“So tell me, Darius,” Brian asked, nursing a black eye and feeling thoroughly downtrodden “Did your grand master plan include me getting punched in the eye by an angry security guard?”

 

“Well no…” Said Darius, striding back and forth along the floor of the dusty little caf� “No, I’ll admit, I honestly didn’t expect it to end up like that.”

 

“I did…” Said Simyan, who was sitting delicately on a wrought iron chair (Which was probably very uncomfortable, when you think about it…).

 

“Well it would’ve been nice,” Brian said, removing the small cloth-wrapped bundle of ice from his eye “If you had’ve fucking told me!”

 

“You didn’t ask,” She replied, with a look of fake astonishment “And you really shouldn’t swear like that, there could be delicate ears around.” She twiddled her pointy little ears, (It was an Elf thing…) something she’d been doing a lot in the hours that they’d been walking to (and indeed back from) The Heath, much to the amusement of Brian who had, of course never seen an Elf before.

 

Brian scowled. He’d come to quite like his newest friend, but over the years he’d also come to like not getting punched in the face by big, angry men.

 

“Alright then…” Said Darius, who had been too busy thinking to actually pay any attention to his two compatriots “Ok, so let’s chalk that one up as a bad result…”

 

“Really!?” Interrupted Brian

 

“…and have another go.” Darius finished, without really noticing Brians sarcasm

 

“I am not going back up there.” Brian raged “For a start; I’ve been sick at least three times today, I haven’t had anything at all to eat, which makes the being sick all that much more unpleasant, and I’ve discovered that, not only am I stuck in a parallel world with a zealous, book-finding, useless amateur detective and a sarcastic, rude, thoughtless Elvin thief; but I’m stuck in a parallel world with a zealous, book-finding useless amateur detective, a sarcastic, rude, thoughtless Elvin thief and people who get great deals of mono-syllabic pleasure from hitting me in the face!”

 

“I’m sorry, you were saying something…?” Darius asked, quietly “I have attention problems…”

 

“Why am I not surprised?” Brian sighed “If we’re going to do this, Darius, I suggest we do it properly. How about, rather than walking up there and me getting hit again, we actually make some sort of a plan.”

 

“Sounds like a plan.” Said Darius, taking a seat beside Simyan “So…what do we do, boss?”

 

“I’m sorry…?”

 

“Well, you’re the one who wants to make the plan, so you’re the one who gets to make the plan.” He smirked “What’s the plan?”

 

“Well if I’m going to make the plan, then first of all, I want to get some food.”

 

“They do nice pastries here…” Brian said, leafing through a thin, battered menu

 

“By food, I mean food. Not pastries.” Brian scoffed “Pastries do not constitute food to the terminally starved.”

 

“Right…” Darius said, standing up from his chair and throwing the menu back down on the table “Well, food then. Then a plan?”

 

“Yes,” Brian replied “Then we plan.”

 

“Fantastic…”

 

 

*          *          *

 

 

 

Having not been collected from that cold, wet, dismal street, the Chair (now known to his friends as Bob) decided that he would no longer leave the future of his existence up to those of a pink and fleshy nature. (That’s right; he would no longer live under the heel of the oppressive Passion Fruit!)

 

After sitting there for, at the very least, a week, Bob found that he could move and then, a few days after that, he found that he could talk.

 

Bob wandered the streets for months, never stopping for too long in one place (for fear that someone might come and sit on him…) all the while wondering just what he would do with his life.

 

He saw the signs of oppression everywhere, chairs being sold in shops, tables being forced to bear the weight of human excess (And that one, poor table that John Prescott did his secretary on; God rest his poor, defiled soul.) His brothers in arms, household appliances everywhere, were being exploited by their filthy pink overlords.

 

He knew he must do something…

 

But what!?

 

I mean, let’s face it, he’s a chair. There’s not a great deal of freedom fighting to be done when you’re two foot tall and spongy soft...

 

But still…I mean, no inanimate object had ever been brought to life before. He was the first in a new species…He had to be good at something, didn’t he? And as soon as he found out what it was, he’d be once step closer to his goal of freeing his brothers and sisters from tyranny.

 

After a year of deep, introspective soul-searching, Bob realised that the only thing he was really that good at is running at people very fast and knocking them to the ground. Which, when you think about it, is to someone/thing that can’t really be killed and fancies himself as a bit of a freedom fighter a relatively useful ability to have…

 

So, having met up with the Bin from Elephant and Castle and Stephen (The car from Jesus’ head…) Bob decided to start an organisation. You can tell, can’t you, that Bob was very much an English chair…

 

 

*          *          *

 

 

Scorpius hadn’t spent a great deal of time around the area of The Heath in his youth. As such, he was very disappointed when he realised that, due to a series of intricate and very complex magical wards, he was unable to reduce the wall to rubble with a mere glance.

 

(This is one of those times when I get to say it again) Scorpius was Pissed.

 

“Sir, may I suggest, sir, that we just ask to be let in?” Fortesque said, quietly, because he knew that he would be unlikely to live very long if his master didn’t like the suggestion

 

“You may,” Scorpius replied “But I would advise you against it, Fortesque, because not only is it a ridiculous and stupid idea, but also because I’m in quite the foul mood right now, and I would most likely react very badly. Fair enough?”

 

“Fair enough sir.” Fortesque said, downtrodden.

 

Scorpius was stumped. It’s a sad fact, but, as was artfully demonstrated by the last president of America (I’m not naming any names here…Monkeyface), those with power aren’t always all that clever. Scorpius just happened to be one of those ones who were at the back of the line when it came to handing out brains.

 

That’s not to say he was stupid, (Monkeyface) no, far from it he was relatively intelligent, but let’s just say, planning wasn’t really his thing. He’d never actually come up against a problem that he couldn’t just blast into bits.

 

A more moderate person would’ve had an epiphany at this point, reassessed his life, and become a much better person. Scorpius, being Scorpius, just sulked.

 

The two of them walked around The Heath, keeping as far away as they could from the Security Booth outside the main gates. Scorpius was probing it, all of the walls, looking for a weakness.

 

He didn’t find one.

Two passers by spontaneously combusted.

 

“Sir?” Fortesque asked gently, tugging on the sleeve of his masters suit

 

“What, Fortesque?” Scorpius spat

 

“AHHH! OH GOD! OH GOD I’M ON FIRE! AHHH! SWEET MOTHER OF- AH GOD THAT HURTS…!” Yelled a passer by as Scorpius rage spiked

 

“May I suggest, sir,” Said Fortesque, reeling under the force of his masters gaze “That we move to an area that is perhaps a little less populated…I imagine that the police are going to be here soon sir, and it would be unwise for…either of us to be here when they arrive.”

 

Scorpius calmed slightly, as Fortesques rationalisation rubbed off on him “Yes…” he said, cooling down “Yes that would definitely be wise. Thank you, Fortesque.”

 

“Any time sir, any time.” Fortesque smiled

 

“Fortesque?” Asked Scorpius

 

“Yes sir?”

 

“Repetition like that is an indication of familiarity.” Scorpius sighed, turning away from Fortesque and striding into the crowd “Don’t do it again.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

The two of them walked through the town at a much more relaxed pace than they had done previously, as Scorpius tried his best to think. Without magic, Scorpius was, for want of a better word, useless. Despite his skills as a world renowned head-butter his life revolved almost solely around magic.

 

“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking…” Said Fortesque, trotting along behind Scorpius

 

“I probably do…” Scorpius replied, not turning to look at Fortesque “but carry on.”

 

“Well, sir.” Fortesque began “I was wondering, sir, what it is in The Heath that you’re looking for?”

 

“Can you keep a secret, Fortesque?” Scorpius inquired, seriously

 

“In the secretary business, sir, it pays to.”

 

“I’ll bet,” Said Scorpius, sarcastically “As I said before, Forty; you don’t mind me calling you Forty do you?”

 

“Of course not sir.”

 

“That was rhetorical, Forty, I couldn’t care less.” He drawled “Like I said, there’s something important in there, something very powerful. Stick with me, Forty, and the world will be yours.” He paused momentarily, to think “Well, it’ll be mine, but I imagine that you’ll get your bit. Have you ever wanted to own a mountain, Fortesque?”

 

“I can’t say that it’s ever crossed my mind, sir.”

 

“Well get wanting, because I’ve never been a fan.”

 

“If I may sir, that still doesn’t answer the question…?”

 

“For a secretary, Forty, you do talk an awful lot…”

 

Fortesque got the hint.

 

 

*          *          *

 

Brian wolfed down the meal. It consisted of three sausages, four rashers of what looked like bacon, a small green turnip-like vegetable that tasted faintly of sweet-potato (Of which Brian was, at first, sceptical but came to love in due course) and a large helping of what claimed to be Hash Browns, but which were gray and slightly more mushy than one would expect.

 

“You eat like a pig.” Said Simyan, wiping a speck of food off her cheek as she sipped coffee from an old cracked cup

 

“She’s right,” Darius threw in, munching on a sausage that he’d speared off Brians plate (Much to his own dismay, when Brian began jabbing at him with a fork to try and get it back) “You really should calm down, you’ll make yourself sick.”

 

Brian merely stared at him. His excuse later, for not saying something witty and cutting, would be that his fat face was too full of unnamed-green-turnip-thing to get it out. It took a while for Brian to finish his food, he was…meticulous (He even cleaned up the icky looking goo that exuded from the Hash Grays).

 

“So,” Darius said, nibbling on the end of his sausage (easy!) “What about this plan then, Brian?”

 

“Alright then,” Said Brian, dabbing at the edges of his mouth with a filthy napkin “So you say that the problem is demons, yes?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well then, in a world where there’s Demons under the city, it stands to reason that there’s someone in the city who knows about Demons, does it not?”

 

“Perhaps…”

 

“Then is it not natural that we go and have a discussion with them about the whole affair…?”

 

“Did I not tell you, “ Darius said “That we couldn’t tell anyone but you or me?”

 

“Oh yes,” Simyan injected “That went terribly well, didn’t it.”

 

“Shut it, you.”

 

“Both of you be quiet.” Brian said forcefully “For the love of Christ.”

 

“Who?” Darius asked, inquisitively

 

“…Never mind.” Brian sighed “Look, do either of you know any…I don’t know…Demon-ologists or something?”

 

“…What the shit is a Demonologist?” Asked Simyan

 

“I don’t know!” Brian shouted “I come from a normal world, where people deign to kill each other by normal, every day means…Someone who, you know, knows a lot about Demons!?”

 

“You mean a Warlock?” Darius inquired

 

“I don’t know, do I mean a Warlock?” Brian asked Simyan. He’d found her to be a lot more coherent than Darius, considering she wasn’t addled by the search for Deaths book.

 

“It’d seem so.” She scoffed “A Demonologist, really. Talk about over-complicating things.”

