The World Beneath (The Mira Brand Adventures Book 1)

by Robert J. Crane

  Resisting the urge to bite off a curse, I glanced at the camera again. Not ideal, not even close … but it was my only shot.

  And if I popped out in the middle of the ocean?

  I’d just … hold my breath, or whatever.

  Edging the chair backward, I reached into my shirt and took hold of the talisman’s pendant. Coiling fingers around it, I drank in its gentle warmth.

  They were not taking this from me.

  I eyed the camera one last time, raised a hand and drew a short line across the floor, hopefully where it was obscured by the table.

  It was small; eighteen inches, if that. It widened into a circular maw, colors flashing within the shimmering white edge. Like a manhole cover, almost, if manhole covers were made by hippies in the sixties or seventies or whenever.

  When it was wide enough, I thanked good genes (or irregular eating) for my size, stood, took a breath, and stepped through the hole.

  For long seconds I was falling amidst a thousand exploding fireworks.

  What if I dropped out of the sky? Or into the middle of a war? Or—

  I fell out onto jagged rock. No time to roll, I thrust my hands out in front of me at the last moment.

  Sharp white pain filled me. I yelped, lifted my palms. Blood trickled from both.

  I stood. Glanced around.

  The place I’d landed was like some alien world. I seemed to have been thrown into a crater, onyx black, rock sharp and angular in every direction. Far off, beneath a night sky alive with three oversized stars, rock arched as though it had been thrown up in a molten wave and flash-frozen into place.

  But the air was breathable, as it always seemed to be with these gateways, and save for another couple of wounds, one half of the trip had been successful.

  Just the second part now.

  I trudged awkwardly along the crags below, avoiding the sharpest jags. My shoes flexed uncomfortably; definitely not made for this terrain.

  Fifty meters or so up, I found a flat-ish cliff-edge, towering toward the bloated orange discs lighting the night.

  I gripped my talisman again, and cut another line.

  As I stepped through, I prayed I was close enough to exit back into the station.

  I had to be. I could not give up Decidian’s Spear.

  I fell out—

  Right into the corridor of the police station I’d been brought to—and on my right, closed just as Constable Lawrence Heyman had left it, the door to a room I had just exited.

  No time to enjoy it—or more likely dawdle, dazed, mouth hanging in a stupid O—because someone was coming my way.

  I glanced frantically for an empty room.

  Supply closet—that would do!

  I ducked inside, pulling the door closed.

  Please, please, please do not be looking for pencils.

  I held my breath, waiting in the dark between racks, knowing my goose was cooked if the door should open …

  The footsteps slowed …

  My breath hitched. No …

  Then he was past, disappearing up the corridor.

  I closed my eyes. Breathed a long, heavy, totally unsatisfying sigh.

  This day, man.

  At least this way I could get my things back.

  It was just a matter of finding them.

  Waiting to be completely sure the coast was clear, and there were no sounds coming my way, I gently pushed down on the supply cupboard’s interior door handle. Pushed it open … and leaned so I could peer out with just an eye.

  Empty.

  I let myself out, shooting a look behind.

  Clear.

  —at least, for now. From around a corner came—

  “Just popping for a tea. Want one?”

  “Yeah, go on. Two sugars, no milk.”

  “All right. Back in a few.”

  I jerked back into the supply cupboard, pulling it shut. For a tiny instant before it closed, I saw the break-room-bound officer come into view. By some small miracle, he was fiddling with his vest, eyes down.

  I hoped the door’s click was silent, and waited.

  I wasn’t going to get anywhere like this. The place was buzzing—and the second someone saw I’d gotten out of my room, I was going to have big questions to answer.

  I pursed my lips.

  I was not leaving without my compass or spear. No way.

  Navigating the halls wasn’t going to do it, or at least not this one. But maybe I could try my luck again …

  In the dark of the supply cupboard, lit only by a soft bar of light coming in at the bottom, casting my toes in soft afternoon glow, I reached for my talisman, pointed at the door, and cut. A shimmering line extended across its surface, opening, full of lights—

  “Someplace not totally dangerous, please,” I whispered.

