Contents
THE FOUR REALMS
Anarchy Books Copyright
Other Works
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE - The Lure of Blood
CHAPTER TWO - A Knock At The Door
CHAPTER THREE - Mr West
CHAPTER FOUR - The Morality Of Hunger
CHAPTER FIVE - Maureen And The Troll
CHAPTER SIX - The Fall Of The Vampirwaffen
CHAPTER SEVEN - Death And Opportunity
CHAPTER EIGHT - Homecoming
CHAPTER NINE - The Inquisitor
CHAPTER TEN - A Different Direction
CHAPTER ELEVEN - Honest Tom
CHAPTER TWELVE - X Marks The Spot
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Fight In The Library
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Stepping Out
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Mr West Takes Charge
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - The Intruder
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - Gateways
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - The Sewers
CHAPTER NINETEEN - Escaping Home
CHAPTER TWENTY - Nanny Voodoo
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Joseph's Secret
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Narrow Escape
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - Voodoo Magic
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - Larry McNally’s
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - The Minibus
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - The Farmhouse
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - Damage Limitation
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - In The Company Of Elves
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - Vampires
CHAPTER THIRTY - An Unlikely Benefactor
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - Echoes From The Past
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - Bed Rest
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - The Trap
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - Why You Should Never Try To Mug Little Old Ladies In New Salisbury
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - D’Toeni
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - Maureen’s Rescue
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - Magellan
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - Flower Power
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - The Bunker
CHAPTER FORTY - Shadows Of War
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE - A Hero’s Welcome
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO - Final Words
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE - Fight On The M25
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR - Unexpected Arrivals
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE - Our Heroes Meet
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX - West’s Unexpected Gift
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN - Betrayal
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT - Shoes And Flowerpots
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE - Cometh The Hour
CHAPTER FIFTY - Death Of A Gateway
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE - Damage Control
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO - Aftermath
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THE FOUR REALMS
by
Adrian Faulkner
Published 2012
by
ANARCHY BOOKS
Woodhall Spa
Lincolnshire
UNITED KINGDOM
www.anarchy-books.com
ANARCHY BOOKS
Woodhall Spa
Lincolnshire
UNITED KINGDOM
www.anarchy-books.com
First published worldwide by ANARCHY BOOKS 2012
Copyright © Adrian Faulkner 2012
Adrian Faulkner asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Mobi ISBN: 978-1-908328-52-6
ePUB ISBN: 978-1-908328-53-3
ARTWORK & Cover design by Matt Cauley
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, now or yet to be invented, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This novel is wholly a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed herein are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, and to events or places, is entirely coincidental unless otherwise accredited.
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For Emily
1982 - 2004
It was always for you
CHAPTER ONE - The Lure of Blood
They were as opaque as ghosts, ignored by the London commuters jostling their way home. People walked around them, deliberately avoiding eye contact. Darwin and Cassidy were as good as invisible to the daily exodus that passed that cold February evening.
Fashion sense had been rejected in favour of warmth by the masses: pinstriped business men wore multi-coloured earmuffs, fashionable women wore thick winter jackets that puffed out their upper bodies to the size of championship weightlifters. Had Darwin and Cassidy's clothes not looked so grubby and worn they might have even blended in. But they had the stench of homelessness about them, and it made people avoid them as if they carried some form of plague.
Snow had been forecast, which probably explained some commuters' annoyance as Cassidy stood in front of the electrical shop, trying to imitate the dance moves from the music videos playing on the televisions in the window. Her black pigtails bounced along with her moves, but she had to keep stopping to push those big bottle glasses that seemed to engulf half her face back up her nose.
"Every time I think I've finally got it, they change the video," she said to Darwin, who sat on the railings watching her, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled low over his face. "Come and have a go, it’s fun!"
Darwin brushed off the idea with a wave of his hand, before tucking it back under the arm of his long, tattered woollen coat in an effort to keep warm. It wasn't that he was worried about making a fool of himself in the bustling city congregation; after all, who was paying them any attention. No, it was the fact that he didn't have the energy.