 

“Hey, it’s your fault I’m in this mess. You’re not in a position to mock me.” Brian narrowed his eyes at her. He liked her, she was definitely nice, cute little nose and those sexy, sexy pointy ears…He was beginning to thing he had a complex or something, the way he obsessed over them…But still! She was annoying as hell most of the time.

 

“Yeah, well I’ve said I’m sorry about that, haven’t I?”

 

“No! You fucking well haven’t!”

 

“Oh. Really?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“Oh, sorry then.” She half smiled and put her feet up on a chair opposite her “Anyway, yes, we want Warlocks, and I know just where to find some…”

 

“So we’re going to see them?” Said Darius

 

“That’s probably the best course of action. If we’re going to stop this thing, then we’ll need to know what we’re up against.” Brian sighed

 

“Right.” Said Simyan, kicking her feet off the chair in a graceful arc and leaning forward towards Brian, taking him by surprise and causing him to drop the little bit of bacon he’d been about to eat “So I overheard, during the original investigation of these Demon Rights activists, about an organization devoted to ‘Demonology’ called L.U.D.W.A.B.”

 

“That’s a really, really stupid name.” Darius said

 

“It’s supposed to stand for League of Dubious Underground Warlockian Bastards.”

 

“Then it’s stupid and wrong” Said Brian

 

“Whatever,” Simyan scowled “As I was saying, these guys are heavily into Warlocking, they’re supposed to be representative of all the Warlocks in the city. Although when the investigation into them cleared up it turned out they were all a bunch of useless old drunks with next to no magical prowess what so ever.”

 

“So what do we do then?” Asked Brian

 

“Well we go see them, don’t we?” She smiled “They may be useless, but they’re the closest thing to Warlocks that we’re going to get at such short notice…”

 

“Right, it’s off to see the Warlocks then…” Said Darius

 

Brian, feeling compelled to, added “the wonderful Warlocks of Oz!” in his head.

 

*          *          *

 

 

“Tell me, Darrint, what news of the investigation surrounding our old friend Mr Daily?” Said Guy, passing a glass of old and expensive brandy to his favourite Police insider, Darrint McCoy

 

“Oh aye yes, old Choreen, yes.” Darrint took the glass and sipped it quietly “Well, I can tell you I don’t know much about it, you know the folks up on the hill in DSI are handling this one personally, something big you know?”

 

“Now now, Darrint, you must know something my good man,” Guy gave him a wink “I don’t pay you for nothing, do I?”

 

“Well I didn’t say I knew nothing, Guy old friend.” He pulled an envelope out of the drawer in the side table next to him, and passed it over to Guy “Now, last I heard, they were putting their feelers into a little group of Warlocks called L.U.D.W.A.B. down in Lower Down Side. I had a feeling you’d be interested in this case, seeing as how you were so friendly with old Daily, so I dug up as much information on the sods as I could.”

 

“Ah ha, I knew there was a reason you and I got on so well, Darrint,” Guy smarmed “Tell me, do you know if the investigation yielded anything?”

 

“Couldn’t possibly tell you, Guy old man.” Darrint sighed, putting his now empty glass back down on the little table “DSI are keeping this one pretty tight to their chest.”

 

“Hmmph.” Guy sighed “Well then, I suppose out business here is done then.”

 

“I suppose so then,” Said Darrint “Thank you for the brandy, Guy”

 

“Thank you for the information, Darrint.” He stood up, and shook the mans hand “And next time, if you don’t mind, a little more concise would be nice thank you, Darrint.”

 

“I’m only doing my best here, Guy.” Darrint replied, still slouching in his seat

 

“Well your best is, evidently, not good enough.” Guy snapped “I demand better in future, if you expect this relationship to continue.”

 

“Alright, Guy, alright, let’s not do anything rash, old man.”

 

“Until next time.” Guy shouted, already halfway out the door.

 

 

*          *          *

 

 

“So it’s L.U.D.W.A.B. then?” Said the little runt man, stroking his wispy goatee and generally being small and unlikable

 

“So my contact suggests…”Said Guy “But, from the reports, they seem to be a fairly small time organization, little to nothing to there name.”

 

“Well, they’re Warlocks, aren’t they?” Said Ventus, who was sitting once more in the shadowy corner of the room (There was a special chair for him there, where he could be broody and attractive all on his own)

 

“That’s undeniable, yes.” Guy replied, gazing into the shadows where Ventus sat

 

“So we’re agreed that they’d be viable targets, yes?” Came his cool voice from out of the shadows

 

“Well…yes, I say they are.” Guy said, nervously. He was one of the very few of the sect who’d seen Ventus’ nephew, Sharpe, in action. He’d always be reluctant to unleash that beast on anyone “How about we get a show of hands…?”

 

“Shut up Guy,” Said Runty “You asinine fuck. We’re not having a show of hands. Ventus, get your nephew, it’s time he went hunting. Get him there quickly, before another one of us turns up dead.”

 

“Goodie…” Came a rough, malign voice from the shadows. There was a communal intake of breath from the room; Sharpe had that effect on people.

 

 

*          *          *

 

 

“Well this looks…Nice.” Brian said with a grimace, looking at the old broken door of the Ludwab clubhouse.

 

“Well, Lower Down Side isn’t exactly known for it’s pleasant d�cor…” Said Simyan, huddling closer to the other two “Or it’s friendly company, or it’s hygienic street conditions, or in fact anything except housing the scum of the city so I suggest we get done here, quickly.”

 

“I’m not so sure about this place,” Darius was looking worried, and a little nervous “I’m getting some weird vibes from in there. Trust me, I know weird vibes when I feel them, and these are weird…” He looked around to see a large, angry looking two headed Elephant man “…with a capital Wee.”

 

Brian scoffed. Well, he would’ve scoffed if he hadn’t been so utterly, cripplingly terrified that he couldn’t speak at all. So instead, he walked forward and knocked on the door. Knock-knockity knock knock, knock knock

 

The newly departed spirit of Cornelius Fiddle winced.

 

The door was answered by a thick, dull looking man in a ratty old threadbare pair of dusty brown robes. “What.” He said. It wasn’t much of a question, there wasn’t even any upward inflection on the last syllable. He wasn’t much of a question asker, was old William Montofort�, he hit things for a living, so he didn’t really have to ask them very often. Anyway, I’m getting side tracked…

 

“Uhm…” Brian managed “Could we…maybe speak to someone in charge?”

 

“Wait.” Said Bill, and he trudged off, shutting the door behind him.

 

“We’re dead.” Simyan whimpered

 

“I-I’m sure we’ll be…fine.” Brian said, unconvincingly.

 

“Oh yeah, I’m sure Big Bob there isn’t going to gut us li-“ She stopped suddenly as she heard someone coming to the other side of the door. This time, the man who came to the door was much less threatening, although he had a sort of weasel-like nature that made him…well, made him seem like a weasel. And we all know how unpleasant they are, bitey little fuckers.

 

“Good evening,” Said the little man “My name is Fortesque, what can I help you with?”

 

“Uhm…” Brian stalled, he didn’t actually know what they wanted “Uhm, Darius, little help here?”

 

“What? Oh, yes, hello,” Darius strode forward and held out his hand to Fortesque, who took it and shook hands briefly “We were wondering if you could help us, you see we’ve had some trouble with some Demons, and we’d like to know a little more about them.” Darius trundled on “We’d also like to know if you know anything about Demons in The Heath.”

 

“…I’m sorry,” Fortesque said, looking slightly stumped “Repeat that last bit for me, if you don’t mind.”

 

“Demons, in The Heath, you know? The big, palatial, gaudy, marble haven in the middle of the city…” Darius explained slowly

 

Fortesque smiled “Something tells me the master will want to speak with you.”

 

“Will he be able to answer our questions?” Brian asked, quietly, from the background

 

“Oh I don’t doubt it.” Said Fortesque, with a cunning little grin, before saying “Follow me, if you please.” and turning into the small, run down building and starting down the corridor.

 

“Oh yeah,” Said Simyan, rolling her eyes “follow the inoffensive, scary, creepy little man into the Warlocks den…”

 

“Yeah,” Brian whispered “We’re going to die.”

 

They followed him in, against their better judgement and to Simyans constant, silent sarcasm.

 

Fortesque knocked on a door at the end of a long, dark, intimidating corridor.

 

“What is it, Forty?” Came a genial, cheery voice from behind the door. Things were looking up. (Well, they weren’t looking up, really, were they? They were sounding up, considering no one had seen anything…)

 

“Visitors, sir. They want to know about The Heath.” Fortesque said with a barely disguised, even creepier than earlier, smile

 

“Oh really?” The voice perked up “Send them in, Forty, and then fuck off. I’ll send for you if I need you.”

 

Fortesque deflated, and opened the door, ushering in Darius, Brian and Simyan before shutting it and shuffling off back down the corridor.

 

“Well this is an intricate and miniscule little world, isn’t it?” Scorpius mewed from behind his desk “You know, I was just up at The Heath!”

 

“Oh! So you can help us then?” Darius said, enthusiastically

 

“No.” Said Scorpius, standing up and waving his hand in the general direction of the three, freezing them where they were “Well, yes. I could help you. But I wont. In fact, you’re going to help me.”

 

If she could move, Simyan would have sighed dejectedly, before using some sweet moves to escape the situation. As it happens, she couldn’t move, so sweet moves weren’t forthcoming.

 

Brian was…shocked. He’d never had magic used on him before, and having all of your faculties removed at once and loosing complete control over your body can really put the wind up you.

 

Darius expected it, being Death gives you a certain grasp of the inevitable and, well, Darius was a little bit special. (In the head department.)

 

“Now; are you comfortable?” Scorpius asked, concerned “Oh, wait, sorry I forgot I don’t care. So, tell me what you know about The Heath, please.”

 

Brian didn’t speak. Somehow he’d gone from being a meek, timid, reclusive little hermit to being…well, a sarcastic, rude, outraged and mild leader of a group of mismatched misfits out looking for a book owned by Death and trying to solve a criminal case involving Demons…On top of that, he couldn’t move. All of this piled up and rendered him momentarily speechless.

 

“Quickly, if you don’t mind! I have a habit of setting people on fire when they don’t please me…Or when they bring me the wrong soup...Or really any time, you know, I’ve often thought of going to see a doctor about it, but then I remember that I like setting people on fire, and you know the urge just leaves me.” Scorpius snarled

 

“Uhh…” Mewled Simyan “Uhh, Darius, Brian…”

 

Darius would’ve said something…but he was distracted by a fly. Darius seemed to Brian to have deteriorated mentally since they first met. It’s true, his attention-focusing pills were sitting on the table in his apartment being completely useless to everyone, and without them he was a little…distracted. (I say a little, to put it in perspective Darius was in a life threatening situation with a Warlock who had openly admitted to enjoying setting people alight, and he was watching a bluebottle flitting about the room...)

