt of Helen’s strength before it finally squealed on its hinges, opening into the gloom. An elevator had just passed by; showering the area in sparks which bounced like fireworks before vanishing into cinders.

Helen brushed one over enthusiastic fizzle of light from her shoulder but not before it left a scorch mark on her taped neck. All too quickly the underground was returned to darkness with only the occasional drip to keep them company.

“This way’s faster,” Helen caught her daughter’s arm, pulling Ashley under a low section of pipe. She pulled a torch from her coat and shined it at the damp corridor in front. The white circle caught a series of stairs in the distance. “There’s a stairwell to my study at the end. I find it more convenient than clambering through the elevator shafts.”

Ashley was going to ask how her mother had guessed, but she was interrupted.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Helen asked, without turning around. She kept her eyes on the tunnel in front, stepping over scattered pieces of pipe. Ashley’s absence had worried her – all the more so because of John’s presence. She wasn’t convinced that he would physically hurt their daughter, but Helen knew that his words were the most dangerous facet of his personality and John had never been shy of words.

“I already said,” Ashley nearly slipped on the wet floor. Her free hand felt for the wall, clutching onto a grey circuit box. “I don’t remember what happened. Did you hear that?” Ashley spun around, sliding on the same puddle of grime. The way they had come was almost pitch black without her mother’s small torch. Ashley could have sworn that she had heard a moan come from behind. A howl even. “Mum, really…”

“What is it Ashley?” Helen backtracked as her daughter ‘shushed’ her. She peered into the darkness, listening.

Helen was about to move on when she heard a soft cry in the darkness. It came in a low drone, moving through the hallway as if approaching. “I-” Helen started and then realised what was creeping toward them. “Oh no… I forgot all about him.”

Helen grabbed onto her daughter’s jacked and pulled her away down the corridor toward the exit.

“We have to go,” she muttered, in answer to Ashley’s protests. “We left SAM out. He’s roaming free – probably made a nest somewhere down here that we stepped through. It’s not import now.”

Ashley’s eyes widened. That horrid creature that she’s spent days and half a pint of blood catching was back on the loose? She shook her head in disgust and picked up the pace, overtaking her mother. She could see the door at the top of the stairs, glowing at its edges. A few minutes later they both emerged in the far corner of Helen’s office which seemed decidedly warm and cosy after the dank innards of the building.

Helen didn’t bother to catch her breath.

“Let’s go,” she instructed, and the pair of them dripped their way to the cells.

*~*~*

It shivered when they approached, darkening its skin a shade. In the time the others had been away, the sand creature had become a new entity. Certainly its appearance retained the same simmering ferocity, but its sinister intelligence – something that they had missed the first time, had overtaken its sharp facial features.

Now the sand creature sat opposite the bars of its cage, calmly picking shards of pottery from its skin. Every so often it lifted its eyes to Henry who paced back and forth, waiting for Will, Helen and Joe to arrive with translation material from the library.

“Stop it…” Henry whispered to the creature, whom he was sure could understand him. If it could have smiled, it would have. Instead, it lifted its tightly stretched upper lip to bare a glint of white where a set of sharp teeth waited.

Henry turned away and continued pacing, checking his watch for the thousandth time as Helen rushed into the room with Ashley in tow.

“Finally – Ashley?”

“Long story,” Helen waved him off.

“Cool, cool,” said Henry, “whenever just, good to see you in one piece.”

Ashley gave him a smile before she followed her mother to the edge of the cell where the creature had returned to a rather large piece of shrapnel embedded in its skin.

“Oooh…” Ashley exhaled as if something horrid had just crossed her vision, “Just as I remember them. Horrifying. Why on Earth did you bring one back with you?”

“It was an accident,” Helen explained, taking a second glance at the creature when she saw that its mood had shifted. “A lucky accident,” she trailed off, frowning at the cell.

“If you mean that trying to bite my ankle off is a ‘lucky accident’,” Will entered the room on the tail end of Helen’s explanation, still limping a little from his wound. “Then yes, it was lucky.” He nodded in Ashley’s direction.

“What’s the police escort for?” Ashley moved aside so that Joe could stroll by, calm as anything despite the creature in the cell.

Joe had arms full of heavy Ancient Egyptian text books. They weren’t exactly texts you could pick up from your local library. At least two of them were hand written by a collection of scholars but they would have to do. Helen’s book shelves weren’t famous for stocking the most up-to-date works. “Sorry to disappoint but I’m here in translating capacity only.”

Will pulled a small desk in front of the cell opposite the creature’s seat. Joe quickly deposited his load onto it and collapsed in the chair directly opposite the creature while the others arranged themselves around the room, Henry leaning against the opposite wall as far away from the cell as possible.

“So,” began Joe, “what do I say?” flicking the first book open to a random page.

“Best find out if it really does speak this language before we get too carried away,” suggested Will, handing Joe a cumbersome book. Joe frowned.

The creature didn’t stop picking things from its skin, but it did flick its eyes up every now and then as the detective whispered things to himself, hunting for the right word.

Apparently satisfied, Joe inhaled before letting a phrase roll into the air. It was an elegant sound, regally shifting its tone.

The sand creature suddenly caught the group with its piercing blue eyes. It was if their curtains had been drawn to reveal a sinister soul smiling back at them, shifting in the darkness. Quietly and slowly, the sand creature repeated the word, accentuating different parts of it in what was the correct pronunciation of the dead language.

The rest of the room breathed sharply as one.

“What – what did you say?” asked Will, slipping his glasses on and leaning over Joe’s shoulder.

Joe hadn’t let his gaze move from the creature who was now repositioning itself in its chair, apparently curious.

“’Hi’ I think,” he replied, picking another line just to be sure.

“It defiantly speaks the language,” Ashley noted. “Much good that does us. This will take forever.”

“I hate this,” Henry shook his head as Joe and the creature began an awkward discussion. “It’s creepy.”

“Are those tracking devices operational?” Helen asked. Henry shook his and then realised that she was giving him an ‘out’.

“I’ll go – do…” he muttered, hurrying away.

“I want to know everything,” Helen whispered in Joe’s ear. “As long as you need.”

*~*~*

A boy, three days from his fifth birthday, waited for his parents to return to the sand-clogged valley. Burrowed into the ancient shale and dirt was a network of tombs now flagged by excavation markers flapping in the evening breeze. Through the small hole his father had chiselled earlier in the day, the child had seen the walls littered with pictures, plated in gold on the red paint.

They had to wait, his parents had said, to open the last room. Part of the structure had collapsed during their excavation. If they opened the magnificent final cavern in the day time, the sunlight could damage the delicate ink on the pile of scrolls sitting in the far corner.

Kerosene lamps shivered like pearls under the water as they led the way over the ridge before disappearing into the final sharp drop where the tomb was nestled. A party of workers led by a pair of dishevelled but recognisably foreign archaeologists shimmied through the sand until they reached the open section of tomb.

The boy who was safely left in the main tent, tip-toed across the room so as not to wake the baby asleep in a wooden cradle. It was early enough in the evening for a cool breeze to billow the tent walls, occasionally finding a way in around the ill-repaired holes. Moonlight patterned the floor, almost as bright as the lamps scattered over the rugs.

Somewhere in his parent’s backpacks – lined along behind their beds, was his birthday present. He was not going to take it, no, Joe just wanted to know what it was. That was all.

“You in bed, child?”

Joe ducked and then rolled across the floor, slipping into his bed before Mrs. Hibbet pulled back the main flap. Her nose entered first, considerably longer than most human’s noses. The little boy, with his covers pulled up to his chin to disguise the fact that he was still fully clothed, thought that she must be a witch.

“I’ll leave this up for a while,” she continued, tying the flap of the tent open before vanishing back into the small colony of tents set amongst the evening desert.

At once, the tent began to cool.

Joe threw his sheets off and was straight into his mother’s pack, prying through the layers of dust ridden clothes. Reaching the bottom, he found nothing but an inch of sand. He quickly moved to his father’s things, proceeding more cautiously.

The baby coughed, startling Joe.

It coughed again, still contently asleep. The breeze was rocking the cradle ever so slightly, causing a shadow to track backwards and forwards across the tent. The lamps, burning low, flickered with the wind.

“Sh… baby,” Joe whispered. If she woke Mrs. HIbbet would be back and then he’d never get the chance. He scrambled over to the cot and pulled the baby’s blanket back over its chest, tucking it gently in. It seemed satisfied by this and quietened.

The cradle shadow crossed over Joe’s bony body as he headed toward his parents’ beds. He walked slower this time, dragging his bare feet. His excitement had worn off and now he was wondering if perhaps he should just go to bed. It was his father’s bag –

Sighing, he removed his filthy shirt and yawned. Just as his mouth reached maximum gape, his eyes caught a second shadow stir across the tent in front of him.

*~*~*

“Well,” announced Joe, as Helen returned to the cell. He had a pile of notes scrawled in various books on the edge of the desk and a line of sweat under his hairline. The sand creature was camouflaged again but she could just make out its outline in the corner of the cell near the power outlet.

“Well?” Helen copied.

“I’ve learnt the Egyptian word for, ‘Vampire’.”

“Four hours,” she eyed him worriedly. “Tell me you got more than that.”

Everyone else had abandoned the room except for Ashley who continued to eye the creature as some kind of unclaimed prey. She’d spent days hunting these things – it was a difficult emotion to switch off.

“I’d say that I have a version of the truth,” Joe continued. “These aren’t the vampires you think they are. According to this one,” he nodded at the empty corner where the sand creature was concealed, “vampires were the pharaohs of Egypt. By the way he constantly snarled when referring to them, I take it they didn’t get along. ‘He’ belongs to a family group of vampires which possess an infectious strain of the abnormal gene. Along with the others, he began life as an infected human. This is not his natural form…”

Helen lowered her eyes. This was not a pure blood sample. It would not do. Indeed, it was useless. She should have known that this creature was not one of the original civilisation of vampires. Yes, it continued to display a high level of intelligence, but its behaviour was too chaotic, unplanned, animal even. There was a desperation about it that could only be human.

“Thank you Detective Kavanaugh,” she pushed his desk aside leaving him feeling rather exposed. He quickly got to his feet and carried his chair to the wall where the desk was now discarded, some of his notes floating to the ground. “If you head upstairs, Will will show you out.”

Joe looked confused, “And when do you want me back?”

Helen withdrew a set of keys from her lab coat as she moved toward the cell door. The sand creature flickered momentarily back into view, sniffing the air.

“That won’t be necessary,” she said under her breath. “Ashley, your weapon please?”

She reached for her sidearm but remembered that all her things had been taken from her in the 1800’s… “I don’t have one. What are you doing?” Both she and Joe watched as Helen slipped the key into the cell lock. A second later there was a faint, ‘click’.

“Getting rid of it,” was all Helen said.

18

ROAMING FREE

“Thiiird time today, Will. Are you all right?” Since his return, Bigfoot had been in the medical lab, repairing the various wounds he’d picked up in the desert. Will kept him company, hobbling around the room on his sore ankle, moaning about the creature downstairs and how they should have left it in the damn desert.

“I better be,” he replied, lifting his leg onto the bed. They’d changed the dressings three times but the bite mark continued to fester. Bigfoot pulled the light over and began peeling the layers of fabric away. “I’ve got months of work accumulating on my desk and the last thing I need is rabies. How about you,” Will eyed a bloodied patch of fur on Bigfoot’s arm, “you okay?”

Bigfoot grunted.

“Was that a, ‘yes’?” Will prompted, but Bigfoot was engrossed in the discoloured bandages. With dexterity not obvious by the size of his hands, Bigfoot carefully attended the sore.

Will winced as the final layer revealed his skin. It was a mess of liquids and torn pieces of flesh which had flaked away from the stitching.

“Wiiiill…” Bigfoot fished a metal tool out of the medical tray.

