by Sean Davies
The moth hovered still for a moment and Winston jabbed it with the needle, piercing it right through the centre of its body. The other moths rapidly dispersed due to the sudden movement, and the Crimson Blightmoth's body shrivelled up long before it could unleash its hail of deadly blood-boiling barbs. This left its beautiful and highly prized wings perfectly intact, which was the enchanted needle's sole purpose. Winston delicately plucked them from its withered body and placed them into one of his kit's many compartments. The needle returned to its normal size, leaving the abdomen of the moth to fall gracelessly to the ground. He put the needle into its holder almost as carefully as he had handled the wings, as it too was incredibly expensive.
There were many expensive potions and ingredients traded amongst the Supernaturals with a diverse range of effects, but three in particular were especially sought after. These were known as the Corrective potions. They fetched a high yet reasonable price considering their benefits, and the ingredients to make them were always in high demand.
The Sunshield potion would allow a Vampire to walk in broad daylight without disintegrating and would even put a bit more life and heat into their pallid flesh. Very useful for moving around unhindered by sunlight, and for situations where they might be under close scrutiny.
The Tranquillity Potion would suppress a Werewolf's immense rage and prevent any unwanted transformations in public. It also reduced teeth, nail and hair growth, and stopped it from growing in places it shouldn’t amongst the elder members of their species.
The Vitality Potion would breathe life back into a Mage’s flesh. Although they were immortal like all Supernaturals, their bodies withered and aged at the same rate as a regular human, and if left unchecked an elder Mage would resemble a member of the undead even more than a Vampire would.
Winston was pleased that he had found the key ingredient to the Sunshield potion, as each wing would bring in a sizeable amount of money, if he managed to get out of the Gloom alive. Remembering that he could soon die at the hands of a psychotic herd of Freaks or an inhumane Demon made his rare find seem rather pointless. He shook it off and psyched himself up.
“Promotion and a bonus,” Winston whispered reassuringly to himself. “Grab the artefact, get out, get a promotion… and a reagent bonus.”
He continued down the stairs at a steady pace, always gazing into the darkness for any sign of danger, always anticipating a possible attack. The closer Winston got to the ground floor, the more nervous he became. The chatter, laughter, singing, shrieks, and screams of the Freaks outside grew louder the further he carried on downwards, their eerie voices becoming a spine-chilling background noise. His hand slid into his suit jacket and pulled out one of his lighters, thumbed the metal lid open and pressed it to the striker, ready to ignite it at a moment's notice.
When Winston reached the ground floor, he pushed open a creaky wooden door into the lobby of the hotel. It was well lit by Freak-conjured witchlight orbs in broken glass containers, and it reminded Winston of the old gas lamps people in the past used before electricity. All in all, the place was classy by Gloom standards. Someone, or rather something, had gone to a slight degree of effort to make the place look presentable. He dispelled his light orb and made for the main exit.
As he walked around the corner Winston noticed a Freak behind the front desk, and he instinctively went to strike his lighter when he remembered there was a diplomatic solution available. He stared at the Freak, waiting for it to make the first move. It was an abnormally tall puppet with dirty grey fabric skin and big brown stitches that held its segmented joints together. Its head was a cylindrical shape with two pure black eyes that reflected no light, and it had large stitches in the place of nostrils and eyebrows. The Freak’s head bulged outwards either side to accommodate for its huge grinning mouth, which was filled with giant human-looking square teeth. It was dressed in a dusty black suit with patches missing where it had been eaten by Blightmoths and other Gloom creepy-crawlies, and perched on its head was a grubby top hat that almost touched the ceiling.
"Will Sir be dining with us tonight?" the receptionist Freak asked in an eccentric yet posh male accent. It leaned over to bring itself to eye level with Winston and spread its long sharp fingers outward in a questioning gesture.
"No, no thank you," Winston stammered. It was the first time he’d been spoken to civilly by a Freak, rather than crudely threatened. He remembered the sack of fruit, quickly pulled out an apple and placed it on the front desk. "For your trouble. Thank you for a nice stay," he added politely.
