Brian slumped back into the sofa, defeated. No matter his protestations, they always, infuriatingly, seemed to have an answer.
“I just want to be at home, playing on my Xbox,” he grumbled. “I’m one level from unlocking the ACR assault rifle on Call of Duty…”
“Ah!” It was Friedrick who gasped, his one good eye widening as he smiled. “So you like guns, eh? Well come check out the arsenal I have in store for you, young Helsing. That might perk you up a bit.”
Brian doubted it, but rose from his seat all the same, moving to follow Friedrick who was performing a three-point turn twixt sofa and coffee table, filling the room with oily steam. Finally, the Master of Ordinance was en route for the door, but Brian paused by the drinks cabinet. He glanced at Heimlich.
“May I?”
The Master of Magic nodded.
“If you think it’ll help cheer your miserable white ass up then sure, have at it.”
Brian blinked, nonplussed at the response, before turning his attention back to the drinks, selecting the same brandy the Master himself had just drunk. He poured himself a glass, knocking it back in one fiery gulp. Heimlich winced.
“That’s about fifty quid’s worth of extremely rare vintage brandy you just inhaled in one go,” he mumbled.
“Good.”
Brian poured himself another generous measure, taking this one with him and following the tell-tale cloud of steam that trailed behind Friedrick, resigning himself to the fact that he’d have to complete this magical mystery tour before he’d be allowed home. The two of them, the other Masters electing to stay behind in the Snug, made their way down the corridor, heading into, and crossing through, the busy room in the centre of the complex. As they traversed the large room, the busy junior members of the Order gifted him smiles, nods, greeting him as he passed them by.
“Well met, Helsing!” one said.
“Sup.”
“We have faith in you,” another proclaimed.
“Cheers.”
“Don’t fuck it up,” a third told him.
He didn’t have a response to that last one, so he just raised his brandy glass in mock salute.
Finally, leaving the large room behind them, they journeyed down another of the myriad corridors, this one opening out into what, for all the world, looked like a warehouse. A huge sign above the arched entrance proclaimed ‘Armoury.’ Fucking tip, more like, Brian mused; mountains upon mountains of wooden crates, racks and racks of weapons, piles of gizmos, gadgets, spare parts, springs, cogs, knives, sharp sticks. In the distance, what looked like a target range. Here and there, scorched and battered wooden dummies in the shapes of men and other vaguely humanoid creatures. And towards one end of the room, a glowing forge, from which emanated a wash of scorching heat. A hulking man, as tall as Brian himself yet twice as wide and heavily muscled, with a greasy leather apron and thick gauntlets, was ferociously beating a piece of hot metal into submission upon an anvil.
“Helsing, meet Frank.”
“Hi Frank,” he said.
The titan paused in his craft, turning his gaze to Brian, before grunting and continuing to beat the metal with his hammer.
“Frank doesn’t talk much,” Friedrick explained. “Anyway, weapons you need and weapons we have in spades. If you can’t find it in here, chances are it doesn’t exist. Every Helsing needs a core kit of equipment always close at hand. Helsing XII liked the traditional crossbow and a straight sword, the latter enchanted thanks to some of Heimlich’s magical runes. And obviously he always kept some of my UV grenades close at hand too. But each Helsing has his own preferences, of course. So…” He dragged out that last word, eyeing Brian expectantly. “What will it be for our latest champion?”
“I… I don’t have the foggiest,” Brian admitted, swilling his brandy in his glass. “I’m pretty new at this, so… dealer’s choice? Set me up.”
Not like I’m going to use any of them at all, he thought. Soon as I’m out of here, I’m straight home. And that’s where I’m going to stay. What were the chances he’d bump into supernatural horrors if he simply stayed within the triangle between home, the job centre and Sainsbury’s, he thought?
“Set me up, he says,” Friedrick grinned, rubbing his hands together with glee. “Then set you up I shall. Frank!” The big guy looked up once more. “Let’s show our new Helsing here what we’ve got.”
