by Rebecca Hall
“Let’s try to avoid you getting that sick.”
Nikola sneezed and Mitch handed him a tissue.
“Stars, I have you well trained,” Nikola said once he’d blown his nose. Mitch pushed himself off the wall and padded into his own room, kicking off his jandals as soon as he was inside and sinking his feet into the thick, new carpet. The furnishings were clearly new as well, with not a scratch or speck of dust to be seen, and even with the windows open to tempt in the non-existent breeze the air smelled faintly of paint.
His suitcase lay on a chest that could have swallowed it whole, at the end of a neatly made king-sized bed. A corner desk and bookshelves dominated one wall while a set of drawers, wallplanner and noticeboard occupied another. Someone had decorated the noticeboard with pins in a passable outline of Dracula’s castle.
“Amelie?” Mitch guessed.
“Yep,” Nikola replied.
Mitch unwrapped his books and set them on the shelves where they looked forlorn and lonely. A laptop sat on the desk with a tangle of wires disappearing into the wall and, presumably, the modem, and a pen holder and pad sat nearby. Other than that the room was empty. Mitch didn’t think his clothes would fill half the drawers, let alone the wardrobe.
He opened the wardrobe and found more shelves, coat hangers and a shoe rack; never mind the drawers, he could keep everything in there, including his suitcase, and still have room for Narnia. There was even a bar fridge for his blood.
Mitch gulped; Sieg always had a ready supply of blood on hand but he hadn’t thought about how he’d get it while at University.
“Don’t worry,” Nikola said, “we’ll sort it out on Monday, you’ve got enough until then.”
Mitch sighed, “Thanks. How much rent are we paying?” he asked, already dreading the flat inspections. He could not explain a fridge full of blood.
“We’re not,” Nikola said. “Gawain bought it for us and had it done up over the summer. It didn’t cost that much.”
“Only because you have no concept of money,” Mitch said. The furnishings were hardwood rather than cheap laminate and while Mitch wasn’t quite the expert on electronics Sieg was, he was certain that the laptop was expensive, never mind the cost of renovating the entire house.
“You’re wasting your time with him Mitch,” Amelie said from the open window. Mitch jumped and she laughed. “I was wondering what was taking you so long and then I heard voices. Honestly,” she hoisted herself up to sit on the window sill, “you haven’t seen me in weeks and yet you gawk at an empty room instead of coming to find me.”
“It’s a big room,” Mitch said feebly.
Amelie rolled her eyes. “I took your cookies out of the oven by the way,” she said to Nikola.
“You made cookies?” Mitch asked.
“Of course,” Nikola grinned. “How else are we supposed to break in our new home?”
“I can think of one or two things,” Amelie said in a tone that made Mitch very glad that vampires couldn’t blush.
The Netherworld
“There are a lot of people here,” Mitch said. They’d had to dodge and weave around people all the way through campus to the lecture theatre. It was only half full but still contained more people than Mitch had had to spend time with in an enclosed space since the Dance with the Dead. It was not a confidence-inspiring thought.
“Well, yes,” Nikola replied, “it is the first lecture of the year.” He smiled over his shoulder, “You’ll be fine.”
“Are you’re sure this is a good idea?” Mitch asked.
“Would we be here if I didn’t?” Nikola asked, “It would have been a lot easier to just let you sleep in.” Mitch had already decided that he didn’t like eight am lectures. People weren’t meant to be up and alert at that time of the day and that went doubly for vampires. Changelings didn’t seem to mind; Nikola had already been for a run.
“That wasn’t sleeping in,” Mitch said, “it was too early for sleeping in.”
Nikola laughed, “Let’s just sit down.”
“But…” Mitch froze. Vampires might have almost no taste buds to speak of but their sense of smell was excellent and the girl sitting at the end of the row he was passing smelled of blood. She must have cut herself shaving, Mitch told himself.
“Come on Mitch,” Nikola said. He reached back and grabbed Mitch’s arm, tugging him into motion.