The receptionist’s black eyes widened at the sight. “Oh, Sir is too kind! Too kind indeed! Be sure to come back anytime you like." And with the pleasantries dealt with, the Freak took on a darker demeanour. His thin fingers darted into the apple like a hurricane of knifes, segmenting it into perfectly cut cubes. He poked his forefinger into a cube and delicately placed it into his giant mouth.
Winston backed away and quickly made for the cracked glass double doors, wondering if it would’ve been his heart cut into tiny pieces and devoured as a delicacy if it hadn’t been for the fruit. What he saw next did little to abate his fear of being the main course on the Gloom menu. Freaks had encircled the front of the hotel.
They were all similar looking to the receptionist, the puppets varying in shape, size, gender, and colour. Winston felt like he had walked into a child's long discarded toy box. They all looked at him with their black lifeless eyes, filled with inhuman hunger. Winston was surrounded by a wall of living material.
"Make way," a deep husky voice cried from behind the crowd. "Make way for the Mayor!"
The crowd dispersed slightly, opening just enough to allow entrance to an ornate Spidercar-drawn carriage surrounded by burly puppet guards, who were armed with brutal looking melee weapons. From behind the carriage's filthy black side curtain, an enormously fat (or overstuffed) Freak hopped out. He was dressed as smartly as the Receptionist, if not more so. His suit, trousers, and top hat were striped black and white like a humbug sweet. His mouth was in proportion to his round head, but all of his teeth were glistening gold. He wore a broken monocle on one eye and carried a metal cane. The large Freak walked with a deliberately slow and purposeful strut towards Winston, while his armed guards followed closely behind.
"Welcome, Book Wielder," the Mayor said in a highly ostentatious voice. “Welcome to our beautiful city. I, as I’m sure you have guessed, am the Mayor! That I am! Now, I hate to cut straight to business, but your predecessor and I had something of an agreement. I’m hoping that will be the case with us too, yes?" He eyed the sack of fruit greedily.
"Yes." Winston desperately tried to quash the fright from his voice. "Fruit for safe passage?" He placed the sack in front of the Mayor.
The Mayor Freak sifted through the contents and gestured for one of his guards to lift it into his carriage, while the other guards started forcibly scattering the crowd. He slapped Winston on the shoulder and almost knocked him over. "Very good, very good indeed! Now my boy, what brings you to my little slice of the Gloom today?"
"I'm heading to the tower that has the glowing top floor," he said, pointing up at the copy of the World GOVT building in the distance. Its light shone across the misty purple sky like a lighthouse on a foggy shore. "I need to retrieve something from there."
The Mayor looked shocked and put his arm around Winston. "Now my boy, that's a very bad idea, a very bad idea indeed! I tried to warn the last one of you and he ended up as Demon food! He was a good man, a good man indeed! He brought me plenty of tasty things from your world. That he did! Demons are so uncivilised, not like us good folk, no mind for good food at all. Now then, how about me and you go catch a show? Mortissa Aurorana is singing at the Marionettes’ Playhouse theatre tonight and believe me, the rumours are true; her voice is just as sweet as rusty nails on a chalkboard!"
Winston tried wriggling out from underneath the Mayor's abnormally strong arm but gave up. "No, sorry, thank you for the offer
though. I really need to get to the tower.”
“But my boy, you'll end up dead! If you're dead, you can't bring me more sumptuous morsels!" He started sniffing. "What's that in your suit?"
Before Winston could answer, the Mayor had dug his thick fingers in to one of his pockets and pulled out his chocolate bars.
"What is this?” the Mayor questioned, his big black eyes going wide with amazement. “It smells so good, that it does!"
"That's chocolate," Winston began, glad to be out from the Mayor’s arm. "It's something sweet from my world. Take it out of the wrapper and try it."
The Mayor quickly stripped the first bar of its outer foil and took a big bite with his gold teeth. Winston could only compare his ecstatic reaction to someone who’d been on a mad drug trip. The Mayor danced around like a lunatic and made random happy noises. He quickly devoured the rest of the bar and stashed the other in his striped suit pocket.