 

“Really, seriously guys, I don’t know anything!” Simyan was getting scared “TELL HIM SOMETHING, DAMNIT!”

 

Brian awoke from his reverie with a start “Oh! Right, The Heath. Look, if we tell you about it, will you let us go?”

 

“I’ll certainly think about it…” Said Scorpius, stroking his moustache “I probably wont, but then what’ll it hurt to tell me? I mean, I’ll most certainly kill you if you don’t tell me anything.”

 

“Right…” Brian thought for a second “Alright, so this Heath place, forgive me if I don’t seem terribly knowledgeable, I’m kind of…new here. Anyway, yes, there’s apparently a group of Demons under this Heath, that are so powerful that if they get let out, they’ll destroy the city, and conquer the world.” Brian paused, trying to remember the piecemeal information that Darius had given him…It’d been a long day. “And…there was a guy, he was dead. He told us that if all the pendants that a group of Demon-Callers wore, were collected by one person, that person could free the Demons, and end the world…Or something, I think. Sorry, I’ve had an interesting day.”

 

“…” Scorpius collected his thoughts, “So what you’re trying to tell me, is that under The Heath, there’s a coven of Summoned Demons who’re powerful enough to take over the world, and there is a group, presumably those who summoned the Demons, who carry with them Key-Pendants that can be used to unlock whatever prison those Demons are in, yes?”

 

“That sounds about right, yes.” Brian agreed

 

“Well that’s wonderful news!” Scorpius waved his hand at Brian, who fell to the floor in a bundle “Fantastic news! Tell me, can you get me in to The Heath?”

 

Brian collected himself before pointing to his impressive black-eye “How do you think I got that?”

 

Scorpius scowled and, in a huff, threw Brian at a wall. “Bugger. I need to get in there…If you’re right, then those Demons could power an entire empire…” He paced the room, stroking his moustache and thinking.

 

Meanwhile; Brian whimpered in a corner, Simyan sobbed softly, Darius absent-mindedly followed the fly and Bill Montofort� A.k.a. Big Bob, screamed in pain at the top of his lungs.

 

 

 

The roaring fire crackled a pleasant warmth into the large, quiet room. At least, the warmth would have been pleasant had the Demon-Callers of Gor’Badoon not been sitting sweating the rest of their very short lives away. (Quite who, what or indeed where Gor’Badoon was, no one actually knew. It was as if the groups’ leader had just picked three random syllables out of the air…Moving on…)

 

“Dailys death was no accident…” came the tired, wizened voice of one of the groups oldest members

 

“Yes, thank you, I think we all knew that.” Said an agitated, runty looking man in a suit that was getting smaller and smaller around the gut every day “Why do you think we called this meeting, you berk? We’ve got ourselves a very serious problem.”

 

“Hear hear!” came a chorus from the other members of the group. (Considering that the group was indeed quite small; it wasn’t a very loud chorus. I imagine the Welsh could make a much better job of it…)

 

“So what do we do about it?” Said the little runt-man.

 

“Well…” Said a tall, thin man who stood leaning against a wall in the shadowy corner of the room, far away from the warm glow of the fire “We could always make use of Sharpe…”

 

“Precisely who do you suggest we make use of Sharpe on? Do you know who’s behind Dailys death?”

 

“No…I was jus-”

 

“Well then shut up, you overgrown, lanky, vile streak of piss.” He shouted harshly at the man. Out of them all, Choreens death had affected him the worst; not because he liked the man, god no, that was impossible, but because his sense of self-preservation was much more refined than the others and he most definitely knew a shit-storm when he saw one coming. “We need to find out who’s behind it all, tell me Guy, do you still have your contacts in the Police department?”

 

“Of course,” Guy had a squeaky voice; his accent also belonged to someone who lived in the Yorkshire Dales. It had taken everyone a long time to be able to hear the man speak without bursting into fits of giggles. “I have him pass me information every now and then. I’d imagine that something this…relevant to our organization would’ve come my way already.”

 

“I’m sorry…” Said runty “Am I to understand that you’ve actually told the police what we’re doing here…?”

 

“No…No of course not, I’m not a bloody idiot,” Said Guy, backtracking “I just told him that I’d like to hear of anything pertaining to the arcane arts…” He finished with a smile “Told him I was particularly interested in the field.”

 

“Well then, get on to him. Pump him for information, the police are bound to have found something out by now…” He looked over into the corner, where the most recent target of his famous tongue lashings was sulking in silence “Then, when Guy here has found our man. We can set your blood thirsty, deranged nephew on him, Ventus.”

 

There was a gleam of a fang in the darkness as Ventus smiled; “Excellent.”

 

 

*          *          *

 

 

“…So let me get this straight,” said Brian, as he dodged in-between the huge, bulging ranks of people pouring down the streets of Golden Morovar “You think that, because I appeared in the middle of the street, am dressed in unusual clothes and have no idea where I am or what in gods name is going on; I’m from another world?”

 

“Well…” Said Darius, stopping briefly for a moment to ponder (One of the huge perks of playing stand-in for Death was the amazing ability to have people just idly move around you without noticing.) “Yes…that about sums it up.”

 

“That’s ridiculous, why would you jump to that conclusion? Surely there’s got to be a more rational explanation for this.”

 

“Can you think of one?”

 

“…No.”

 

“Well then, until you can come up with something more plausible, we’re just going to assume I’m right.” Said Darius with an air of finality; they’d been discussing the matter since they left his house, and it was really beginning to get on his nerves.

 

“Wait, I read a book once where the main character was hit by a car, and his unconscious mind made a world for him to get better in, how about that?”

 

“First of all…” Said Darius, with a brief pause as a large, vegetable laden cart was pushed out in front of him by an irate looking Goblin “What exactly is a car…?”

“Oh…It’s a sort of, fast, engine powered cart that people get about in.” Brian found Darius lack of knowledge about modern appliances hilarious and also a little annoying; he didn’t like having to dumb down his sentences for someone who didn’t even understand the concept of automated food blending.

 

“Right, so we can assume that he was in trauma when he was hit by this ‘car’ can we?” Said Darius, slowly, like a teacher explaining a complex algebraic formula to a child with a blank smile and an ice cream.

 

“Right.”

 

“So were you in trauma when you found yourself here?” He continued

 

“Well…Not really, I was having a weird day…”

 

“Why, what happened?”

 

“Well, I’d gone to my next door neighbours to see if she needed help with some obnoxious guy who was annoying her in her flat,” Said Brian, thinking back to that unusual, queasy feeling he got when he was knocking on Janes door. “And then when the door opened and I looked inside, it was me who’d answered the door; to me…Then everything went fuzzy, and I was sprawled on the ground with you.”

 

“O-Kay…” Darius was confused; he’d spent a little time studying magic with the Sorcerers of the Nine Towers and even there he’d never heard of something like that happening. “Look…I really have no idea what’s happened to you Brian, but since you’ve never heard of Golden Morovar I’m going to assume that you’re not from this world. It’s a fairly big city, and unless you were raised underground by an order of blind, deaf and really, really stupid monks then you’d definitely have heard of it. Now can we please, please talk about something else; or better yet, not talk at all, that’d be great.”

 

“Hey! You dragged me out here; It’s because of you I’m wandering the streets getting clobbered by- Sweet Jesus what the hell is that thing!?!?” Brian shouted, backing away from a bulbous, towering figure that rounded the corner of the street they were on and came waddling towards them

 

“Don’t stare, Brian, just look down.” Darius said, seriously “It’s an ogre, alright, and if you have any sense you’d stop fucking staring at him so he can go about his daily business without ripping us into tiny little pieces for being rude to him.”

 

Brian shut up after that, and kept his eyes to the ground. He didn’t really think that he liked this place all that much; but he had to admit that, with his agoraphobia gone, he was finding being outside in Golden Morovar a lot less terrifying than being outside in Dublin. (Which says a lot about Dublin; mainly that it’s full of scary bastards and the Irish.)

 

The streets were long and winding (Kind of like streets from an Oasis song.) and there were a lot of them, Brians mental map soon became a mental Rorschach test and shortly after became a mental painting by Jackson Pollock. Darius hadn’t told Brian where they were going, and thanks to the excessive amount of meandering and standing around saying “Hmm” and “Oh shit, we’ve come the wrong way” he was beginning to wonder if they were actually going anywhere in particular at all.

 

They rounded one last corner, and Darius came to a full and abrupt stop. He even went so far as to leave on leg up in the air as if he had been frozen mid step; this was unfortunate because Darius didn’t have the best balance in the world, and ended up falling over and hurting his arse.

 

“What’s wrong?” Asked Brian, once he’d finished helping his friend up off the dirty wet street.

 

“Over there, just in the mouth of that alleyway, is my bloody appointment.” Said Darius, pointing at the entrance to a dark and dismal looking little offshoot, which was completely devoid of any life so far as Brian could tell.

 

“But there’s nothing there…?” He said, wondering just what Darius’ appointment could’ve been if it had anything to do with a dark, empty little alleyway.

 

“Oh yes, hang on a second,” Darius seized Brian sharply by the arm, and urged a fizz of power his way. “Can you see him n-”

 

“OH JESUS FUCK! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!?!?!?”

 

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Darius started to walk towards Choreen, but Brian held firm “Come on, he may be able to help us. He might know who took my book.”

 

“I don’t give a shit! Even if he knew the secret to eternal life I still wouldn’t want to go anywhere fucking near him.” Brian tried to pull away from Darius, but the guy had a grip like iron.

 

“Come on! You don’t have to look at him, he’s dead; you don’t need to worry about offending him! We need to find this book Brian!” And with that, Darius began to physically drag Brian across the thin, mud covered road towards the prone, ethereal and, yes, utterly disgusting form of Choreen Daily.

 

 

*          *          *

 

“Hello,” came a voice in front of Choreen. He didn’t answer, he was dead and he knew it, who would be talking to him?

 

“Oi! Ugly!” It said again. This time there was no mistaking it; if there was anything Choreen Daily wasn’t (Apart of course from pleasant) it was vain.

 

“I take it you’re talking to me, then?” He said, drawlingly, annoyed at how long it had taken Death to find him. He opened his eyes, and took in the two young men who were both staring at him in open disgust.

 

“Yes, I am. Look, we need your help.”

 

“It’s taken you long enough, hasn’t it?” He launched into the cutting insult he’d been preparing for death since he’d died. (It wasn’t long.) “I’ll tell you, if reincarnation is your thing, I expect bloody better service next time.”

 

“Daily, if reincarnation was my thing then you’d be coming back as a toilet, and I’m not here to lay you to rest you ugly prick, I need your help.”

 

“Oh well, insult me, that’s the way to go about it isn’t it?” Choreen was a little taken aback. He’d expected death to be older, for one thing, and to think of it he’d fully expected him to be a lot less rude as well.