Will laid back on the bed, covering his forehead with his hands. “What?” he exhaled, trying to block out the searing pain from the creature’s bite mark. There was a burning heat working its way from his ankle, up his leg and into a knot somewhere in his thigh. He was already two tablets over the sensible painkiller dose. Bigfoot had confiscated the packet half an hour ago and refused to reveal its location despite Will’s flawless impersonation of Shrek’s Puss in Boots.

Bigfoot wiped the sore clean. It was as he had thought – healed.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Will sat up and examined his ankle. A zigzagging line of black stitching was a little puffy at the edges, but otherwise in good condition. It didn’t stop it stinging like hell though.

“Look agaaain,” Bigfoot pointed to the skin at the centre of the wound. They waited a few minutes with Will glancing at his watch and then back to Bigfoot until he saw it too – a shimmering sensation in time with a particularly large wave of pain. His skin flickered, mimicking the white sheets beneath his leg.

Will gulped.

“Shit…” he whispered, as Bigfoot reached for the intercom.

*~*~*

“Mum, what are you doing?” Ashley repeated, striding over to the cage door, holding it shut. Joe remained frozen, a few notes crumpling as his grip tightened.

Helen blinked slowly, “Let. Go.”

The creature shifted in the cage, sensing Helen’s intention.

“This is a sanctuary,” whispered Ashley, leaning against the cell door to hold it shut. Her mother had withdrawn a large blade from her leather boots and was brandishing it at the bars, letting the creature know that she was coming. “We don’t kill things unless we have to.”

“Trust me Ashley,” Helen’s voice was low and silky. She moved her head from side to side, a few strands of hair falling across her face as she followed the sand creature’s pacing. “This one has to die.”

Ashley didn’t fancy the sand creatures for their murderous personality, but still, they were last of their species. All the things that they must have seen. Their intelligence, it was possible in time that –

“No, mum!”

Helen had seen Ashley distracted and gone for the cell door but her daughter was too quick, launching herself at the bars, snapping the door shut once again. The creature hissed, changing its skin.

“This is wrong,” Ashley shook her head. “What’s gotten into you?” Her mother was like a different person, turning the knife through her fingers.

“Heeelen. Need you in the infirmary. It’s Will.”

They both glanced up at the TV screen bolted to the wall. It was filled by Bigfoot looking very concerned, urging them to hurry up.

Helen released her grip on the cell door. “Stay here,” she instructed, handing Ashley the knife. “I’ll be back in a minute. Detective,” she nodded in Joe’s direction. He was still holding his notes protectively to his chest, having difficulty swallowing.

“She always like this?” Joe breathed once Helen had left the room.

Ashley shook her head. “No.”

*~*~*

“I don’t know Heeelen. It’s spreading like an infection.”

Will’s worried look got worse as Bigfoot took Helen on a guided tour of his ankle. It wasn’t long before her hand jumped to her mouth which had never been a good sign.

“I know what this is,” she said, quietly. Her green eyes returned to Will. “But there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“You mean,” Will kicked them off as he sat up. The vampire virus was spreading through is blood stream, mutating every strand of DNA in his body. Already the skin on his ankle shifted with his mood, stretching into its new ability. “I’m going to become one of those? There’s no way…”

“I’m going to start you on a course of powerful anti-biotics,” she pointed to the far end of the room. Bigfoot nodded.

“Will that do any good?” Will caught the sleeve of her lab coat. His hand was shaking. “I don’t want to be a –”

Bigfoot returned, passing Helen a needle brimming with a yellow liquid. She wasted no time piercing Will’s skin, plunging the cool substance into his system until his eyes rolled back.

“The sand creature said that this was a virus, but the translation could be inaccurate. If this is a bacterial infection, we might just be in luck.”

*~*~*

Ashley’s hand was still resting on the cell lock.

“Is she really going to kill it?” Joe laid his things on the table and edged toward her. He folded his arms across his chest, beginning to feel the cold of the underground rooms.

“Looks like,” Ashley replied. “Detective?”

Joe was staring past her, apparently frozen. The shuffling noise that the creature had been making was suddenly absent from the room. “What’s it doing?” he asked, the question falling out of his mouth as Ashley turned.

The creature was behind her with its claws curled around the bars of the cell door. It was no longer camouflaged but a reddish brown with deeper patches of red along its spine which curled around its back legs.

Helen hadn’t locked the cage door.

*~*~*

“Hold him steady!” Helen and Bigfoot rolled Will onto his side as he began to shake violently. The bed rattled. Bigfoot took hold of Will’s knees and put all of his weight on them while Helen threw herself on the top half of his body.

“He’s going into shock….” said Bigfoot, struggling to keep hold.

“It was a large dose. There’s nothing we can do except keep him still as possible.”

It became harder and harder to hold Will down and soon he was shrieking in agony. Ten minutes later, he finally fell silent, passed out on the bed with beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. Helen and Bigfoot collapsed onto the bed, exhausted both by the physicality of holding Will to the bed, and the horror of hearing his cries of pain.

“He wooon’t stay long like this.” Bigfoot breathed.

*~*~*

“Damn…” Ashley muttered.

Her eyes opened, squinting in the sudden brightness of the cell. Her head felt as if it would crack apart – it nearly had. She was crumpled against the cell wall, bleeding onto the concrete where the creature had thrown her. The cage door was locked, trapping her inside while the room was empty except for a streak of blood along the floor where Detective Kavanaugh had been standing.

Not sure how long she’d been out, Ashley rolled onto her knees. Her lungs lurched in protest, coughing up cement dust.

“Detective?” she managed between rasps. “Joe?” Her words echoed off the cold room. “Joe, are you all right?”

Ashley crawled to the bars of her cage and used them to pull herself to her feet but she got no answer from the empty room.

*~*~*

Her mother unlocked the cell door, pushing it open harder than she needed to.

“What happened?” Helen demanded, still cloaked in her lab coat. She looked tired and withdrawn – not in the mood for this kind of catastrophe.

“You left the cell door unlocked,” Ashley spat, with a more venom than she meant to. “It pushed the door open and that’s all I remember. Joe’s gone. We have to go and look for him now – before it’s too late.”

“Joe’s dead,” Helen paced away toward the exit.

“I don’t believe that,” Ashley took off in pursuit. “Why not just leave him here? It makes no sense.” Ashley caught up to her mother at the elevator.

“If he’s not dead yet, he will be soon. You have to go and find that thing before it kills anybody else. I can’t come with you – not now that Will…” she trailed off, relieved by the glowing orb of the elevator button and its doors sliding open.

“Will?”

Helen paused, she hadn’t told Ashley about Will yet.

“You better come and see him before you go.”

*~*~*

Ashley left the house soon after, carrying more ordinance than Lara Croft. Five hours later, it was well and truly dark with storm clouds covering the half moon.

“Ah, thank you,” Helen smiled at the doorway as Henry entered carrying a tray of tea. It was his tray of tea, ready for the nightshift so that Helen could get some sleep. “Will you be good to stay until the morning?”

Henry set the tray down on the desk and looked over to where his friend was sleeping. Will must have been in the middle of a horrible dream as his head kept falling from side to side with a frown cut across his forehead.

“Sure,” he said, nudging Helen out of the way of what was now his chair. “Get some sleep. Ashley’ll find that thing – I mean, it was her who found them in the first place.”

Helen nodded, squeezing Henry’s hand in thanks before she began the long walk through the hallways of her house toward her office. The inviting glow of her fireplace crept out from under the door. She clasped the handle, almost falling into her room as her tiredness took hold of her.

Except, there was something wrong with her office.

The fire was glowing even though she hadn’t lit it, the curtains were drawn yet she hadn’t had time to do so and her chair was facing the fireplace, rocking ever so slightly as someone prodded the coals with an iron poker.

“You have a problem,” the chair announced, before spinning around to face her.

19

BENEATH THE STREETS

The gentleman in the chair drew the poker between his fingers in his very best version of seduction until the metal neared the reddened end, causing him to hiss and return it to the fireside.

Helen approached her desk cautiously, mouth slightly agape. “What happened to your face, Nikola?”

Tesla, smartly dressed in his best 19^th Century suit, ignored the mystified woman, determined to control the topic of conversation.

“So,” he began, folding his hands into his lap, “I was prowling through the train tunnels, minding my own business when –”

“How did you get into my house?” she interrupted him. Helen’s stern expression hadn’t cracked under his pert mood. It was an acquired ability.

Nikola Tesla’s eyebrows lowered themselves into a disapproving grimace. “This was my house, remember?”

“I bought it,” Helen made it to her desk but was forced to sit in her guests’ seat when Tesla gave no indication that he would move. “Paid real money for it and everything.”

“Yes well,” it was clearly a sore topic, “you can’t be famous and live forever. People, nosy creatures that they are, ask too many questions. Now,” he leant forward over the table causing Helen to retreat to the cushy back of her chair. “Do you want to hear my story or not?”

“I just hope you locked the door behind you,” she muttered. Any number of things could wander in off the street. This house was like bait for cockroaches, even the well dressed ones.

An unopened note on the desk caught Tesla’s attention. He could have sworn that it was in old Nigel’s cursive. Ever inquisitive of other peoples’ business, he went to possess it but Helen swiped it from under his hand and a moment later it had vanished into one of her lab coat pockets. Short of undressing her, he would never see it again.

His eyebrows returned to their preferred lofty positions, slightly independent of each other. “Whoever said I use doors?” he quipped, instead choosing to finish off a glass of port that he’d poured himself from her private stash.

“God, you’re exhausting.”

“I’ll take that as my cue to kiss you,” he leant forward like a flash of lightening across the turbulent atmosphere, but she was too fast for him, ducking out of his reach.

“Uh ah… once is quite enough for this century.”

“Remind me to book you in for the next one.”

“You said something about a story?” Helen eyed him impatiently. Running from Nikola’s left ear and across his cheek were a series of gashes. The doctor in her wanted to stitch his skin back into place but she knew that he would heal on his own – quickly too. She could already see the edges of the cuts closing, healing themselves. He was in pain though but doing a reasonable job of concealing it.

“As I said,” Nikola was serious now, a rare condition for him, “you have a problem.”

“I have many problems, could you be more specific?”

“You’re in an atrocious mood,” he quipped, but was undeterred and perhaps even a little amused. “If you insist though, I had a bit of a run in with … something. Ah!” he raised his hand just in time to stop Helen from flinging a snide remark in his direction, “before you ask me to be more specific, I can’t because I’m not sure what it was. Tell you something for free, it had to be pretty game to try something on me considering my, well, night-time demeanour…”

“Is it dead?”

There was a gleam in Tesla’s eyes. She’d answered his question without knowing it. “So you do know what it is then,” he grinned. Craning his neck around to the point where Helen though it might snap. He shut his eyes as the electric lights in the room flickered. “Care to share?”

“Perhaps, but how do I know that you’re here for good?”

“I don’t understand the question,” replied Tesla. “Do I translate ‘good’ as ‘forever’ because I believe we’ve already sorted that out but if –”

“I don’t have time for your games,” she snapped, her patience for his charms wearing thin. “If you’re going to help us, then stay. If not – well, you’re in my chair.”

*~*~*

“There’s only one way to turn the virus back on itself,” Tesla refilled both of their glasses with the crimson liquid. They had relocated to the couch behind the double arched windows – a more comfortable position with a pleasant view of the floor to ceiling bookshelf.

To Nikola’s dismay, Helen had drawn the curtains open to reveal the moonlight. Sometimes she was afraid of the outside world, and liked to keep herself boxed in the safety of her manor but on nights like these Helen Magnus wanted the world to know that she was watching it.

Helen wove herself into the far end of the couch, well out of the scientist’s reach should he choose to try something. There was a knife under her cushion and a gun taped to the underside of the coffee table. Plenty, she hoped, to handle an old friend.

“My research – which, I realise you deplore but in this instance you will find quite useful – indicates that a pure sample of vampire blood will stave off, maybe even cure the virus. DNA records taken from the Ramesses tomb show immunity to the virus after it spread through the ancient city before the great culling.”