"Now I better be off." Winston started to edge away.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my!" The Mayor seemed to regain some of his senses. "No, no, no! I can't have you walk all that way my boy! You, the incredible bringer of succulent delights!" He screeched out an ear-piercing whistle and an unoccupied Spidercar hastily rushed to meet him, cracking the road in its haste. "This is Olex, oh he's a good car, a good car indeed!"
The Spidercar chirped happily, sending spouts of steam out from its brassy joints.
"Olex will see you safely to the nasty Demon tower,” the Mayor continued, "and back if you make it out alive. I do hope you do make it out of there okay my boy, if you're dead you can't bring me more yummy treats!"
"Thank you, Mr. Mayor." Winston carefully made his way to the side of Olex, where a crude step allowed for entrance into the open topped four-seated passenger compartment. He made himself as comfy as possible on the squidgy old seats.
"Good luck my boy," the Mayor cried after him as Olex made its way down the street.
Winston watched the Freaks of the Gloom City go about their business as he was ferried to his destination. Now that they weren't so interested in eating him alive, the city didn't seem that different from the one in the real world. It was surprisingly easy to associate normality with the place if he didn't focus on it too much. He almost allowed himself to fall into a false sense of security, but the sight of the ever-approaching dark tower that dominated the city’s skyline returned him to his apprehensive yet determined state of mind. When they arrived at the circular road that led around the tower, Olex whimpered and wouldn't go any further, so Winston got off and thanked him. The Spidercar chirped a nervously pleased sound and waited for his return like a loyal pet.
The tower looked threatening from a distance and being close to it certainly did not help improve that fact. The thing seeped an aura of malice and tyranny, and the air around it was thick and clammy. Winston felt as if a thousand eyes were watching him, their weight pushing down upon his shoulders. He looked up at the dark structure in its entirety and caught a split-second glimpse of a large winged creature diving through the clouds far above. Winston crossed the deserted road, and slowly began his ascent up the steps of the plaza that surrounded the dreadful tower. He reached the top of the steps and was confronted with a large path that led to a suspiciously unguarded entrance, with tall statues of deformed humanoids tearing off their own flesh placed evenly along it. Beside the path there were gardens of blackened grass, dead flowers, and crumbling stone fountains pumping out rank black bile that was the Gloom’s water. In the real world the statues resembled revered Imperian heroes from the Great War, and the gardens were famously well-kept and cared for.
"Hey," a voice sounded from behind one of the statues.
Winston went for his gun and flicked the lid of his lighter.
The speaker walked out onto the path. He had one hand in the air as a sign that he meant no harm, and in the other hand he held a medium-sized black briefcase. He was a scrawny man with pale skin and appeared to be in his early twenties like Winston. The stranger’s blonde hair was slicked to the side in the same style Winston adopted for his own brown hair, and his eyes were light blue and filled with a confidence that overcompensated for his stature. Contrastingly, at that very moment Winston's eyes were dark green and filled with unease and doubt. The blonde man was dressed smartly yet practically in black clothing with various straps and compartments worn over them, including a couple of holsters, but not enough to limit his movement. He also wore a long black overcoat with many pockets and fine silver markings woven neatly around the edges. It was these markings that led Winston to focus more on the briefcase he carried, for it too had a fine silver marking just barely visible on the black leather. It was an equilateral triangle, divided into equal parts by three lines going from each corner into its centre. It was the sign of the Trinity of Old, an organisation comprised of the oldest living Supernaturals and the governing body of their whole society. Since the end of the Great War, the Trinity of Old’s influence had waned and the gangs now had more power than the Trinity could control, but the Trinity possessed a weapon that all Supernaturals feared, a weapon that allowed them to keep a tenuous hold on their positions of power.
“I don't want trouble,” the stranger said confidently, “I just want to talk."
"You're with the Trinity, right?” Winston asked, taking his hand off neither lighter nor pistol.