 

“You deserved it. Now, Choreen, old buddy old pal; I’ve lost my little black book, the one that tells me all about who’s going to die and when, and I need to get it back.” Said Darius, trying to keep down his breakfast at the sight of Choreens gored and mangled head “Now, I remember you were flagged as very, very important. That leads me to believe that whoever stole my book has something to do with your death.”

 

“So I’m guessing you want me to tell you who killed me?”

 

“Right on the button.”

 

“Well then you’re out of luck, because I don’t have a bloody clue.” He said, with a smile that looked more like a grimace beneath his caved in skull

 

Brian decided that would be a good time to be violently sick.

 

“Oh that’s lovely!” Shouted Choreen, jumping up and out of the way of the pool of vomit, as Brian continued to dry wretch “Your friend’s just a delight isn’t he?”

 

“He’s had a rough few days.” Darius frowned, he decided to let Brian be and he’d tell him what Choreen said later; he didn’t think he’d be able to take another round of looking at Choreens hideously deformed features. “Look, this is important. Do you know anything; anything at all about who killed you? Any little detail, no matter how insignificant.”

 

“Hmm…” Choreen thought for a moment; He supposed that, being dead, it wouldn’t hurt to tell Death about his organization and what it was doing in The Heath… “Alright, I know a little something; but it’s a secret, so you can’t go bandying it about to anyone and everyone, alright? This needs to be kept between you, me and your ill little friend over there, who I assume is to be in on it.”

 

“Sounds good to me…”

 

“Alright, so it all started off years ago…”

 

And so Choreen told him about the Demon-Callers, and how they’d summoned up a great and powerful team of demons and trapped them in a prison deep below the earth at the centre of The Heath. He told him about the threatening letters that they’d gotten recently, from some group of Demon-Rights activists (A sort of satanic PETA) claiming that they knew what they were doing, and that they were prepared to do anything to free the Demons from their Human tormentors, and how it was probably them who’d dropped the Gargoyle on his head.

 

Of course, this was all of little to no use to Darius, considering a bunch of pentacle wielding, smelly hippies wouldn’t be able to put together the funds to buy even half of an enchanted cape like the one the thief used to escape his apartment, but he supposed it was a start.

 

In a rare moment of clarity and pureness of heart, Choreen said; “Look, you need to understand something; if those demons get freed, we’re fucked. All of us, every last person in Golden Morovar is going to die. The original members of the sect were too stupid to realise what they were doing, and when they were done, they saw that they didn’t have enough power to send the demons back to wherever they called them from. That’s the only reason why they’re still here.” He paused, and twiddled with the insubstantial form of an old necklace that hung around his neck “If anything breaks that prison, there’ll be no way to stop those demons. The official representatives of Warlocks in the city are a bunch of useless drunken idiots, there’s no way they have the kind of power it’d take to banish the demons. The only hope you have is to stop whoever is trying to kill us off, because if the people behind this manage to get their hands on all of these necklaces,” he stopped briefly to hold up his ethereal locket “then they’ll be able to break the prison, and set the demons free.”

 

“…Well that’s just fucking great.”

 

“I know, right?” said Choreen, with a shrug and, what looked to be a grin.

 

“Where’d he go?” Brians voice was weak and hoarse, and the way he said it, it sounded like the last thing he wanted to hear was where Choreen had gone.

 

“He’s still here, you just can’t see him.” Darius said, turning to look at his friend, who still had bits of sick staining his T-Shirt “I’ll explain it to you later, just…sit down or something. You look like hell.” He continued, exasperated “So who would’ve stolen my book then Daily? Your Demon-Lovers won’t have done it, they can’t have.”

 

“Well I don’t know, do I? Maybe someone’s trying to figure out who’s going to die next. Maybe someone’s trying to stop it all.”

 

“Well they’re going to have a hell of a time. It’s almost impossible to decipher that book without the proper instruction. Took me at least a year to learn how to read the dates and times.”

 

“Yes, because you’re the sharpest pin in the perforated pin paper, aren’t you?” Said Choreen, scathingly

 

“Yeah…well, you’re hideous…and dead, so shut it.” Darius retorted (rather poorly, might I add.)

 

“If the likes of DSI have got their hands on it, I imagine it’ll only be a matter of days before this is all over, and you find your book sitting on your desk, exactly where you left it, with a little note to say thank you.”

 

“Ooh, DSI, now there’s a thought.” Darius took a minute to think…

 

“Look, whilst you’re there staring off into space, do you mind sending me on to the next plain of existence? Being dead isn’t all that enjoyable you know, especially not when you’ve got a giant vacuous hole where the top of your head used to be.”

 

“No. You’re staying right here, I may need you again sometime soon. And believe me, where you’re going sure isn’t going to be any better than here, you vile bastard you.” Darius turned to Brian “You alright there, buddy?”

 

“Fucking joyus…”

 

“Quite.” He picked Brian up by the arm, and steadied him “We’ve got somewhere to be, Brian. I think I know who took my book now.”

 

“Great,” Brian said, perking up “Can I go home then?”

 

“No, not yet. I still need a spotter, and you’re the only one who’s seen who took my book.” Darius smiled “You’re stuck with me for a little while yet.”

 

“Oh, what fun.” Brian dusted himself down, but there was no getting rid of the horrible yellowish stain on the front of his shirt “God, I’m going to need to replace this…”

 

“No time,” Darius had already begun to stride away down the road, leaving Brian behind “We’ve got somewhere to be…”

 

 

*          *          *

 

 

Scorpius walked fast. He worked on the premise that, if you looked as if you had somewhere to be, people wouldn’t bother talking to you. It had worked for him so far in life. (It was a toss up, mind, between that or the fact that he looked like an utter, utter bastard.)

 

“Sir, if you don’t mind sir. Where exactly is it we’re going?” Asked Fortesque, scurrying after his master with a bundle of papers clutched to his chest, like some administrative hamster.

 

“We’re going to see a man about a demon, Fortesque.” He said, without stopping or turning to look at his new servant “Now if you don’t mind, dear heart, keep up and be quiet; or I’ll be forced by point of personal honour to kill you.”

 

“Yes sir.”

 

They walked for what seemed like hours. Golden Morovar was big, and by unwritten agreement, the criminal quarters of the city tended to keep a wide berth of each other so as to avoid attracting the coppers to the kind of people who would be likely to do very unpleasant things to your kneecaps.

 

Eventually, after traipsing through the huge, fetid quagmire of a city, the pair came to a small, run down little apartment with a pockmarked door and broken windows. Normally, at this point, one would knock on the door and wait for the occupant to come and let you in. Sadly, Scorpius was not one for formalities, and instead blasted the door open with demon fire, and lunged in at the flats owner, who was sitting in a chair with a crossbow pointed firmly at his doorway.

 

The bolt that the man fired hit Fortesque square in his left shoulder. It hurt quite a lot. He made this known through screaming and swearing at the top of his voice (There was also some whimpering).

 

Scorpius had jumped on the man as he sat in his chair, knocking them both to the ground, where they began violently wrestling for an advantage.

 

“Alright old man!” Scorpius yelled over the din that Fortesque was making outside the door, “I need some information!”

 

“Piss off you vicious little shit!” yelled the man, pulling a knife from its sheath in his boot “I ain’t telling you nothing!”

 

“That’s a double negative, you cantankerous old fucker, improper grammar.” Retorted Scorpius, grabbing the mans arm before he could bring his knife down in an arc towards his back, and head-butting him on the nose. The old man yelled, blood streaming from his nose and tears beginning to well in his eyes, but he kept hold of his knife, and began to overpower the physically weaker Scorpius.

 

“Hah! What’re you going to do now, Warlo- Shit…” The old man froze in position. He couldn’t move at all now that Scorpius had applied a binding curse to him.

 

“Yes, forgot about that for a moment, didn’t we?” Said Scorpius, rubbing his forehead where he’d head-butted the man. “If it’s any consolation, you have a very hard face…” He whipped the old man up into the air, and set him on his feet. “I’ve got some questions for you, Sentius, and I need answers.”

 

“I’m not answering anything, you arrogant little bastard.” He tried to struggle, against the curse, and almost won; until Scorpius noticed what he was doing and doubled the force of the curse. He didn’t have a chance now.

 

“Now now, Sentius, be a good chap and give me the information I need. I’ve let you live this long, I’d hate to have to kill you just because you wouldn’t give me some silly little answers.” Scorpius lifted him again, and threw him backwards into a wall. More for effect than anything, I mean there was no real point in it. “I’ll tell you what, if you answer my questions Sentius, then I’ll let you go without killing you.”

 

“Go to hell, you half demon bastard.”

 

“Well that’s not very nice at all, is it? Casting aspersions on my family tree like that. I mean, you’re right, but there’s no way you could’ve known.” Scorpius dusted himself down, and took a seat in a small wooden chair opposite the prone form of Sentius “I’ve known you for a long time, Sentius.” He pulled a cigarette out of the inside pocket of his dirty, torn suit “How’s the leg?”

 

Sentius kept quiet.

 

“Oh really now, Sentius, if you’re going to be uncooperative, then I’m going to have to hurt you…”

 

“Fuck you, you evil twat.” Sentius spat at his enemy. There followed a loud, sickening crack.

 

“Oh my…The must’ve hurt.” Scorpius looked at Sentius’ leg, it was pointing out at a hideous unnatural angle (That was a little mean; Angles are inherently pretty things, without them, we’d all be straight lines and that would be terrible. So no, it wasn’t a hideous angle…It was an unnatural one.)

 

“FINE!” Sentius screamed; Sure, he was a zealot, but he wasn’t fucking stupid. “Fine! I’ll tell you what you want to know! Just…don’t hurt me.”

 

“Good man, good man.” Scorpius shot his leg back into position, eliciting another shriek of pain from Sentius “Well, you wouldn’t want it to set that way, would you? However would you chase down and forcibly oppress people then?”

 

“Just get on with it,” Sentius managed through gritted teeth

 

“If you insist…” Scorpius lit his cigarette with his finger “Tell me about what’s inside The Heath.”

 

“A lot of angry, rude rich bastards, who have no time for the little people.”

 

“Oh dear, had a bad experience up there did we?” Scorpius tutted “That’s not what I meant, Sentius.”

 

“Well then I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.” Sentius gritted his teeth. He didn’t quite know why he’d been so stupid, I mean it was obvious that Scorpius knew about the demonic emanations coming from underneath The Heath. Maybe it was some rebellious little bone that he’d have to find and break in half.

 

Crack. There went his other leg.

 

“Please, old man, don’t lie. I’m really not in the mood, and I’m going to have to attend to Fortesque there soon, or he might just bleed to death.” He snapped the leg back down into its original position before continuing “Now. Tell me about the Demons.”

