by Sean Davies
Alexander produced an old tin with a faded Imperian logo on it, which was filled with papers, filters, and fine Tropican tobacco. “Would anyone else like one?”
“Definitely,” Brooke said with a smile,
Winston thought about it and decided to give it a try. “Sure, yes please Alex.”
“Go on then, I won’t be left out!” Lewis added straight after.
With expert dexterity and years of experience Alexander had rolled four perfect cigarettes in the time it took most people to do one, and he sneakily lit them with a magical flame that came out of his thumb like a lighter. Brooke giggled a little bit too much, and Winston and Lewis looked at each other with an amused expression. They both knew that the two were probably going to end up in bed together. At first Winston had to fight the urge to cough, but the smoke had a smooth rich taste to it and it wasn’t long before he was enjoying every drag.
Their drinks arrived. Lewis and Winston had a nice big mug of coffee each and a plate with a bowl of sugar and a small metal pot of milk, while Alexander had a thin flute of expensive wine and Brooke had an ice cold beer out of the bottle. Winston went first adding, his milk and sugar to the hot black coffee before handing the rest over to Lewis. He put a small dollop of milk in and emptied the whole bowl of sugar into the mug. The three other stared at him speechless and he didn’t even register.
Brooke broke the silence. “Would you like some coffee with your sugar?” she joked.
“What?” Lewis seemed confused. He looked at his mug and then seemed to wake up. “Oh yeah, sorry, I just like sweet things!”
“You may end up having a heart attack at that rate,” Alexander added informatively,
Lewis took a big gulp of coffee and a drag on his cigarette. “If I get something I can’t fix with alchemy or a spell, I’ll just get one of you wonderful full Supernaturals to turn me,” he said uncaringly.
Once again, Winston was forced to agree with Lewis’ crazy logic. There was definitely something eccentric about him, but then everything was weird these days, and when he stopped to think about it all he was alarmed at how comfortable he was becoming with the strangeness of his new walk of life.
The food came shortly after. Like most Werewolves, Brooke had ordered more than one dish. She had a seafood platter, half a roast chicken, and well done steak and chips. Alexander had a modest pasta salad and Winston had a large cheeseburger that he had to cut in half to manage to get his teeth around, with a side of salad and curly fries. Lewis had a steak that was so rare and bloody it looked like it hadn’t touched the grill, and he gobbled it down quickly along with some cheese-smothered garlic bread.
They weren’t stretched for time so they got some dessert and another round of drinks. Brooke and Alexander had the same again and Winston and Lewis moved on to spirits mixed with soft drink. Alexander had an ice cream sundae, Brooke had a chocolate fudge cake, and Winston had a cookie dough cheesecake with vanilla ice cream and squirty cream. Winston could have easily mistaken Lewis for a Werewolf, as he had one of what everyone else was having plus a plate of syrup-covered waffles. He’d wolfed down all four before the others had even finished their single servings.
Once they had finished, their bill was brought over. It was horrendously expensive but nothing compared to what the group was worth; crime did pay. Winston offered to pay for the whole meal, and everyone thanked him graciously but it hardly registered on his account. He paid at the bar by card and gave a generous tip. The waitress didn’t seem so bothered about their visit after all.
They casually made their way back to the hotel. They parted ways with Alex and Brooke who went to the hotel bar together, and Winston and Lewis made their way to their rooms on the top floor.
“What room are you in?” Winston asked when they were in the elevator.
“Luxury room number thirteen,” he smiled. “Unlucky, huh?”
“I’m in lucky seven. What are the odds?” Winston joked.
Winston got back to his room, unpacked his new clothes, and put away his new alchemy gear. For the rest of the day he caught up on some much needed studying from his book. He browsed a few spells but really focused on the herb lore and potion making. He checked out the book Gregory had given him too, as it had some interesting variations and combinations that he certainly wouldn’t have thought of. He decided that his target goal would be to successfully turn his Nightmare Nettle into some Dreamleaf in the next few days.
He felt like he was at the limit for his academics for one day so he had a nice relaxing bath and lounged around for the rest of the day. He set up the computer and watched a lot of television, then got changed into a suit after the clock turned eleven. He made sure he looked as smart as possible, slicked his hair to the side, and made his way down to the underground garage.
Everyone who was attending from the Shadow Circle was assembled around a variety of vehicles. There were sports cars, jeeps, bikes, and an armoured van similar to the one from the Woodsholme trip but much bigger.
Veronica was leaning against a sleek red sports car. Her hair was tied back neatly and she was wearing a smart suit and dress that wasn’t revealing for a change, but it still gave her the overall look of a very sexy secretary. “Fancy a ride sweetie?” she asked as cheekily as ever.
“Of course,” he replied as he embraced her tightly and gave her a long passionate kiss.
Lewis entered the garage and watched the scene. “Unbelievable!” he said with an envious tone.
Winston shrugged nonchalantly. “What can I say? I guess I’m just a lucky man.”
“A very lucky man,” Veronica corrected jokingly.