“Sorry,” Mitch mumbled as he slid into an empty seat next to Nikola. Nikola just shrugged and sneezed and Mitch silently offered him a tissue. Nikola insisted that it was just hayfever and he’d be fine once he adjusted to the new environment, but Mitch still worried. Nikola got sick at the drop of a hat and he wasn’t sure he was up to facing an eight am lecture on his own yet.
Almost as if to confirm his fears, his gaze drifted back to the girl.
“Focus Mitchell,” Nikola said.
“It would be a lot easier if I had coffee,” Mitch said. Plenty of the other students held steaming cups but by the time he’d dragged himself out of bed it had been too late for him to be one of them.
“I’ll tell Amelie,” Nikola threatened. “I’m sure she’d be very understanding of your lack of coffee.” He sneezed again and Mitch added antihistamines to the top of his mental shopping list, right under coffee.
“How do you know I wasn’t thinking of setting you up with her?” Mitch asked.
“Because I can hear what you’re thinking,” Nikola reminded him. “And I’m not interested in girls.”
Mitch was suddenly very glad that he didn’t have any coffee, he would have sprayed it everywhere. He had to settle for almost swallowing his tongue instead.
“And you think now’s the time to tell me that?” he finally spluttered. He’d known Nikola for four years and been friends with him for almost half that time and he’d had no idea. In fact he seemed to recall Nikola flat out lying about it on one occasion, though the Academy had been cursed at the time and they hadn’t really been friends then, but that had been more than a year ago.
Nikola blinked, “Oh, right, sorry. I’m used to everyone in my life knowing about that. So, ah, yes, I’m gay.” He shook his head slightly, “Stars, that felt weird, I haven’t had to tell anyone in years.”
“Well maybe you should practice,” Mitch said. “God, at least I’m awake now.” Not that it would help him focus at all but their lecturer wasn’t here yet anyway.
“Who else would I need to tell?” Nikola asked. “Everyone at home knows.”
“Maybe you’ll make some new friends,” Mitch suggested, it had been known to happen.
“They’re human,” Nikola said as their lecturer finally walked in.
Apparently he wasn’t a fan of modern technology, or semi modern. He ignored the projector and whiteboard and started scrawling equations across the blackboard. He ignored the wireless microphone as well though Mitch wasn’t sure how well that would have worked with him and Nikola in the room. He’d already heard people grumbling about the crappy wifi though that seemed to be due to the concrete walls.
Mitch found his attention wandering. Today’s lecture seemed to be more about making sure everyone was on the same page than teaching them anything new, and it was boring. Nikola was barely paying attention as well, along with half their classmates. He could even hear a couple whispering about the murder in Leith Valley.
Mitch found himself looking around the unfamiliar faces and trying to avoid eye contact with those who were doing the same. He didn’t want to actually talk to any of these people, just being in the same room with them was enough. Mitch hunched his shoulders and told himself that no one was paying him an undue amount of attention. They couldn’t see his hypodermic fangs though the faerie glamour and firmly closed lips. Anyone who looked at them twice probably just liked blonds. Maybe they were wondering how someone could be as rail thin as Nikola. Hell, he wondered that at times; Nikola ate like a bottomless pit when he wasn’t sick but his metabolism could give a hummingbird a run for its money.
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Nikola nudged his foot and tapped the corner of his book.
You’re doing fine.
So far, Mitch scrawled back.
You’re not going to hurt anyone.
Mitch sighed, he knew Nikola wouldn’t let him hurt anyone. He’d made Nikola promise to compel him not to if he so much as started to drool, but rationality didn’t seem to be getting much of a say right now. His gaze flicked to the clock and back, just ten more minutes and he could go home.
“We have to go get your blood first remember,” Nikola whispered inside his head.
“Get it from where? The Red Cross?”
“You’ll see.” Nikola sneezed and Mitch passed him another tissue. Nikola had never got into the habit of carrying them, he usually just used magic, but he couldn’t in a crowded lecture theatre and somehow he’d trained Mitch to carry them for him.
“Thank you.”