He pulled back his hood, his hair black and unkempt falling across his face. It was no wonder that their recent attempts at begging had been largely unsuccessful he thought as he looked at his reflection in the shop window. His skin was sallow, and his eyes sunk into big black rings. Even the most charitable soul would think that any donation would simply fund some drug habit. But if Darwin
had any habit, it was something those few sets of eyes that didn't look through him could never have imagined.
He'd taken to walking with his head down, not for any reason of shame, but because picking up the dropped change that littered the streets had been their best form of income. If only he could find enough money to get Cass a hot meal. Her fake fur coat - she'd never wear real fur, no matter how cold she was - hid just how skinny she really was.
Cassidy tried to twirl, and almost fell over in the process, stumbling into the window.
"I've almost got this one down," she said breathlessly, despite evidence to the contrary.
Darwin smiled weakly back. Over the past few years he'd been her protector, her provider and a surrogate older brother, and never once through all the challenges and problems they'd encounter, had she been anything other than happy.
The music video changed again, this time to some rock ballad. Cassidy played air guitar and clutched at the sky, copying the singer on the televisions. Darwin followed her hand skywards to see the first flakes of snow descend and land on his upturned face. He was about to tell Cassidy that they'd better get back to the squat before the arrival of the forecasted storm, when he stopped and sniffed. That smell was unmistakable.
"Blood," he said to himself in little more than a whisper.
It was the faintest of smells that danced around his nose and pulled at the hairs. He savoured it for a second as he felt it tingle up his nerves and to his brain where it seemed to explode. All his other senses shut down as he tried to maximise the sensory overload and he felt himself get hard.
It had been so long since he'd smelled blood this strong that it was like awakening a long dead memory. He licked his lips trying to remember the taste to accompany the smell but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
Cassidy was dancing around the pavement trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue, commuters joining the dance that was taking place by trying to step out of her way as she careened around in circles.
"It'thhh Thnowing," she said with her usual child-like innocence, her tongue extended as far as it would reach. Darwin ignored her and sniffed hard, trying to pick up the scent again. He jumped down from the railing and walked this way and that, sniffing the air like a dog. Then the smell hit him with such force that his nostrils burned and his eyes watered.
A fresh kill probably no more than a mile away. Without a second thought, he started running, his body finding reserves of energy he didn't have five minutes before. Cassidy must have looked down from the sky in time to see him running across the road.
"Darwinnnnn," she screamed, running after him. "Waiiiiiittt!"
Horns blared and brakes screeched as she ran out in front of the traffic, but Darwin didn't dare stop to see if she was all right. He might lose the scent, the body might get cold, she might try and dissuade him again. He was too hungry to concern himself with anything else.
Cassidy had a knack for making him feel guilty. When she'd first met him, she questioned why he needed to kill his prey. After all, there was half of him that was human, she'd justified. Yet attempts at abstinence had proved unsuccessful. Without blood he gradually became weak. From there they moved to pigs' blood, easily sourced from butchers. But Darwin found that by the time it had reached the butcher it was several days old and was akin, as he told Cassidy, to drinking cold tea. He'd not liked the idea of rats at first, thinking them dirty creatures, but Cassidy assured him that their blood would be perfectly clean. They had been a taste he still wasn't sure he had fully acquired, but they were in plentiful supply, and whilst lacking in nutrients, were good enough to sustain him. He'd promised Cassidy that with the exception of the rats, he'd never kill again. However that had proved much harder than he'd anticipated.
The mere smell of human blood was enough to set him off into Blood Lust, an almost primeval state where Darwin became more vampire than man. The last time it had happened it resulted in them having to hastily leaving Southampton. He tried to explain to Cassidy that it was just instinct, a natural urge from that vampire part of him, yet she'd always make him feel guilty.
But this smell Darwin was following seemed different. This wasn't some stab or bottle wound on a living person - Darwin had worked hard to try and filter those smells out. No, this was something freshly dead, and if he got there quick enough the blood would still be warm and he'd not upset Cassidy in the process. Semantics surely, but he'd still have stood by his word not to kill.
He almost collided with a man exiting a corner shop as he turned right off the High Street and up the hill. Whilst they never actually made contact, it was enough to send the man's shopping up in the air and all over the pavement. Darwin didn't dare stop, driven by an urge that whilst not totally forgotten, had remained subdued enough for the feeling to seem new. He heard the man shout expletives after him, and then a breathless Cassidy apologising on his behalf as she ran past the scene some seconds later.
