Doorways (A Book of Vampires, Werewolves & Black Magic) (The Doorways Trilogy - Book One)

by Tim O'Rourke

  ‘As soon as you’ve gone, I’ll pass the picture and paperwork over to our force intelligence officer who will send out an all force report.’

  Sensing the police officer’s wish to be rid of him, Fandel wiped his eyes one last time for effect, and then placed the tissue in his pocket. Standing, he went to the door where the police officer was checking his watch again. Fandel didn’t care that the police officer wanted to get rid of him. He didn’t want to stay in the police station any longer than he had to. He had never liked the police; they made him nervous.

  ‘What’s your name officer?’ Fandel asked.

  ‘Constable Moody,’ he replied, ushering Fandel towards the door and out into the front office.

  ‘You’ve been most helpful Constable Moody. I’d like to write a letter of thanks.’

  Constable Moody checked his watch again. Two minutes until his shift ended. ‘There’s really no need.’

  ‘I like writing letters,’ Fandel added as the police officer opened the station door.

  ‘Like I said, I’m just doing my job. I’ll file the report and if we hear any news on your nephew we’ll be in touch.’

  ‘Likewise,’ Fandel said, stifling a snigger in the knowledge that Zach would never be returning home.

  Constable Moody shut the door behind Fandel. He glanced at his watch again. One minute to go. Running up the stairs to the locker room, he pulled his clip-on tie from his throat. Placing the missing person report on top of his locker, Constable Moody got changed out of his uniform.

  Fandel thrust his hands deep into his coat pockets. How fortunate I’ve been dealt with by such an incompetent and lazy police officer, he thought to himself. He wouldn’t even file that report, but that wouldn’t be Fandel’s fault. He had done the dutiful thing and reported his beloved nephew missing. Content, he smiled to himself and made the cold walk back to his cottage.

  Slamming his locker closed, Constable Moody left the changing room. He got to the top of the stairs and then slapped his forehead with the flat of his hand. Running back to the changing room, he snatched the missing person’s report from the top of his locker. Despite making himself late for kick-off, he dashed up two flights of stairs to the force intelligence office and handed in his report.

  Chapter 17

  Without thinking, Zach fastened his seat belt as the pilot had instructed. Then it dawned on him where he was. ‘I’m on a plane!’

  Looking to his right, and if it hadn’t been for the seatbelt, Zach would have jumped from his seat. Sitting beside him was the biggest dog he had ever seen. The dog had a long white snout, with black rings of fur around its eyes and ears. Its nose was black and wet looking and long grey whiskers gathered around it. The animal’s eyes were bright red with piercing black pupils. The dog looked like a cross between a wolf and a Siberian husky.

  ‘What you gawping at?’ the wolf/husky-thing asked Zach.

  Fumbling for the clasp on his seatbelt, Zach tried to distance himself from this animal.

  ‘Did you just say something?’ he gasped.

  ‘What’s got into you Zach Black?’ the wolf/husky asked.

  Hearing its voice again, Zach realised he recognised it. ‘Will…William is that you?’

  ‘Of course it’s me. Who else could it be?’

  Looking at William in disbelief, he said, ‘William have you seen yourself?’

  ‘What do ya mean have I seen myself?’ William said, raising one giant white paw in front of his face. Barking with surprise, he added, ‘what’s happened to me?’

  ‘I think coming through that doorway has changed you. Like I changed coming through to Endra. I think this is how you’re meant to look in my world,’ Zach added.

  Placing the paw across his eyes, William said, ‘where are my spectacles? How comes I can see without them.’

  ‘Perhaps you don’t need them in Earth,’ Zach suggested.

  ‘What about Neanna? Where is she?’ William asked.

  Peering past Williams’s huge frame, Zach could see Neanna bent double in the seat closest to the window. At first glance, she appeared unchanged, but then Zach noticed her back. It seemed hunched up; as if she was hiding something beneath the black coat she was now wearing.

  ‘Neanna, are you ok?’ Zach asked her.

  Turning her head to look at him, Neanna’s face seemed as beautiful as ever.

  If not more beautiful, Zach thought.

