The Complete Alice Wonder Series - Insanity - Books 1 - 9

by Cameron Jace

  “Of course,” the Cheshire unfolded a newspaper to read as the plane took off. “The rich are always prepared.”

  “Did you say something, Sir?” the stewardess asked, a beautiful Swedish girl with too much makes up. Some apocalypse that was. “Can I help you with anything?”

  “Actually, you can,” the Cheshire said, lowering the newspaper.

  “Please tell me,” she leaned forward, her scent driving him crazy.

  “Playboy,” he said.

  “Play-what?” she tilted her head, a little shocked. Did the man from the Vatican just say Playboy?

  “I don’t care to read the news about the world,” he said. “The world is going to hell anyway. Do you have the latest edition of Playboy?”

  The girl leaned back, not sure if she’d heard right. She was little in shock.

  “Latest edition, please,” he said. “I’m not keen on outdated boobs.”

  The girl stiffened like a broom, shrugged, and turned around. As she walked to get him what he wanted, he summoned her back, “And a bottle of Scotch. Two glasses. No ice. Shaken and stirred.”

  Every other rich businessman and woman looked away. Some pretended to be busy with their phones. Some pretended this wasn’t happening.

  The Cheshire leaned back in his seat. “God Damn World War Wonderland,” he said. “If there is going to be a war, why does it have to take this long? Why wouldn’t an asteroid come and just end this world? Boom. Boom. Shaka-Laka.”

  Then his phone rang.

  He untied his collar and leaned back in his seat. “Chesh speaking. I mean Angelo.”

  “Are you on your way to London?” Mr. Jay inquired.

  “I am, Sir. Can I ask what this about?”

  “Your mission in the Vatican is done.”

  “I saw that. I left it with drunk popes and nuns, and none of my crowd was there, probably killing terrorists somewhere.”

  “You did well.” Mr. Jay chuckled. He rarely did. The Cheshire must have amused him. “And now I have to fulfill my promise.”

  “Did you promise me something?”

  “Not literally. I am a subtle man.”

  “Hmm…”

  “I will give you what you have always wanted.”

  “All I want is for the human race to die miserably.”

  “No, that’s not it,” Mr. Jay said.

  “Oh?” the Cheshire didn’t like this.

  “You want revenge, but not just from humans. You want revenge on someone else. Someone who did something bad to you in Wonderland.”

  The Cheshire shrugged. He now knew what he was talking about. Why would Mr. Jay bring this up now?

  Ice-Cream Truck

  I am standing on top of the ice-cream truck, facing one of the sides. It occurs to me that it’s a stupid move a bit too late though. Any of the Reds could just shoot me to my grave right now.

  But it doesn’t happen, and it makes me think if something deep in my lost memory granted me the naive audacity to stand up like that. A faint vision strikes me, and I don’t know what it is. A vision from the past, but I am in too deep in my reality to care about an old forsaken memory.

  The Reds in front of me lower their guns. Then the shooting turns to silence. I turn slowly to watch the Reds behind me. They are inanimate and silent, too.

  The moment is too heavy; I think I am not breathing at all.

  What is this? An ambush? A mockery?

  Should I let myself drop down again into the ice-cream truck? Or should I just roar with anger, like in a superhero movie, and start killing them?

  The silence is long an unwinding. All I hear is the distant sounds of killing and madness in the neighborhoods all around.

  Something is very wrong.

  “I think they are afraid of you,” Constance’s voice comes into my ears. I haven’t figured out the telepathy thing yet, but it’s not the time to do that.

  “Why?” I say back with my mind.

  “Because of the Vorpal sword, I guess.”

  Looking down I see that I am gripping it so tight that my knuckles are whitening. Should I raise it up to scare them away?

  “But wait,” I tell Constance. “This can’t be. I had the sword back in the warehouse. They still fought back.”

  “You’re right,” she says. “Something is wrong.”

  I take a reluctant step forward to test the Reds. None of them moves yet.

  “Hey!” I shout at them. “What’s going on?”

  No one answers me. I raise my sword, ever so slowly, in case they change their minds and decide to shoot.

  Nothing.

  One of the Reds takes a step forward and lowers his gun. He gestures with his head in a way that implies respect. “Please come with us.”

  “What?”

  “Mr. Jay wants to see you.”

  “Ah,” I say. “That’s what it’s about. You don’t want to kill me.”

  “We want to kill them,” he points at the truck. “But we’re instructed to bring you alive.”

  Though I will never do it, I am curious. “Why does he want to see me?”

  “We are only Reds. We obey orders.”

  “Oh,” I lower my sword and loosen up. “So I guess I am in charge here. You can’t kill me.”

  “We would love to,” the Reds mocks me. “But we can’t for now.”

  “And I will not let you kill anyone in the truck,” I say. “So my advice is that you leave us be.”

  “We can’t.”

  I raise my sword again. “I will kill you if you don’t leave.”

  “Actually, I think you will go with them, Alice.” Tom Truckle’s voice sounds somewhere.

  At first, I am not sure from where, then I know. I realize what they have done. Why they’d stopped in the first place.