Frank grunted, laying his hammer down on his anvil and thumping away out of sight. Moments later, he returned, dragging with him a huge metal case on wheels, six feet high, twenty wide. After parking it in position, he rolled the shutter up, revealing a rack displaying various implements that Brian was forced to assume were weapons yet in all honesty looked like nothing he’d ever seen.
“This,” Friedrick proudly proclaimed, brandishing the first gizmo Frank handed him from the rack, “is the bola-launcher. It may look like an ordinary pistol, but believe me, it’s anything but.” To Brian’s eye, it did indeed look anything but. If it was any kind of pistol, it was one from a steampunk wet dream; all ivory handle, brass barrel, and ludicrously huge green-lensed scope. With a grin and an ancient, trembling arm, the Master of Ordinance took aim at an unsuspecting wooden dummy, before squeezing the gigantic brass trigger, a motion that took some time given the arthritis Brian suspected riddled the man’s fingers. Finally, a shock of recoil, a hiss of steam from the sides of that barrel. And two round orbs, a length of wire between them, launched from the end to go soaring harmlessly into the warehouse air, leaving the dummy blissfully unbound. “I, err, have a slight issue with my aim these days,” the Master chuckled sheepishly, tapping the whirring monocle where his left eye should be. “Lack of binocular vision, you see. Regardless, believe me when I say no monster of the night will be able to get away from you once you fire this baby at them.”
Brian stared, distinctly unimpressed by the display, before taking a sip of his brandy. Part of him was tempted to slow-clap, but he didn’t like the way that hulking Frank was staring at him.
“Very useful,” he managed to choke out. “What’s the next one?”
Frank grasped the huge, heavy machine from the rack, hefting it like a toy in his meaty arms.
“Ah,” Friedrick said, face alight with glee. “The auto-staker. I like this one, yet for some reason the last Helsing never saw the opportunity to use it. Frank; show him how it works.”
The giant pulled a ripcord, a two-stroke motor, just like the one in Brian’s moped, buzzing into life, the noise resounding about the hall as fumes began to fill the air. As Frank pulled upon a trigger, a wooden stake at the end of the device flashed in and out at lightning speed, the vibrations of the machine causing even what little fat there was on Frank’s massive form to jiggle about, lending him all the appearance of a murderous trifle.
“It’s not exactly stealthy,” Brian pointed out. “And really, if you think about it, it’s just a jack-hammer. With a stake on the end.”
“Well, yes,” Friedrick admitted, his one good eye already beginning to water at the acrid exhaust fumes. “But think of the possibilities! You could stake the hearts of a dozen vampires in as many seconds!”
“Only if they’re all standing in a row. Do they do that? I mean, I don’t know much about the undead, but waiting patiently in lines for people to pull-start power tools doesn’t strike me as something they’d do.”
The Master of Ordinance mumbled under his breath, visibly deflated, even as Frank killed the engine with a sigh of obvious relief, hanging it back on the rack.
“Well, what kind of weapons do you want?” Friedrick asked at length. “I’m showing you my best and you’re shooting them down, lad.”
“Don’t you have any, well, guns?” Brian enquired. “I mean, that thing there, what’s that? That looks like a gun.”
He pointed to a long, sleek-looking device, with three lengthy brass barrels affixed together, behind which was what looked like a hopper for ammo. No stock on this weapon, but two large handles, lik
e a chainsaw, and a leather shoulder strap.
“Oh, that old thing?” Friedrick’s voice was almost bored sounding. “The Punisher, it’s called. I mean, it’s effective and all. But it’s so… ordinary. It’s more like something the army would use.”
“Can I… can I give it a go?” Brian asked, placing his brandy glass on a nearby crate, his eyes still fixed on the strange device, a weird tingling, nerves, yet also excitement, beginning to make itself known in the bottom of his belly. “I don’t care if it’s… ordinary.”
“Well, sure, knock yourself out. Frank? Hand him the Punisher.”