  Her pale blue eyes shone and her pink coloured freckles lit up her impish face like splashes of sunlight. Neanna’s hair framed her face in thick, black curls which sparkled so bright that Zach had to close his eyes for a moment.

  ‘I feel fine,’ Neanna beamed.

  It was then that Zach and William both noticed her teeth. Where she once had a perfect set, now sat a pair of gleaming white fangs.

  ‘What’s happed to your teeth?’ Zach asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said, popping her thumb into her mouth and prodding about.

  ‘Ouch!’ she cried, withdrawing her thumb which was now bleeding. Seeing the blood, she mopped it up with her tongue and licked her lips as if savoring some gastronomic delicacy.

  ‘You’ve got fangs!’ William barked.

  ‘You can talk!’ Neanna said, looking at the wolf’s red gapping mouth and gleaming teeth. ‘At least mine aren’t covered in saliva!’

  ‘What’s wrong with your back?’ Zach asked, checking out her rounded shoulders.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Neanna replied, twisting in her seat.

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘No, it just feels as if I’ve got something stuffed up my coat. Where did this coat come from?’

  ‘The same place my crossbows, boots and…’ Zach checked himself out to discover he was now wearing the trainers, jeans and jumper he’d had on the day he came across the doorway on the beach.

  ‘Where have my crossbows gone?’ he asked no-one in particular.

  ‘Never mind your crossbows, what’s that hideous humming sound? It’s hurting my ears,’ William woofed.

  ‘Oh, that’s the engines,’ Zach told him.

  ‘Engines? What are engines?’

  ‘They’re the things that are keeping us up in the air.’

  ‘In the air?’ William yelped.

  ‘Yeah, we’re on a plane?’

  ‘What’s a plane?’ Neanna asked, flashing her fangs at him.

  ‘An airplane,’ Zach said dumbfounded, realising his friends had never heard of a plane before. ‘It’s a machine that flies through the sky.’

  ‘You mean we’re flying through the sky?’ William asked.

  ‘We’ll…yeah,’ Zach added still bewildered that William had no knowledge of an airplane.

  ‘I don’t like the thought of that,’ William yelped like a puppy and then started shifting in his seat. ‘How high are we?’

  ‘It’s hard to say,’ Zach said, glancing around the cabin. ‘This looks like a jumbo-jet so we could be flying as high as forty thousand feet!’

  ‘Forty thousand feet!’ Neanna exclaimed.

  ‘I don’t like it!’ William began to howl. ‘I want to get off!’

  ‘You can’t get off until we land,’ Zach told him with a bemused smirk on his face. ‘Everything you’ve seen in Endra – the zombies, the Radan, those ghost-knights and you’re frightened of a bit of flying!’ Zach teased. ‘You’re a werewolf for crying-out-loud!’

  Looking at him with his fierce red eyes, William growled, ‘it’s a shame you wasn’t this cocky back in Endra.’

  ‘We’ll perhaps you can understand now what it was like for me to step into some strange world where I knew nobody, where I was being chased by a bunch of hoodies riding dead-ape-looking-things and then found myself in some god-forsaken forest, where zombies were dropping out of the sky and popping up from beneath my feet…’

  ‘They’re Slath, not Zombies!’ Neanna corrected him.

  ‘Whatever!’ Zach said. ‘Now you know what it was like for me, so quit complaining. Yo
u’re gonna draw attention to us. Besides, we’ll be landing soon!’

  ‘I think it’s too late for that,’ Neanna whispered.

  ‘Too late for what?’ Zach asked with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  Neanna nodded in the direction of the aisle, and Zach looked up to see a member of the cabin crew rushing towards them dressed in a shocking mustard coloured uniform.

  ‘How did you get that animal on board?’ the flight attendant demanded.

  ‘Oh…erm…this is my pet dog William,’ Zach said with a nervous grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘In fact how did any of you get on the flight? I’ve worked this plane since we left Orlando eight hours ago and I haven’t noticed any of you before. Where did you come from?’ she asked, her face a mask of confusion.

  ‘We’ve felt sick since take-off and spent most of the time in the toilet,’ Zach said.

  ‘What’s wrong with your teeth?’ she asked, spotting Neanna’s fangs.