The road up the hill was lined with Edwardian semi-detached houses, but to Darwin's dismay, at the top it bent to the left instead of right toward the source of the smell. He was contemplating jumping over a few gardens when he saw a narrow passageway leading down the other side of the hill. He took it, running blindly into darkness.
He couldn't hear Cassidy behind him anymore, but if they did lose each other, she knew where the squat was and could make her own way back. She might seem like easy prey to some of London's nightlife, but he wasn't the only one with a hidden side. Besides she was pretty streetwise and knew how to take care of herself.
By the time he reached the bottom of the hill, emerging out of the darkened passageway into a cul-de-sac, it was snowing hard enough to coat the world like icing sugar. That would soon turn into a covering several inches thick and possibly worse if the weather reports were to be believed. The snow also seemed to be playing havoc with his sense of smell, as upon reaching the bottom of the hill, he lost all trace of the scent. London was too labyrinthine to risk continuing to run, so he stopped and paced around, waiting for the whiff of blood to return.
His senses were on overdrive this evening. He could smell Cassidy long before he heard the heavy flat fall of her boots pounding tarmac. She came tearing down the passageway, bursting out into the road.
"I... thought... I'd... lost... you..." she panted, hands on her knees, bent forward trying to regain her breath.
He never answered, instead continuing to sniff the air, pacing in every direction. The presence of Cassidy made things more difficult, her scent overwhelming in his heightened state. Perhaps she was drowning out the smell, perhaps he could ask her to leave. It couldn't have just disappeared, could it? Darwin asked himself. If the body was being loaded into a van to be dumped in the Thames or somewhere it might. Shit, if that was the case it was nothing more than a fucking cock tease. There would be no way he'd be going back to rats, not tonight. He'd grab someone coming out of a club or jump someone walking home on their own. Fuck Cassidy and her principles.
He was just thinking on how he'd justify this to her, when a gust of wind brought the scent again, much stronger this time.
He was close, and better yet, the body was still warm. He sniffed once again to be sure of the direction and started running down another alleyway toward the source, his feet now leaving footprints in the snow.
"Oh great," said Cassidy as she chased after him, "more running!"
The alleyway was leading to a rougher part of town, which pleased Darwin. People would be too busy locking their doors to worry about looking out of their windows. Cassidy kept up this time, only a pace or two behind him.
His Blood Lust led him round the back of a parade of shops, lined by the buildings on one side, and a row of dilapidated garages on the other side. Overflowing industrial wheelie bins littered the area, and they had to make their way through. It was dark, the streetlights along the road they had just come from, blocked by the shops. The only illumination was the odd security light fixed to the back doors of th
e shop premises, casting pools of light in the pitch blackness.
Darwin sensed something was wrong. He stopped and hissed with dramatics that would have made some of the older members of the Vampire Council proud. There, slumped against a garage door and lit by a tiny pool of light that cast heavy shadows, was an elderly man, eyes unmoving and staring through Darwin just like the London commuters had. His bald head, chubby build and white beard would have made him an excellent department store Father Christmas, but in place of a red and white outfit he wore a green three piece suit, the side of it stained from the blood that was running down from the back of his head.
Across the dead man was what looked like a black branch. It seemed to emanate from behind the wheelie bins and then curl to a point on top of his chest. It was only when Darwin hissed for a second time that he saw the suckers on the underside, and watched in amazement as it twisted and recoiled back behind the bin.
"Tentacle," said Cassidy. "Please tell me you saw that tentacle."
Darwin ignored her, the smell of blood now intoxicating to the point of overpowering him. He could think of nothing else. He grabbed the head and tilted it sideways. He sank his teeth deep into the neck, like a starving man on a leg of chicken, and drank.
He'd tasted human blood many times before. He knew what to expect, knew how the taste changed when someone was a smoker or a drug user, but this blood tasted different, it tasted...
Darwin withdrew and spat over the body. The two puncture wounds in the neck continued to ooze out blood, staining the snow red as it pooled around the body.
Darwin coughed and for a moment thought he was going to be sick as he retched once or twice.
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