by K T Kaye
“The plan is in motion. The gorgon boy has been captured.”
“Excellent.”
“Master Jet sir, I don’t quite understand.”
“I don’t pay you to understand Jeeves.”
“You don’t pay me at all sir!”
“Well, I give you blood don’t I!? And... what don’t you understand?”
“I don’t understand why you wanted the gorgon boy to be caught?”
“Really Jeeves! Do I have to explain the entire plan to you again!?”
“It’d be appreciated sir.”
Mr Jet hissed angrily, “Why do I keep you alive!?”
“Because everyone else would rather die than work for you sir,” Jeeves answered honestly.
“That’s,” the vampire sighed, rubbing his head as a migraine surfaced (this regularly occurred whenever Jeeves spoke), “He got caught so that he would tell them about the warehouse.”
“But they’ll execute him!”
“That’s the point Jeeves!”
“But why did you have to choose him? I liked that lad, he was a nice chap, very friendly and he owes me...”
“Because he will have the biggest impact on Angel.”
“Her again!” Jeeves exclaimed, “It’s always that Angel. She’s all you ever talk about. I’m setting this trap to catch Angel. I’m killing these children to send a message to Angel. Will this manor be expecting a mistress soon?”
“Jeeves!”
“Sorry Master Jet sir. I didn’t realise you were still obsessing over the shapeshifter. I thought you’d moved on to the fairy.”
“The fairy? Oh the princess! Ah no, I just needed her blood. Apart from as a blood slave, the fairy is of little use to me. If it wasn’t for our friend, I wouldn’t keep her alive.”
“How did you know she was a princess? I can’t understand how you worked that one out!”
“Because of the body Jeeves! I explained this to you before! The body at the vampire hotel! He was killed by the powers of the Unseelie King.”
“Why would the fairy king go to a vampire hotel?”
“He didn’t! His daughter did! Really Jeeves, has your memory faded with age!?”
“Well I am seven-hundred and seventy-three, sir.”
“Yes, well there has been a rumour, rattling around the changeling trade for years, about the Seelie Queen and Unseelie King having a child, which is how I knew she was a princess.”
“Ah,” Jeeves nodded, “But wouldn’t such a powerful fey be of use to you?”
“The girl herself is of little importance, her blood, if we were to drain her, would be of use.”
“Is the shapeshifter of use?”
Mr Jet smiled, “Indeed.”
“Are you sure you don’t just have a crush on her?”
“Jeeves!”
“I was only asking sir! You just seem a little bit obsessed with her.”
Mr Jet gave his butler a hard stare then asked, “Has the forcefield been set up at the Polar Base?”
“Yes sir however they still require the final ingredient.”
“Tell them I shall bring it to them shortly.”
“Ah so you’ll be paying her another visit then?”
“Indeed. Her memories have started to return. I could sense it when we last met. It’ll be intriguing to see how she copes, and how he copes.”
“I’m surprised you left him alive, he’ll cause you problems later on! Him just being there, if he kills you, don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’ll be your own fault after all, you shouldn’t have made him so powerful!”
“Yes well I didn’t expect him to break free from the enchantment! And he may be more powerful than his peers, but he is certainly not more powerful than me!”
“Master Jet sir, you know none of this would have happened if you hadn’t started experimenting! You had all of them in the palm of your hand. The Master, the shapeshifter, the prince, but you got too excited and started messing around with your tools, if you hadn’t ruined the Mis…”
“Jeeves!” Mr Jet shouted, throwing his bloody wine glass at his butler. The wine glass smashed into pieces as it hit the floor. The blood staining the old carpet rug.
“Sorry Master Jet sir. I didn’t mean to say that!” Jeeves apologised, staring at the blood stained rug, “No need to waste good blood though. And look at that stain, that’ll never come out!”
Mr Jet sighed, “What about Atlantis?”
“Our spies tell me that Atlantis is prepared.”