 

Sentius couldn’t speak, so he just pointed towards the filing cabinet in the corner of the room and hoped Scorpius would understand.

 

“Well done, Sentius.” Scorpius laughed “Stay there will you?”

 

He rifled through the old mans filing case until he came across the papers he was looking for. They were…enlightening. Sentius had detailed great deals of information on the sect of Demon-Callers who lived within The Heath, and indeed on the demons that hey had imprisoned underneath the small community.

 

“Well thank you, Sentius, it’s been lovely.” There was a third snap as Scorpius finished his sentence, and Sentius dropped, dead, to the floor.

 

“Come on, Fortesque, you bundling useless idiot.” He picked the sprawled man up off the floor, and yanked the crossbow bolt out of his shoulder

 

“OH GOD!”

 

“Shut up you whiney cretin,” Scorpius shouted, setting the man on his feet and striding off into the ranks of passing pedestrians “Come on, Fortesque, we have somewhere to be…”

 

 

*          *          *

 

 

Agent Simyan strolled down the street in a happy mood. It was inexplicable, she knew that much, she didn’t really have anything to be happy about, to be honest, but there you go.

 

She quietly pilfered an apple from a cart by the side of the road, and ate it as she walked.

 

She didn’t know why she’d become a thief. Maybe it was because she was naturally good at it. She’d never had any formal training in spying and espionage, like her peers in DSIs subterfuge department, but she was still one of the best agents they had.

 

It perplexed her also, that she enjoyed it so much. I mean, stealing isn’t something you’re really supposed to enjoy, is it? Perhaps if you’re a jewel thief, or an international puller-off of high class daring-doo, but you’re not supposed to get a thrill of pleasure from lifting an apple of someone who probably needs the money it’d bring in a lot more than you do. You’re supposed to hate yourself for that…But hey, there you go. C’ést la Vie and all that.

 

The apple was bitter, and delicious. It had what growers of apples world-wide liked to call; bite. That of course is beside the point, but still, god’s in the details.

 

She thought about Brian as she walked, and smiled. In her line of work, she didn’t get to meet that many men…Well; she didn’t get to meet that many men who didn’t want to kill her, anyway. He’d been nice, clever, witty, obedient…Everything you could look for in a prospective partner. Of course, she had also been stealing from a friend of his, so that can’t have worked in her favour…

 

She’d come to the conclusion that she’d try and track him down, and ask him out to dinner. She didn’t exactly know why, but then again she apparently didn’t know that much, did she?

 

She ambled slowly round a corner, and bumped into a young man who was much, much taller than her. This wasn’t difficult, at four foot nine; most people were much taller than her.

 

“You!” He shouted

 

“What?” Said the man with him, who was wearing a long black robe and had a thick hood on

 

“Oh…dear.” She said, looking up at Brian.

 

“Oh dear indeed!” He said “This is her! She stole your book!”

 

“What!?” Shouted Darius, “Really?”

 

“Yes really, you idiot!”

 

“Now look, gentlemen, let’s not do anything we might regret here…” She spouted, backing away from the two. Sure, she’d done the basic training that was required to join up with DSI, but the best bit about being a thief was that you never actually had to fight anyone…not if you were as good as Simyan was anyway.

 

“Get her!” Shouted Darius. Which was a little…forceful.

 

“Don’t get her!” She shouted back

 

“Don’t get her,” repeated Brian “Where’s the book?”

 

“Still! Get her!” Darius shouted again, hopefully.

 

“I don’t have it,” She said, staring daggers at Darius “I’ve already handed it in.”

 

“Oh for gods sake” Darius sighed, pacing about the street “Where is it now?”

 

“It’s being dissected by the finest minds at the DSI;”

 

“I really do hope you don’t mean that literally. I need that book back.”

 

“You never know…”

 

“Take us to it.” Said Brian

 

“Can’t do that, sorry…” She said, with a shrug as she took a bite out of her apple “Best you can do is lodge a formal complaint, but seeing as you don’t have any actual evidence, then that won’t really do much.”

 

“Shit!” Darius shouted, to the dismay of several passers by “Shit fuck shitfuck!”

 

“Helpful…” Said Simyan

 

“You!” Darius turned on her, pointing his finger and shouting “You just don’t speak, alright! You stole it! You’re the reason I’m in this mess!”

 

“God, what’s the big deal!? It’s just a book.” She said, throwing her apple core into the street.

 

“Just a book,” Darius shouted, exasperated “Just a book!? What, did they not tell you anything about what you were nicking!? That’s Deaths book! It’s very, VERY, important that I get it back!”

 

“Oh…Well, that throws a different light on it.” She said, scratching the side of her head “You’ll probably get it back in once piece…”

 

“Oh that’s reassuring…” Said Darius, dismayed,

 

“Look, this isn’t getting us anywhere.” Brian said, furrowing his brow “Is there any way of getting it back?”

 

“Not unless you really want to break in to one of the most secure buildings in the entire city and steal it back from under the noses of the police…I mean, I could probably do it…but you guys wouldn’t stand a chance.”

 

“So we’re fucked then, are we?” Said Brian, as Darius was too busy weeping softly into the arm of his tatty black robe to notice the conversation going on around him.

 

“Yep. You’ll get it back once they’ve finished with whatever case it is they’re working on, but short of that then yeah, you’re fucked.” She gave a crooked little half smile “Listen, I was wondering; would you like to go out for dinner some time?”

 

“I’m sorry, what?” Brian asked, a little taken aback

 

“You. Me. Dinner. Come on, you honestly can’t want to hang around with that mopey looking bastard all day?”

 

“WAIT!” Shouted Darius, standing up “That’s it Brian! We have to solve the case! And by the way, that was very rude.”

 

“Alright then, Detective, where do we start?” Brian said sarcastically “This isn’t Scooby Doo, Darius.”

 

“This isn’t what? No, scratch that, I don’t care about your stupid other world allegories Brian.” He stood up from the ground and Dried his face “You, woman, what’s your name”

 

“Simyan,” She said with a smile “Can I come?”

 

Darius was shocked “…What, you actually want to come?”

 

“Of course! Who wouldn’t!? Action, Adventure a little bit of subterfuge, maybe some more stealing…”

 

“Wow…Alright, yes, I was going to tell you you’re coming with us anyway so I suppose this works out for all of us.” Said Darius spinning to look at Brian “You in, Brian…?”

 

“…No.” Darius looked downhearted, “But considering I don’t know anyone else around here, and have absolutely fuck all idea where I am, then I guess I’m stuck with you until all of this shit is over.”

 

“That’s m’boy!” He smiled and gave Brian a hug. Brian wasn’t sure he liked the new, enthused Darius that much; he wasn’t a very huggy person.

 

“So,” said Simyan, looking around here with a mischievous grin and a glint in her eye, “Do we know where we’re going, or…?”

 

“We’re going,” Darius said, stepping forward, and throwing his arms out towards the great, gleaming hilltop where stood the mighty, marble walls “to The Heath!"

 

 

Darius stood on the corner of a crooked little side street looking at the crudely cleaned up puddle of gore outside the “Church of the Undecidedly Holy Mother” across the street from him.

 

There, he knew, was supposed to be the bewildered, wandering, semi-transparent (and of course, hideously ugly) spirit of Choreen Daily. Sadly for Darius, and indeed the whole fabric of the space time continuum, the already slipping grip of reality and little yippy bastard dogs; Choreen was nowhere to be seen.

 

Darius was in a pickle; not literally, you understand, but I assume you get the inference. Not only could he not find the dear departed form of old scary-face, be he’d also forgotten deaths little black book, the one that would tell him exactly where it was ugly had gotten to, and what would be the best way to get there (Think of it as a sort of, ghostly backwards sat-nav). There was only one thing for it: He’d have to go back home and get the book, otherwise he could walk around Go-Mo for years and find nothing but cigarette butts and so much loneliness.

 

 

*          *          *

 

 

Brian was in trouble; he was sitting on the sofa, shaking uncontrollably, having just been sick (Again…) in a strange toilet.

 

His brain was beginning to regret the decision to let him know about magic.

 

Brian was struggling to grasp it; what the hell had happened? People can’t just disappear! They can’t just draw in their concentration to a tight little ball and, with no audible-pop-for-comic-effect, vanish into thin air! It’s just not…Cricket!

 

‘Shit’, thought Brian, as he sat on the sofa and leant back, resting his head on the backline, ‘what the hell is going on here’. He sat up, again, and realised that it was about time for him to start taking control of his situation. He stood up from the sofa and, leaving a neat little note on the dusty table telling whomsoever it concerns that he most definitely did not break the vase or, indeed, still the little black book, he headed for the door. Before he could take two steps, there was a neat little click as the door was opened, and in stepped his black robed friend, looking worried and a little haggard.

 

“Oh, hello.” Said Brian, taking a step backwards “I have some…bad news for you.”

 

“That’s great, but I’m still in a little bit of a hurry, if you don’t mind. I’m just looking for a book; you haven’t seen it anywhere have you?” Said Darius, quickly heading over to his kitchen cupboards and throwing open the doors to reveal an assortment of old cut class tumblers, the kind that you see monocle wearing, mustachio’d, velvet clad old men sipping expensive whisky out of, whilst discussing the rise of Russian gas prices and balance of power in indo-china (Why Indo-China? I have no idea, honestly I just like the name…Do they even have power in Indo-China?).

 

“It wasn’t…little and black was it? By any chance?” Said Brian, trying his best to sound calm

 

“Yeah, yeah, that’s the one, did you see it?”

 

Brian sighed dejectedly, and told Darius his story (Although he decided it would be best to omit the nudity, otherwise the poor guy might never sit in his own arm chair again). He even included, quite rationally considering his state of mind, his thoughts on the subject of him not quite being in Kansas anymore.

 

“So you’re trying to tell me…that a woman came into my house, broke my very old, very expensive vase, stole what’s got to be possibly the most important A5 leaf handbook in the entire world, and left without you doing anything at all to stop her?”

 

“…Well, yes, that about sums it up.” Said Brian, a little shame clouding his cheeks

 

“…Tell me why I should believe you? It could just as easily be you who’s taken it!?”

 

“Well…No, it couldn’t. I’m still here aren’t I? Would you stick around after robbing someone? No. I also wouldn’t have told you about it.” Said Brian, annoyed that he wasn’t instantly taken at face value “I’d just have thanked you for your hospitality and slipped quietly off into the street, wouldn’t I?”

 

“I don’t know! Maybe you’re an idiot or something, you forget, mate, I hardly know you…”

 

“Fair point…So where exactly is does this leave us?”

 

“Well, it leaves me in a great, great deal of shit and, considering you owe me your life well then it leaves you helping me find the utter bitch, who stole my book.”

