Dreamleaf Blues (The Book Wielder Saga)

by Sean Davies

  “Seth is so fucking pissed right now!” Archie yelled. “He’s already prepping to set Woodsholme on fire tomoz! Someone go find Gaius before he kicks the shit out of us!”

  “What about the party?” a Golden Fang nursing two Dreamleaf joints complained loudly.

  Archie stopped and looked around. “Alright, have fun for a bit, then go find Gaius. Don’t say I never do owt for ya!”

  Once the brutes were out of the entrance, Genevieve slunk inside, responding to any cheery greetings she received with a fake smile and a slight nod. Her mind was racing and her heart was pounding, but she kept her mind sharp as a knife and her thoughts focused and unflinching.

  Genevieve entered the dungeons and found Kaylie, Tanesha, and Varsara getting ready in one of the cells.

  “Hey, sexy,” Kaylie said merrily. “Heard you’ve been busy rising to the top, hope you’re going to celebrate with us in style!”

  “Didn’t think we’d be seeing you ‘til much later,” Tanesha said, blowing her a kiss in-between applying her lipstick.

  Varsara traced her fingers between her breasts and down her body, “Any time is good for me…”

  “Scythe’s been blown sky-high too,” Tanesha added cruelly, “so you know it’s going to be a good night!”

  Genevieve deflected the flirtation with her hand and pulled out Scythe’s key. “The shit’s about to hit the fan. The Shadow Circle and Trinity are about to come down on this place like a DVO missile.”

  “Shit, what?!” Tanesha exclaimed.

  “Explain to us what’s happened,” Varsara asked in her sweet Tropican accent.

  “It was me who killed Scythe,” Genevieve explained quickly, “and blew Gaius to pieces just after.”

  “Fucking get in there!” Tanesha cheered, rushing to Genie and putting her arm around her shoulders in celebration. “Two for one special on dead cunts – when we’re not all about to die, remind me to fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before, Genie-girl!”

  “Why did you do it?” Kaylie asked with dread in her voice. “It wasn’t… they didn’t…”

  “What? What has happened?” Varsara turned to Kaylie, confused.

  The pretty Mage didn’t take her eyes off Genevieve’s as she answered her own question sadly. “It was them, wasn’t it? The whole time… those bastards,” Kaylie said furiously.

  Genevieve nodded, trying to keep her anger from abating into sadness. “They snatched Annabelle, tortured her in unspeakable ways, and killed her. They covered it up so that I’d fight for them.”

  Tanesha released Genevieve from out under her arm and looked her intently in the eye. “Tell me you’re going to kill him! We’ll help. We’re not much for fighting, but-”

  “No,” Genevieve interrupted quickly. “I need you to get anyone who’s decent, the ones who are here reluctantly, or just aren’t total psycho dipshits, and bring them here. No one knows this lot better than you and the other girls. You’ve got to be quick though, there isn’t much time.”

  “You can count on us,” Varsara said firmly. “Give Seth hell.” She dove into her lynx form and bounded out of the room on all fours.

  Tanesha forced a long kiss on Genevieve’s lips. “Don’t die on us, Genie-girl,” she said before running off in her lacy body stocking.

  “I’ll tell the other girls to follow suit,” Kaylie said, rubbing Genevieve’s tense shoulders as she spoke. “Are you sure you don’t want any back-up?” the busty Mage asked in a concerned tone. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “No, I’ll be fine, but thank you,” Genie replied kindly. “I’ve got to check something out first anyway, something I need to see with my own two eyes. By the time I get to Goldfang, this place will be filled with Trinity and Circle forces.”

  “Okay… good luck,” Kaylie said, reluctantly letting go of Genie’s shoulders. “Just try to keep a level head, hun, even if he provokes you; using anger alone won’t be enough to overcome his speed.”

  Genevieve thanked the Mage for her wise words and assistance, and then headed through the locked door, into the darkness, and towards the real interrogation room.

  When she reached the room lit by magefire torches, Genevieve pulled away the red carpet and revealed a large iron trapdoor marked with the usual twin fangs engraving that denoted a magically enchanted trap. Genie wasn’t sure if the security spells even worked after Chaz’s demise, but she wasn’t about to try her luck. She inserted Scythe’s key and unlocked the heavy trapdoor, wrenched it open, and was hit by the stench of death mixed with overwhelmingly sweet incense.