  —and stepped through. Colors strobed around me, every direction, and then I was released, and fell into—

  “Aggh!”

  I was in the dark, and something, something very, very close stunk to high heaven.

  I reached out, found wood, coarse and grainy. Damn near choking, I flailed up and down, until I found a handle. Shoving it down with all my might, I forced open a wide door twice the size of any human’s and fell out into twilit grass that rose to my knee. Cool water clung to it.

  I lay face-down, savoring air that didn’t make me want to vom.

  What was that?

  Rotating onto my side, I cast a look behind me, and suppressed a retch.

  Orc outhouse. Or at least as close to one as they got. They’d had the decency to erect walls around the place where they dropped the kids off at the pool, but there was no toilet bowl, crude though I might’ve expected. Just a dirty hole dug in the ground (and I mean dirty)—and zero paper … or, like, leaves or whatever orcs use.

  Before I rose, I checked to make sure I hadn’t gotten any on me. Small miracle: I hadn’t. Then I pushed to my feet, and surveyed the landscape.

  Definitely not the same cratered world I’d landed in before. No surplus of suns to wreck the darkness, for one. The sky was purple here, and glittered with only a handful of sparkling pinpricks. A shroud of receding cloud streaked the horizon beyond a rise, dragging the rain with it.

  In the opposite direction was a settlement, lit by torches. Far off, though; too far to trek to. And although perhaps these orcs might be more pleasant than the sort Alain Borrick had set on me—that was today, right? Yes, that was still today—I was low on time. Twenty minutes to run the two and a half miles or so out could make all the difference, with my parents on the way—and my things awaiting reclamation.

  Something flat, though …

  Nothing. There were trees, beyond the outhouse, but though tall they were horrendously spindly. Even turning sideways, I wouldn’t be able to pass through a gate—assuming, of course, one would even stick.

  My gaze fell to the outhouse.

  “Urgh …”

  I wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

  But I had no other options. So, putting on my best steely expression, and taking what might well be my last breath of fresh, untainted air, I stomped around the outhouse (giving it a wide berth, mind) to the rear.

  Clutching my talisman, I cut open a new gateway on the back.

  “Here goes nothing—agg!”

  Choking on wretched, vile air so thick I could chew it, I passed through into the tumultuous lightshow … and dropped out again—into a plain room with one windowed wall—

  A windowed wall looking into an interrogation room currently occupied by Carson and a familiar stern-looking police officer.

  “… identifying some things for us,” the officer was saying.

  He pushed something across the table, to Carson, who looked desperately pale. If he were not seated, he’d probably be flat on his back, going by the look of him.

  “I—I don’t …”

  But I tuned out if he said anything else, because then the officer shifted and I saw just what he was being asked to identify
.

  “Come on, lad,” the officer barked. “I don’t have all day.”

  “But I—I don’t know what you want me to say! It’s j-just an umbrella.”

  “Why did your accomplice have it open inside?”

  My eyebrows knitted. What kind of stupid question was that?

  “Sh-she wanted seven years’ bad luck?” Carson stammered, and I exhaled a nose-laugh. I had to hand it to him; not totally terrible. Almost respectable, even, knowing he was on the other end of Sourpuss’s toady grimace. “I don’t know! I told you already—she pointed at the men following us, and—and then you turned up and they left!”

  “Witnesses said they had knives.”

  “Cinquedeas,” Carson corrected. “They’re …” Then, clocking Sourpuss’s death-stare, he silenced.

  “Why would an umbrella stop someone brandishing a knife from attacking you?”

  “It … it just did!”

  I bit my lip. Sounded like Carson hadn’t spilled the beans on the whole transforming umbrella thing. Again, had to give him credit; he’d done me a solid. On the other hand, maybe he was just trying to avoid being locked up in a loony bin for saying that an umbrella actually morphed into a spear in front of his eyes. That wouldn’t be much of a vacation highlight for him.