“Wait, you knew about this group of vampires?”d

Tesla lifted his hands above his head, surprised by Helen’s lack of faith in his ability. “I’ve devoted my pleasingly long life to this topic, of course I knew. I didn’t tell you because I thought they were all long dead – and even if they weren’t, there’re useless to me.”

“I don’t know, you could have your army of vampires. Isn’t that what you want? Indeed, is it why you’re here?”

“My my, how you misunderstand me. I feel like that homeless child begging with my bowl, but all I want is a little trust.”

“That was deep.”

“Okay, put it this way, the vampires this virus creates are animals compared to what I’m after. They lack, fineness. Still, it disappoints me that you found an ancient colony of vampires in the desert and didn’t bother to call.”

“You don’t own a phone.”

“Fact,” he sipped his port. “Listen, I can’t help you with what’s-his-name…”

“Will…” she corrected him.

Tesla waved his free hand, “Whatever. But I might be able to get that little problem back for you, if you ask me nicely.”

“I don’t know if I need your help with that. Ashley’s already out there.”

“Take a look at my face, Helen.” Nikola shuffled forward over the couch until he was right next to her. He caught her hand reaching for the knife and instead lifted it to his face so that she could feel the depth of the wound in his skin. “Do you really want her out there alone?”

*~*~*

A train rumbled in the distance, grinding through one of the hundred tunnels beneath the streets of London. Ashley was black from the grime which had slathered itself onto her hands so thick that she had to wipe them on her jacket just to keep a hold of her guns.

She didn’t use her torch. Sticking out like a sugar coated treat wasn’t a good plan so she kept her back against the wall of the tunnel, using it to guide her while her ears picked out faint sounds scattering into the passage.

Ashley was excellent at this kind of thing. The years spent playing hide and seek with first her mother and later, Bigfoot had been excellent training. Mind you, she was infinitely better at the seeking part. Hiding was more of her mother’s speciality.

It was definitely down here. There was an occasional smear across the gravel floor – a few bloodied rocks only just lit by the weak tunnel lighting. Mostly it was dark, especially where side tunnels dug away at the walls. A freaking maze was what she had down here, a cumbersome network that had been added to and re-ordered so many times that no-one had the faintest idea what was going on.

The blood belonged to the detective – at least, that was its most likely origin. The sand creature could have taken another victim on its way down but she doubted it. This thing was using Joe as bait. Something it knew the Sanctuary would come after.

She jolted, training her guns on the roof. The milieu shuddered, a mixture of the lights failing and a hot wind kicking down the tunnel.

“Relax,” she whispered to herself. “You’re the one doing the hunting, remember?”

But Ashley wasn’t the only one hunting. Nikola had been following her footsteps for more than an hour, cautiously gaining ground on her until he decided that he better announce his presence or risk getting shot. It might not kill him, but a bullet through the heart still hurt.

“Hold up…” Tesla took a hold of his overly long trench coat, preventing it from flapping around in stray air currents so that his silhouette was less bat-like.

Ashley almost lost her footing in shock, flicking on her torch and pointing it at the approaching figure. It was that man her mother used to know, crazy scientist. Great, that was just what she needed – another vampire to deal with.

“How long have you been there?” she kept her weapon trained on him as he came to a stop at her feet looking terribly pleased with himself.

Nikola shrugged, “A while. Lady of the house sent me.”

That sounded exactly like something Helen would do. Send in the cavalry. “Mum needs to put a bell around your neck or something.”

“And take all the pleasure out of sneaking? Any luck with your own project?”

Ashley rolled her eyes and pointed her torchlight at the ground where it caught a blood covered stone.

“I see,” Nikola knelt down, dabbing his finger in it. “Don’t worry,” he added, when Ashley’s nose crinkled, “I’m not going to lick it or anything.” He rubbed the substance between his fingers until there was nothing left of it but a brownish smudge. “This is close to the place where I had my little run in earlier,” Tesla pointed to his face as Ashley flicked off the light.

“You better be quiet then,” she turned away from him and continued hunting.

“I’m quieter than you,” he reassured her.

After several minutes of traipsing through the tunnel, Ashley pulled up to a halt. Tesla nearly ran into her, hopping to the side just in time to avoid her loaded weapon. She had a growl on her face.

“I can still hear you!” she shushed him irritably.

They stood their collective ground, eyeing each other suspiciously for a moment until they both realised that the noise they could hear was coming from further in the tunnel.

“You know,” Tesla murmured, redirecting Ashley’s gun toward the dark passageway in front, “I thought it’d be quieter than that.”

The owner of the noise emerged into the semidarkness, a grin spread across his face. John’s hands were clutched behind his back and his boots allowed to drag in the gravel. “Believe me,” he began at the pair, one of whom exhaled in disbelief, “if I didn’t want you to hear me, you wouldn’t have.”

“Oh wonderful,” Tesla had never particularly liked John, and now he remembered why. “The father of convenience. Mr. Druitt, let me introduce you to your daughter…” he theatrically presented Ashley.

“Quiet Nikola, why don’t crawl back down into that cave you call home?”

“Charming as always,” Nikola clicked Ashley’s light back on so that he could get a better look at his old rival. “If you don’t mind, we’re a little busy at the moment doing, ‘work stuff’.”

A spark shot across John’s shoulder. He bent over, grimacing in pain. It was clear that though he could tear the fabric of time, sometimes it turned and snarled at him, ripping away the layers of his soul. His little trip back into the 1800’s had done a lot of damage. John had to believe that it was worth it.

“You just can’t stop can you?” Tesla showed no sympathy as the tall man was reduced to a groaning mound on the floor. “Helen told you not to keep jumping about the universe.”

“She. Told. You.” John grunted, lifting himself back to his feet. “Not to be such an arse but since when did either of us start listening to Helen?”

“’scuse me?” Ashley swiped Nikola across the back of her head with the butt of the gun causing him to yelp. “Could the both of you just get over it!”

“What was that?” Tesla narrowed his eyes at her jacket, tilting his head suspiciously.

“What was what?”

He’d definitely heard something clink together inside her jacket pocket. It didn’t take the genius long to piece all the fragments together. Indeed, Watson would be proud of him.

Tesla went for Ashley’s jacket but John was there, gripping onto Tesla’s wrist no doubt hoping to crush it.

“Don’t touch her…”

“I suppose,” his slippery voice pondered, “it was you who got her into this mess. I can smell it-” he lowered his eyes to Ashley’s pocket. “Yesss… I should have noticed it before but there’s so little of it left. It was more like a memory on the air, difficult to place.” Tesla had wondered what had happened all those years ago. It was lifetime away but the mystery of Dr. Magnus’s departure from the world had ripped the five apart. “You obviously didn’t tell your mother that you shot poor old Gregory. I can’t see her taking that too well.”

20

ANCIENT HISTORY

“He’s getting worse,” Henry leant against the isolation room with a mixture of sleep and dirt trailing down from his eyes.

Sirens wailed past outside, dimmed by the layers of walls and offices that kept this room from the rest of the world. They were looking for the detective, he guessed. Since Helen had called his department they’d heard nothing but noise from the streets. Shame they were looking in all the wrong places, though Helen wasn’t about to help them.

Will was inside the glass-sheeted room, sprawled across one of the hospital beds that Bigfoot had bolted to the floor. The leather straps over his arms, legs, torso and neck strained and cracked as he arched his spine in agony. Ripples of colour spread over his exposed skin until his whole body disappeared in a veil of camouflage. A minute later, it had passed and Will coughed and cried back into human form.

The computer projections trailing over Helen’s screen suggested that the virus was working its way from the outside in, burrowing through his body. Her initial doses of anti-biotics had prevented separate infection of the initial wounds but as she predicted, had proved utterly useless against the virus.

Most of his pain was stemming from the calcium deposits building up along all of Will’s bones. His teeth, in particular, were literally growing, curving inwards as their tips sharpened to needle-like points. To achieve this, the virus was re-aligning his jaw which explained his need to chew and bite anything in reach.

Whenever she let her eyes wander over to the bed, Helen caught a glimpse of a sand creature rather than a frightened man. Even his eyes had been slit by dark ovals and his iris’s turned amber smudging out what little remained of him.

He was ravenous. In a couple of hours – morning at the latest, the IV bags would be useless. After that, they’d have to find something more substantial for him to eat to prevent his body sacrificing its integrity for the changes.

“The treatments aren’t doing anything…” Henry pried himself from the glass, paced across the room, collapsed into his chair and buried his head, nestling into his arms. He had been injecting Will with Helen’s blood to no effect. It was last time they were going to try as the result was always the same; instant loss of blood pressure, difficulty breathing, skin rash, increased anxiety, seizure, cardiac arrest.

“I am immune,” Helen told him for the thousandth time. Henry believed her but could do little else but shake off an unwelcome yawn. “Bet my life Tesla is too. Neither of us are pure blood vampires so the solution must be somewhere in this mess.” She was referring to the enormous string of her DNA the computer was trying to process. “But the code is huge. No chance of finding that kind of needle. I need years, not hours.”

“You could cross check with bloodwork from the other five,” Bigfoot suggested, struggling into a labcoat. The awkward garment nipped at his fur, dragging a few of his bandages free. “Look for common patterns.”

Helen shook her head. “Those were stolen a long time ago. James and Nigel are dead, Nikola – if he comes back, will be gone for days and as for John, your guess is as good as mine.”

“Stolen?”

Helen sighed. “Ancient history.”

A quiet snore wafted through the lab, barely audible over the hum of a dozen machines. Henry was asleep. More accurately, he had passed out from sheer exhaustion. Helen waved Bigfoot over from the other end of the lab. The big man nodded as soon as Helen gestured to the scruffy bundle on the desk.

Helen rested her head on her palms, staring at the far wall. It wasn’t just Will. Ashley was out there too, somewhere in the dark. Even Joe… all those years and now he was gone. She should have paid him more attention when he was a child, listened a little harder but she was always so busy. The work never ended. It never would. Not for her.

She returned to the computer screen, clogged with endless windows. As a scientist she knew that there was no chance that she could do this by herself in the time that Will had left. It irked her to admit it, but she needed Tesla.

*~*~*

Nikola looked as if he’d peered into the cosmos and torn out all of its secrets.

“René Barjavel would love to meet youuu-” he grimaced on the last word as John clenched down on him tighter, bending Tesla’s wrist bones toward each other. “I’m just saying,” Tesla continued, shaking off the pain, “you travelled back in time, killed your grandfather and lived to tell the tale. That’s impressive.”

Ashley’s eyes had gone red and suddenly her gun was levelled between Tesla’s eyes, daring him to go on with his taunting.

“Say it again,” she jeered, terrified by the raw emotion threatening to break free. All of her guilt had finally seen a vehicle of release and she welcomed it.

John let go of Tesla as Ashley pushed the scientist down the tunnel, led by her loaded gun. He didn’t say a word but managed to maintain a satisfied smirk.

“Ashley,” John said quietly at first, left behind as his daughter marched Tesla off in a simmering rage. “Ashley!” he said more forcibly, staggering in pursuit. His body was falling apart, like smoke swelling over the ground at night, about to meet the rising sun. “You mustn’t kill him. God I’ve wanted to in the past … and present.”

Ashley could feel her father over her shoulder. She didn’t want to listen to him either. If he hadn’t -Her grandfather was there, every time she closed her eyes. Seated behind his desk, scribbling intently at something. Then he would look up, kind eyes and a warm smile offering her a biscuit –

Her eyes opened. His were gone.

You had to give it to the man, Tesla knew his worth – when to push a person and when to lay off. Emotion was a complex thing, something he preferred to study from a distance as it had never been a friend to him.

“We need him,” John moved slowly for her gun, but Ashley spun around to face him. Two tears broke, seconds from each other, and vanished along the curves of her cheeks.

John could see the bullet, barely more than a hint of silver in the dark tube.

The air felt thick as Ashley struggled to see through rivers of mascara. The darkness of the tunnel was suffocating and the poorly lit face of her pleading father was difficult to make out.

“But I don’t need you,” she choked.

John flinched.