  Genevieve hated herself for not figuring out the Golden Fang’s deceptions sooner. She had literally been standing on top of the evidence the whole time. Genie had even stood on the very same red carpet, feeling that something was amiss, but passed it off as her grief-stricken mind inventing false leads for her to follow. In reality, her subconscious had sensed the deceit long before her conscious mind had caught up, but she had been unwilling and unable to handle the massive implications that such a grand betrayal would have on her life. ‘I’m ready now,’ she thought bitterly as she ventured forth to conclude her investigation once and for all.

  Genevieve steeled herself for the horrors ahead, lowered herself onto the iron ladder, and descended into the pitch darkness. After passing several rungs, Genie was once again greeted by the blue flickering glow of magefire torches, and a more distinct and overpowering stench. Genevieve’s feet touched the stone floor and she found herself in a cellar lined with small bloodstained cells, interspersed with incense burners and magefire torches. The cells ended abruptly at a large area on the floor with a big circular iron grate in its centre. For a moment, Genevieve thought she’d stumbled into one of Chloe’s pictures of the Gloom, or through a gateway to hell, as the acts of sickening and sadistic butchery displayed around the room seemed too inhumane to exist in the real world.

  Meat hooks hung from the ceiling at regular intervals, holding ravaged carcasses so mutilated that Genie could only just recognise them as human. All around her were trolleys and racks of surgical equipment, brutal weapons, tools, and torture devices. There were even chainsaws and hedge trimmers, still stained from their last use. Unlike the clean, seldom used rooms above, the small cells lining the disturbing basement showed clear signs of regular use. Wooden racks, shackles, and hooks were coated in dry blood along with whatever apparatus had been used last. Metal buckets contained extremities, entrails, and whatever else the Golden Fangs had removed for their sick entertainment and information gathering sessions. Genevieve studied the bloody works of torment around her and fought the unbearable revulsion and urge to vomit. Instead, she imagined all the torment and injustice that the victims had suffered, and channelled it inwards to combine with her already overflowing wrath.

  Genevieve wasn’t surprised when she saw a typewriter in one of the far cells, next to makeshift gallows featuring chain and barbed wire nooses, and she bust open the barred door to investigate. Although Gaius had been fastidiously organised in his day-to-day life, his dirty little secret life was a wreck in comparison. Papers and files littered the small cell and the movable trolley the old-fashioned typewriter sat upon, and filing cabinets were stuffed beyond capacity with notes describing everything from private personal details to enemy gang movements. Genie scattered the papers in anger and slung the typewriter against the wall, where it smashed to smithereens in a satisfying clang.

  She approached the metal grate, where she could feel cool air and hear the distant echoing of the night’s breeze, over the thumping bass from the gargantuan speakers rattling through the ancient stonework. Genevieve stood on the grid of metal bars, nearby a hatch big enough to dump a body down, and she looked at the ghastly scene below and gasped. It had once been an ancient stone sewer, but the Golden Fangs had refashioned it into a mass grave, and the pit and adjoining tunnel were littered with bones and decomposing bodies. The old airy sewer tunnel helped to mitigate the smell, but it didn’t stop Gen
evieve from retching between the bars.

  A flash of silver and gold caught her eye, beside a stack of small cages fitted with inwardly facing spikes and nails, and Genie wiped her mouth clean and forced herself to investigate. Although the open rectangular area had more or less the same assemblage of terrifying tools, racks, and incarceration devices, Genevieve noticed that it seemed full of possessions that had been put into piles, containers, and boxes which she assumed were intended for future sorting. Before she could reach the boxes of jewellery, she noticed a rack of clothing, and one outfit in particular stood out from the rest. It was the unattractively bland uniform from the Woodsholme Grill, and Eryn’s small silver name badge was still attached to the chest. Genevieve clenched her fists so hard that drops of her blood speckled the floor. She remembered the lie Seth had told her regarding her former supervisor’s choice to obey or run, and it felt as though her stomach was becoming an induction furnace of pure unbridled fury.