“And they’re certain that there aren’t any teleporters in the city?”
“They’ve been removed, as have our allies. But Master Jet sir, how are you so sure that Angel will do as you plan?”
“Because she’s predictable. She cares about others so naturally she’ll attempt to save as many people as possible. She won’t let others get hurt in her place, so she’s bound to remain behind.”
“But Master Jet sir, what if she dies?”
“That won’t happen! I’ll make sure of that,” Mr Jet got to his feet and walked over to the fireplace. The vampire watched the flames for a moment then placed his hand into the blaze. Instead of turning into ash, the flames bounced across the vampire’s fingertips.
“That’s mighty impressive that is, sir,” Jeeves complimented as he stepped away from the fire.
“Indeed,” Mr Jet smiled, he rolled his hand into a fist and the flames extinguished. He then turned to his butler, “Tell the Miss at the base to be prepared. Remind her to collect as many souls as possible. And contact the witch. Tell her to visit. She’s been acting up recently, she needs to be reminded who the boss of this operation is. Oh and make sure you feed the hell hounds, you forgot yesterday so they ate one of the maids.”
“Maids? Oh you mean the possessed human girl! She wasn’t that bright anyways sir, and her blood was horribly bitter!”
“Still the maids are our dinner Jeeves, not the hell hounds. I especially don’t want Timothy eating them. He’s meant to be on a diet!”
“Yes Master Jet sir, I’ll see to it sir,” Jeeves bowed his head and quickly headed out of the room.
As soon as he was out of Mr Jet’s earshot, the vampire butler muttered, “Ungrateful twit!”
17
‘Just follow the procedure’
Angel pushed Paris down into the cells. The cells were dark and dirty. Guarded by vampires, the cells were a place that few dared to tread. It was a cold place. A deadly place. Filled with demon prisoners awaiting execution. Angel hated the cells. The stench of the place messed with her senses. With every step she took, shivers ran down her spine. Paris, on the other hand, was surprisingly calm to say that he was about to be locked up with a demon.
“I bet this must kill you,” Paris muttered, “Having to lock up one of your own. The great Lightning Squad crumbling under the leadership of a stupid little girl. You’re going to die you know.”
“Yes, well most people do,” Angel shoved Paris towards a cell, “Look in there. Remember her?”
Inside was a giant three stinger scorpion. Its body was black, and its eyes bright red. It was chained to the wall. As the pair got closer, it scrambled as far as it could towards them. Angel unlocked the cell door and stood Paris in the doorway.
“Because look, she remembers you. You killed her children.”
“Is this meant to scare me? Are you trying to get me to talk? Because this isn’t going to work,” Paris snapped.
“We’ll see,” Angel pushed Paris inside the cell and chained him to the wall.
“You’ll die Angel! On Halloween you’ll die.”
“Looking forward to it,” Angel began to walk away.
“You’ll regret this Night!” Paris yelled.
“Oh, I doubt it.”
* * * * *
Jason was sat on a bench waiting for Angel. The sedation had finally worn off and the Master of Darkness had returned to his usual confused self. The magic Angel had used to sedate him had suppressed his pan
ic-attack, so now Jason could clearly think through the situation. Paris was a terrorist. He had tried to kill Sophie and because of this he was, most likely, going to be executed. These were the facts. However whilst Jason knew these facts to be true, he still found them hard to understand.
Paris hadn’t seemed evil. He had seemed normal, well as normal as a half-gorgon could be. It wasn’t like Mr Jet. Mr Jet looked evil. He looked cold and his eyes held little emotion. Paris hadn’t been like that. Paris had been fun and cool; he had always worn an inviting smile and Jason had enjoyed being in his company. It was this that Jason found hardest to deal with. Jason had been friends with Paris, however Paris worked for the man who murdered his mum. Jason scratched the back of his head as he stressed over how to cope with this situation. In the space of a few weeks Jason had lost his mum, had found out that he wasn’t human, had joined this crazy paranormal world and had fought against a monstrous vampire. Not only that but his friend and tutor had turned out to be a terrorist! This was a lot for Jason to deal with!