Ashley’s finger rolled over the trigger. Her heart pouring out with the bullet as it broke from the barrel with a whiff of smoke.

*~*~*

Young Joe Kavanaugh shivered at the shadow outside. With the lamp lights burning low, his tent was relatively dark compared with the moonlit evening. To the shadow, Joe was just a dark piece of cloth strung between metal rods, rippling in the wind.

The boy couldn’t move – he barely breathed.

Something was very wrong with this humanesque form. Joe followed the profile of the hunched shadow with his eyes. Clothes of some description were hanging in shreds, flapping free, two arms were loose at its sides and at the end of each of its fingers were dark, slender shadows that looked awfully like claws.

He was already afraid of the desert. The older children of the group had told him stories of creatures that lived in the sand, invisible things that moved with the moon to hunt small children. Joe was no fool, the older children had made that last bit up for his benefit. What cemented Joe’s limbs together were the echoes of their stories in those of the camel herders – monsters that ripped their animals apart, whispers in the evening hours around the ancient tombs…

He believed them all now.

There was nothing between him and the creature except the fragile cloth and his silence. Trembling, Joe watched on as it began to saunter away from his tent, apparently more interested in the Robinson’s tent opposite and their large collection of small dogs.

He was about to collapse onto the floor when the wind kicked the baby’s cradle, and the little girl cried.

The shadow stopped. Joe’s breath froze. Crying and tears screamed out from the cot. The sand creature turned its head back toward Joe’s tent, tilting it at the disturbance.

Joe sensed its eyes on him though he knew it was impossible. A moment later, the shadow began to move again but this time it didn’t go away – it circled his tent. Joe’s head followed the shadow, the rest of his body still itching to move. Once he caught a glimpse of it passing a small hole in the tent and it dawned on Joe that this thing was real and he didn’t have long before it found the open flap.

Using the child’s screaming as cover, he scurried across the tent floor, headed for the trunk beside his father’s temporary desk. There were papers and things inside, but when he heaved open the lid it looked large enough for him to crawl into.

Kneeling inside, Joe lowered the lid of the trunk as the creature stepped through into the tent, sniffing the air.

*~*~*

“Did you see thiiis?” Bigfoot returned after putting Henry to bed, pulling up a chair to the desk where he found Henry’s laptop open. The screen was littered with password cracking programs, some of them still dutifully prying into private servers. “He’s hacking something.”

“If it’s got a government stamp on it, then I don’t want to know.”

“No,” his hairy mitt buried the mouse, dragging it around until he’d tidied up the screen. “This – might be, no I think it iiiis. Tesla’s files. You didn’t say that he had a database…”

Helen rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t own a phone but he manages a high-speed internet?”

Bigfoot ignored Helen. “He’s working out of various organisations. Engineering companies, museums, libraries, the FBI…”

“Well, they did start confiscating his work a while back. What is Henry doing moseying around in there?” she rolled her chair over for a better look. Literally hundreds of windows were open, all of them in relation to vampire history – everything from ancient texts, supposed locations of artefacts, famous researchers and professors right up to the Underworld original movie script. “What a mess…”

“Looks like Henry’s started to filter through some of it, listing it in order of relevance and difficulty to acquire.”

Helen raised her eyebrows. That sounded like Henry to her. “What tops it?” she asked, as Bigfoot minimised a dozen useless windows and killed a security warning. Helen checked her watch. They had three hours until Will recovered from the sedative.

“Something his crackers haven’t gotten into yet.”

Helen tilted her head, a curious smile forming just under her lips. “p1g30N…” she whispered, typing over Bigfoot’s shoulder. The line went green and dozens of pages loaded onto the screen. “He never changes.”

Bigfoot mumbled for a while, skimming pages of text until he came upon a curious entry. It contained a dozen or so scanned images torn out from an old book. The typeset was clunky and the pictures barely more than smudged etchings. Helen remembered a time when that was considered swish.

“…three separate uprisings in a single reign finally forced the pharaohs to abandon their beloved cities.” It began. “Six of the royal family lay dead, slain in the streets and temples until finally Ramesses XI was cornered in a library with three of his scribes. The unfinished letter to the priests of Amun was never sent. It pleaded mercy, but the peoples of the land had no mercy left in them from decades of invasion and starvation. They left an ankh through his neck and conquered the land in the name of the gods and their people. Ramesses took his final breaths bleeding into the cold stone of the palace at Thebes with the vacant eyes of his scribe staring back.

“Those that escaped travelled north along the river and then east into the barbarian world. They followed the Silk Road, vanishing into the safety of foreign mountains. The second wave were too late to make their way on foot. Hunters, keen to seize on bounties, picked off straggling royals, driving spears through their hearts and dragging their corpses back into the cities for show.

“Frightened, the last of them crossed the desert on foot until they fell into the sea. Two ships set sail but only one made it to be reunited.

“The groups met each other in the Indian Himalayas and settled once again, building the city of Bhalassam with the remainder of their wealth. It was a last stand, a memory of all that they had once been. But the two-hundred room palace was empty and later turned into a great vault for their knowledge. Surrounding it were streets of houses and temples, also empty save the forty-five survivors. Perhaps it was their hope that the scale of their city would frighten off attackers like a ruffle of colourful feathers at a predator.

“Around their city they built six towers and capped their pyramidal tops in polished marble. Every morning they shone like the evening stars, inviting their kind to join them in isolation and safety.

“One ship had been lost during this evacuation. The wind took it through the islands and across an even greater ocean. Injured from several vicious storms, they drifted in circles until even their resilient bodies were skeletons for a beating heart.

“Finally, years later, they reached the shore of a new world. Frightening cliffs hugged the ocean, splintered into the water as they crawled up the beach. Beyond this they found a dense jungle of creatures as ferocious as themselves. Eventually they happened upon a city, built out of the solid river rock. It shone in the afternoon – a pyramid of gold as beautiful as they remembered their own. As they approached, six more cities flickered into view, each one as brilliant as the next. Thinking that they had found their ancestors, the once-rulers of Egypt wove their way through the mountains and followed the river to the first and most beautiful city.”

“Does this story have a point?”Helen interrupted Bigfoot’s reading. “Because we’re pushed for time here…” Tesla had always been a history buff. Even at college. If he wasn’t trying to kill them all with bolts of lightning then he could be found with his nose in an antiquity book.

Bigfoot scrolled through the battered pages, some of which had sections missing. “Weeell… there’s this;

“Eventually they returned across the sea to India where they found their brethren and the city of Bhalasaam under attack. A wave of humans had hunted the others, determined on their destruction. Fearing the worst, a core group escaped, travelling back to the new world seeking sanctuary there. And thus began the final stand – the Sanctuary of the Moon.”

“So that’d be a no,” Helen pushed off the ground and rolled her chair back to her own desk. “As usual, Nikola’s living his life in the past – the ancient past. So he’s looking for vampires … what a surprise. Fascinating as his hobbies are, they don’t help Will.”

Bigfoot kept reading, figuring that Henry had a good reason for his efforts.

*~*~*

“You missed…” Tesla sounded distinctly disappointed as John flashed away from Ashley’s bullet, disappearing in a rip of time only to rematerialise behind Tesla.

John crumpled to the ground in pain. His body could not take much more of this.

Tesla stepped aside, displeased with the idea of himself as a shield. It was so demeaning. “You think another dose of that stuff will help you?” he asked John, who was still heaving, coughing up blood onto the gravel. “If it doesn’t kill you, it’ll transform you into something unpleasant…”

“He-l-en didn’t thi-nk so,” he replied, bending his knee up to his chin. He took a few deep breaths and then returned to his feet, trying not to sway.

Ashley was still in shock. She’d been that angry with the world that she had taken a shot at her own father.

“Helen’s learnt a lot in the last century,” quipped Nikola, circling John menacingly.

John ignored him, waiting for Tesla to pass before stepping toward Ashley, placing a gentle hand on her cheek. She didn’t recoil. It was as if the world had stopped and she was all alone in a moment long passed.

“Ashley,” he cupped her face until he found her eyes. “You need to prepare the blood as it was done the first time, over a hundred years ago. The instructions are in your grandfather’s journal but you must hurry. You’re all I’ve got in the world,” he wiped another tear from her face, finally seeing his daughter stare back at him.

Tesla’s eyes flicked to Ashley’s jacket. Beneath its crinkled surface he could make out the line of a book. The book. For nearly a century he’d wondered where that had gotten to.

“I’m sorry, for the way everything happened,” John continued. “But we don’t know each other, not really. You never would have helped me if I hadn’t –”

She didn’t say anything.

“Shame about Will…” Tesla trailed off, deliberately breaking the silence.

Ashley blinked, awakening from her trance. “What?” she leant around her father.

“Pure vampire blood; the only known cure for what these bastardised creatures give you. It’s a very small vial though – a single sample, only enough for one of them I should think…” he smiled at John, whose face had fallen.

“Nikola…” he whispered, realising the game’s end. It had been well played.

“Your father or your lover? Tough choice. I’d off them both –”

“He’s not my lover,” Ashley snapped. “Are you telling the truth? Is this,” she broke free of her father and withdrew vial 0042 from her jacket, “going to save Will?”

Her father’s eyes followed the vial and its red liquid sloshing inside.

Tesla nodded. “I am certain of it. And that is no light word for a man of my profession.”

“Ashley… Please.” John blocked her vision of Tesla and his promises. “I am your father.”

“We’re immune,” Tesla spread his arms. “John, Helen, me – the answer is in that vial.”

“She’ll know…” Ashley retreated slightly. “If I take this back to the lab she’ll recognise it. She’ll work it out like you did and then – I don’t know if I can…” It would be so much easier to save her father in secret but Will – he was there, screaming in her head. If she hadn’t of gone to Egypt chasing that stupid tip off then none of this would have happened.

“Blame it on your father,” Tesla instructed. “He’ll be dead soon any-”

“SHUT UP!” John screamed, launching himself as best he could at Tesla’s throat.

“What’s wrong John,” Tesla hopped easily out of the way, “Helen’s blood not good enough anymore?”

John hit the gravel, grazing his hands. “It doesn’t work. I don’t know why,” he growled, getting back to his feet.

“He’s going to die either way, Ashley.” He turned to John, “Maybe Helen’s not giving you the real stuff anymore. It must be a terrible drain, a leech like you-”

John caught Tesla’s coat, jolting it toward him. Nikola tried to escape, but he was dragged into John’s range with a squeak. He was a slippery creature, sliding through John’s hands but not out of his grip.

The scientist snarled, his features tinting into a concrete grey.

“Don’t push me John, you won’t like what comes out…” Tesla said, his eyes going black.

John squeezed his throat harder, “How about we see for ourselves?”

21

CONFESSIONS OF MURDER

Tesla’s fingers tapered into claws. His eyes became jet black voids. The cheeky smile he often flashed sharpened into a sinister crest of teeth until finally his true nature surfaced.

His vampirish form broke free of John’s grip with a snarl and before John could do anything to stop him, Tesla had lashed out at his shoulder, knocking John to the gravel.

John rolled, protecting his bleeding shoulder as several gashes appeared, seeping through his leather jacket.

It was funny, John thought whilst lying there, after all the years he and Tesla had known each other this seemed inevitable. There were too many levels of betrayal, jealousy and rivalry between them for common civility. Sharing love – it destroys the soul.

Nikola wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, flicking it to the ground with disdain.

“No!” Ashley yelled, diving toward her father.

“Get back,” John pushed her away, struggling to his feet as Tesla came in for another go.

*~*~*

Gregory Magnus gripped the handle of his torch tightly as his eyes scanned over the bones on the cave floor.

“Animal bone,” he murmured. “Get a grip of yourself. There’s nothing here but ruins and –”

He didn’t need the shivering of his flame to tell him that something was looming behind, having crept out of the depths of the cave. Gregory could hear a fine sheet of material skimming the dust and the slow, steady breath of the creature at his shoulder.

The air around Gregory crackled. Flecks of electricity crepitated into life with a thousand bright sparks. He felt that soft tickle over his arms as his hair stood to attention. It was like there was a current running through the cave, making molecules dance over one another, bouncing through a sea of electrons.