  The truck’s rear door opens, and Tom stands with a gun pointed at the March. The son of a mushroom hadn’t left the truck. It was a trick.

  Slowly he drags the poor, comatose March behind him like a sack of carrots, pointing the gun at him.

  Behind him, Lewis, Fabiola, Constance and Jack stumble out with their hands bound behind their backs.

  “Sorry,” Constance says telepathically. “He threatened to kill the March, so we gave in.”

  Shocked at the whole situation, I send her a message, “Why didn't you tell me with your mind?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I did, but it didn’t seem to come across. I think once I am afraid and in a fearful state, I can’t do it. I was worried about the March.”

  I was going to burst out and scream at her, as she has been suspecting the March a few minutes ago. But then I realize she that is a seven-year-old child, no matter what she pretends to be.

  “Time to get off your throne, mad girl,” Tom says.

  “Why? None of you will kill me.”

  “I will kill the March.”

  “You won’t,” I say. “You know he has the Keys and you have probably told Mr. Jay already. Which means you don’t need me.”

  “Oh, we need you,” he smirks. “Mr. Jay’s issues with you are way beyond all this Wonderland War stuff. You know he killed your family.”

  Tom is provoking me. Still, what would Mr. Jay want from me? He killed my family but doesn’t want to kill me. Strange. And I think he is beyond the idea of persuading me to rejoin Black Chess.

  “Come on, Alice,” Tom says. “I will shoot the March if you don’t surrender yourself to the Reds.”

  “You won’t. You need him. Mr. Jay needs him. We all need him.”

  “But you will not risk it,” Tom says. “Even if there is tiny possibility that I will shoot him, you will never risk it. Bear in mind that I don’t care for the whole Six Keys bonanza. I just want my pills, and money for my kids.”

  I dare him, “No you won't, Tom. You’re a coward.”

  “Really?” He smirks again and points the gun at Constance and shoots.

  Past: Wonderland

  The Duchess opened the door for the Quee
n of Hearts. She hadn’t been used to that. Her Majesty visiting a poor, neglected woman like her was more of a threat than an honor. Margaret let her inside, watching the army of Reds waiting outside. She wondered if today would be the last day of her life.

  “Please come in,” she ushered the Queen.

  “Ugly house,” the Queen took off her red gloves. “But then again, ugly woman.”

  Margaret said nothing, and ate a bite from her food instead of eating shit.

  “I need a chair,” the Queen demanded.

  Margaret nodded obediently. She put the food away and went and fetched a chair. She had to choose between ramshackle and crippled, though she’d have loved to see the short Queen fall.

  The Queen embarked the chair. She was still shorter than Margaret, but not that much. “Now we can speak,” the Queen plastered a wicked smile on her face.

  “Please do,” Margaret laced her hands before her. “I am listening, My Queen.”

  “How is my sister doing?”

  “As planned,” Margaret said.

  “How long has it been?”

  “Three months.”

  “Is she still cutting herself?” the Queen asked.

  “All of the time.”

  “So she believes in the dark magic.”

  Margaret nodded, “She thinks it’s real.”

  “How many cuts?”

  “Last time she was here she was a beast of scars,” Margaret said. “She paints over them to make them look like tattoos. She looks terrible.”

  “And how is her mind?”

  “She is going insane.”

  The Queen smiled. It was a slow smile, forming with pleasure and satisfaction. She leaned forward. “Is she suffering?”

  “A terrible suffering, my Queen.”

  “Fabulous,” she did a little dance on top of the chair. “You have done well, Margaret. I have managed to drive my sister insane. I can’t wait to see when she discovers that I have played her twice. Once with the Pillar, once with you.”

  “I hate myself for what I am doing to her,” Margaret says. “She was such young, fine girl.”

  “Was.” The Queen nodded agreeably. “Was.”

  “I expect you’ll pay now,” Margaret collected herself.

  “But of course,” the Queen said. “Here, take this.”

  Margaret reached and grabbed a bottle of pink substance. She stared weirdly at it.

  “It won’t make you taller,” the Queen mocked her. “But you know what? It will make you beautiful.”

  “Does it work?” Margaret was skeptical.

  The Queen threw glances left and right, then signaled for Margaret to come closer. She said in a whispering voice, “It does work. How do you think I stay beautiful all the time?”

  Margaret cringed. The Queen was far from beautiful, but not as ugly as the Duchess. She nodded and accepted the reward.

  “Wait a week or so, and you will see results,” the Queen stated. “I advise you to leave this house, live somewhere else, and change your name too.”

  “Why?”

  “You will look different,” she said. “If I were you, I’d ditch the Duchess name. Call yourself Margaret maybe.”

  “I will consider it,” Margaret couldn’t believe she’d finally be beautiful, though she had done something terrible to get her beauty back. The pink spell had demanded she make someone ugly to be beautiful herself. In this case, the victim had been Fabiola. Not fire with fire, but fire for fairies.

  “One last thing before I go,” the Queen said. “I think there is no need for you to hide that baby of yours in the back of the house anymore.”

  “You know about it?”