“The sedation has worn off,” Angel muttered as she walked over to Jason.
“Yeah, sorry about the nonsense.”
“You mean Steve the evil carrot?” Jason nodded. “You know normally people, when they’re sedated, just get a bit tired and tipsy, they don’t normally think that vegetables are going to take over the world.”
“Sorry, in the cells did everything go okay?”
“I guess,” Angel shrugged as she sat down next to Jason.
There was silence until Jason finally mustered up the courage to ask, “Why did Paris do it? Why did he work for Mr Jet? I can’t understand why he would want demons to take over the world.”
“I don’t really understand it myself. I think many of Mr Jet’s followers don’t actually want demons to take over, rather they think that they can use the demons to take over themselves, if that makes sense?”
“Ah I see,” the pair fell into silence once more.
“I need your notes from your tutoring sessions with Paris,” Angel explained, “I want to check what Paris has been teaching you. I should have tutored you myself. I put a terrorist in charge of teaching the Master of Darkness! In your tutor sessions, did Paris ever say anything that looking back seems suspicious?”
“I don’t think so. He once mentioned that he wasn’t a fan of the Emperor but that’s it.”
“Okay,” Angel paused for a moment, “We’re going to have to take it in turns to watch over Sophie. I will work out a timetable. We’re going to have to be careful from now on, the other squads are going to be watching us closely.”
“Thunder, Wildfire, Tsunami, Tornado, Volcano, Avalanche and Lightning,” Jason muttered, “Why are all the squads, apart from Alpha, named after natural disasters?”
“I was told that the squads have these names to remind us that some things are out of our control. No matter how great your plan is, no matter how hard you might prepare, things can happen that we have no control over, like a natural disaster. The missions we go on, things can go wrong, things can go horribly wrong, however no matter how awful or bloody the mission might end up being, we have to pick ourselves up and come back fighting, like humans do after a natural disaster.”
“Wow, that was deep, I wasn’t expecting that,” Jason paused, “There’s just one thing I don’t get. Why is Alpha Squad called Alpha and not named after a natural disaster?”
“Alpha was the last squad to be created, so they probably couldn’t think of another natural disaster to name it after.”
“They could have gone with Hurricane and Earthquake.”
“Hurricane and Earthquake are training squads.”
“Training squads?”
“When new recruits come to the base they are put into either Hurricane or Earthquake Squad. These squads don’t go on missions, they’re just for training. When your training is considered complete you move into one of the active squads. Technically you should be in one of those squads but, because you’re the Master of Darkness, you’ve been thrown right into an active squad.”
“So I shouldn’t be doing missions!? I should just be training!? Oh that’s not fair! I would much rather be in training! It’d be much easier than being in Lightning Squad!”
Angel laughed, “We need to get inside, the lock down will start soon.”
“What happens in lock down?”
“The grounds are cursed. Anyone who steps outside, gets burnt alive.”
“That sounds awful!”
“Yeah it’s nasty but it works. Everyone stays indoors and normally no one innocent gets fried.”
“Normally?”
“Yeah well you never know.”
“Great,” Jason really hoped that he didn’t suddenly decide to start sleep walking outside in the middle of the night.
* * * * *
Sophie’s eyes fluttered open, but she couldn’t see. She tried to move but she could only lift a finger.
“H…hello,” Sophie stuttered.
“You’re awake,” Danny’s voice echoed around the hospital room.
“What happened to me? Why can’t I see? Why can’t I move? Where am I?”
“You were stabbed with an iron dagger. Your eyes are covered. Rowan used magic to numb your body. You’re in the hospital wing,” Danny answered.
“Why are my eyes covered?”
“You still have Paris’ powers. We don’t want you to turn us to stone.”
“Does Rowan have any idea how long I’ll be a gorgon for?”