Mitch smiled at his friend and checked the clock again, nine minutes to go.
Mitch practically bolted when the final minute was up, ramming his sunglasses into place when the light stung his eyes. There were even more people around than there had been before his lecture but he was outside now, not trapped in a concrete box with a year’s supply of food.
“Wrong way Mitchell,” Nikola called from behind him.
“How was I supposed to know?” Mitch said, trudging back to him. “‘You’ll see’ isn’t a direction.”
“It’s one of those places you need to see to believe,” Nikola said, setting off in the opposite direction. If anything the new path seemed even more crowded and Mitch almost took Nikola’s hand to keep from getting separated.
“That wasn’t too bad was it?” Nikola asked, turning into a small, almost deserted courtyard. There were only a couple of students hurrying into the surrounding buildings.
“I guess,” Mitch said. It would have been better with coffee, or at midday, but he hadn’t felt an irresistible urge to bite anyone. “What about you?”
“You mean apart from the fact that it was mind-numbingly boring?” Nikola asked. He’d been taught maths in Faerie and you couldn’t get maths wrong in Faerie without rewriting the universe. Mitch couldn’t even begin to make sense of the language but Nikola could probably use it to turn the sky green.
“I’d have to completely alter the composition of the earth’s atmosphere to do that,” Nikola said.
“You could study something that you like,” Mitch suggested. “They do teach classical studies and languages here.” Nikola’s bookshelves were overflowing with mythology, most of it ancient and in the original languages. Nikola had a thing for first editions and despised translations.
“They teach translations and analyses,” Nikola said, “which is a fine way to ruin a good story. And I am taking a couple of the language papers this semester but they’re going to be painfully slow.” He sighed and Mitch shook his head. Nikola had a gift for languages but some of the more abstract areas of physics did have practical applications in his magic.
“Where are we?” Mitch asked, they’d exchanged the courtyard for a tangle of paths around the backs of buildings that no one ever used unless they were lost.
“On our way to see your supplier,” Nikola replied.
“You make it sound as if I have a drug problem.”
Nikola smiled, “You’ll have to talk to Amelie about that. There’s all sorts of research on the subject.”
“But you don’t speak biology,” Mitch finished for him. They both preferred their sciences theoretical but Amelie actually seemed to like biology.
They halted outside a perfectly ordinary door that didn’t appear to be home to a ring of blood dealers. It didn’t even have a protective eave to huddle under as they fumbled for the keys in the middle of the night. The only indication that it was anything special was the faint hint of magic.
Nikola reached for the handle, muttering something incomprehensible in Faerie. All Faerie was incomprehensible to Mitch though he’d memorised dozens of sigils for Alchemy. The door opened, revealing a perfectly ordinary corridor, and they stepped inside.
Mitch lurched into the wall and struggled against nausea that had no outlet. Forget about having his heart in his mouth, if felt as if that door had shoved his spleen into his foot, tried to yank his stomach out through his ears and used his intestines as silly string.
He ripped his glasses off, blinking as he tried to adjust to the dim red light and looked for Nikola, if he felt bad he didn’t want to think about what it had done to his friend. Nikola was leaning against the door they’d come through, his eyes wide and face flushed.
“What the hell was that?” Mitch asked. They definitely weren’t in the corridor that he’d expected to find them in. The room was too wide and room shaped and there weren’t any walls, just a succession of differently coloured doors. An ornamental fountain sat in the middle, the steady trickle of water offering a soothing counterpoint to their ragged breathing.
“What the fuck just happened?” Mitch asked. He staggered over to Nikola and hugged him, that at least felt normal though Nikola was shaking.
“Nethergate,” Nikola gasped, returning the embrace.
“Nether-what?”
“Nethergate,” Nikola repeated. “It’s like when we use Faerie to collapse space but with the magic fixed in place like that it can only reach about ten metres.”
“Very useful if you want to hide,” said a feminine voice. “Anyone who tries to use the door without activating the gate will just find themselves inside the building, this one’s a psych lab I believe.”