The big man handed Brian the weapon, looping the strap about his shoulders. It wasn’t as heavy as he’d feared. In fact, he thought, as his hands found the twin grips and he pulled the weapon tight, it felt almost right. He felt like Vasquez in Aliens. Except not Hispanic. Nor a woman. So really, barring the gun, nothing like her at all. He nodded to himself, seemingly satisfied at last, swinging about to talk to Friedrick.
“Christ, man!” the Master exclaimed, pointing away with urgently flailing hands. “Down the range, down the range. I said it was ordinary, not a toy!”
With a grimace of apology, Brian swung the weapon back around, striding slowly towards the targets down the range. With a grin on his face, the first one that entire day, he lightly rested his finger upon the trigger. At the first instant of contact, the three gleaming brass barrels began to spin, faster and faster, filling the air with an electric whine that sent shivers of ecstasy down his spine and into his groin. He didn’t notice Friedrick and Frank back away behind him. And then again some more. With a snarl, as though ready to unleash all the pent-up frustrations of the day, he pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, the barrels continuing to spin but the expected fusillade nowhere to be seen. Brian frowned.
“Might want to switch the safety off,” Friedrick called out from several yards now behind. “Next to the trigger.”
Brian’s eyes found the little switch, but like an idiot he kept the trigger depressed as he thumbed the weapon from safe to live. A cacophonous roar, like that of thunder, only again and again and again and again, a hundred times each second, as fiery lead spat from each of the spinning barrels in turn. The recoil blasted the unready Brian from his feet, the man landing hard on his back, finger still on the trigger, the weapon spraying all over the place like an out of control fire hose. Bullets tore through crates, rebounded from metal, gouged chunks from the walls and ceiling. Finally, the hopper ran dry, yet still the barrels spun, Brian’s finger yet tight about the trigger in terror-induced cramp.
Friedrick appeared above him, craning his neck from his chair to look down at him, voice mouthing words but no sound coming out.
“What?” Brian asked, before realising he couldn’t even hear his own voice. “I can’t hear you?”
“What?” shouted Friedrick in reply.
“What?” Finally, with a high-pitched whine, Brian’s hearing began to return. “Ah. So that’s what it sounds like to fire a gatling gun then. Loud.”
“No,” Friedrick replied, rifling in one aching ear with a bony finger as Frank helped Brian to his feet. “That’s what it sounds like to be a colossal twat. Have you never fired a gun before?”
“Well, no. Why would I have?”
Silence descended, before Friedrick glanced up at Frank. The giant shook his head, before turning away, and Friedrick turned back to Brian with a sigh. “We’ve a lot of work to do with you, young Helsing. And so off to Gertrude you go. Maybe she’ll have some luck with you. And in the meantime, I suppose we’ll be repairing the damage you’ve caused.” He began to steam away on his chair, before noticing that Brian wasn’t moving. “Away with you lad, off to the Dojo. I wouldn’t keep Gertie waiting. She might look like she smells of lollipops and farts fucking rainbows, but trust me, if you think I’m pissed off, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
With that, Brian turned and made his way back out of the Armoury, accompanied by nothing more than a foreboding sense of dread and an insistent ringing in his ears.
Chapter Nine:
Lollipops and Fucking Rainbows
Gertrude was already waiting for him in the Dojo, stretching her leg high above her head with a hand about her foot, looking for all the world like a Goth ballerina, minus the pomp or indeed the dignity, and forcing Brian to avert his eyes lest he catch glimpse of the unknowable abyss and be forever scarred, no doubt by her and whatever sharp implements she could find. The Master of Combat caught sight of his awkwardness out of the corner of her eye and grinned.
“So, weapons selection was a complete fuck up then?”
“How…? How did you know?” he asked, still staring intently at the floor as though it might yield the answers to life, the universe and everything. “No-one passed me in the hallway…”
“I just assumed. Rightly, it seems.” She lowered her leg back to the ground and turned smartly to face him, before prancing across the straw matting and stopping directly before him, gazing up into his eyes as though sizing him up. And finding him enormously wanting. “You’re not only an absolute novice, but you don’t have a single warrior bone in that entire lanky streak you call a body. How you managed to defeat the vampire in the pub beer garden, even with the ring, I haven’t a clue. I can only assume you’re tremendously lucky.”