“Nope. We can’t even work out how you managed to steal his powers. How did you do that?”
“I’m not really sure. What happened to him?”
“To Paris? He’s in the cells.”
There was silence then Sophie muttered, “Mr Jet wanted my blood, but Paris wanted to kill me…”
“Yeah that’s been bugging me all day. If Mr Jet wanted you dead, he could have killed you in the forest so why did he wait and send Paris?”
“That is the question,” Alexander muttered upon entering the room.
“Alex is that you?” Sophie asked.
“Yes, it’s me, I’ve come to take over…”
“I’ll be off then,” and with that Danny got to his feet and headed out the room. However when he got to the corridor Alexander was in front of him.
“Damn vampires. Shouldn’t you be with Sophie?” Danny asked bitterly.
“How did you survive the hell hound attack? It doesn’t make sense. There’s no way a mere illusionist could survive an attack by two hell hounds.”
“And yet here I am!”
“What are you? You have clearly got illusionist powers but that’s not want you are.”
“What am I then? Look I get that you don’t like me, but there’s no need for you to question my identity. In fact if anyone’s identity needs checking it’s yours.”
“What?”
“See I’ve never trusted you. I couldn’t work out what it was about you I didn’t like but there was just something. So I started to do some research. What I found out about you is very interesting. A lot of dead women.” Alexander grabbed Danny and shoved him into a wall.
“I don’t know what you’ve found out,” Alexander hissed, “But…”
“Your reaction tells me you know exactly what I’ve found out,” Danny smiled.
“You can believe the stories you’ve heard if you want to, but you don’t speak a word of this to Angel. If you do…”
“You’ll do what? Kill me? Try it. It only takes me two minutes to kill a normal vampire, I wonder how long it’d take me to kill a vampire mutant.”
Alexander punched Danny’s face. Danny smiled and returned the punch. They fought until Alexander had once again pinned Danny against the wall.
“My history, do you think the Colonel doesn’t know it? If the Colonel thought my history was so important, he would have kicked me out or told Angel already,” Alexander hissed.
“That just makes me distr
ust the Colonel.”
“As much as I don’t want to interrupt this cute little moment you two seem to be having,” Skyjack mocked, “Could you get out of my way, I have patients to see to.”
Alexander let go of Danny and turned to the pegacorn, “Sorry Skyjack.”
“Yes well. Shouldn’t one of you be guarding Sophie?”
“Yeah, he should,” Danny muttered.
“Well then perhaps the pair of you should get back to where you’re supposed to be,” Skyjack pushed past them, “Lock down will be starting soon, if you have somewhere to be you better get there fast.”
With that Skyjack left them and went into the hospital wing. Alexander followed. Danny quickly ran back to the Lightning Squad house. He made it just in time. As soon as he had shut the door, it glowed blue and locked. Outside the ground glowed red and all the windows slammed shut. Danny walked upstairs to Angel’s room, but she wasn’t there. He was about to head downstairs when he heard a voice muttering softly from the opposite direction. He headed down the corridor and found Angel knelt outside Paris’ bedroom door. She had her wand in her hand and Paris’ door was glowing dark blue. In Angel’s other hand was a notebook, the pages were blank until, by magic, names started to appear.
“What are you doing?” Danny asked.
“I’m locking Paris’ door. The captains will be coming tomorrow to search it, I don’t want anything being moved.”
“And the notebook?”
“This will tell me the names of all the people who have visited Paris’ room. It should also tell me when and for how long they were there.”
“I bet there will be a lot of late night visitors,” Danny muttered.
“Probably. You okay? You look annoyed.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Which means it’s something. What’s up?”
“Alex,” Danny sat down next to Angel.
“Ah, did you two get into a fight again?”
“Kind of.”
“Why did you fight this time?”
“Nothing. It’s just don’t trust Alex, he’s not what he seems. He’s not…a good guy.”
“Elaborate.”