“Turn slowly,” said the creature in Spanish.

Gregory heard a soft, low voice slide in over the air. He didn’t understand its words, so he spun around, shaking with his torch held aloft.

“Slowly…” the voice repeated, before it saw the pale expression of the man. It was the face of a frightened and fragile creature, still stumbling about in the world; a brave young human with no idea of the danger eyeing him curiously.

The vampire was tall but hard to make out from the cave. It was as if the shadows curled around him, lapping at the edges of his towering façade, threatening to devour what was left. The top of his cloak glowed with a fine stream of hairline sparks, undulating in ferocity with the vampire’s shifting mood.

The initial terror faded quickly as Gregory settled his eyes on the vampire. It was not that the stories had lied – indeed, this was a fearsome figure to behold – more that their descriptions were incomplete. Their writers had neglected to note the sadness of its dark eyes and the horror shining out from their pits, overlooked the fractures through their skin and understated the smoothness of their manner.

Put simply, the creature before him had seen ages die and was the wiser for it. His existence terrified the world and that hurt.

With courage Gregory had been unaware of up until this point, he held the torch back and stepped forward in a non-threatening but firm manner.

“I am Gregory Magnus,” he started, “and I have come for your help.”

For the human’s spirit, the vampire decided not to kill him. Instead, it turned its back and began a retreat into the cave taking the electric air with it.

“No, wait…” Gregory abandoned all sense to follow. “Please. I have come a long way.”

Still, the vampire gave no response as Gregory attempted to keep pace with it through the darkness. Gregory held his torch out in front as he struggled over the slippery floor of the cave. The dust had become mud and Gregory found his shoes fumbling through it. The vampire, however, seemed to have an unnatural ability to skim along its surface like a boat gliding through open water.

“Is this not a Sanctuary?” he finished desperately, shouting into the tunnel.

There was silence ahead and for a while, Gregory thought that he had failed his family. He had come all this way, to the other side of the world for a lie. His despair distracted him and he did not notice the return of the vampire just within reach of the light. Gregory couldn’t know that the vampire had fractured dimensions in perfect silence.

“You seek Sanctuary?” it said, in heavily accented English.

Gregory lifted his head, finding the vampire with its arms clutched behind its back. Its voice barely broke a whisper, either afraid or unable to speak over the water trickling down a nearby wall.

“I seek the Sanctuary of the Moon,” replied Gregory. “On behalf of my daughter.”

*~*~*

The boy ducked into his father’s box with the heavy lid resting on his back. The trunk wasn’t quite big enough for Joe. He had to leave the lid half an inch open – enough to make absolute stillness a necessity.

He had hid just in time. A moment later the creature ducked its head awkwardly and stumbled into the front of the tent. The desert air kicked in behind it, blowing the fabric walls about.

Joe closed his eyes, willing the creature away as children did.

The creature’s attention was on the screaming baby, waving its tiny hands in the air, hoping to be picked up and nursed. It couldn’t see the sand creature approach with crystal blue eyes and a sharp set of claws.

It was over very quickly. With his eyes still firmly closed, all Joe knew of the baby’s passing was a dull snap and an instant return of silence. Nothing in the room moved. The only thing left that Joe could hear was his own loud breathing. He felt his heart skipping through his chest and into his cheeks. Sweat started to dribble down his forehead and suddenly the trunk was very hot.

There was no air. His rapid breathing was sucking too much in before it could be replaced through the keyhole in front of his nose. He had heard nothing for more than a century, though it was likely only a minute. No footsteps or movement. No rustling through the ornaments littered across the tent. Joe couldn’t even hear the creature breathe anymore.

The darkness of his own little world finally got the better of him. Joe had to open his eyes. He had to know if it was gone – or had been nothing but a dream; a horrible, terrible nightmare to punish him for wanting to see his presents early.

His lashes unknotted and his eyelid cracked open. Instead of a pale, yellowish glow from the lanterns, Joe saw blue.

It was there.

One eye to the keyhole.

Trailing a clawed hand over the lid of the trunk.

Joe was frozen into place – wanting to bury himself into the darkness of the trunk, unaware of the immediacy with which it was about to be taken away. The creature pried the lid off the trunk in a single movement, flinging it open where it crashed onto the floor, completely separate from its hinges.

The boy inside crouched, tears flowing down his cheeks in terror. Even this young, he knew that he was dead. It was an inbuilt sense consummating in a moment of clarity. Joe had never felt so alive. He was motionless against time and yet his mind was busy streaming through a lifetime of thought.

His imminent death did not come.

Joe lifted his head. Above him, a ragged figure could do nothing but stare. The creature’s skin twitched, sometimes vanishing into nothing wherever it emerged from its tattered clothes. Its hair was laden with sand and had twisted into oily knotted lengths. Its jaw line was unnaturally sharp, struggling to accommodate a row of blanched teeth.

The sand creature opened its mouth in a howl, letting go of the box to curve backwards in pain. Its body rippled, changing forms as if unsettled on a design. Falling to its knees, the creature shook its head until the boy crawled out of the trunk.

Joe stood before the creature that had stopped writhing on the floor. The creature looked up at him, this time with soft eyes and lightly tanned skin.

The boy whispered, “Father?” and the creature wailed once again.

*~*~*

The pair of fighting gentlemen no longer cared that there was a sand creature lurking somewhere down the tunnel, or that Helen’s daughter was standing to the side, screaming at them to stop. Finally they had each other with no one to stop them ripping themselves to shreds.

“God, just stop!” Ashley tried to catch her father’s jacket as he spun, avoiding Tesla’s poorly aimed lunge. There was nothing she could do but watch. She’d tried threatening them with her weapon but neither appeared to care. For the first time since the tomb, Ashley wished her mother was by her side. She would know what to do with them.

“You know, I think you’ve actually gotten worse at this,” John’s fist thrust into Nikola’s chest, sending him backwards through the air and onto the ground.

Nikola hit his head hard. The impact blurred John’s follow up and he found himself rolling onto his side, curled out of the way of a powerful kick.

John was about to move in for the kill when his own body failed him. He lost control of his arms and had to lurch to the side at the last moment. Tesla unfurled himself and saw his chance, crawling straight for John with claws outstretched.

Ashley caught his wrist, startling Nikola for a moment.

“That’s enough!” she demanded, refusing to let go. Both Nikola and John were weak from fighting and far more manageable. “You can’t just stand here and kill each other,” she continued, yelling at them both. “Once we get this job finished, you can do what you like but right now everyone is counting on you to capture this creature. If I could do it alone, I’d leave both your useless arses here.”

Nikola and John heaved for breath, panting and exhausted with wounds burning over their bodies.

“Even if you don’t care about stopping this creature from killing – you were asked for help by the one person you have in common. My mother.”

Both of them acknowledge the mention of Helen in their own private way. John exhaled, averting his glance to the floor whilst Tesla stared intently at Ashley. Yes, there was more than a little bit of Helen Magnus in Ashley’s stern glare.

“Please,” she added, offering her hand to Nikola.

Nikola’s vampire accentuations began to fade and by the time he had taken Ashley’s hand, he looked relatively normal save the abrasions on his face. Soon he was on his feet, dusting his coat off while Ashley made the same gesture to her father.

John stared back at her but somehow all he could see was Nikola preening himself in the background – straightening his collar.

He couldn’t help it. Using Ashley as leverage, John launched himself at Tesla, reaching for his throat. Ashley’s arm got caught in the middle and her jacket ripped open. A single vial of blood slipped out, tumbling to the tunnel floor where it shattered in a cloud of sparkling dust.

Everyone stopped.

Pure vampire blood splattered onto the gravel at their feet, trickling away into the ground.

Ashley stared at it in disbelief while John forgot his rage and fell in pursuit, trying to scoop it up into his hands to save it. It was futile, in seconds the blood was barely a dark stain.

“You broke it…” she whispered. “You broke it. YOU BROKE IT!”

John ran his hands over his face. That was his life and now it was gone.

“I…” John ran his hands through the shattered remains. It was his own doing.

Nikola thought for a moment. What an intriguing circumstance he had been presented with. He had never been one to orchestrate things, but Nikola had yet to let a decent opportunity sneak past.

“Ashley,” he said softly, eyeing the remaining contents of her coat. When she did not respond, he reached over and placed his hand on her shoulder. He repeated her name as he closed in a few steps. “Do you have your grandfather’s journal?”

This time Ashley turned around, narrowing her eyes at him. Nikola took that as confirmation of his suspicions. The diary had disappeared around the same time as Gregory’s death. Helen had always suspected that it had been the cause of his murder – but life was far more simple. Gregory’s death was an accident and Ashley’s acquisition of the diary – blind luck.

“It’s okay,” he stopped her from replying as it would no doubt be a lie. “You can still save your father, maybe that friend of yours as well.”

“You better not be stringing me along,” she replied. “Because I’ll find out if you are, and then I will kill you regardless of how fond my mother is of you.”

His eyes gleamed brightly because for once, he had honesty to play with. “No, this is pure truth. It won’t be free, but I assure its accuracy.”

John stood up to listen as well as Nikola began.

“Your grandfather kept an interesting journal,” he said, pointing to Ashley’s coat. She retrieved the journal and held it lovingly in her arms, protecting it. “John over here wanted it for information regarding that sadly expired vial of blood. I, however, have seen it before – flicked through its pages once or twice. He liked to travel, Gregory. When he was young and Helen just an infant, he went in search of the Sanctuary of the Moon – the last known refuge of pure blood vampires. And here’s the kicker, I believe that they’re still there.”

“That’s where the blood sample came from?” Ashley opened the journal and found the entry. “He collected it himself?”

“You never wondered where your mother got the idea of a sanctuary for abnormals from? Her father, of course, who in turn borrowed it from the –”

“No,” Ashley interrupted. “She never mentioned anything like this.”

“Helen keeps her secrets well hidden, especially from you.”

Ashley skimmed over the pages, flinching at some of the ink sketches scribbled between the text. Her grandfather had drawn eyes and shadows.

“If you leave now,” said Nikola, “you could be there in two days.”

“And what about the two of you?” she watched them suspiciously. “How do I know you won’t just get back to killing each other when I walk away?”

Tesla grabbed onto John’s jacket and helped him to stay on his feet. “Because we promise,” he replied, prompting John.

“Yes, yes…” John added, a little less than convincingly. “Hurry Ashley.”

Against her better judgment, Ashley turned and left the pair of them deep in the tunnel. When she was gone, the two men turned to each other in the dim light.

“Time to go and catch a sand monster,” muttered Tesla, pushing John off of him.

John wasn’t sure if he was amused or impressed. “You’re actually going to help?”

Tesla tucked his coat back in front of him and started on ahead.

“What did Helen do to you, all those years ago?” asked John curiously.

Nikola stopped but did not turn. “Same thing that she did to all of us,” he replied. “Now, are you helping or dying?”

John dragged his feet forward, “I’m coming, I’m coming…”

“I just have one question,” said Nikola, as John fell into step beside him. “Was it a lie? Did Ashley really kill Gregory Magnus? Helen was so sure that it was you.”

“No doubt by your encouragement.” The other man sighed. “I confess, though I did not shoot the old man, it was my fault. I brought Ashley to the past. It was selfish and stupid but I don’t want to die, Nikola. Not like this.”

“If she finds out, she’ll never forgive you,” replied Tesla.

“Then we will have something else in common.”

22

FRIENDS FOR LIFE

For an hour, Will was himself. He perched on the edge of the medical bed, head bent down focusing on the ground as he steadied his breathing. Helen was beside him, rubbing along his back and over his shoulders trying to settle the quivering muscles.

He’d been asking after Ashley, but no one at the Sanctuary had heard from her. At the present, Helen was counting that as a good sign.