  But whereas I’d been given the ol’ good cop routine, Carson had been shackled with the bad one. And though he might be holding his own just now, his voice quavered. I might not have long ‘til he snapped, and the whole truth came pouring out.

  My jaw tightened. Carson might be a bit of a limp rag, and I might still be ticked off over the whole screwing-up-our-escape thing, but I didn’t want him to fall on my grenade. If that was anyone’s job, it was … probably not mine either, but it was my task to punt the thing away, preferably into some orc pit.

  Sourpuss had given up with the umbrella apparently, because he said, “And what about this?”

  He threw something heavy onto the table, landing between the umbrella and Carson’s manbag.

  My eyebrows came down lower. Was that—?

  Carson cleared his throat. “It’s a compass.”

  Anger exploded in my chest. It was! Sourpuss had chucked my bloody compass! Narrowly catching myself from slamming a fist on the separating glass, I had half a mind to storm out of this room and into that one, open a gateway right beneath his big fat butt, and see him off into some far-off world where he’d end up in orc stew.

  Of course, all that would draw attention, which I could really do without … so I clenched my fist instead, biting down a hiss of pain at the pressure on my sliced palms; the latest entry to my wounds catalogue. Good thing I’d chewed my nails down so far.

  “A compass,” Sourpuss repeated. He held it up, and it was just a simple thing; a bit antique-like, with some wood around the edges, but hardly bizarre.

  “W-well … yeah. These lines are for degrees, see? The bigger lines are tens, and—”

  Sourpuss hammered a fist on the table. It shuddered: strength and weight, slammed down in equal measure. Carson made a choking noise. Shoved back in his chair as far as he would go, his face was manic and panicked and pale.

  “I know what a bloody compass is, you Yank fool! What’s she doing with one in the middle of bloody London?”

  “I—I don’t know!” Carson’s words came fast, more quivery than ever. He sounded like he was on the verge of passing out. “L-look, why are you asking me this? They’re just n-normal things—”

  “These are not normal!”

  Carson continued, even faster, “And I don’t know her! I haven’t met her before today! I j-just asked her for travel recommendations, and th-then all this happened, and—”

  “ENOUGH!”

  At almost the same moment, noises from down the hall started in a muddle: voices, all vying for volume.

  I tensed. Mum and Dad? It would be just like them to arrive and start squawking.

  But then an officer called, “Officer Carmichael? We need your assistance, please!”

  Sourpuss marched around the desk, giving Carson a filthy look as he passed, which Carson flinched away from. Poking his head out of the door, he shouted, “I’m busy!”

  “Assistance please, Officer Carmichael!”

  Sourpuss growled. Whatever he saw on the face of his summoner must have been enough to convince him, though, because he turned to grunt at Carson, “Don’t move. I’ll be back.” Then he stomped off down the hall.

  I waited until he was gone, then poked my head out. Clear, in both directions. Better, the door to Carson’s interrogation room was still open; I saw his back, suppressing quakes in his seat.

  I darted in, pushing the door closed behind me.

  At its creak, Carson jerked, turned around. Face blanching, he began, “I—” Then he saw it was me, not his interrogator already returning, and fear transformed into confusion. “Mira? What are you—?”

  I pushed the door closed, stepped around him. “Getting my things back.”

  I took the umbrella first, looking it over. Didn’t seem banged up or anything. And would it matter? Probably not. The glamour was illusion; if the illusion needed to take on wear and tear, I was pretty sure the spear itself remained intact. Although I did not intend to find out.

  Strapping it to my belt, I picked up the compass. Scrutinizing it with hawk eyes, I scoured it for the slightest little ding. If I found even one, Sourpuss had something coming. And what might that be? The pointed end of my new toy, perhaps.

  But it was pristine, and so I returned it to my belt.

  Carson was gabbling. “… just on a nice trip to London, maybe meet some people—”

  “Well, you met a whole bunch today,” I muttered. Eyebrows twitching with annoyance, I said, “Why were they even asking you what my things were anyway? Come to the source, at least.”

  Carson’s mouth hung.