 

“Alright…leaving that, quite frankly ridiculous notion behind, and moving onto another equal if not more ridiculous notion; she disappeared, that bitch. I mean like, beyond David Copperfield kind of stuff, really just vanished into thin air. I’ve been over it again and again in my head and yeah, just gone. Explain that one to me, if you don’t mind, please.” Brian said, shifting the conversation to an area that he really wanted to get cleared up (Preferably before his brain mushed into a thick, mealy pulp and leaked fluidly out of his ears).

 

“That’s just a standard instantaneous rematerialisation spell; you said she lifted her cloak up before she did it?”

 

“Yes…” Said Brian, not entirely sure if he was more or less confused than before he’d asked the question

 

“Well then, there’s you answer, she probably had an enchanted cape on. Although it’s pretty uncommon to have one that works properly; people tend to avoid them because of their nasty habit of, well you know, leaving important bits of you behind…”

 

“…That’s fantastic. What the fuck are you talking about?”

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

“What are you talking about? What the hell did everything you just said mean?”

 

“Magic, you idiot. You know sorcery? Spells? Witchcraft? The Arts?”

 

Brian buhed.

 

“You…you really have no idea what I’m on about, do you?” Said Darius, looking at Brian with a little concern

 

“…How could you tell?”

 

“The blank look and slight drooling…Sorry, where did you say you’re from?”

 

“Dublin, Ireland. If it helps, I’m beginning to think that something very, very strange has happened to me…”

 

“I’m going to go with yes on that one- Brian was it?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Ok, Brian. I think something very…odd may have happened here, I mean like ‘Last Stand of the Angry Animated Trampolines’ odd.” (That really is a most unusual painting…)

 

“So tell me, again, where does that leave us?”

 

“Well it leaves us in exactly the same position as we were in the last time you asked me that question; I’m out one very important, universe critical black notebook; and you still have to help me look for it.”

 

“I don’t even know your name!”

 

“It’s Darius.”

 

“Ok, Darius,” Brian began, with an unusual little air that plainly said ‘Darius is a really, really stupid name’ that Darius chose to ignore “I’m going to level with you here; I have a little bit of a problem with the outside.”

“You have a problem with the outside? What did it rob you or something?”

 

“Hilarious,” Brian quipped “No, I’m an agoraphobic.”

 

Darius Buhed. (It’ll catch on, you wait. Next few months it’ll be the lexicological sensation that’s sweeping the nation.)

 

“It means I’m afraid of wide open spaces.” Brian sighed on the inside

 

“You know what else you are?”

 

“Sad, pathetic and a little afraid..?”

 

“Apart from those…”

 

“No.”

 

“You’re the only one who’s seen that thief, and so you’re the only one who can pick her out of a crowd.” Darius sighed “You do know that, right? I need you if I’m going to find that book, and believe me when I say that I need to find that book…”

 

“Outside isn’t good for me, Darius.”

 

“That’s great, I don’t care. You didn’t stop that bint from taking my things Brian, you owe me.” Darius shrugged his shoulders “Besides, like I said earlier; I saved your life.”

 

Brians fear wasn’t coming to him when he thought about going outside. Usually it did, usually he choked up at even the thought of stepping out his front door to go across the street and do his shopping; but right now, he seemed to be perfectly fine. ‘Oh dear’ he thought to himself ‘I’m really going to regret this, aren’t I?’

 

“Fine, I’ll do it!” He shouted, a little louder perhaps than he should’ve.

 

“Of course you will. You’re a good fella Brian, bit of an idiot, but still…” Darius smiled; Darius wasn’t goo with people, it came from spending so much time collecting souls and so he was surprised that, despite his neuroses and of course the fact that he was standing in front of the guy wearing a long black robe with matching hooded cowl and looking thoroughly bloody scary, he’d managed to make friends with Brian so quickly.

 

“So, when exactly do we start then?” Asked Brian, glancing at the door and then looking back at Darius, who was shorter than him by about a head, making it a fairly awkward looking situation.

 

“No time like the present eh? I say we head now, get the jump on the bitch…” Darius started for the door “Come on Brian, I really need that book back…”

 

Brian rolled his eyes a little, and followed his new friend out the door and into the unknown…

 

 

*          *          *

 

 

Scorpius was, as was previously alluded to in the last chapter (Which, due to the natural progression and logical structure of a book, you will have read before beginning this one) pissed. As I said, it’s his natural state of being, so form now on I’m only going to bring it up if he’s really, really angry. In summary, please, from this moment on, assume Scorpius is pissed.

 

Anyway, back on topic. Scorpius had begun his new reign of terror by investigating something that had been bothering him for as long as he could remember.

 

Since Scorpius was a young lad growing up rough on the streets of Go-Mo, he’d been able to sense a massive emanation of hellish demon-power coming from the very centre of ‘The Heath’. Being a massive evil bastard (And of course because he had warlock-ian powers, but mostly the bastard thing) he was particularly sensitive to emanations of power.

 

It was this that had led him to seek out Ludwab, because even though they’re possibly the least effective and most entirely useless organization in the entire city; they kept very, very accurate records.

 

“My liege” said the secretary “My liege please, let me do that, you sit back and have a rest.”

 

“I’m not a king, you useless old fool.” Said Scorpius, harshly. Admittedly, you could be forgiven for thinking that Scorpius was a king; not a benevolent, good hearted, people loving, tax alleviating, peaceful king but one of those cold bastards who raises taxes so high that you, quite literally need to pay six pounds to take a piss. “I’m doing myself. Tell me your name again.”

 

“Fortesque, sir. Fortesque Barrington the Third, accountant by trade, secretary by choice, warlock by birth, sir.” Fortesques voice dripped with grease, like a KFC Family Bucket.

 

“I very much doubt that last bit, Fortesque. Tell me, man, why do you think I’m doing this myself…?” He inquired

 

“Well sir…I-I don’t know sir.” Fortesque was dwarfed by Scorpius. Like all of the members of Ludwab, he himself had some measure of skill with the demonic arts, but he’d never seen skin quite so artfully melted before…

 

“I’m doing it because, if I let you do it, you’ll make a tit of yourself and I’ll end up killing you for your incompetence.” Scorpius said, with a calm, graceful air that suggested not only was he at home letting people know that he’d happily kill them, but also that if he chose, he’d make a bloody good politician… “And, despite my cold and passionless exterior, I’m come to like your smarmy and insignificant manner.”

 

“Oh…Why, thank you sir…” It wasn’t much of a compliment, thought Fortesque, but at least he wasn’t dead.

 

“But don’t think if you don’t fulfil your assigned duties to an acceptable standard that I won’t turn you into a small puddle of primordial ooze just as quickly as I would anyone else.” He said; just to make himself entirely clear on the subject.

 

“O-of course sir.” Said Fortesque, with just the slightest little hint of worry in his voice.

 

“Now, tell you what you can do for me Fortesque. Round up the troops, I want to have a full investigation on the go, there’s something very, very important happening in The Heath, and I would really rather like to know what it is.”

 

“The…The troops sir?”

 

“Yes, Fortesque, the troops. It’s a figure of speech, I mean all of the members. Surely we have some who aren’t drunks or idiots?”

 

“Well yes, sir, but I think that those members happen just to be you and I, sir.”

 

“Very clever Fortesque. Well then, sober up the rest of them, we’ve got work to do. Important, important work. I plan to make this organisation great again.”

 

“Sir, if you don’t mind me saying, we were never actually great, sir.”

 

“Well, yes, you do have a point there Fortesque…” Scorpius frowned and sat down behind a large, well varnished oaken desk and picked up a grotty old biro. “Remember our little discussion, Fortesque, that had to do with ooze?”

 

“Yes sir, on my way now sir…”

“Good man.”

 

Fortesque scuttled out of the large room, shutting the door behind him, and leaving his new master to lean heavily on the desk and sigh. He was working too hard these days; trying to get too much done. His little blue eyes had huge great bags under them, and his black hair was beginning to gray at the temples. Oh and lets not forget the crows feet, scars and sallow, yellowing skin.

 

Scorpius was not an attractive man; well, at least you can say that his outward appearance reflected what lay within. Admittedly, also, he wasn’t hideous either. Think a sort of…bizarre, slightly creepier version of Christopher Walken (Although I have to admit that it’s hard to think of anything that’s creepier than Christopher Walken, but anyway. (He’s a lovely man…but really, keep him away from your children if you want them to grow up sane.))

 

He hadn’t expected to find anything in Ludwab, not really. An emanation of that power would have to be covered up on a huge scale to be kept out of the ever vigilant noses of the Sorcerers of the Nine Towers; and if the Sorcerers of the Nine Towers couldn’t keep track of it, then there was no chance for this pitiful little coven of useless, vacuous hedge wizards.

 

No, he always knew he’d have to do this one on his own, perhaps that was the pull? Or, indeed, perhaps the pull was the fact that that kind of conjured emanation could give him enough power to turn the world inside out without anybody noticing. (And that, let me tell you, is a feat not to be overlooked…)

 

He sighed again; Scorpius liked sighing, although he’d never known why, he got a sort of pleasant satisfaction from it.

 

It was time for him to get to work…

 

 

*          *          *

 

The Thief stepped lightly into the cold, marble floored room. She stepped lightly not because she was, as she liked to call it “On the Thiev’” but because, having done her job so very well for so many years, it had just become natural for her to walk everywhere and make as little noise as possible. For the record, this tended to be no noise at all.

 

The Thief was a little disturbed about her encounter with Brian earlier. Not because she’d seen him naked, or even because he’d caught her stealing from Darius, but because she’d been stupid enough to drop a bloody vase, and then yell at the thing like that would help. It was so…unprofessional.

 

The marble room was dark, dark all but for a lit podium at the top which was where she headed. This was the part of her job that she hated; sure, she loved catching the bad guys, preventing the crimes and of course, all the free, perfectly legal stealing that she got to do, but she wasn’t sure that all those things made it worth it, when compared with meetings with her bosses.

 

The bosses were…scary. Plain and simple. She knew they were human, well, to a certain extent. There were probably a few Dwarfs and Elves in there, and maybe a goblin if the department was feeling especially liberal, but that’s not what bothered her…

 

What bothered her was the fact that they were so bloody matter of fact about everything. Matter of fact and cold. Kind of like the marble room they always met in…

 

She stepped (lightly again, as was her way) onto the lit podium at the front of the room, and immediately a voice rang out, strong and clear from the eaves of the wide hall.

 

“Bloody hell, Agent Ang’amarin, we didn’t see you there. You really are good…”

 

“Ahem…” came a cough, from directly opposite the first voice

 

“Oh god! Sorry Sarg-“

 

“AH-FUCKING-HEM! Thank you, Mr. Yellow! Thank you fro your completely sad and unprofessional behaviour, you fucking cretin.” Came the light, coughing voice. It was probably a woman…or castrati, you never can tell… “I take it, Agent Ang’amarin, that you’ve got what we sent you for?”