“I’d have to disagree with you there,” he assured her. “Trust me when I say, I am probably the least lucky person you’ve ever met.”
“Well, I suppose so,” she agreed, nodding, her eyes flashing with a glint of amusement that sent fingers of icy premonition crawling over his skin. “Because now you’ve got your first day’s training with me; and I’m not going to be easy on you.”
Brian snapped.
“Listen, woman. I’ve been nothing but humiliated and abused, physically and verbally, all day. If I’m supposed to be this legendary bloody Helsing, protector of the masses, kisser of babies and lord of the freaking rings, why doesn’t anybody show me the slightest hint of god-damned respect? Answer me that!”
She stepped a foot closer, that pixie smile still plastered on her pretty face.
“Because you’ve not earned it yet. The ring is on your finger, but that was only a happy accident of fate. Being called Helsing is not the same as being Helsing. Make no mistake, the previous Helsings were all treated better than you, even right from the off. But they were warriors, proud, noble, skilled, already proven before they’d taken up the mantle. You? You’re a nothing. An idiot.”
“Then why not kill me now? Just pass the ring onto someone new?”
Even as he spoke the words, the bottom fell out of his stomach as she inclined her head, almost as if considering it.
“Well, it’s not really the done thing,” she laughed, finally. “Besides, I do like me a challenge. And training you to be the greatest hunter of demons on Earth would be a challenge and a half. Now, get in that ring.”
She nodded over her shoulder towards the arena, a square, ten metres by ten, of unyielding concrete with only a thin covering of straw to cushion what he knew would be his inevitable hard falls. He gulped.
“What if I say no?”
Her smile, if anything, widened.
“It wasn’t a question.”
With that, she grasped him by the wrist, allowing herself to fall backwards to the ground, one leg raised in front of her as she pulled him towards her. Her foot drove into his stomach, hurling him through the air, up becoming down, before he landed in the ring with a hard smack that drove the wind from his lungs. As he lay there gasping, his head ringing, he watched her circle him through blurry eyes. She moved slowly, surely, regarding him like a cat a mouse. A pathetic, scrawny mouse, with three legs and one eye, not fit for a meal but perhaps an amusing diversion for a moment.
“The ring is a relic of a bygone age,” she told him. “Forged by mighty wizards, led by the first Master himself. It taps into realms of forbidden knowledge, lending sorcerous power, feeding
you with strength and speed to match the vicious creatures you will encounter on your missions. But without proper training it’s nothing but a crutch. If you listen to me, learn from me, however, you will begin to meld magically borrowed strength and your own learned skills, transforming even a spineless idiot like you into a warrior beyond compare. A warrior worthy of the title Helsing.”
“And what if I don’t want to be worthy,” Brian gasped, rising from the floor with a creak of battered bones. “What if I just want to go home and be normal? No-one seems to give a crap about what I want, do they? I didn’t ask for this.”
“The universe chose you, Helsing. And you think the universe gives a crap what you want?”
With that, she lunged, connecting a punch clean to his jaw, even as he stood and pondered her words. In shock, he reached for his lip, spying blood on his finger.
“What the hell was that for?”
She spread her arms wide, a look on her face as though explaining the obvious to a very slow child.
“We’re combat training. What did you expect? Netflix and chill?”
“I expected some warning,” he grumbled, rubbing his jaw.
Another blow, this time a kick straight to his midsection, doubling him over with a gasp.
“You think vampires are going to give you warning? You think a werewolf would tap you on the shoulder and go ‘excuse me, Mr Helsing, but mind awfully if I bite you head off’ hmm? Get real.”
Get real? Brian fumed. He’d had enough, he decided. If this little girl wanted to play rough, then play rough he would. He was sick of being pushed around, demeaned. If the only way to earn respect in this crazy hell-hole was by kicking a little ass, then ass he would kick, even if it was a woman’s. He rose up straight to his full towering height. Growled. And charged.
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