The other two watched from the main lab. Henry’s desk was buried in a pile of paper work; mostly print outs from Tesla’s private files. Henry had carefully stapled relevant pages together and set about highlighting important passages. It was disheartening though, when Helen walked away from his work calling it a waste of time under her breath. Henry may not have the nous of his colleagues but his paranoia was second to none and it had him convinced that this Tesla person was up to something sinister. Helen tried to reassure Henry that that was just his natural state.

“I’ll just put it over here,” Henry said to himself, piling up documents in the corner of the back bench which was quickly becoming his library on all things Tesla.

“He’s changing again, Helen,” Bigfoot swiped his card over the door and it dutifully unlocked. The Perspex sheet swung silently open and then closed behind his furry figure. He paced toward Helen and Will, carrying a tray on one hand, presenting a needle laid on a white cloth. It was almost like the tray of tea and biscuits he had brought to Will so many times before.

Helen wiped the side of her eyes before lifting her head to her approaching friend.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “We can’t give him anymore. It will kill him.”

They’d found a measure of success in one of the sedatives. In large doses, it temporarily reversed the virus’s effects. She hadn’t decided whether this was doing more harm than good. It was a painful process for Will, returning to human form and then mutating back into the bastardised creature he was destined to remain for the rest of his life.

“Helen,” Will rasped. He struggled with a glass of water, sipping it slowly. “Helen,” he repeated more firmly. She held him tightly, wrapping another cotton blanket around his shoulders. “You know what this is,” he said. He wasn’t talking about the virus.

“Don’t even think it,” she replied, unable to tame a stray tear. “It’s never going to come to that.”

He laughed.

“We’ve already been there and back again,” he said, smiling slowly. “Please?”

She couldn’t do it. Will was her recruit. A protégé and friend handpicked from decades of candidates. There was no way that she was going to… Her stomach wasn’t strong enough.

“But it’ll still be you…” she said, holding his face gently in her shaking hands.

“You saw them, Helen,” Will took one of her hands. They were young and soft even though Will knew that Helen had seen more lifetimes than he ever would. “Whatever they may have been, good men – loving friends, they all ended exactly the same. I don’t want to become that. It is no way to spend a thousand years.”

After a very long time spent resting on his shoulder, Helen nodded.

*~*~*

“This way? No… He went down that dark, narrow looking one.”

Nikola rolled his eyes. “And who crowned you Lord of the Underworld?” He ducked into his preferred choice of tunnel, sniffed around and returned to Druitt’s side. “Lucky guess…”

“But lucky for whom, I wonder,” said John, lowering his voice when he heard something move ahead of them. “I do believe we’re about to have company. Would it be too much trouble to ask you to become a little more, how do I say,” John’s voice rolled over the words with amusement, “scary?”

Clenching his fists together, Nikola brought about his vampire side.

“Should even the odds a little,” he all but hissed, blinking as his eyesight improved. The wound across his face still stung from where the sand creature had attacked him the last time. It was a fast creature, faster than Tesla was comfortable with. He had never been fond of competition.

*~*~*

Joe Kavanaugh grimaced, holding his shoulder in pain as he lay against the cement wall of the tunnel. It was dark around him except for the faint nightlight at the far end. He kicked some of the gravel away from his feet as he tried to stand again. This time, he was able to use the wall for support as he struggled to his feet with a groan.

“Oh…” he inhaled sharply. His legs quaked and crumbled beneath him. He landed on the floor in a puff of dust, coughing as sweat dripped through his hair.

There was a blue set of eyes watching him. They crept about, slowly circling Joe.

The sand creature unfolded its limbs and stretched them out. Its claws scratched over the floor as the creature curved its back into an arch. Bones cracked back into place. Always, it kept its ears aligned with the passageway. There was a commotion further down the tunnels – it could smell the squabbling humans in the distance and they were getting closer.

The sand creature did away with its camouflage, revealing its truly beautiful natural colouring in the half light. Nearly crimson, it seated itself directly in front of Joe.

“Shit,” Joe coughed, holding his arm in pain, “you didn’t have to grab so hard.”

There was a dark bruise where the sand creature had seized and dragged Joe all the way from the Sanctuary. His leg bled from the initial scuffle in which the sand creature had knocked him onto the table outside the cell by accident.

“No choy-ce,” it replied, struggling to speak the awkward language. It didn’t like this new world. The air smelt of poison while strange noises paced through the night, wailing in the distance. “Ho-ome.”

“That is arranged for tomorrow. I can get you back to the desert but on the conditions we talked about. You say you know my father? I want to meet him in person and not be killed for the trouble. Can you ensure my protection from the others?”

“We are uuu-mans not mon-st-ers,” it snarled, dragging its claws through the gravel, tracing out an ancient pattern. “Take me ho-ome.”

“What is it?” Joe asked, when the creature suddenly camouflaged itself again. It didn’t answer him, instead choosing to scamper off into the darkness to Joe’s right. Suddenly, Joe heard the hushed voices approach.

“Now?”

“Yes, now!”

There was a scuffle in the darkness. Claws and hands scratched at each other as the sand creature tried to fend off the two men that had been hunting it all evening.

“Urgh, ow…” moaned Tesla, as the creature ripped a line next to his spine. His jacket and shirt beneath it were both ruined and hung open revealing his bare skin as the three of them continued to rip and tear.

“Can’t see anything in this pitch,” said John, fumbling blinding for the creature as it whipped around them in circles, taking nicks out of them with every pass.

“Let there be light,” said Tesla, plunging his hand into one of the power sockets dotted down the tunnel. In a hail of sparks, the tunnel lit up, revealing its plainness in fine detail. It was a good deal less ominous, but the same could not be said for the creature that had vanished with the darkness.

“Still can’t see it,” said John. The sand creature had retreated in the sudden brightness. “Oh, it’s here. No need for you to worry about that.”

Back to back, John and Nikola surveyed the room. Nothing moved except their feet as they wore circles into the ground.

A nervous shiver ran down the back of Nikola’s neck as he realised.

“Above us,” he whispered.

The two of them lifted their eyes to the ceiling and then flung themselves out of the path of the falling creature. They all landed at the same time – John and Tesla in untidy bundles and the sand creature well poised on its feet like a cat.

It went for John first, leaping onto his chest and scratching at his face. John crossed his arms over his head protectively, trying to roll onto his side but the creature’s considerable weight had him pinned. Tesla crawled across the ground and grabbed hold of the air where he thought the creature’s ankle might be. It was a well calculated guess. Tesla pulled sharply, setting the sand creature off balance allowing John to finally breathe.

“Gotcha now,” he squeezed down on the creature’s limb as it tried to escape. “Little help would be good though.”

The creature spun around to face Nikola, narrowing its eyes with an angry sneer.

“You’re so impatient!” John growled, wiping the blood from his eyes. His face was covered in painful gashes.

Tired of all this fighting John, still laying on the floor, pulled a gun from inside his boots and held it over his head. Stretched out with his back on the ground, he lined the creature up and rolled the trigger.

A loud crack echoed in the tunnel, startling Tesla as the bullet whipped past his face and into the sand creature’s skull. It fell limp at once, slumping to the ground fee of life.

There was no final moment of life – no flicker of soul. Its body simply lay still, going cold on the ground. Tesla released its ankle, breathing heavily. John was still on his back, exhausted and injured.

“One sand monster,” said Tesla. “Delivered as instructed.” He didn’t want to admit a flutter of sadness in the pit of his stomach.

“Aren’t you forgetting someone?” John rolled painfully off his back onto his equally sore shoulder.

Tesla raised his eyebrows and then lowered them into a defensive frown. “You? I guess you helped a little…”

“No, you fool,” John rocked himself onto his knees, replacing the gun in his boot. “Helen said that there was a missing detective.”

“He’s dead,” assumed Tesla.

John knew that Tesla was only guessing. “Maybe so, but Helen asked us to make an effort and actually look for him.”

“Be my guest…”

It was therefore to Nikola’s great surprise that they found a crumpled body reclined against the wall not far up the next tunnel. The man was unconscious but alive. Nikola shrugged.

“Stray?”

“Nikola!”

“Okay, okay…” He bent down and grabbed the detective by his feet and began to drag him over the gravel. The detective’s body slid down the wall until it thumped onto the floor with a shuffle of gravel.

“Stop,” instructed John. Nikola gave him the famous Tesla what? Look. “You can’t drag him all the way back to Helen’s.”

John had to be kidding. “Not a chance. You carry it if you want to be charitable.” Nikola didn’t like the way John’s smile curled.

“I’m dying – might kill me…”

“So could I,” he snarled, heaving the body onto his shoulders under protest. Nikola made certain to complain the whole way back to make life as unpleasant as possible for John as punishment. John thought about killing Nikola but didn’t fancy the prospect of carting both bodies on his own.

*~*~*

“God – you scared me.”

“Don’t I just.”

“Normal people use the door,” roused Helen, when she found Nikola and John in the hallway. It took her a moment to see Joe deposited in a heap on the floor behind, bruised but otherwise unharmed.

She didn’t like that Tesla wandered in and out of her house when it suited him, but even more so, she didn’t like that he’d brought John along for the tour. “Stop appearing in my house,” she continued, in a more agitated than usual manner. “And don’t teach him,” she pointed at John who was trying to look as innocent as possible, “anything that I wouldn’t .”

“Is that a challenge?” Tesla whispered under his breath but was interrupted by a groan behind them as Joe came to. He sat up, holding his head in his hands. “Now he wakes up…” muttered Tesla, pushing past Helen on his way to the drinks cabinet.

Helen knelt down beside Joe, sweeping his damp hair off of his face. “Are you all right?” she asked him, inspecting some claw marks and bruises. He replied that he was fine, trying to brush her off but Helen was determined. She had to be sure that there were no bite marks. Thankfully, the detective had avoided serious injury.

“I told you that I was fine,” said Joe, allowing Helen to help him to his feet.

Nikola returned with two glasses of scotch. The one with ice clinking inside, he handed to John.

“Hi, we haven’t met.” Tesla waved at Joe. “Let me introduce myself. I’m your friendly neighbourhood vampire who just carted your arse all the way down that lovely tunnel the city’s got tucked away under there. All that exertion made me a bit peckish – fancy a bite to eat?”

Helen shook her head. She was too tired for this.

“Ignore him,” she instructed Joe, who looked more than a little worried as Tesla sipped his scotch. “He’s only part vampire and not particularly friendly. Nikola…” she walked right up to him, leaning up to his ear. “Start behaving.”

“Happy to oblige,” he tilted his head toward her, but Helen darted out of the way.

“Where’s Ashley?” Helen asked, checking her watch. She had expected her to return with Nikola. She didn’t bother asking what John was doing around. He always had a knack for showing up in times like these. Questioning usually proved useless.

“About that…” Nikola prodded John sharply. He was the daddy – he could confront Helen.

“Helen,” John set his glass down on one of the coffee tables. She glared at it, eyeing the absence of its coaster. “Ashley has found a way to save Will.”

Helen’s eyes immediately fell to Nikola.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he raised his hands defensibly. “I’m trying to help.”

“Where is she, Nikola?” Helen demanded.

“The Sanctuary of the Moon,” interrupted Henry. He had seen the intruders on the camera network and immediately gathered together his papers. Henry appeared beside Helen, handing her a printout. “That’s right, isn’t it Mr. Tesla? I mean, it’s what you’ve been searching for all this time and now you’ve got someone with goals that match your own to help you find it.”

“Henry, please,” Helen interrupted him. “There’s no such thing as a hidden sanctuary of vampires in South America. Now Nikola, tell me where Ashley went or you’ll have more to worry about than the Kabal at every turn.”

John tapped Tesla on his shoulder when the silence dragged on. Tesla coughed and then ran a hand through his spiked hair.

“Are they my private documents?” Tesla took a step towards the scruffy individual, hand outstretched. Henry backed away in fear.

“Ah-” Henry opened his mouth.

“Where is my daughter? Last chance.”

“The airport,” said Tesla simply, withdrawing. All he felt next was searing pain where Helen had slapped him hard across the face.