  What Genevieve saw next tipped her mind over the point of madness. Sitting in a small open-topped wooden box of silver jewellery, between a much emptier box containing gold items and a plastic container filled with car keys, was Annabelle’s heart-shaped locket. With violently shaking hands, she opened it up and studied the pictures of them both fitted behind the tiny panes of glass. Tears streamed down her pretty face as she remembered how the two of them had been in those happier, simpler times. Genie closed the locket and clenched it in her hand. Through all the twists, turns, lies, and false leads, her investigation was finally at a close. Her fangs grew into vicious points and she let out a deep, demonic growl.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  With all the intoxicated debauchery and dancing in the courtyard, not to mention the deafening repetitive beat blasting from the massive arrangement of speakers, no one noticed or seemed to care when a Werewolf Brutebeast jumped onto the crumbling walls.

  Kavarne stood tall and proud in his impressively fearful, dark-brown furred Brutebeast form, holding his savage battle-axe in one claw while the other supported Veronica on his shoulder.

  The beautiful Bloodmage lifted her hands in the air and an unsuspecting Golden Fang rose upwards, his body steaming, and his veins and arteries became swollen and began to throb as Veronica primed her greatest spell. By the time the Golden Fang’s nearby comrades acknowledged the apparent danger, it was far too late. The gang member exploded in a shower of steaming gore, blown asunder by Veronica’s Blood Boil spell. Kavarne set the Blood Mage down on the wall, where she set about firing bolts of her blood magic into the crowd, setting the Golden Fangs on one another in a psychotic rage, distorting their simple minds and searing their blood from within.

  Kavarne leapt into the courtyard and began sweeping his axe in a wide, deadly arch, to keep Veronica safe and to dismember as many Golden Fangs as he could in the process.

  Archie pumped his muscles up to the maximum in all his Ironfang splendour, and roared for his comrades to begin the counterattack. However, his allies were slow to react, and many were still horrified by the sight of the legendary Blood Boil spell – a piece of blood magic only practised by the very best Blood Mages on all of Mydia – and they cut and ran, escaping over the fort’s far wall.

  Lynette, the Werewolf Swiftpaw, leapt over the front wall in her four-legged shaggy light-brown wolf form, and snatched a Vampire out of the air, who was gliding towards Kavarne, by his head. She ravaged her foe’s face and throat in her razor-sharp maw before bounding to Kavarne’s side. The Brutebeast scooped up his lover by her furry belly and launched her towards some charging Golden Fangs. Lynette mowed them down with her blade-like claws before darting out of the way of incoming gunfire with her lightning fast agility.

  Archie swore as he narrowly dodged a barrage of wispy blood magic bolts, ducking under the Brutebeast’s huge battle axe and rolling out of the path of the Shadow Circle’s Swiftpaw. He thought of an interesting and unconventional attack, and quickly elongated one of his finger talons until it was the length of a sword. With a massive bellow, he snapped off his own bladed nail and launched it like a javelin towards the pesky Bloodmage on the wall.

  Xavier swept into the air and dived down, deflecting the makeshift javelin with a swift strike from his own Spell-forged sword, and fired his pistol, putting a well-aimed bullet between Archie’s eyes before he even touched the ground. Not being one to cut corners, and fully aware that a sturdy Vampire or Werewolf can survive a headshot, Xavier darted over to the Golden Fang Captain and unloaded his entire clip into the brute’s heaving muscular chest, blasting his still-beating heart to pieces. Archie quickly bled out, and dissolved into a pile of grey dust and stretched clothing. Xavier rapidly reloaded and struck out to the side with his sword without lifting his gaze, severing the top half of a Mage’s skull in one swift snick, and then twirled to the side and repeatedly impaled a Golden Fang Brutebeast mid-transformation.

  Then the Trinity entered the battle. Their melee fighters joined the Shadow Circle in the courtyard, dispatching their demoralised and heavily intoxicated foes with artful skill. Their robed Mages joined Veronica on the old walls and rained death from above in the form of fireballs, lances of ice, and surges of electricity. A Trinity Shaman rose her hands to the heavens, and the once clear skies curdled into a vicious squall. Bolts of lightning struck Fort Dominia’s battlements, frying the Supernaturals and detonating the horde of fireworks in a beautifully deadly display of colours and sparkles.

