Welcome Home (Alternate Worlds Book 3)

by Leigh, Taylor

  A throat cleared somewhere behind them, bursting their private bubble. Andrew pulled free from the kiss, his teeth gently biting into her bottom lip as he released her. She swayed slightly with loss of balance, attempting to remember to breathe. Andrew swung his head round to whoever had interrupted them and Victoria had to privately smirk at his now wild hair.

  They were confronted by the elderly woman who had approached them earlier.

  ‘I do hate to interrupt, but I wanted to confirm that you still intended on joining us for our little get together tonight?’ Her eyes flicked to the now smouldering desert ‘Though with all this excitement, perhaps you’d rather spend your time in some other fashion? The sky does not often show such signs. But the offer still remains.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course!’ Andrew’s throat went hoarse. ‘We would be honoured to attend.’ He ran a hand through his hair, desperately trying to flatten it as he cast a glance back at Victoria. He inclined his head, beckoning. ‘Shall we?’

  Victoria wobbled and pushed off the balustrade. She couldn’t help but blush as the woman’s thin lips turned up in a ghost of a smirk; she ducked her head, hoping her curly mess of hair would hide her embarrassment. Her entire experience with romance went only as far as Andrew would allow and she was still rather uncomfortable with the whole thing, especially when it was on display for others to see.

  The woman waited till they were composed, then led on, navigating through the crowded hall. ‘My name is Sahray.’ She gestured before them. ‘We’re just here, in this room. We gather here for discussion and debates. We brainstorm; try to make the city better; at times help the king. We would certainly love to hear the opinions of an ambassador from an alien world. Having you as a guest is something we’re all very excited about. Perhaps you even have light to shed on the phenomenon in the sky?’

  Sahray stopped at curtained doorway. Victoria could just see beyond to a room lit by the warm glow of candles.

  Andrew craned his neck for a look. ‘And does this group have a name?’

  Sahray smiled. ‘We call ourselves the Myrmidons. Now come, come.’ She waved for them to step inside.

  The room was close and draped in red tapestries embroidered with charts of the stars. Round tables, resting low to the floor, were surrounded by deep rugs and cushions. It didn’t look half bad.

  Andrew tilted his head to the side once he stepped inside; his face screwing up into a thoughtful frown. ‘Myrmidons, that means loyal followers. So, who is it you claim to follow?’

  Sahray smiled. ‘The truth. Science.’

  He smiled approvingly. ‘I cannot argue with that.’

  Victoria rolled her eyes; a rather worthless answer, if one asked her.

  ‘Welcome, Ambassador. Had I known who you were earlier, I would have made a better first impression.’ A tall figure stepped out of the shadows where Victoria hadn’t seen him. She couldn’t help but gasp as her spine tightened.

  It was the bald man. He bowed low. Victoria’s first thought was of how his eyes reminded her so much of a snake’s. Glossy, unblinking, frozen. She suppressed a shudder.

  ‘It is an honour to meet you, Traveller. Welcome.’ He fixed his unnerving gaze on Victoria. ‘And, of course, Highness, welcome. It’s encouraging to see that some of the royal family has an interest in learning. My name is Ramses.’

  Victoria shifted a little. There were other figures in the room as well. Others that Victoria recognised from the lower layer. They ghosted out of the shadows, nodded and greeting Andrew with murmured words of awe. Victoria felt a bit like a fifth wheel on a cart. No-one so much as glanced her way, except out of politeness. Andrew was clearly the one they wanted to see. And he was eating it up.

  She mentally rolled her eyes again. No need to feed his enormous ego. It was enough to make her want to leave but she hung about, not wanting to leave him alone.

  ‘So, uh, where did you lot come from? Never heard of you before.’

  Ramses smiled politely. ‘We have always existed. But I am afraid that with the Denizens in power, our influence did go for the most part unnoticed. Our few followers in the city were deep…underground, you could say. Since power has shifted, we’ve been allowed to come into our own, spread our wings, if you will.’ He dipped his head. ‘The Royal Family has been very tolerant and understanding of us. We’ve been working hand in hand with them to rebuild this beautiful city.’