  ‘Yeah, well my friend is waiting to have a brace…’ Zach started.

  ‘I’m not happy about this. Not one little bit,’ the stewardess said shaking her head from side to side. ‘There’s something wrong about you three. I’m going to have to contact the captain.’

  Before Zach could say anything else (although what else could he have said to explain the sudden appearance of a teenage boy, a werewolf and a vampire on an airplane forty thousand feet above the earth) the crew member had swirled around in a blaze of mustard and gone running back down the aisle.

  ‘I think we’re in trouble,’ Zach said to his friends, his stomach somersaulting as the plane lost altitude and raced towards the runway.

  Chapter 18

  As soon as the airplane’s wheels screamed across the tarmac, Zach released his seatbelt and jumped up.

  ‘Somehow we’ve got to get off this plane or that’s the end of our journey,’ he hissed at his friends.

  ‘Why?’ William barked.

  ‘Why?’ Zach said exasperated. ‘Because that lady has gone to tell the captain about us, and he will now be radioing the control tower who will be calling the cops to meet us on our arrival.’

  Cops?’ Neanna asked.

  Zach sighed and said, ‘peacekeepers.’

  ‘About time someone with some authority turned up. The peacekeepers won’t harm us,’ William said with a misguided confidence.

  ‘I don’t think they’re gonna be like the peacekeepers in Endra,’ Zach warned him. He then looked at William and Neanna and said, ‘God knows what they’ll make of you two!’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Neanna said, unfastening her seatbelt.

  ‘I don’t think they’ve ever been called to deal with a werewolf and a vampire on a flight before. Drunken football fans, yes. But not a werewolf and a vampire!’ Zach said, crouching and following the emergency lighting up the aisle.

  Leaping from his seat, William sauntered up the aisle behind Zach, his large white fluffy tail swaying from side to side like a stick of candy-floss. Bending almost in half, her back hunched as if she were concealing something under her coat, Neanna followed. Passing the ends of the aisle, they were spotted by some of the other passengers.

  ‘There’s a giant dog on the plane!’ a man said.

  ‘Where? Where?’ a female shouted.

  ‘Oh my god! He’s right! There’s a wolf on the flight!’ somebody else shrieked.

  Then other passengers began to release their seat belts and stand so they too could get a look.

  ‘What’s she hiding under her coat?’ a young man said, pointing at Neanna who was crawling on her hands and knees up the aisle.

  ‘It’s a bomb!’ a female screamed so loud that Zach thought his ears were going to bleed.

  ‘A bomb?’ one of the cabin crew yelled.

  ‘There’s a bomb!’ another crew member cried, running to the nearest toilet cubicle and locking himself inside.

  Seeing this, other passengers began to scream and climb over their seats to the back of the plane to be as far away from Neanna as possible. Within a matter of moments, the plane erupted into sheer chaos and panic.

  The pilot barked a series of orders at the air traffic controllers via his radio. The plane continued to taxi up the runaway as the air traffic controllers closed all of the gates, and ordered the pilot to steer the plane away from the south terminal and to the end of the runway.

  Reaching one of the exit doors, Zach peered through the little oval window out into the darkness. In the distance he could see the red and blue flashing lights of police and fire engines as they raced towards them.

  Turning, he slumped against the door and slid to the floor. Looking at William and Neanna, he said, ‘I don’t know how we’re gonna get out of this one!’

  ‘Pull yourself together Zach Black!’ Neanna shouted, ‘that door can be opened!’

  Looking up, Zach could see a list of instructions stuck to the inside of the door, which started:

  In case of emergency…

  With the help of Neanna, Zach followed the instructions and with a whoosh of air they forced the door open. The plane was still moving and, almost losing his balance, Zach teetered on the lip of the doorway as the runway speed past below. Grabbing hold of his jumper, Neanna pulled him back into the cabin.

  ‘What now?’ Zach roared over the sound of the engines. ‘We’re way too high to jump!’

  Beneath the sound of the screaming engines and the roar of the wind that howled past outside, Zach could just about hear the sound of tearing. Looking at Neanna, Zach could see her coat begin to rip apart up the back. As the fabric began to fall away in strips, William and Zach stared in wonder as a pair of black wings unfolded from beneath Neanna’s coat.