*~*~*

The cobble street glistened with the fallen snow, reflecting the street lights in sad circles. A bullet cracked through the night air. People that had been huddled at their windows ducked out of sight, cowering on the floor. Helen’s eyes slowly opened, searching for what was left of John between the shadows of the street opposite.

He grinned back at her, lifting his hands to the side to show that he was unharmed by her ill-aimed shot.

“If you wanted to shoot me, I would be dead,” he said, leaning against one of the lamp posts.

Helen’s hair fell over her shoulder in a glittering sea of blonde underneath the lace hat. She placed another bullet in the gun and re-aimed, holding him firmly in line of the barrel.

“You are mistaken,” she whispered, unable to shake the image of her father’s body cold and lifeless on the floor of the attic.

The snow continued to fall around them, spiralling through the night like wayward stars crashing to earth. Freezing wind burnt her delicate skin as tears slipped from her eyes. John had killed so many since the experiment but she never thought that he would kill her father in cold blood.

“I don’t understand why,” she said, pacing forward to the edge of the pavement but deliberately not onto the road. “We were helping you. All this time, John. I have to know.”

He felt like laughing. The experiment that had destroyed their lives and he had ended up with the worst of it. His body and soul were ripping away from each other and every day he was one less shred of himself.

“The answers do not lie with me,” he replied. “Dead or alive I cannot help you in this, Helen.”

“Did you kill my father!” she screamed.

John crossed the road in four long strides, too fast for Helen to think or shoot. With truth and sincerity he answered her, “No…”

Sometimes she thought that the John she loved was just buried in those brown eyes, hiding somewhere amidst the violence and blood of the John she had created.

“No,” she repeated his words, first in a manner of hope, then again in disbelief and finally in a rage. “No, I don’t believe you!”

John turned as she unsheathed her knife again; lunging toward the man she loved. He didn’t move in time, groaning as the blade cut beneath between his ribs.

He staggered, pulling away from the knife.

“Helen…” Someone grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her side. “Sh – calm down,” the man muttered, desperately trying to keep a grip on the struggling woman.

“Let me go Nikola,” she snarled.

“Just go,” Nikola nodded at John. “I have her.”

John ignored the other man and approached Helen once again, but this time with an air of caution as Tesla held onto her.

“I did not kill your father,” he said solemnly, holding her face gently in his bloody hands before vanishing into nothing dragging the universe with him.

Both the gun and the knife fell to the ground at their feet while Helen collapsed into Nikola’s arms, no longer trying to break free.

“We’ll find who did it,” Nikola hushed her, stroking Helen’s hair gently. “I promise you that we’ll find them even if we have to search forever.”

Posted in People of the Sand, Sanctuary Tagged: action, action adventure, adventure, ashley magnus, ashley/henry, ashley/will, bigfoot, comedy, dr. magnus, helen magnus, helen/bigfoot, helen/henry, helen/john, helen/will, henry foss, henry/mermaid, horror, Humour, john druitt, mystery, People of the Sand, Sanctuary, scifi, suspense, will zimmerman ]]> http://ellymellyfanfic.wordpress.com/2008/11/06/people-of-the-sand/feed/ 0 ellymelly http://ellymellyfanfic.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/personal-questions/ http://ellymellyfanfic.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/personal-questions/#comments Mon, 03 Nov 2008 02:59:09 +0000 ellymelly http://ellymellyfanfic.wordpress.com/?p=78 ]]>

Title: Personal Questions

rated: G

Pairing: Sam/Ba’al

For: A challenge on rolleson’s journal.

“If you could rule over any Goa’uld, who would it be?”

Sam frowned. “That’s what we humans call a ‘hypothetical’ question,” she growled, wondering why it was so difficult for Lord Mister Allknowingness Ba’al to grasp the basic concept of the game.

Ba’al ran a hand over his wrist, reminiscing the loss of his hand device. “What’s wrong with that?”

“This game only works if you ask personal questions.”

“Define personal…”

Sam picked up a stone from the cave-like environment, and threw it as hard as she could into the blackness that surrounded them. The single pen-light she had found in her pocket was running low on battery and provided only a dim, yellowish hue. “Something secret, that you wouldn’t normally tell other people – or, aliens in your case.”

“I would never normally tell anyone the answer to that,” replied Ba’al truthfully.

“Still, it doesn’t count.”

“Fine, how about you start then?”

“How many queens have you had?”

Ba’al smirked, “That’s hardly very personal.”

“Then why did you avoid it?”

“Eleven.”

“Eleven!”

“My turn then?” said Ba’al, looking pleased. “What is your iris code?”

“Very funny,” said Sam, pointing the light straight into his eyes as punishment.

He batted her away. “Not personal enough?”

“Look, I’ll ask another one – see if you get the hang of it. What is the name of your host?”

“No idea.”

“Typical Goa’uld,” she rolled her eyes.

“Is it my turn again?”

“I wish it weren’t…”

“What’s the gate address of Atlantis?”

“You’re really struggling with the difference between ‘personal’ and ‘secret’ aren’t you?”

“Do you find me attractive?”

Sam coughed. “Beg your pardon?”

“Is that not a legitimate question?”

“Uh…”

“What?” Ba’al tried in vain to look innocent.

“There must be a better way to pass the time…”

“Rescue is four hours away, unless you have a better idea…” Ba’al looked her up and down suggestively.

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No, I do not find you attractive,” replied Sam sternly.

“Bullshit.”

Sam shook her head. “No, you can’t call ‘bullshit’ on a personal question. That’s a different game altogether.”

“I grow tired of these Earth games. ‘Enslavement’ is far more amusing, yet regrettably illegal on this planet.”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Yes,” sighed Sam, shaking her head in dismay. “I find you attractive. But now it’s my turn thank god…”

“I am god.”

Sam shook her head, “Oh boy…”

Title: A Night on Atlantis
Rating: PG-13
by:ellymelly

Spoilers: None except presumes the season 4 universe.
Fandom: SGA
Pairing or Character: Friendhsip (john/rodney teyla/ronon sam/rodney team lorne zelenka)
Genre: Action/Adventure Humour, Fun
Warnings: Wildlife?
Disclaimer: I own N-O-T-H-I-N-G except my laptop and internet connection.
Summary: The members of the Atlantis expedition decide to spend a night on the mainland. Chaos ensues. Possible tears.

GETTING THERE

________________________

Mckay foraged through the cupboard at the back of his lab. Various items fell on his head, scruffing up his delicate layer of hair in a constant but incongruent hail. Wincing from an impact, Dr. Mckay finally found the object of his search.

“Got you now…” he muttered under his breath, digging his arms in further to clasp the object tightly. With great effort, he pulled the dusty sleeping bag free. The puffed scientist landed on his butt, his newly acquired possession in his lap.

“So that’s a ‘yes’ then?” asked Major Lorne, appearing at the doorway of Mckay’s lab. He was dressed in his jogging gear and looked as if he was on his way back from a workout with Ronon. “I have you down as a ‘maybe, possibly, if the universe doesn’t crash down around me’.”

Taking a much needed breath, Rodney laid down on the floor. An eager upside down Lorne entered his field of view.

“What’s it look like?” he replied, clutching the sleeping bag tighter.

Lorne smiled, determined not to be put off by the scientist’s token snappiness. “’Probably, likely, as long as the world doesn’t end’.”

Mckay gave a big thumbs up, and Lorne continued down the corridor at a jog.

It was a stupid idea, thought Mckay for the eighth time since he had agreed to go. A camping trip on the new planet… Surely, he reasoned, there were better ways to spend his rare bursts of free time. Indeed, he had promised himself that he would not give into John’s relentless pressuring the day Lorne was given permission to host it. He had SWORN that no amount of taunting, jeering, or threats of blackmail would induce him into undertaking three days of alien wilderness. He promised himself, despite his genetic inferior excitedly declaring that he would be going.

“Come on Rodney,” he could almost hear Zelenka’s voice, “it’ll be fun.”

“Define fun,” he had replied.

“All those stars – being out there, on another world without having to worry about the nearest life sucking alien. This is what I always dreamed of, exploring other worlds – not being stuck in this lab all the time. On the bright side, I guess it’s an alien lab…”

Not wishing to be upstaged by his junior, Rodney had almost agreed to tag along on the trip then and there, but a well timed system check of Atlantian systems had given him the perfect excuse. In fact, it wasn’t until yesterday that he had given in to Lorne’s request. The procedure went something like this:

“Stupid, ignorant, pencil pushing, no good, pack of suited, ill tempered, seriously deformed, emotionally squat –”

“Rodney?” A head peaked into Mckay’s lab and looked around. “I thought I heard ranting…”

Rodney stopped mid breath, his mouth left agape.

Samantha Carter crossed the floor and scanned the room for any sign of the missing scientist. “Oh,” she exclaimed, finding Rodney cross-legged on the floor beside an unhappy Naquada reactor. “There you are.”

“There I am,” repeated Rodney, undoing another screw on the device’s casing.

Sam sat down beside him and watched him take off the outer casing. He didn’t protest, thankful for a second pair of eyes. The truth was that he had no idea what was wrong with the stupid thing. Rumour has it that Sheppard knocked it off the table during a fire fight with a loose Wraith, rumours that had been unconvincingly denied.

“It looks pretty sick…” said Sam, seeing a black streak of residue near one of the circuit boards and a suspiciously dented rear.

Rodney sighed. “I know. Hold this.” He lifted up the reactor and gave it to her to hold while he undid the screws beneath it. “Two person job,” he muttered as the casing came away.

“Rodney?”

The scientist nodded, not looking up from the machine. This bit was particularly delicate. One slip and ‘boom’, pulverisation.

“Are you going on this thing?” she said, handing him a delicate silver tool.

‘This thing’ universally translated as ‘Lorne’s bush romp’ because that’s what it was turning into. It started with good intentions – a couple of mates forming a small camping party, and had evolved into fifty plus people lugging wood and matches for a giant bonfire night. Even though they weren’t supposed to, alcohol had been smuggled from Earth and was now packed in the sleeping bags of most of the ‘expedition’. Those who couldn’t smuggle it were busy brewing. “No, I’m busy,” he replied.

“Not any more you’re not.”

Rodney paused. “I – am … not?”

“You aren’t,” she continued. “I need you to go along with them and oversee a couple of experiments I’ve asked the new recruits to run. There’s a lot we can learn from this place. It may be our home, but it’s still an alien planet. Who knows what’s out there.”

Rodney digested this. “You want me to babysit?”

Sam smiled. “I believe the term is ‘chaperone’. Don’t fight me Rodney,” she said, gripping his arm. “You’re going and that’s that.”

“And who’s going to ‘chaperone’ me?”

The conversation ended with a shrug and a sigh.

The next morning Rodney entered his lab to find that the Naquada generator had miraculously fixed itself alongside a giant bag of marshmallows sitting on his desk. Rodney deflated – orders were orders.

Oddly, as the days had rolled on, Rodney started to quite like the thought of camping. It was one of those childhood things that he never got to participate in. If he did this, he’d be able to add at least one story to the long mission treks that didn’t involve physics – well, didn’t centre around physics.

Rodney gripped his sleeping back tightly and made his way down the corridor, hindered by a backpack at least half his height.

“Looking good,” said a passerby.

“You try looking good with a bed strapped to your back,” he muttered, irritably.

John Sheppard stopped abruptly in the middle of the hallway and tilted his head to the side. “But I do…”

Rodney rolled his eyes and shifted the pack. “Oh, it’s you.”

“How’s my power-thingy?”

“The Naquada generator is recovering well. You’ll be able to knock it off another desk in no time at all.”

“Hey-”

“When do we leave?” Rodney caught the conversation before it mutated into a row.

John strutted forward as a very attractive group of female scientists shuffled past. “Now. Colonel Carter sent me here to collect you but I can see that I didn’t need to bother. Whatever she did, worked.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “I was ordered, that usually works.”

John laughed, “Hardly. I’m going to go get my stuff, meet you at the jumper bay in ten.”

*~*~*

“We’re going to crash…”

“Lighten up Mckay,” Ronon leant over and punched the scientist sharply in the arm hard enough to hurt.