  Victoria pressed her lips into a thin line. One new group displacing another. But…if Reginald was comfortable with it, maybe he’d done his research. ‘Right, great.’

  ‘Now,’ Sahray said, settling herself at one of the tables. ‘What is the topic for this evening?’

  Victoria followed Andrew as he slowly sat at the same table Sahray had taken. Around them, everyone dropped to the floor, reclining against cushions lazily.

  A woman at another table smiled wanly. ‘We could chat about that glorious falling star that graced our heavens. I hear strange talk about it. It is perhaps too coincidental to coincide with the arrival of our dear Traveller?’

  Andrew didn’t bat an eye. ‘For claiming to be enlightened I would not be so quick as to jump to rumours and omens. That is making you no different than the superstitious population you’re claiming to be superior to.’

  Ramses did not sit, or glance Andrew’s way, but started to prowl round the room. ‘What we were discussing before your arrival was the supernatural; in particular, what becomes of the human spirit once the body dies.’

  Andrew lowered his brows in disappointment. ‘I am not sure that qualifies as science. Again, like the falling star, it is superstition—religion—it does not qualify.’

  ‘You do not believe in ghosts?’ Sahray asked.

  Andrew’s scowl deepened. He struggled. ‘If I cannot see something, touch it, measure it, feel it, understand what it is made of, then it cannot exist…’

  A few people muttered at a distant table.

  Sahray smiled placidly. ‘That is often the view intellectuals take; but if I may say, isn’t it also rather ignorant? You are discounting an entire field of proved phenomenon that is not well understood. Tell me, Traveller, what are the views on the afterlife on Scottorr?’

  Surprisingly Andrew did not leave the room in a huff; he seemed to seriously consider the question. ‘On my home world, there is the belief that the human soul enters the Hall of Kings, but it is growing to be a somewhat antiquated belief. People hope for life after death, but there is no proof of it. Since I have never believed, I’ve not bothered giving it much thought.’ He reached for a carafe before him and poured a cup of water.

  Victoria didn’t like the topic, but, like Andrew, it hadn’t been one she’d ever given much thought. She liked to think there was some form of existence after the body died. Because…if there wasn’t, what did that mean? Did one simply ceased to exist? Did one still remember things, or become nothing?

  ‘B—but what about ghosts?’ she piped up, against her determination to be still.

  Andrew puffed a breath. ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘No, she is right,’ Ramses purred. ‘Ghosts are a proven fact. And are quite common here. Everyone has seen them, or signs of them. I challenge anyone to tell me they haven’t had a paranormal experience of some kind.’

  ‘I have never encountered a spirit,’ Andrew said. ‘And have never seen proof of such.’ He paused and his face became clouded, as it had on the balcony. ‘I will say there is something different about this world. The air has a different feel. Everything feels more closed, more…ancient.’

  Ramses paused. ‘You sense something, don’t you?’

  Andrew glowered at him, defensive. ‘I didn’t say that. I’m merely saying that this world has a different feel than my homeworld. But it’s an alien world, what else was I to expect?’

  ‘He has the gift,’ Sahray said, nodding her head decisively. ‘I knew it the moment I saw him.’

  Victoria stiffened protectively. ‘Hang on, what gift?’

&nbs
p; ‘He can sense the dead. He can speak with them.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Victoria spluttered defensively, but Sahray’s words sent a chill through her. She remembered back to several months ago on Scottorr. Andrew had heard voices—the voices of spirits—Tollin had called them Daemons. He had called Andrew a medium.

  It was clear Andrew was recalling that conversation now, too. He had laughed off Tollin’s words at the time, but by the look in his eyes, perhaps they’d lodged in him deeper than she’d thought.

  Andrew studied Ramses’s expression before tilting his head ever so slightly. Victoria could almost see the gears turning in his brain. ‘You actually believe it is possible to communicate with the dead?’

  Ramses bowed his head. ‘As I said, ghosts on our world are not uncommon. But it takes a special gift to communicate with them. A gift of extreme rarity.’