  Some Golden Fangs retreated in whichever direction wasn’t barred, and the ones that remained were dead within minutes. The combined forces of the Shadow Circle and Trinity of Old finished their gruesome business in the courtyard, leaving the giant speakers to blast out the roaring tunes and drown out the screams as they set about executing their wounded foes. Then they swept inside the fort to put an end to the brazen gang of thugs, once and for all.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Genevieve was unsure of how much time had passed by, if any at all, since she had picked up the necklace she’d bought for her love in what seemed like a completely different dream-like life, but the sound of footsteps snapped her out of her trance.

  “Genevieve?!” Seth yelled angrily. “What the fuck are you doing down here? Why did you send the girls to roam around the fort on a work night, and why did I have to break all eight of Tanesha’s fingers to find out that you’d arrived, let alone come down to the interrogation room?!”

  She took a deep breath as she composed her weary mind into action, and added eight more reasons that Seth should die to her ever-growing mental list.

  Seth continued approaching and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, none of that shit matters… all that matters is that you’re ‘ere! The motherfucking Shadow Circle hit us hard today, they toasted the Woodsholme Grill to cinders and Scythe along with it. I can’t even get hold of that fucking snake Gaius. Bet he’s still pissy at me for benching him and ignoring his boring old man advice-”

  “The Woodsholme Grill was me,” Genevieve interrupted with a sociopathic calmness, still facing the far wall and clutching the locket tightly. “I beheaded Scythe and put her head in the bin. Then Gaius came along to kill Scythe, on his way to kill you, so I blew him up with the charges we took from the Morriganigh.”

  Seth stopped in his tracks and looked dumbfounded. “What… why?!”

  Genevieve turned around holding the silver locket out, still open so he could see the pictures of Annabelle and herself.

  “I- I can explain…” Seth stammered in an uncharacteristically timid way. “It was Gaius, he loves all this sick shit! I didn’t even want an interrogation room, but he was a crazy old sadist-”

  “It’s funny,” Genie interrupted again. “He tried to shift all the blame onto you, too. I’m guessing you both got off on satisfying your dark desires, along with your little squad of cowardly mates. Raping, torturing, exercising your power on the helpless, making their life a living nightmare, just like that Feral Mage did to you and your loved ones…”
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  “Shut the fuck up!” Seth snapped. “It ain’t something I’m proud of, okay?! That traitorous cunt Gaius got us all in to it, that’s the truth, I swear on my sister’s grave.”

  “You’re still culpable, no matter who fucking started it!” Genevieve screamed. “You didn’t have to do… that to my Annabelle!”

  “If I’d known she was your mate, I’d have never done it!” Seth said, trying to sound reasonable. “I didn’t even know ya, or how fucking kick-ass you’d be once I turned you!”

  “If that’s your idea of an apology you’ve got a long way to go,” Genevieve said as she slowly closed the locket and put it around her slender neck. “But you’ll have plenty of time to practise when you’re burning in hell.”

  “Don’t make me do this, Genevieve,” Seth warned as he un-holstered his large pistol and unsheathed a combat knife. “Even if you get me, there’s still a fort’s worth of my Golden Fangs sitting above ya. You’re about to commit suicide over some dead chick…”

  Genie freed her Spell-forged steel Katana of its artfully crafted Saya, and took a long look at her watch. “No, by now the Shadow Circle and Trinity will have killed most of your men, and the rest have probably run off to change their underwear. Oh… didn’t I mention that I invited your enemies along to your party of the century?” she asked mockingly. “They’re crashing your castle as we speak.”

  “You fucking whore!” Seth roared, seeing red he charged across the room in a blur, firing his pistol ahead of him.

  Genevieve’s adrenaline surged throughout her bloodstream in massive pulsing waves that matched the bass leaking through the fort from above, and her extreme reflexes came into play. However, she was well aware that Seth’s reflexes were doing the exact same thing. She dodged his bullets with ease and deflected a few away with a quick spin of her unbreakable Katana.

  Seth had the barrel of the gun to Genevieve’s temple a fraction of a second later, and Genevieve grunted as she twisted away and sliced upwards before Seth could pull the trigger. Goldfang moved his arm out of the way of the lightning-fast counterattack but didn’t move his gun in time, and Genie’s sword sliced it in two. He kicked out at her stomach and Genevieve dodged out of the way, but it had been a feint attack and he managed to punch her lower arm, just as she was preparing to strike again, causing her Katana to spin through the air and towards the far end of the room.