  “Almost everyone knows you’re a whore,” the Queen chuckled. “Ugly and a whore.” She chuckled again. “I say give me the child.”

  “What? That’s my child.”

  “A bastard child.”

  “But mine.”

  “So was your ugly face,” the Queen rolled her eyes. “You don’t it need anymore. I will raise it and make it mine.”

  “I will not give you my only child.”

  She rolled her eyes again. “It’s not like you’ve given birth to a Prince Charming. I saw him, he is dumb and fat, like you.”

  “No! I will not give him to you.”

  “This, or my men will take the pink potion back,” the Queen threatened. “I will take your child for insurance.”

  Margaret’s life had been so miserable that she had to compromise between her child and her beauty. But in truth, she didn’t care about the child. He was such a terrible responsibility. Now she could only think about the men who would like her because of her beauty. Eventually, she handed the Queen what she desired.

  On her way out, the Queen said, “Thank you, Margaret, for ruining my sister’s life. I am forever in debt.”

  Present: King’s Cross Train Station

  Margaret could not believe what she had just read. On her knees, amidst the chaos of war, on top of a pile of lockers, she feels like she is going to die from anger.

  In fact, she was dying. She just didn’t realize it right away though.

  The note in her hands wasn’t a Wonder note. Someone had replaced it. Yes, it looked yellow and the same size as the Wonder note, but it has a lot of words written on it, not just one.

  The font was small but readable. Many words, but not article-long.

  It read:

  Dear Ugly Duchess,

  Of course, this isn’t what you have expected. I have made sure to remove the real note. You will never know what my Wonder is, though if you, especially you, would have given it some thought, you would have figured it out.

  Lifting her eyes off the letter, Margaret didn’t know what he meant. Why would she have guessed what the Pillar’s Wonder was? She had no time or strength to think it over. She was keen to know why he sent her here, playing with her and convincing her that she’d be able to know why he was doing all of this.

  She read along:

  I don’t know where the Keys are, but I do know something else about them. I know the Keys are not the usual Keys we would expect. They don’t open a safe, they don’t open a door, but they open something more precious, and precious things you don’t have, my dear.

  She was puzzled and perplexed. What did he mean? And how did he know these things about the Keys when he didn’t know where they were. Or was he just messing with her?

  She gave it a thought but couldn’t figure it out.

  In spite of the trick of sending her to chase phantoms, she decided she had to call Mr. Jay and tell him about the Pillar’s message. She called, but the master didn’t pick up, so she left a message.

  “Hey, it’s Margaret. The Pillar played us again. There is no wonder message here. But he did leave me a few words, after mocking me of course. I think it’s a puzzle. One of his tricks. It says ‘the keys don’t open a safe or a door but open something more precious, something that I don’t have,’ meaning me, Margaret.”

  She hung up, disappointed and lost. She was about to crumble the paper and throw it away when the question presented itself again: why did he send her here? Why plan this silly game? Of course, the Pillar enjoyed humiliating her, but that didn’t answer anything.

  She stopped herself from throwing the note, and flattened it back out, only to realize he’d scribbled a few words on the back.

  Ah, I forgot. The paper you just read has a poisonous flavor, from a mushroom I have created just for you. It will kill you so slowly that you will end up begging to die to avoid the pain. By slowly, I mean around three days. Three. Long. Days. No one will be able to help because it’s a Wonderland mushroom. A special gem.

  Margaret found herself coughing. Blood. It was as if reading this ignited the sickness. She felt dizzy and disoriented. Tiny pinches like pins and needles pained her all over her body. The bastard fooled her, but why didn’t he finish her at the limousine? Because he wanted her to suffer deeply on a personal level?

  I
n her darkest hour, the ugly Duchess read the Pillar’s last words.

  Suffer and die, ugly bitch.

  For Fabiola.

  Somewhere in Chaos of London’s Streets

  The two kids were brothers. Twelve and thirteen years old. They’d been pickpocketing since they were seven. Better than being homeless. In the beginning, they’d worked for an old, bald, and evil man who hired homeless children to profit from them. Then later when they’d learned the secrets of the trade, they decided to go solo.

  Entrepreneurial millennial’s frame of mind, you could say.

  Now that the world was going down the rabbit hole, they didn’t need to pickpocket anyone. Loot was everywhere. All they had to do was rummage in the pockets of the dead and find all the money they wanted.

  London was full of dead people, in every alley, every street, you name it. Happy World War III, they thought.

  This street, in particular, was full of dead people. It was the street where this madman, Pilla da Killa had killed the Queen of England, blowing her head off with a gun.

  The police had cared for no one but the Queen’s body since then. Of course, they couldn’t find her head because there was no head. Imagine a watermelon blown up with dynamite. All red and juicy.

  The kids laughed when they’d seen it on the news. When everyone avoided the street, they knew they had to come. Most of the richest people in England had been here when the shooting and explosion happened. Which means a lot of wallets. A lot of money.

  Of course, the task wasn’t easy since most of the money would have burned. But some wallets were strong. Those thick wallets, you know. Not filled with ten pounds or so, but the ones with five hundred or a thousand. Older people still carried money sometimes, the kids giggled.