  Andrew turned away to the flames, eyes narrowed. His face worked over, wrestling with some internal thought. A gift of extreme rarity. That would certainly be something he’d want to hear. That damn pride was getting the better of him, she could tell. He was going to crack.

  Victoria attempted to catch his eye and briefly succeeded; but Andrew had glanced away already, deliberately pretending not to understand.

  Ramses, however, caught the weakening reluctance in his eyes. He took a step closer. ‘Down in the lower layer you spoke to the crowd; you said something and I am not even sure if you realise the significance of what you said. You were speaking the language of the dead. I did not recognise it at first, but then I realised it was similar to the ancient texts we have scrawled on the walls of our caverns. You have a gift! You do not understand how important—how powerful you are! You are one of a kind!’

  Victoria watched in dread as Andrew flushed with the praise. He was struggling to keep his expression neutral now. She cursed under her breath. They had him caught.

  At last Andrew cleared his throat. ‘Well, even if I could somehow communicate with the dead—as some mediums claim—it still cannot be proven. From what I’ve seen in my research such séances are nothing but trickery and show. There is no real supernatural element involved, nor can any be proven. If no-one can see what I am communicating with, then it accomplishes nothing.’

  Victoria sighed to herself. It was no good. Andrew had already, for reasons that baffled her, let them know he had a gift. She hadn’t thought him to be so insecure. She took a deep breath. ‘I know where a ghost haunts. I’ve heard it. Plenty of times.’

  Everyone turned to face her. If she wasn’t mistaken, Andrew’s pallor had gone a shade more white than normal.

  Victoria shrugged. She hated to do it, but better to have him humiliate himself and have these people discount him than have him in their midst his entire stay. If making Andrew look the fool was what it took to get him away from this, then she’d just have to.

  It wasn’t that Victoria didn’t think Andrew was capable. He’d proved that he could sense Daemons, but he’d been heavily drugged at the time and that had supposedly amplified his abilities. Even then he’d dismissed it irritably; so why he was going along with it now was beyond her.

  She fixed her eyes on him. They had widened with a growing nervousness; demanding what the hell she was playing at.

  Victoria flattened her lips grimly, then she turned her eyes to Ramses. ‘Yeah; we call her the Lady of the Stair. Not sure what happened to her, she’s haunted one staircase as long as I can remember.’ She raised her shoulders indifferently. ‘But if you want to test out your little theory that Andrew’s some kind of medium, that would be the place to go.’

  Ramses smiled, delighted. Andrew looked like he wanted to be sick.

  ‘Splendid. If the Traveller is willing, shall we?’

  Everyone turned to Andrew. He stood and straightened the front of his robe with steady hands. ‘I am willing.’ His cold gaze fell on her. ‘Why don’t you lead the way?’

  Victoria picked herself up and fought to keep from shying from his eyes. She felt awkward having the trail of intellectuals following her lead and immediately chastised herself. She was the princess after all—that felt strange to say after a year—and this is what people did. They followed.

  As they made their way down the dark corridor, Andrew hurried his pace to catch up with her. ‘What are you doing?’ His tone was a low growl.

  ‘I could ask you the same question! We don’t even know these people and here you are divulging your deepest secret to them!’

  Andrew knit his brow. ‘I wouldn’t say it’s my deepest secret. We didn’t even learn of it till a few months ago and I’m not sure I believe it myself. And how will I ever know if I don’t test it?’

  Victoria let a breath of impatience. ‘You were able to hear Daemon voices after you took those damn spores. Don’t you think that anyone who is interested in something like Daemons is probably not the best person to be spending your time with? And why do you have to test things like that around strangers?’

  Andrew set his rounded jaw. ‘You heard them yourselves, they don’t even know what Daemons are; they believe it is the language of the dead. Hell, I don’t even know what Daemons are. For all we know, perhaps they are the dead.’

  Victoria shook her head stubbornly. ‘If that were the case, then Tollin wouldn’t spend his life fighting them. Whatever this stuff is, it’s bad news and I don’t think you should be fooling with it.’