“Anyway,” Lewis said, “I’m going to head back to the Gloom for a bit to make sure they’re all set for tomorrow. Just wanted to come and wish you luck for your trip to the old people’s home. Oh, and make sure you pick up some top notch gear from the Shadow Market.”
Veronica smiled naughtily. “Don’t you worry, blondie, I’ll make sure he does.”
Lucius stood on the bonnet of his priceless black sports car (it didn’t move an inch under his feet so it must have been pretty well armoured) and addressed everyone in the garage. “We’re entering the Catacombs through the Capital Library so we won’t be travelling far, but nonetheless be on the lookout for any trouble, Triumvir or Inquisition related. We’re under the magnifying glass so to speak, so I want best behaviour at all times. We’ll have our time but tonight isn’t it, so only react violently as a last resort! Now let’s move out!”
With that, everyone got into their respective vehicles. Alexander, Brooke, and Xavier rode in the van with a few high ranking gang members. Lynette was with Kavarne on his bike, and Veronica and Winston cruised along comfortably in her crimson car. The other vehicles contained Lucius’ retinue of protectors.
It only took them a few minutes to reach the Capital Library’s large and dimly lit car park; it must have been a strange sight to see so many flashy cars parking up in one place, especially a library.
The Capital Library was said to be the largest in the world, and it was rumoured to contain at least one copy of every book that had been published in recent years, plus many tomes from the olden times. It was a long white rectangular building and contained several floors, and the outside had impressive columns and statues of Imperian heroes of old built into recesses in the stone work. There was a magnificent glass dome on the roof that showed that all the lights were still on inside.
The building was run twenty-four hours a day by an order known as the Archivists. They technically still came under the rule of the Trinity of Old but in the past few years they had started to take the gang’s bad example and branched out more into the human world. Their order had been formed long before the Trinity, and existed only to record and share knowledge. The purchasing of libraries, book shops, and publishing factories had been their most extrovert move to date, and even though they still viewed themselves on side with the Trinity they had gone
against their requests and began publishing up-to-date books on all facets of the Supernatural world. They only sold them to fellow Supernaturals so they couldn’t see any harm in it. If a normal human did see one of the books they would most likely think of it as a work of fiction, and the Archivists saw it as their duty to their fellow Supernaturals to share their knowledge.
The Shadow Circle gang walked up the big stone steps towards the building’s wood and glass double doors. Two members of the Archivists, a male Werewolf and Vampire, were waiting directly inside the lobby. They were wearing light blue shirts tucked into dark grey trousers with smart shiny black shoes, and their hair was slicked to the side similar to Winston’s style, but theirs was practically glued to their heads. These were the least glamorous Supernaturals he’d ever seen. They even had white name tags stuck to their shirt pockets.
“Good evening and welcome to the Capital Library,” the Werewolf with ‘Ralph’ written on his name tag said politely.
“Pardon me for asking, but are you here for the Trinity Meet perchance?” the Vampire named Simon asked straight afterwards.
Lucius stepped forward to address them. “Yes we are. We need to use your entrance to the Catacombs. Oh, and here’s a little something for your cause. The Shadow Circle continues to respect your work.” He reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a massive wad of money held together by a thick paper band, holding it out to the Archivists.
Ralph took the money with a big smile. “Your donation has been noted and is greatly appreciated. Follow me to the entrance.”
The inside of the Library was amazing. The first floor had books that were for sale, a help desk and reception, staff office, canteen and coffee shop, gift shop, toilets, and two escalators to the second floor. Underneath the dome it was visible that the three floors above were comprised primarily of row after row of dark wooden bookshelves filled to the brim with books of every kind. More Archivists scurried about here and there conducting their business, reorganising displays, reading, writing, and chatting. Some were wearing the same as Simon and Ralph, and some wore unflattering cardigans and woolly jumpers.
They were brought to the staff office and escorted to a large back room filled with boxes and junk.
Simon waved his hand slowly across the room and spoke. “Knowledge is power.”
The contents of the room distorted heavily and then vanished completely. With the illusion dispelled, it now contained a big red carpeted spiral staircase that lead down into the ground.
They followed Ralph and Simon down to the basement floor and out into an almost mirrored version of the library above. Winston now looked out over a banister onto a massive rectangular basement filled with bookshelves of Supernatural knowledge. There were four basement floors of occult knowledge ranging from history to alchemy, spell tomes to biology. The middle of the lowest floor was a large square court that slopped downwards into a large stone archway that pulsed with misty blue energy. It was a Catacomb gateway.
They passed by countless bookshelves, made their way down old staircases, passed many more Archivists busy with their tasks and studies, and eventually reached the slope down to the gateway.
It looked much bigger and more imposing now that Winston was only a few feet away from it; the portal could easily accommodate for two jeeps driving side by side, maybe even two buses at a pinch. The way the strange blue energy pulsed, rippled, and distorted the world around it was mesmerising.
“Don’t worry,” Veronica said quietly, “you won’t even have time to register it.”
They all stepped through the portal and were instantly teleported to the Trinity’s Catacombs. The powerful relocation magic had teleported them unknown miles in an instant, a testament to the Trinity’s power as reality bending magic was some of the oldest and most difficult to master. Veronica had been right, Winston barely noticed the transition.