  “I … I didn’t tell them. About the … you know …” He lowered his voice, and said, “The umbrella spear thing.” Aiming for conspiratorial, he missed the mark, and just looked and sounded like a person on the verge of being sick.

  And speaking of—

  His nose turned up, eyes widening at me in disgust. “What is that smell?”

  Damn it. Of course I’d managed to carry orc stink back through with me.

  “I went through some things to get here.” For good measure, I flashed my bloody palms. “See?” Pulling a disingenuous grin at his flinch, I stepped past.

  The arm of a wall-mounted camera remained in the corner, but the camera itself was gone. I raised an eyebrow. My confidence in the Metropolitan Police had just taken a pretty disastrous nose-dive. Still, it did me a pretty big favor—and Carson too.

  “Right, I’m off,” I said, eyeing my compass as I stalked the walls. “It was nice meeting you.”

  “What? Where are you going?”

  “Things to do, places to see.” Casting a backward look, I added, “By the way, I forgot: the Apollo Theatre. Right near Piccadilly. I’ve been a couple of times. You’d like it.”

  Carson rose, seat scuffing on the floor. “I don’t understand. You’re—you’re busting out? That’s criminal!”

  I shrugged. “Eh.” Beyond caring, now.

  “Well … well … well what about me?”

  “What about you?”

  “Aren’t you going to—to tell me the plan?”

  “Plan?” I scoffed, whirling on him. “Carson, there’s no plan. I’m off out of here. The whole running from men with knives—”

  “Cinquedeas.”

  “—thing was super fun and all, but this is where we part ways.” I consulted the compass again, suppressing a frown. Shadowed trees and the darkness, in every direction. Guess I had no choice.

  “Look,” I said, taking in the sad, sad look on his face, “they’ll let you go once they know you’re not a danger. And trust me, that won’t take very long. For now, I recommend you stay here.”

  “And … and what about your things? T
he officer left me in here with them. When they come back and see they’re gone …”

  “You’ll get a pat-down, they’ll see you’re not packing, and they get a little mystery to solve. Pretty soon they’ll figure out that you had nothing to do with any of this.” Compass deposited, I took my talisman in hand. The wall beside the door; as good a place as any to cut through. “Just tell them I came in and snatched them. That’s probably the whole kerfuffle out there now; them realizing I’ve up and vanished.”

  “But—but …”

  Conversation done. Time to go.

  I smiled at him—”See you ‘round, Carson.”—and drew a white line onto the wall.

  Carson gawped, eyes manic.

  “What is that?”

  “My exit strategy.”

  It widened, colors spilling forth, circling and zipping and arcing.

  “Geez. Oh geez. First the umbrella, and now …”

  “Pretty eye-opening day for you, eh?”

  Carson’s mouth did that goldfish thing again: open, closed, open, closed.

  Then, just as I was about to step through, he said, suddenly desperate, with a craving note—

  “Take me with you.”

  I hesitated. My head whipped round.

  Incredulity must have lit my face, just the same as it had Carson’s moments ago.

  But unlike then, a hint of something else had come into his. Not fear, although there was more than enough of that (and I suspected it comprised a good sixty percent of his expression at rest anyway). No, Carson was lit with the tiniest little sliver of determination.

  He snatched up his manbag, slung it over his shoulder, and stepped around the table for me.

  “No,” I said, holding up a hand. “You go out that door. See London. Have the adventure you came here for.”

  “But with you …”

  “My adventures are dangerous. There are orcs—yes, orcs, like I said earlier—and they’re honestly one of the milder dangers out there,” I added quickly as Carson’s eyes somehow grew wider, “compared to furious dwarves, and svartelves and—and danger, and—blood, see?” I flashed my palms again. “I’m always coming back bloody. You’d hate it.”

  “But … adventure …”

  “Seeing London is an adventure too! You can get a Boris Bike, or whatever they’re calling them now … or you never know; you might get spat at by an illegal minicab driver. All exciting stuff, yeah? Just stay here, and you can be on your way before you know it!”