  Andrew tilted his head to one side. ‘Perhaps you’ll get your wish. Thanks to you, these people expect me to summon a spirit and I have absolutely no idea how to go about it.’

  ‘Well, you had better think of something.’ She raised her voice. ‘We’re here.’

  Before them yawned a dark spiral of stone, unlit by candles, like some jagged throat, twisting out of sight. Victoria didn’t know if it was her own imagination or something more, but she could almost have sworn a draught of cold, chilling air wafted up to them, as if the stairs led down to the grave itself. No-one came this way unless they had good reason. The stories were too numerous, too unnerving.

  Everyone turned to Andrew expectantly. He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes fixed on the black hole before him.

  ‘Do you sense anything?’ Sahray asked.

  He didn’t answer her, only glanced at Victoria. Victoria could see the faintest traces of nervousness flickering behind the ice. It was hard to recall if she’d seen that before. She gave him a thin smile.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ she whispered, hating herself for the guilt wrapping itself round her spine.

  Andrew briefly closed his eyes. ‘Yes I do.’

  And then he stepped down into the darkness.

  Chapter Five

  He hadn’t wanted to acknowledge the fact, but as soon as he was faced with the stairway, he sensed the faint stirrings of something. Something he couldn’t quite put a name to. Something was down there; something drawing him in.

  On the first gritty step he immediately felt a shift in the atmosphere about him. Almost…a relief. The musty, dead air might as well have sighed at his arrival.

  Andrew wished he’d brought a light with him. His eyes strained to make any sort of shape out of the blackness. There was nothing to be concerned about, he knew that. It was a stair. All he needed to know was to put one foot in front of the other and keep his hand on the wall to his right.

  What was more concerning was the open, cold space to his left, wafting up like a breath.

  It was the deeper Andrew went, the greater the feeling enveloped him. Something old, sad, desperate, was down there. It sent a flurry of alien emotions and Andrew found himself growing weaker.

  ‘Is anyone here?’ he asked the dark.

  There was no audible answer, but he heard it nonetheless. Yes. It sent his skin crawling.

  ‘My name is Andrew O’Neill. I mean you no harm.’

  Icy fingers brushed against him, raising the hairs on his arms, up his neck. A presence settled over him, drifting like a veil.
He could see it so clearly in his mind he didn’t feel his need for sight. How easy would it be to reach out and touch it? Andrew spread his hands wide; invisible threads of energy went twisting round him, like some great eel winding through the water.

  And then, from the foot of the stairs, blossomed a soft, cold orb of blue light; dead in colour and flickering, smoking into growing existence from the very air.

  Andrew’s pulse went quickening despite himself as the blue fire rose in a slow, deliberate ascent. He took a hesitant step back, but not fast enough, for the air circled round him, cold like ice and crushing with sadness.

  Just below him, the fantastic object alighted and, before his eyes, began to bloom. The flames spread downward, licking the steps and Andrew was suddenly faced with a beautiful woman.

  The Lady of the Stairs.

  He smiled despite himself, completely in awe at the impossibility of it. This was no trick. For no trick could replicate the opaque, flicking body; iridescent with blue light; pale, solid, yet not.

  Her eyes were ringed with sorrow, tired from undocumented years.

  Above him, Andrew heard Ramses and Victoria breathe in.

  The woman stood in almost patient waiting. Andrew forgot all else. He outstretched his hand.

  ‘Come,’ he ordered.

  To his astonishment, she obeyed, stepping towards him, body glowing pale, like the moon in water, setting the well alight. She was beautiful—till he noticed the ugly spot of red above her heart.

  The cold air she brought with her washed over him, chilling his skin. She stopped the step below and stared with both fear and longing. Andrew offered her a reassuring smile.

  ‘How did you come this way, dear Lady?’ he asked gently.

  ‘My life was stolen from me…’ Her voice came breathily, eyes darting about.

  Andrew thought he heard an echo; a higher, airier tone than his own, grasping his jaw. It was not an action he could control, and not one he appreciated as his vocal chords were twitched and plucked by this spirit. He shuddered.