 

“Of course I do.” She shouted back up at the disembodied voice

 

“If you’d like to leave it on the podium, please Agent.” Came a third, harsher voice “And piss off. You’re not an investigator so you’re not needed. On your way out, Agent, send in the group waiting outside.”

 

“Yes sir.” She set the notebook down on the lit podium, and stepped down. She sauntered back down the hall in similar silence, and as requested sent in the next group of analysts and investigators. Life in the Golden Morovar Department of Special Investigations (Or as it’s known in certain circles; DSI: Golden Morovar…) was always…interesting. I suppose that’s why she worked there, but of course she’s of a fictional disposition so I can’t actually ask her…

 

The Thief was, in fact, Agent Simyan Ang’amarin, a young, sexy, nubile little slip of an elf girl who worked for DSI, which for those of you who need the modern day, current universe references (Which will be all of you, because all of you aren’t me and so don’t know exactly what I’m talking about) is a little like MI5 or, for you Americans; the FBI.

 

It just so happens that, by order of impromptu pan-galactic coincidence, the DSI was in fact investigating exactly the same thing that Scorpius was, albeit through a much more long, winding and indirect route. This is important, and, as it’s the end of the chapter you may wish to take some notes on the affair, so you may refer to them later and ensure that you’re up to date with all the relevant knowledge.

 

Thank you,

 

David

 

The governing celestial winds of cosmic fate have, as has been attested to many times in the past, a very acute sense of irony. Thankfully for every living creature everywhere, they also have quite finely tuned notions of sense, decency, coincidence, justice and urgency; but most importantly of all, they have impeccable timing. This last option is certainly one to take note of, because at that very moment, somewhere within Golden-Morovars dank and fetid underground, something very, very bad was going down.

 

There, deep under the surface of Golden-Morovar, in the midst of the to and fro of rampant criminal activity, there resided a distinct group of much renown the likes of which no world, dimension or pan-relative void has ever encountered.

 

The group was known as the League of Dubious Underground Warlockian Bastards, more commonly (and might I add inaccurately) shortened to Ludwab. Ludwab was an organisation singularly dedicated to bringing about the end of the world, or a least that’s what it said in their manifesto. In reality, it was no more than a drinking club for the morbidly inclined but every now and then there would be a tremendous upheaval when a real Warlock coughed up enough money to join and set about actively trying to end the world by means of massive demonical infestation. Of course they never succeeded because they couldn’t last more than five days without being lured into the bar for a couple of swift halves, and then never coming out again.

 

Unfortunate as it is that such a malign and frighteningly inefficient group as Ludwab is allowed to exist within the walls of Go-Mo, the police allow the groups bumbling assortment of alcohol addled magicians and obscenely obsessive rich bastards to meet on a regular basis because, to quote a manuscript published by Golden Morovars Public City Constabulary “It keeps them off the streets, the rowdy, drunken, weird old codgers.”

 

Also unfortunate, is that knocking on the charred and battered door of the Ludwab clubhouse on Lower Downside Run, there was possibly one of the most dangerous men in this, that or, for that matter, any world at all.

 

*          *          *

 

Knock-Kockity-Knock-Knock. Knock-Knock. It was one of those knocks, you know? One of those really, really annoying ones that makes you want to poke the person on the other side of the door in the eye. Or at least that’s what Ludwabs founding fathers founding grandson thought. Cornelius Fiddle had no time for people who had enough time to knock on a door more than twice, and he certainly didn’t have the patience for the cheery shits who added a tune to it like it was some kind of bloody…tuney thing. Bastards.

 

Cornelius was a grumpy old man, or at least he would’ve been if he was old. As it was, Cornelius was in fact a grumpy young man, a trait that no-one found very endearing at all. Being a grumpy young man, Cornelius was averse to doing anything which required effort, which doubled up his annoyance at answering the door to the peppy, soon-to-be-one-eyed stranger. He grumbled loudly as he got up from his chair and tramped slowly to the door, where he shouted unutterable obscenities through the thick wood until he felt a little more satisfied and then opened it. This was, upon later reflection, a bad choice. Hindsight is such a terrible thing, and when you look back on your life from the void between worlds and see that you really did nothing but sit in a musty old chair, smoke and be rude to people you realise that perhaps you could’ve made something more of yourself.

 

Scorpius McVitties was Pissed (With a capital P). This was Scorpius’ natural state of being, on account of him having what was scientifically proven to be the stupidest name in the history of time. His mother and father hadn’t been bad people, in fact, they’d been very good people up until the point when Scorpius was old enough to understand that they’d named him, and decided that they’d be much better off as a couple of piles of ash.

 

Scorpius was not a nice person. That is a fact, it’s a thing you can’t deny, like the fact that I will lo- Nah, I’m kidding, and by kidding I mean not plagiarising (Sorry, I need to make these things concrete because, you know, I want not to be sued…). But considering I just told you a rather short story about how he (Justifiably) turned his own parents to ash, you’d probably guessed that already.

 

One thing you shouldn’t have guessed (And please, if it turns out that you have guessed it, don’t spoil it for me because, personally, I’m not entirely certain myself. I mean I’ve worked out that there’s not something quite right with Bruce Willis’ character, and that kid that sees dead people is messing with my mind, but I’m not quite there yet…) is that Scorpius is not entirely human.

 

You see, once upon a time in a galaxy fa- No! God damn it I have to stop using pop culture references! A very long time ago, Tilsaz was locked in a real bastard of a war against a great and powerful (And, naturally, Evil) sorcerer; not the sort of genial, benevolent sage with a great bushy white beard that takes you aside and pulls a pony out of thin air for you (Oh Marvellous Martin the Magnificent Mage, how your act has fuelled the imagination of children all over the world for so many years…) but the hard nosed, hellfire and brimstone, death from above, “look upon my works all ye and tremble” kind of bastard who, quite frankly, was a bit of a shit.

 

So, for a long time this war was going in the sorcerers favour. Not only did he hold sway over the hearts of a great many men, but he also had at his command a great army of necromancers, forged from the very souls of those who’d fallen in battle against him (Which, when you think about it isn’t really the best source for your undead army…I mean really? Talk about dissent…). But the mage underestimated the combined strength of the people of the world, he thought that’d lay down and die when his great army came clawing at their gates (He was wrong, in that sense, considering that rather than lay down and die, they decided to pour boiling oil down on their attackers instead…which hurt, a lot. I mean, when you can feel your own face melting, you know you’re about to be in a whole world of pain.)

 

In his foolish haste, the mages entire army was destroyed save a few stragglers that limped off into the night never to be seen again (Many of whom can still be found today amidst the very grumpiest of Burger King employees) and the mage himself was driven back to his stronghold and surrounded by the armies of men (And women…although lets face it, “woman” is a fairly loose term when it comes to these chicks, amirite?). From the top of his tower, the great sorcerer looked down upon the amassed army of human good, that last great bastion of decency, that very embodiment of truth, justice (And the American way!) and all those things that he himself could never comprehend; And he fuckin’ shit himself.

 

He had nothing, nothing left at his disposal, his army gone, his wards slowly depleting, his great and vast reserves of magical energy used up trying to battle his way into the ancient walled city of Morovia…

 

 

The mage steeled himself, it would take every last ounce of his magical strength to break open the rift between the planes and talk to the demons. He’d tried this once before, he’d done it as a back up plan, back when he was thinking straight and sleeping for more than two hours a night, he’d contacted the demons, made a pact with one of them. It wasn’t pleasant, upholding his end of the bargain, but hey a guy has to do what a guy has to do...

 

His wards were failing, he could feel it in his bones, or his waters, or wherever it is that people feel things when a massive army who would like nothing more than to knock you down to the ground and stand on you until you’re all in one very messy, leaky lump is knocking hard on your magically protected door. He was cutting it fine, very fine, very fine indeed. He could feel it, the rift that he created before, all he needed to do was open it, speak the words and boom, there goes the army, there goes the tower, there goes at least fourteen miles of spare, empty field.

 

The wards had broken, the army was racing up the stairs (Of which there was a lot; it was a very big tower, the sorcerer would be sad to see it go. Well, he supposed he would…Sad wasn’t a big part of the sorcerer’s life right now.) And soon they’d be at his door, knocking it down, dragging him away. Not bloody likely, he thought as he tapped the final ward around the rift and opened it.

 

“Fuck you,” he shouted through the door. This proved to be a fatal mistake, because if he hadn’t have wasted his time being a macho super-villain, he might have been able to get the needed Faux-Latin phrases out before that very, very angry looking dwarf corporal dump-tackled him into a wall, knocking him unconscious and closing the rift forever.

 

 

Now, what does this story have to do with our delightful little Scorpius, you say? Well, quite a lot, because that sorcerer was Scorpius’ great, great, great, great, greatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreat Grand-pappy. Which in itself is nothing particularly note-worthy, after all who’s not descended from a magical mass-murder these days? No, what is much, much more important is the deal that was made between the sorcerer and the demon whose power he intended to tap in to. The details of that deal are… well, complicated, but as a result, all of the sorcerer’s descendants have never been quite right, be it physically, mentally or, indeed, magically.

 

But there’d never been on quite like Scorpius. Whether this is a good or bad thing is…well it’s pretty obvious, it’s a terrible thing…

 

 

*          *          *

 

 

Brian woke up.

 

Either that or he’d died, gone to hell and there had his mouth filled with the horrible taste of day old vomit. After what seemed like hours of deliberation, he realised that hell would never have been so cruel, and came to the conclusion he must have just woken up.

 

Brian later reported that, when the events of the previous day came back to him, he turned into a viscous jelly-like substance and melted through the floor never to be seen again. This of course never happened, but it’s a nice image, isn’t it?

 

Having not turned into a viscous jelly-like substance and melted through the floor never to be seen again, Brian was left with the horrible realisation that he was sitting on a lumpy sofa that smelt of moth balls in a room that was most definitely not in his flat. This left Brian with a very difficult problem to overcome, for the first time in his life, Brian was not in a room he felt totally familiar and comfortable with and being in such an unfamiliar place left him with a bloody horrible feeling in his stomach that he put down to an irrational fear of being alone in unfamiliar places (Which, when you think about it really isn’t irrational at all…). Sadly for Brian, his only other alternative was going out into the street and trying to find out where in gods name he actually was. On top of all this, Brian realised as his brain worked overtime to try and find a way out of this situation, someone had stolen his bloody wallet.

 

As Brian’s brain franticly buzzed, trying to come up with a solution that would involve neither staying in the room, nor going outside a key turned in the lock, and the door swung open. Brian didn’t really think after that, because his brain shut its self down and went out for a bite to eat and a smoke. The reason Brian’s brain went out for a smoke, was to complain about his owner’s lack of restraint when it came to falling in love with people.

