“She really has been an awful pain,” he said. “But you have taken care of her – with a little help from me, no doubt. I took the liberty of placing a weakening mushroom in her nightly meal, which is why it was so easy for you to attack and kill her. But kill her, you did. So, for that, I will spare your life.”
“You’re the King?” Alice asked, but even then she knew the answer. All around her, subjects were bowing before him.
Alice was stunned. How could this be happening? The Mad Hatter’s words flashed through her mind:
“It is the King you must be truly afraid of. He can take many forms, take on the shape of any living creature that he wants. It is part of what makes him so dangerous. You never see him coming, because he could be anyone.”
She had never seen him coming. All this time, all along, he had been right there. And she had done his bidding. She had killed his wife. In the background, she could see Maxmillian, who had since dislodged the axe from his chest, weeping as he gathered the Queen’s bloodied body in his arms and carried her off toward the palace.
“But why?” Alice asked.
“Because, now I have ALL the power,” the King said.
Alice still stood there, dumbfounded. “Then why didn’t you just kill her yourself?”
“Because it is forbidden by vampire law. A vampire cannot kill another vampire, or they lose all their powers,” he said.
“So you needed a slayer to do it,” Alice finished.
“Precisely.”
“Why didn’t you just get Tobias?” she asked.
“Because he liked my wife,” The King said, exasperated, as if this were the most annoying thing on the planet. “I brought him here to kill her, but he figured out my plan and refused to go through with it. I had him locked away in the castle before he could tell her. I kept him alive for years, hoping he would change his mind. But, alas, now that you have done the deed I can get rid of him.”
“NO!” Alice objected. “You let him go with me.”
The King seemed to be considering this when, suddenly, Tobias, who had been standing there silently all along, grabbed the axe from the ground and brought it swiftly to the King’s throat. He paused, waiting to strike. The crowd gasped. “No one moves or it’s off with his head,” he said.
“You can’t kill our King!” said Dreck, one of the vampires who had capture Alice earlier in the day. “We’ll have no one to rule over us. What will we do?”
“That’s not my problem.”
“You cannot kill me,” The King said. “Or you’ll have a far worse problem on your hands. I rule this group with an iron fist.” He laughed. “You kill me, and you’ll have no order. You’ll have a war on your hands, a bloodbath unlike anything you’ve seen before. Every vampire in Wonderland will ascend up the well to wreak havoc on you and all you love. That’s a war you cannot win, my boy, trust me on this.”
Tobias seemed to be considering the King’s words. “Maybe so. But I think I’d like to take my chances.”
The King eyed him nervously. “You’re just crazy enough to do it, aren’t you boy? Will you seriously not listen to reason?”
“I’ll spare your life, but on one condition.”
“What’s that?” The King asked.
“You say you rule with an iron fist?”
“Yes.”
Tobias drove the axe blade in harder to the King’s throat. “Then promise me right here and now that you’ll keep control of your hoard, that you’ll keep them all below ground, where they belong. I don’t want to ever see one these bloodsuckers come up that rabbit-hole again.”
“That’s a deal.”
“I mean it.”
“And I’ve agreed. You have my word on it. I stake my life.” He laughed at the pun.
“Very well,” said Tobias. “But I’d advise you not to break your word to me. I may not have much power down here, but I’ve an entire army of slayers up above, and you don’t want to face the wrath of them.”
They shook on it, tentatively, and to Alice’s astonishment he let the King go.
“Very well, then,” The King said. “You two can go home.”
As they walked away Alice took stock of her fellow slayer for the first time. He was handsome, with dark brown hair and eyes. He looked to be a few years older than her, perhaps in his twenties.
“Why did you let him go?” Alice asked as they walked away.
“He was right,” Tobias said. “Killing him would have solved nothing. It would have just created disorder and chaos and a whole angry herd.”
“Then why did you give me the dagger to kill the Queen?”
“I never had an alliance with her,” he said. “It was only pretend, for survival. That’s how I got this. He produced a small pouch from beneath his cloak.
“What’s that?” Alice asked.
“Our ticket home,” Tobias asked.
“Besides, the Queen was not much better than the King. She was merely a lesser evil, but she was still evil. And as long as she was alive, the King would continue to lure slayers here in his quest to kill her.”
Tobias unwrapped the pouch to reveal a small pink cake.
“Eat this,” Tobias said, handing her a piece of the cake.
“I can’t,” Alice told him.
“It’s the only way,” he told her. “We can go home again.”
“But the Queen, the King – we can’t just leave them alive!”
“This isn’t our war,” Tobias said. “The Queen’s too weak to do anything right now, and the King gave us his word.”
“And you believe him?”
“No, not really.” Tobias looked stricken. “But it’s the best option we have. If he doesn’t stick to it, we’ll come back. But we’ll come back armed and ready to fight. Here, today, right now…this is a battle we can’t win. We don’t have the weapons.”
“I already took out three vampires,” Alice said. “And you got five.”
“But we used up all our stakes, and the axe is broken,” he reminded her. “There’s no way we can keep going. We have to go home.”
Alice didn’t want to believe it, but she knew he was right. As much as it pained her to walk away from a battle, especially when they were so close to the beasts, she knew they had no other choice.
She took the cake from his hands and, slowly brought a piece up to her mouth. “If the King doesn’t keep his promise,” she said.
“We come back,” Tobias finished.
“How will I find you?” Alice asked.
Tobias pulled his cloak back to expose a bracelet on his wrist. She noticed it was made up of tiny bones. “If you need me, use this. It is magic.” He pulled it off and handed it to her.
“Be very careful with it. The power will only work once, and it brings with it quite a kickback.”
Alice slipped the bracelet onto her wrist.
And with that, they both took a bite of the cake at the same time. Alice had just finished swallowing when a hoard of vampires rounded the corner – the Queen’s minions, soaked from head to toe in her blood.
“There she is!” Maxmillian screamed. “Off with her head!”
They came flying down upon her.
Alice gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off…when suddenly, the whole garden went foggy. When she came to the vampires were gone! But so was Tobias.
Alice looked around, unable to believe what she was seeing. But sure enough she was lying on the hill outside her home, staring up to see the sun rise through the trees.
She heard the door to the house open and Lorina emerged, rested and happy that the nighttime was over and she no longer had to remain locked away.
“Hey there!” her sister called, coming down the hill. “Busy night?”
Alice smiled and waved her away. There was no use in trying to explain. Lorina could barely understand the simple workings of their world; to tell her of the previous nights events would only exhaust her. Alice fingered the bra
celet on her wrist, the one reminder that it had all been true. One day, maybe, her sister could understand. But for now it would remain a secret.
A secret with so many unanswered questions.
Where had Tobias gone? Would she ever see him again? And what about the King? Would he gain control of the kingdom now that the Queen was dead? And would he really keep his bargain to stay down below and never venture up the rabbit-hole again?
Somehow, Alice already knew the answer to these things, knew it was only a matter of time before she would find out, only a matter of time before she would go back. But even if she didn’t, she knew in her heart that this strange place would forever be a part of her.
Alice sat on the grass, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland.
THE END
Alice in Wonderland: The Vampire Slayer Page 6