They were standing in a short stone corridor lit by blue magefire lamps. Two Trinity guards were standing to attention in silvery grey armour marked with light blue runes, and sleek helmets with long purple, yellow, and red plumes. They were armed with assault rifles and had sheathed swords on their hips.
“Shadow Circle, here for the meet,” Lucius said casually.
“Watch yourselves,” one of the guards said sternly as they walked away.
They exited the corridor and arrived in a large multi-floored atrium. There were lots of other corridors that Winston assumed would lead to more portals. All of the world was accessible from here, but the Trinity of Old only allowed unrestricted travel to its members, a punishment for all those who had defected. Armed guards stood motionlessly at regular intervals and the Trinity’s triangular symbol was displayed often on the bare stone slab walls. The bottom of the atrium was filled with market stalls and a couple of well-guarded stone shops with iron bar windows. This was the Shadow Market.
The gang took a square magical elevator down to the bottom floor, which was quite busy due to the impending meeting, and they shuffled past customers and other gang and order members from all over the world to another portal with ‘conference hall’ engraved above it on solid stone archway.
Lucius turned to Winston and Veronica. “We’re still a little early if you want to shop first?”
“Sure, that would be great,” Winston replied happily.
Veronica took him past the stalls of ingredients, potions, and trinkets to the stone shops. “These are where you get the best stuff. You can afford the best so you might as well get the best, and they take card payments too.”
He approached one of the iron bar windows, which had a small gap at the bottom for passing goods and money, and waited to be served.
An uptight, young looking but white haired mage in an old grey robe acknowledged him rudely. “Yes, what is it?”
“I’m looking to kit out a new alchemy lab. I have the basics so I just need the crystal ware mainly; beakers, flasks, vials, alembics, retort, you know, the lot. Oh, and if you have a bunch of base reagents I’ll take those too. I’ll need the whole lot delivered to my place.”
The mage looked at him, disgusted. “Are you sure you can afford all that? Maybe you’d be better off searching amongst the stalls.”
Winston smirked, opened his light collection kit and passed it under the bars, and then he got his wallet out and flicked his bank card through too. “Whatever the Deathroot and Crimson Blightmoth wing doesn’t cover, my account will. And like I said, I’ll need it delivered to my luxury suite in the Hotel Noir. Tell reception it’s for Winston Reynolds and they’ll take care of the rest,” he said smugly.
The mage just nodded in shock, looking like he had been slapped in the face. He carefully took the rare ingredients and card payment and told Winston that it all would be delivered to him tomorrow.
Veronica laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “I love the attitude, honey.”
Winston smiled. “Just didn’t like the way he spoke down to me, that’s all.”
“It doesn’t hurt to put people in their place every now and then, especially as you’re a VIP now, to the gang and to me.” She grabbed his ass and kissed him. “Now let’s go get the boring stuff out of the way!”
They went through the portal to the conference hall. They entered into a gigantic high ceilinged room, which kept to the Catacombs ongoing theme of bare stone slab and blue magefire. It has at its far end a small portal that exited onto a raised walkway and ended onto a tall stone stage with four braziers of blue magefire in each corner.
Veronica led Winston by the hand past the groups of gangs and orders, all standing together in their own groups. Some gave welcoming smiles and others gave snarls. They met up with the rest of the Shadow Circle and awaited an appearance from the Trinity of Old.
The hall echoed with the sounds of mixed conversations and whispers, until a figure appeared out of the portal and walked slowly across the walkway to the stage. The hall went deathly silent.
It was Silvario, the Desem-born mage representative of the Trinity. He had long waist length silvery white hair, combed and kept so well it shone, with greyish white skin, bland facial features, and extremely tired eyes. He looked middle-aged but was in fact one of the oldest people in existence. He wore an extravagant purple, silver, and gold robe marked in several places with the Trinity’s thrice divided triangle.
The Trinity had three leaders, one representative of each Supernatural race from one of the three continents; Svorn the gruff old Werewolf from Rura, Cherriesa the dark skinned Vampire warrior goddess from Tropica, and of course Silvario, the silver haired and silver-tongued mage from Desem.
“I speak to you tonight about matters of the utmost importance and urgency,” Silvario began. “The actions of Edgar Aurelius the second have gravely threatened the survival of our races. We have heard from inside sources that the storming of the World Government buildings is only the beginning of his ambitious intentions. He does in fact mean to wage a war against all Supernaturals in the same fashion as the witch hunting Inquisition of old!”
“He wouldn’t even know about us if you hadn’t murdered his mother!” a muscular Werewolf with wild grey hair in shabby clothes growled. “If the boy wants to avenge his mother, I say let him. We can point him the right direction.”
A murmur carried through the hall, and Veronica whispered in Winston’s ear, “That’s Kaine, the leader of the Dogs of War.”
A female Vampire with a snooty demeanour snorted rudely. “I’m sure your actions during the Great War didn’t advertise our kind to the humans a single bit, Kaine.”