Mckay rubbed the spot dramatically, squished between the luggage. “I’m telling you,” he continued, “there’s a weight limit on these things.” The puddlejumper lurched as they took off, heading toward the open ceiling and stunning blue sky. “Flying fire bomb, gin is a wonderful accelerant.”

“Nobody here drinks gin, Mckay. Just, sit quietly in the back and think happy thoughts about your experiments.”

Rodney smiled for a fraction of a second before his tummy flipped. “Oh no…”

“Mckay…”

Take two was just as shaky, but at least they were in the air. Mckay cradled the bag of delicate equipments, settling on a determined frown.

Three other jumpers cruised beside them. Make that four, as Lorne darted across Sheppard’s screen, honing in on the green speck peeking out from the ocean. Ronon laughed, pointing to the dots ducking and swooping playfully like birds playing on the wind.

The grassy landing site ended at the fringe of a subtropical jungle. Sheppard chose a free patch as close to the dangling succulent leaves as was safe and opened the back. Rodney all but tumbled out with the rest of the luggage.

“Head for the hill?” shouted Lorne, wandering past Sheppard’s open jumper.

Rodney, draped over several large hiking bags, attempted to get up to no avail. “A little help – please…” he pleaded, as his teammates successfully navigated their way over the pile and out onto the fresh grass. Teyla, after taking a moment to admire the fresh air, took pity on the scientist and pulled him free. He dusted himself off at once, attempting to regain a little bit of dignity. “Yes, well, thank you.”

“Don’t mention it Rodney.”

Lorne, still waiting for an answer, set about re-tying his mountain boots. The whole place looked like a car-park, or be it more correctly a ‘spaceport’. Though decked out in casuals, the rest of the campers arranged themselves in their exploration teams. Ahead of them was a sizable incline, concealed by the junglish foliage. According to the Atlantian files, this place was riddled with spectacular limestone caves and friendly, edible wildlife. Their excuse for this escapade, (namely, what they would put on their official reports to Stargate Command) was a faint electromagnetic reading coming from their designated campfire spot.

“Let’s head out,” Sheppard winked at Lorne, indicating that his team could go ahead and have first chop. Lorne grinned madly and waved his team on.

Rodney strapped himself into his hiking pack and then bent down to retrieve the equipment bag. This action was a mistake. The weight on his back set him off balance into a dangerous rocking motion until gravity won out and he landed in a heap on the grass.

“Come on Rodney, let’s gooo….” said Ronon, flinging the majority of the luggage effortlessly onto his back. “The sun’s not going to stay up forever.”

*~*~*

“What – is – that!” Rodney, reclined against a rock, watched an ant with uncommonly long legs crawl past. Instead of eyes it had a set of featherlike feelers wandering independently of each other and an impressive set of spikes over its abdomen.

“Would you stop fretting!” John threw a bread roll at him which Rodney caught. “This is going to kill me, that tree’s going to hunt me! Not everything in the universe is out to kill you Rodney! Can’t you just enjoy a relaxing walk in the wild? Seriously, you’re the reason Ronon’s ploughed ahead to join Lorne’s party.”

Rodney was too busy munching to care.

“Should have fed him earlier,” John sighed, collapsing back amongst the leaf litter.

Teyla smiled in her reserved way. “Rodney does have a point. Not all of the wildlife here is friendly. Like any existence, there is a delicate balance of danger present.”

“Thank you,” Rodney managed between bites. “I have a point.”

“Sheppard, come in…”

John clicked his radio on. “Go ahead, Major.”

“My team’s found a potential camping site, do you want us to start setting up or wait for you to get here?”

“Go ahead, Lorne. We’re about an hour behind you and the others even further behind us. By the time we all arrive I reckon that sun’ll be pretty low. Just save some marshmallows.”

“Will do, Colonel.”

Rodney could not help but present a frown. “I thought I had the marshmallows…”

“I gave them to Lorne,” replied John, extracting himself from the ground. “In case you needed some motivation to reach the campsite.”

“Manipulating bast-”

“Uh!” John raised a hand disapprovingly. “You know what the Colonel said, no fighting.”

Rodney mumbled to himself, “She meant with weapons.”

_______________________________________________________________________________

BLAZE OF TROUBLE

__________________________

It was a roaring blaze, almost too big for the opening that they had found nestled between buttress-rooted trees. Sizable flames licked the edges of curious leaves, drying and blackening them until they fell into the fire and rose again as a shower of sparks.

Many layers of people were reclined against the sporadic rocks, listening to the distant rumble of thunder. McKay had coaxed – well, more correctly dared a marine to climb one of the trees with his science equipment. The marine, having completed his assignment, was currently swinging haphazardly through the branches to the amusement of those below.

McKay shook his head worriedly. “This is going to end badly,” he said to Zelenka, who was busy with a burnt marshmallow.

The caramelised blackness was licked tentatively before the scruffy scientist recoiled and tried to shake it off his stick.

“And it’s going to be my fault. That’s my career right there,” he pointed to the monkey-like shadow, fumbling for a hand hold. “Right there, about to hit the ground with a thud.”

“Yick,” Zelenka tried to pull his fingers apart but they were stuck together by the remains of the marshmallow. He continued with a rant in Czech which encompassed the stick, fire, sky and stars until he was tapped on the shoulder.

Rodney McKay stared at him with a look of sheer annoyance. “English!” he said, shaking his head.

The alcohol was well underway and the sheer volume that had made it up the long hike was impressive. When they really wanted to, the Atlantis expedition could do great things.

“Need your help,” announced a voice behind Rodney. A moment later he found himself hauled to his feet by a determined set of hands and then dragged off around the fire out of sight. Rodney cried for help, but Zelenka was too busy threading another marshmallow onto his blacked stick to notice.

“Put. Me. Down.” Rodney wiggled his legs, attempting to get free of the stranger. He felt like a kid on school camp, trying to avoid the attention of the popular kids in case they decided to use him as entertainment. This felt very much like his worst fear.

“Relax Rodney,” Lorne said, trying to stop the body from struggling. “The Colonel’s got a problem he needs you to help him with.”

Rodney was released and dropped unceremoniously on the ground in front of a group of female botanists who looked rather worried and guilty.

Sheppard, tummy down on the ground, lifted his head up and waved. McKay waved back, confused until Sheppard said, “That’s not McKay, that’s a squid. How did we end up underwater?”

“Yesss…” McKay drawled out, “very helpful.” He turned his attention to the girls. “Explain.”

An adorable but currently petrified botanist with wavy auburn hair and dazzling eyes stepped forward. “It was supposed to be a joke,” she gasped, her pale hands shaking. “We didn’t think that he actually would, you know…”

“Actually what?” prompted Rodney, watching John attempt a ‘freestyle’ swim.

“We thought it was harmless,” interjected one of her friends, not game enough to step forward.

“Well, we didn’t know for sure,” the botanist continued, “but it looked as if it was closely related to an Athosian herb.” Katie, frightened by the stories she’d heard of Atlantis’s head, was trying to divulge as little as possible. “Although, some of us had concerns.”

“Concerns…”

“That it could have been the Night Herb.”

Lorne snorted with repressed laughter behind McKay’s head. They both watched as John shimmed forward to gnaw on a blade of grass.

“Damn, wish we’d brought the cameras,” he said. “This is a month’s worth of blackmail.”

“You – be quiet!” Rodney instructed fiercely. Lorne held up his arms innocently.

“Spectator only,” he reassured the scientist.

Rodney sighed at the deranged Colonel Sheppard underfoot. “You better go get the doc, Major.”

“I would,” replied Lorne, “except we didn’t bring one.”

There must have been close on a hundred people bathing in the firelight or hanging from the trees nearby. “What do you mean, there isn’t one?”

Lorne shrugged. “There isn’t one. They were all busy. I tried to get Lisa – you know, the gorgeous nurse who arrived last week, but Beckett said that he couldn’t spare anyone. Most of us know basic first aid though.”

Rodney listened to Sheppard recite the alphabet backwards. “I seriously doubt they covered this in medics 101.” He turned back to the female botanist. “You – uh…”

“Katie,” she replied, standing in front of the others in a protective manner.

“You come with me. We’re gonna take him back to the jumper and get him to Atlantis. Yeah, that’s the plan. You too Major Whatever. This is your fault as well.”

Lorne scoffed. “You want to take him back looking like that? Colonel Carter will kill us – especially you. I hear you’re her favourite and I also hear that those close to her have a tendency to die horribly.”

“Die – horribly?” Rodney gulped.

Lorne squatted down to get a better look at Sheppard. He flashed his torch over John’s eyes which were almost all iris.

“Preeeetty,” said John, trying to catch the light from the torch as it tracked over the ground.

Lorne clicked it off and John started to cry.

“Now look what you’ve done!” yelled Rodney, as John pointed at the spot where the light had been and wailed.

“No problem. All we gotta do is keep an eye on him for a few hours. This, Night Whateveryoucallit – how long’s it last?”

Katie turned to the group of girls behind and then came back with an average of their estimates. “Five to eight hours.”

“I can’t do five more minutes of this,” Rodney pointed at the hysterical John as tears rolled down his cheeks. He kept repeating, ‘the light is gone, the light is goooooooone!’ between sobs.

Lorne picked John up off the ground and turned him around so that he faced the enormous bonfire. The crying stopped immediately and was replaced with an appreciative, ‘ooooooh…’

“See,” said Lorne. “Easy. They’re like three year olds – all you’ve got to do is keep them entertained. My niece has got a couple.”

The group, including Rodney, had almost convinced themselves that this was going to be fine until John grinned evilly and launched himself at the pretty flames.

“Whoa!” Rodney, Lorne and Katie yelled in unison, leaping on top of the Colonel.

*~*~*

Teyla and Ronon sat on the other side of the fire, locked in a silent competition of ‘who could make the better spear’. It had been a popular fire-side activity in both their cultures and they were thrilled to find another individual willing to put their honour on the line to compete.

With a tree branch balanced in each of their laps, they hacked away at the wood with a sharp knife. They frowned with concentration, slashing and slicing.

“Want marshmallow?” Zelenka wandered over to them with a shredded bag housing about three puffy sweets squid-ged in the bottom. The pair ignored him as he seated himself between them.

“Good fire. I like camping,” he continued, picking up a stick from behind Ronon. Pleased with it, he proceeded to thread a marshmallow on its end and extended into the roaring blaze where it quickly caught fire and vanished. With a genuine smile, he placed the remaining marshmallows on the tips of Ronon and Teyla’s spears.

The two hunters stopped slicing and stared at each other first and then lowered their gaze to the Czech scientist humming happily.

*~*~*

Back in the city, Colonel Samantha Carter leant over the balcony, watching the very last linger of sunset fade into darkness. A chill settled as the stars popped out, showering the ocean in a soft glow. She couldn’t see the mainland from here – which was probably a good thing. It was peaceful, for a change.

Suddenly it really felt like an alien world. The way everything moved and the sounds of the air, they were different from Earth and she liked it.

There was a soft wrap on the glass doors behind her.

“What can I do for you?” she smiled as Dr. Beckett paced around the control room. He stopped and grinned warmly as she stepped back into the room and shut the Atlantian evening outside.

“Normally I wouldn’ bother you,” he began. “It’s jus’ that Sophie was in getting a shot an’ happened to mention that they’d lost contact with the science equipment sent to the mainland. She wasn’ goin’ ta mention it but I thought you should know. Probably nothing.”

Sam folder her arms over her chest, “When is it ever nothing with Rodney involved?”

“True,” he replied.

“Leave it with me, Carson. I’ll see if I can raise them on the radio.”

Posted in A Night on Atlantis, Stargate Atlantis Tagged: action/adventure, atlantis, Humour, john, John/Rodney, lorne, Mckay, rodney, sam, sam/mckay, sga, sheppard, teyla/ronon, Zelenka ]]> http://ellymellyfanfic.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/a-night-on-atlantis/feed/ 1 ellymelly [info]