  ‘Whoa!’ Zach said, ‘How I didn’t see that one coming!’

  Each wing seemed to have a long bony shoulder and arm that was about six feet in length. Beneath this arm hung the wing, which was a see-through and stretchy looking membrane.

  Shaking from head to foot, Neanna unraveled her wings. She looked from side-to-side and up at them.

  ‘I have wings!’ she said. ‘I have wings!’

  Throwing his head back, William howled in approval.

  Neanna turned to face the passengers that had now pressed themselves together at the back of the plane.

  ‘See I don’t have a bomb. I have wings!’ she scolded them. Scooping Zach and William up into her arms, Neanna swept out of the doorway and into the night.

  The stewardess in her mustard uniform stared in disbelief as Neanna’s big black wings fluttered through the doorway. That was the last thing the stewardess saw before her legs buckled beneath her and she fainted in the aisle.

  Swooping over the runway, Neanna beat her wings up and down. But she began to lose height and spiral out of control towards the ground.

  ‘You’re too heavy!’ she shouted at Zach and William, holding them tight against her. ‘I’m gonna have to land!’

  Fanning her wings out like two giant sails, Neanna headed for the runway. Hitting the ground running, she released Zach and William from her arms. Tumbling onto the runway, Zach and William rolled over and over. William yelped as the pads on his paws skidded over the tarmac. Staggering to his feet, Zach looked at the police vehicles that were fast approaching. Their emergency lights sending shadows across the airfield in flashes of blue and red.

  ‘Run!’ he roared, heading towards the lights of the terminal.

  Bounding after him, William’s claws ‘clacked’ against the surface of the runway. Soaring a few feet above them, Neanna pounded her wings up and down like a bird of prey.

  The police vehicles veered off the runway and chased them across the grass, their sirens wailing and lights throbbing.

  ‘Did you see that?’ one of the police marksmen asked the driver of the armored vehicle.

  The driver shook his head as if shaking away cobwebs and said, ‘I saw something fly from that plane but I’m not sure w
hat it was!’

  ‘It looked like some kinda giant bat,’ the police marksman shouted over the din of the squealing sirens.

  ‘Look there they go,’ the driver yelled, speeding after them.

  ‘It looks like that lad is being chased by a wolf and that bat-thing,’ the marksman roared, releasing the safety on his gun.

  The three of them raced towards a stationary plane, diving under its giant wings. Zach glanced back over his shoulder as a synthesized sounding voice came from the pursing police cars.

  ‘STOP!’ the voice ordered. ‘ARMED POLICE! STOP OR WE WILL SHOOT!’

  ‘They can’t shoot,’ William howled, ‘they’re peacekeepers. We’ve done nothing wrong!’

  ‘I keep trying to tell you, they’re not peacekeepers – they’re cops!’ Zach panted, running towards a hanger that had trailers full of luggage being driven into it.

  ‘But we’re the good guys!’ William barked.

  ‘Somehow I don’t think they will see it like that!’ Zach shouted as the synthesized voice came again.

  ‘THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING! STOP OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE!’

  Neanna soared towards the entrance of the hanger and Zach and William raced along beneath her.

  Clack! Clack! Clack!

  The air exploded with the sound of gunfire as the pursing cops opened fire.

  ‘You weren’t kidding,’ William howled, a stream of bullets whizzing above his head.

  ‘About what?’ Zach gasped in fright.

  ‘They’re nothing like peacekeepers. They’re a rotten shot!’ William barked, bounding into the hanger.

  Screeching to a halt, streams of smoke billowed up from beneath the tires of the police vehicles.

  ‘Alpha-Echo control! Alpha-Echo control from Whisky-Four-Five,’ one of the cops roared into his headset.

  ‘Go ahead,’ a voice from the control room crackled in his ear.

  ‘Subjects have decamped into the luggage store. I repeat the subjects have decamped into the luggage store.’

  ‘Alpha-Echo control to Whiskey-Four-Five, seal the area, seal the area. We will contact the on-call negotiator.’