 

 

 

To cut a long and pointlessly buffered story short, Brian stopped thinking because Eltraya, The Low God of Indoor Sporting Activities, had just walked into the room.

 

“What?” She demanded. Brian was staring. “Have I got something on me?” She looked down at her dress, and with a worried expression said “Have I got nothing on me?”

 

Brian didn’t know what to do, without his brains help he was having a very difficult time comprehending anything, and so, sensing this, his brain decided that it was probably best he get back to work, lest Brian make a total dick of himself.

 

“I,” He started, then, with a quick reappraisal of the jumble of malformed words that were about come out of his mouth he continued “Hello. I’m Brian, nice to meet you.”

 

“Eltraya,” she said, looking Brian up and down with a critical eye “Charmed, I’m sure. I take it this is the one you want me to have a look at Darius, and you don’t just let strangers who smell of sick into your home for fun?”

 

“I already told you,” Darius said sharply, with a look on his face that quite plainly said ‘I’ve enough to deal with already, thank you very much, so kindly shut your damn mouth and get on with it’ “I thought he was the mayor! He looked like the mayor, you can attest to that yourself, and he sure as bloody hell smelt like him. Now, can we get back to the matter at hand please?”

 

“Of course, of course, heaven forbid I ask questions about the strange man in your living room…If of course you can call this a living room…” She said, looking around her at the dusty old room that her friend hardly ever used.

 

“Where am I?” Asked Brian “It’s just I have a, sort of thing, with being outside my flat, and I’d really like to get home about now.” Brian was nervous, and he was socially backward so all of this was about as good as it gets for him. This was chatty for Brian.

 

“You’re at my place…And considering you and all my stuff are still here, I guess I owe you a fiver Ellie.” Said Darius, reaching into his pocket “Ellie’s here to make sure you’re in a good enough condition for me to feel alright about kicking you back out into the street.”

 

“Lovely, isn’t he?” Said Eltraya, walking over to Brian who was still perched haphazardly on the edge of the settee, “Open up, and say Ahhh.” Brian did as he was told, which turned out to be a bad idea considering his breath still stank of sick, and it caused Eltraya to wince and back up suddenly. “Ok then, well we’ve established that you were definitely sick, and that you need to brush your teeth. I’m going to take a closer look at your pupils, please shut your mouth and don’t open it again until I’m clear.” She smiled, or Brian thought, it might have been a grimace; he preferred the smile option. “Ok,” she said, moving away from Brian “You look fine to me, nothing about you that a wash wont cure.” She turned back to Darius, and opened her arms wide “You have my permission to throw him out. Now as much as I’d love to stand around all day here and medically examine your terminally unhygienic houseguests, Darius, I have work to be doing. There’s a game of Netball that’s about to get very nasty if I don’t make an appearance.” She turned back to Brian “Toodle-oo, see you again some time.” And with that, she flounced out of the room like a toga wearing…flouncy thing. (Quite what a flounce is, I’m not entirely sure. I imagine it’s one of those immeasurable little human qualities; like a smidgeon.)

 

Brian was entranced, so entranced that he was taken very much by surprise when Darius came and kicked him in the legs. “Come on fella’, up you get, time to go.” Darius had a rather desperate look on his face. He was, right now missing a very important appointment that was likely to cost him his contract with Death if he didn’t make it within, oh say twenty minutes.

 

“Where am I?” Brian asked again, hoping that he might get a more satisfactory answer this time

 

“I told you, my place. It’s on Gasworks Avenue. You know Gasworks, yes?”

 

“No.” Said Brian, slightly confused “There’s no Gasworks in Dublin, is there? I-I am still in Dublin, aren’t I?”

 

“Dublin? Where’s Dublin? Not some little poke-hole in the city? Don’t tell me you’re an undergrounder or something?”

 

“What? What’s an undergrounder? No…Dublin. Surely you know Dublin?” Brian was getting exasperated. The calming effect Eltraya had had on him was beginning to wear off, and everything was beginning to catch up with him. On top of that, his head was pounding harder than ever.

 

“No, sorry. Don’t know a Dublin, friend, I can take you back to where I found you, but it’ll have to wait. I’m late for something important here. Look, you can use the bath;” He pointed to a door leading off from the back of the room “It’s just down the hallway. I suggest you use it before you go anywhere, Ellie was right, you really do stink.” Darius headed for the front door “Don’t, you know…Touch anything, if you can help it. Sorry, I really, really have to go here. Bye!”

 

 

*          *          *

 

As Brian stepped into the measly, lukewarm water of the old copper bath, he couldn’t help but wonder to himself quite why the panic hadn’t come back to him. Sure, he’d felt it initially, when he’d woken up and found himself in a dark, dusty, unusual room with a splitting headache and the taste of vomit sitting hideously in his throat; like some great sticky, sick flavoured bit of Wheaten Bread, but it had yet to come back to him. Of course, he wasn’t naive enough to think that he’d somehow magically been cured of his xenophobic outlook, but he had to admit, he was beginning to enjoy the care free sensation. 

 

There was no Bubble Bath; this did not please Brian. He liked bubble bath, it was one of the few memories he had of his childhood. It wasn’t a terribly accurate or detailed memory, in fact it was entirely vague and probably fake, but still; he liked it anyway.

 

As he lay, relaxing amongst the (sadly) pure and bubble free water, he heard a noise outside. Brian, being a shut in, was not accustomed to the noise of a door opening and so he didn’t recognise it at first. What he did recognise was the crash of a vase, and the muffled “Shit!” that came from a voice very unlike the two he’d heard from his…captors? Could he call them that? They were letting him use the bath after all…anyway, it most certainly wasn’t one of the two people he’d met earlier. This was…unsettling. What if it was someone that’d come for Brian? What if they were captors after all, and this was some bald-headed, tattooed, toothless goon they’d sent to keep an eye on him?

 

Jesus, what if they were being robbed? He got out of the bath, something that he regretted, mainly because he was completely naked, soaking wet, and he’d left his clothes in the hallway. Picking up a towel to hastily wrap around his waste, he headed out into the corridor that led into the main room.

 

From out in the sitting room, there was the tinkle of broken ceramics (Oh ho, cleaning up after yourself, you filthy burglariser: Cunning, like a ferret, or some sort of muskrat.) Brian felt brave; unnaturally brave, especially for a man who’d spent most of his adult life in a small Dublin flat, having no interaction with the world and generally being a massive pansy towards society. He edged the door into the sitting room open, and peeked through the gap. The burglar was a woman, he could see that clearly, her black hair fell in long tresses down her back (exactly what is a tress? Is it a style, a unit of measurement? What am I missing here?) and she was wearing what appeared to be some sort of cape, or cloak. Brian leaned forward, opening the door further and tippy-toeing into the room on, well, funny enough, his tippy-toes.

 

Now, Brian counted himself amongst those very few people in the world who were both big and agile. Brian was, unfortunately, wrong when it came to this, and as soon as he stepped into the room, the floorboards trumpeted in riotous alarm at his intrusion. The woman dropped the remains of the vase that she’d been so carefully trying to fit back together, and they broke again into smaller pieces. She stood up, and looked Brian right in the penis. ‘Oh shit’ he thought, as he caught where the burglar was looking. ‘Oh shiting fucking shit, I dropped my towel.’

The burglar smiled, and Brian blushed. This situation was a first for him (In fairness, it would probably be a first for you too, having a female burglar staring at your gentleman’s area. Especially if you’re a woman, and consequently don’t have a gentleman’s area (And so then would have to be warned in advance so you could mock something up out of a frankfurter and some sandwich meat…)) and so, added to his feeling of extreme fear towards the woman who, he now realised as she had turned around to face him, was carrying a very long and shiny sword, was the massive nervousness that a guy feels when a woman is standing there smirking at your junk…

 

“Well then…” She smiled mischievously at him, and fingered the hilt of the sword at her belt “No…funny business there, buddy. Or I may need to get creative with my shiny little friend here.”

 

Brian covered himself with his hands, “What the hell are you doing here!? Get out!” Brian was angry, not least because he would probably be blamed for breaking that vase, but also because there was a dominant, threatening woman in the room, smirking rudely at his shame.

 

“Now now, lets us not go around shouting at people, eh? How about you take a seat over there, and calm yourself down whilst I have a look about.” She pulled out her sword in one swift, graceful movement, and pointed it at Brians chest. Needless to say, he sat down and did as he was told…

 

 She wasn’t long rummaging around in the drawers and cupboards before she found what it was she was after; a small, black book about the size of an A5 diary.

 

She had sheathed her sword again, during her search, but Brian hadn’t been stupid enough to try and rush at her, so I guess that’s kind of pointless for you to know, isn’t it? “Alright then, I’m done here.” She turned, pocketing the Diary in the inside of the long, dark cloak she was wearing, she smirked “Tell you what,” she said “you get up and do a naked dance for me, right now, and I’ll put the book back.”

 

“…I’m sorry, what?” Brian was having a little trouble comprehending quite what the woman had just said “I’m having a little trouble comprehending what you just said,” He said “Did you just ask me to do a naked dance for you?”

 

“What would you say if I did?”

 

“…Well I’d more than likely tell you to fuck off.”

 

“Hmmph, you’re no fun.” She pouted “I suppose I’d better be going then.”

 

“Yes, you should.” Said Brain, standing up and then, remembering his state of undress, sitting immediately back down again. “You should also put back whatever that was you took, but I suppose that’s wishful thinking.”

 

“Why do you care if I take anything, this isn’t your house.” She said, looking around the single main room “Ipso facto, it isn’t your stuff.”

 

“Oh yes, and I’m sure that the owner will just accept my story that the strange man he brought into his home, out of the kindness of his heart, didn’t steal his little book and break his vase.” Brian said sarcastically

 

“You know, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit…”

 

“No, Jim Davidson is the lowest form of wit, but we’re getting a little off topic here, don’t you think?”

 

“I don’t have time for this, grumpy. I’ll probably see you again some time.” And with that, she pulled her cape around herself, and, with a look of concentration, vanished into thin air.

 

Brian was astonished; in fact, he was more than astonished, he was awe-struck. He had been literally slapped in the face by awe. He had, of course being from our world and not a world of magic, never before seen wizardry in practice. It glued him to his seat (Well it’s either the magic that glued him, or the fact that he was very warm, slightly scared and entirely naked on an old leather armchair.)

 

Brian’s brain kicked in with rationalisations. Of course, his brain wasn’t stupid; he knew exactly what was going on, he knew he’d just seen magic and that he was likely to see a lot more of it due time, but in his expert opinion Brian himself wasn’t ready for that little tid-bit, so he figured he’d keep it to himself, for now, and let it all out when the time came.

 

Brian’s brain also decided that it was very much time for Brian to go back to bed…