"Unfortunately I am,” the man admitted unhappily, “but I don't want to be. That’s why I've been waiting for someone from the Shadow Circle to arrive. That was your man up there, right? I tried dealing with him, but he was gone and dead before I got here. Figured if I kept coming here and waiting by the entrance they'd send another one of you."
"Sorry, but I don’t have any real influence in the Circle. Not yet anyway,” Winston shrugged, but continued to keep his guard up. “This is like my trial for the primary position."
"Fuck." He lowered his hands and walked casually towards Winston. "Well, I'm going to help you get whatever's at the top of that tower, and after that you can tell your boss all about what a fine asset I'd be to the Circle." He reached into his pocket which made Winston flinch, but it was just a contact card. "Chill out. If I wanted to kill you I could've done it quite easily when you were eyeballing those statues. The name’s Lewis Thorne, by the way."
"I'm Winston Reynolds." He pocketed the lighter and contact card, holstered his pistol and shook Lewis' hand. "So why do you want to leave the Trinity?"
"Because they're a bunch of miserable old fogies who want to spend all their time sitting underground in their tunnels and chambers.” Lewis began angrily. “When I became a Book Wielder a year or so back, I thought I'd been recruited by the leaders of the Supernaturals. Turns out they’re just boring old has-beens desperately clutching to what little power they have left, trying to convince the gangs to hide underground with them. It's pathetic. The Shadow Circle's the most influential gang in The Capital and on the continent, and when we make it out of this shit hole they’re going to have two more kick-ass Book Wielders in their arsenal!”
“Yeah, I'd heard that about the Trinity. I'm lucky to have the opportunity to impress the Circle, but there're Demons in that tower. They killed one Book Wielder easily enough, how can you be so confident that we can succeed where he failed?" Winston asked, wondering where the blonde-haired Book Wielder’s certainty was coming from.
"Because we came prepared for the job!" Lewis knelt on the floor, opened his briefcase, and pulled out four 9mm pistol clips. "Two for you, and two for me. Sanctium filled rounds, the only thing that keeps the Trinity in the loop these days. Supernaturals, Freaks, and Demons beware." He pulled his own pistol out and loaded it.
Winston looked closely at the clip. It looked normal enough, but a radiant blue light glowed from within. He emptied the regular clip from his pistol and replaced it with the Sanctium one. "So it’s true that the Trinity managed to retrieve the alchemical formula for Sanctium before the witch hunters were destroyed?"
&n
bsp; Lewis shrugged. "I don't know. They say they have it, but they only let their oldest, most trusted members in on the secrets. Just one of the many reasons I want to jump ship. I have my own theories about the matter, but they’re a work in progress. Anyway, where’s your book?"
"Top Floor of the Hotel Noir," Winston replied.
"Fuck me, you've got a long way to go after this is over. You’re going to be knackered trekking back all the way through Freaksville." Lewis opened one of his pouches and pulled out a vial of clear liquid marked 'NRG'. "It's an energy potion, self-brewed. Should do the job, though I don't know how you're going to manage handling that artefact all the way back. I'd help out but I've already been here way too long waiting to see if someone would show, and my book is only over the road from here."
"Thanks, for this and for everything else,” Winston said gratefully, “but I've got a deal with the Mayor for safe passage, and he gave me a Spidercar in exchange for some chocolate. That's what I eat here instead of energy potions. I haven’t had the chance to get much potion brewing experience living at home with my parents."
"Chocolate, huh? That's good thinking. I got desperate on my first visit here and made the mistake of drinking the water, it tasted like death." He shuddered as if the memory was physically painful. "Wait… how do you know if a Freak is a Mayor or not, and how did you hammer out such a good deal?!"
"Well, he introduced himself as the Mayor,” Winston began plainly, “plus his guards were shouting at the other Freaks to make way for him. We started talking and I gave him a big sack of fruit for safe passage. He sniffed out my chocolate and took a bar, and when the Mayor ate it he acted like he'd done a ton of drugs, and then he introduced me to the Spidercar Olex." Winston thought it sounded pretty simple, but Lewis looked at him as though he was a lunatic.