Mitch let go of Nikola and spun. A woman was approaching them though Mitch didn’t remember hearing any of the doors. He couldn’t hear her heels clicking across the flagstone floor either.
“He didn’t have any trouble finding it,” Mitch said, nodding to Nikola.
The woman laughed, “We’re not trying to hide from each other,” she said. “Particularly not one of Fae blood, they refuse to teach anyone else how to make those bloody doors.”
“Doesn’t stop you working it out on your own,” Nikola muttered. “I assume you’re Rana.”
“Yes,” she smiled, “I’m the Queen of the Netherworld. Please, follow me.”
“The Netherworld,” Mitch hissed at Nikola.
“It’s the magical underworld,” Nikola replied, “what were you expecting?”
“Hellhounds?” Mitch hazarded, they were a traditional feature of the Netherworld weren’t they? “A dead end alley and a shadowy doorway?”
“Would you trust blood that you bought from someone in a shadowy doorway at the end of an alley?” Nikola asked.
“I guess not,” Mitch replied, looking around warily and identifying nothing more threatening than a series of doors and a fountain. “Really no Hellhounds?”
“We use ghouls for security,” Rana said, “but I can sell you a Hellhound if you want one.”
“Uh, no thanks,” Mitch said hastily. He didn’t think their backyard was large enough for a Hellhound and Nikola was allergic to dogs, something that Nikola himself often forgot in favour of playing with them.
Rana reached out to open one of the innumerable doors and there was a faint clink. The red light glimmered off a series of interconnected rings adorning her hand, fine chains linking them to a heavy bracelet of faerie steel that shimmered with sigils.
“Another Nethergate?” Mitch asked, swallowing nervously.
“Don’t worry,” Rana replied, “this one works properly.” She stepped through it and Mitch glanced at Nikola.
“It looks fine,” Nikola said, “and she was telling the truth.” Mitch still hesitated and Nikola took his hand and squeezed reassuringly. “Everything will be fine.” Mitch snorted, he was familiar with Nikola’s definition of fine, but when Nikola stepped through the door he followed.
Despite appearing to lead into a hallway the door deposited them in a large, brightly lit office. Apart from being underground it could have belonged in a l
aw firm. Shelves lined with smart leather jacketed books lined the walls, a portrait of the beach took the place of a window and next to it hung framed certificates. A massive oak desk sat in the middle of the room, an equally massive ergonomic office chair behind it and two comfortable leather chairs before it. There was even a pot plant in the corner. A real pot plant, not the fake kind his mother used.
“What can I get for you gentlemen?” Rana asked, motioning for them to take the chairs while she leaned on the desk.
Mitch made an inarticulate noise and tried to work a little moisture into his mouth. He’d never had to ask for blood before, it had always been provided for him.
“Blood,” Nikola said, sparing him the necessity of asking for it this time. “AB negative. A year’s supply.”
Mitch was glad Nikola was doing the talking, Nikola was a lot better at coherent than he was and apparently far more attentive. He’d never told Nikola that he preferred AB negative, his own blood type. Vampires could drink any type of blood but their own was more efficient.
“Payment?”
“I can fix the front door,” Nikola said.
“Then we have a deal,” Rana said. She rounded the desk and fished a medallion of faerie steel on a silver chain out of the drawer along with a needle in sterile packaging. She tapped a few buttons on her computer, pausing occasionally to peer at the medallion, before returning to the front of the desk.
“You’ll need to key the medallion to you,” she said, offering both to Mitch. “You can use it to access the public areas of the Netherworlds and acquire your blood.”
“Netherworlds?” Mitch thought.
“There’s more than one,” Nikola replied. “The medallion will work at any of them.”
Mitch sighed and took needle and medallion, he could guess what came next. He tore open the packaging on the needle and pricked the ball of his thumb with it. He pressed the welling blood to the medallion and it somehow sank into the metal.
“The needle as well,” Nikola silently prompted. Mitch pressed the needle to the medallion and it sank in without a ripple or any discernible effort on his part.