Skullenia

by Tony Lewis

  The mixture in the bowl then thickened and stopped moving, and a small bulge appeared in the centre. It rose higher and higher until it was about four feet tall. Two protrusions formed, one on either side, at the ends of which five small buds appeared, wiggling purposefully as they grew. The top of the muddy column was forming a rough sphere which quickly smoothed out, allowing the beginnings of facial features to show through. Under the burgeoning nose a split formed, which widened as if in a yawn, showing a tongue and a set of sharp teeth.

  The hooded figure watched in rapt and unadulterated fascination as the outline took on its final form. The wiggling stumps were now fully functional hands and digits that moved languidly, as if the being itself were amazed at its newly found corporeality and was studying it carefully. Pitch black soulless eyes stared out from deep sockets and the lips smacked together, as if the apparition were indicating that it needed a drink. Those lips parted, and when it spoke the voice penetrated the summoner to their very core. It was a deep, rumbling bass that resonated around the room, to the point that the listener could have sworn that they could see sound waves emanating from its mouth.

  “WHY HAVE YOU SUMMONED ME, MORTAL?”

  “To aid me in my quest,” the hooded figure replied in a timid and trembling voice. “To translate the text before me and locate…”

  “I KNOW OF WHAT YOU SPEAK, MORTAL, BUT I CANNOT HELP YOU WITH THE COMPENDIUM DE MAGICUS TOTALUS.”

  “May I be permitted to ask why, dark one?”

  “THAT BOOK WAS WRITTEN HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO BY A RENEGADE GOD. IT SHOULD HAVE REMAINED UNSEEN BY HUMAN EYES, BUT IT FELL INTO MORTAL HANDS. THE RESULTING CHAOS WAS CATACLYSMIC.”

  “In what way?”

  “THE MORTAL WHO TRANSLATED THE TEXT USED IT IN AN ATTEMPT TO RULE OVER YOUR WORLD, AND OURS. THAT COULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN, SO HE WAS DESTROYED.”

  “Why wasn’t the book destroyed if it had the capability to cause so much trouble?”

  “IT WAS FORMED BY THE GODS THEMSELVES. IT CANNOT BE TORN ASUNDER, SO IT WAS HIDDEN FOR CENTURIES IN PLAIN SIGHT AS AN INTERESTING RELIC.”

  “But I have no interest in destroying the Gods or attempting to take over their world. My interest is dominion in the mortal realm.”

  “IF THAT IS THE CASE, THEN PERHAPS WE CAN COME TO ACCEPTABLE TERMS.”

  “Such as?”

  “IF I ASSIST YOU AND YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL IN YOUR QUEST, YOU WILL BE GRANTED RULE OVER YOUR WORLD, BUT YOU WILL BECOME OUR VESSEL. A CONDUIT, THROUGH WHICH OUR BIDDING CAN BE DONE.”

  “Agreed.”

  “VERY WELL. FIVE STRANGERS WILL BECOME KNOWN TO YOU, AND IT IS THROUGH THEM THAT THE TEXT WILL BE TRANSLATED. ONE OF THEM WILL DISCOVER THE SECRET, FOR IT MUST BE FOUND BY ONE ABLE TO DECIPHER IT, RATHER THAN TOLD BY THOSE WHO ALREADY KNOW. THEN IT WILL BE THESE FIVE WHO COMPLETE THE QUEST.”

  “Why them and not me?”

  “THE WIELDER OF THE ARTEFACT MUST NOT BE THE DISCOVERER. SO IT IS WRITTEN. THE CHOICE IS YOURS, MORTAL. DO YOU STILL AGREE?”

  There was no hesitation. “Yes, I agree.”

  “VERY WELL. SO IT SHALL BE.”

  The representation of the demon disintegrated in an instant, collapsing back into the marble bowl and leaving nothing but a still, slightly pink pool. The static charge receded and the room returned to normal.

  Getting up from the stool, the hooded one walked over to a wooden chest of drawers in which was some salve and a bandage, which would be used to clean and wrap the injured hand.

  All there was to do now was wait.

  * * *

  Stitches gripped the arms of the chair and squeezed his hands so tightly that his skin was in danger of splitting, sending several of his knuckles flying around the cabin. His eyes were clamped shut and his lips were pursed tightly together. His feet were involuntarily flexing up and down, like a drummer hammering the pedals to a pair of bass drums.

  “Why did we have to fly? I hate flying. It’s not natural. There’s no way this much weight should be able to get off the ground.”

  Ollie stopped reading his latest copy of The Moon and rested it on his lap.

  “Well, I’m sure that if a plane can get a load of Americans into the air, then this one should have no problem. Besides,” he continued, a bit annoyed at having his reading interrupted, “it’s the quickest and most convenient way to travel. It was either this or spend five days on the ferry, and I don’t think that would have been very pleasant, what with Flug and his seasickness.”

  “I would have taken that over this,” responded the zombie, shifting in his seat. “At least on a boat he could go outside and throw up into the water without bothering anyone. If I let rip in this confined space, it will suddenly seem a hell of a lot smaller.”

  Ollie picked up his magazine again and flicked it straight.

  “The only thing we’d have to worry about if you let rip would be dust clogging up the air vents. Anyway, I don’t know what you’re worrying about. Statistically speaking, air travel is by far and away the safest mode of transport.”

  Stitches opened one eye which glared at his half vampire colleague.

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “No.”

  “You do know who the pilot is, don’t you?”

  “I hadn’t read the crew list, no. I’m quite happy in the knowledge that they wouldn’t let a total stranger into the cockpit.”

  “Well be that as it may, I checked. It’s Hamish MacHaggis. When he was alive he was the worst pilot ever to have been in the Royal Air Force. The only thing he ever flew successfully was a toy helicopter, and he’s on record as being the only pilot ever to have been shot down before getting into his plane.”

  “Some kind of aviation expert now, are we?”

  “No. I just like to do my research, especially when I know I’m going to be getting on one of these infernal contraptions.”

  Once again Ollie put his soon-to-be-out-of-date periodical down, resigning to the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to finish reading the ‘Vampires. Pillaging, Ancient Mythical Beast or Effeminate, Over-Compensating Closet Homosexual’ article.

  “Infernal contraptions?” he laughed. “You sound like a pensioner. You’ll be telling me next that things were a lot better before all these new fangled changes. I don’t know what you’re worried about anyway. Everybody on this flight is undead. If anything happens to us, it’ll be of entirely no consequence.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. All you have to do is turn into a flying mouse and flap off into the moonlight, whereas I and poor old Flug here will be scattered over rather a large area. Right, Flug?”

  He elbowed his vast travelling companion in the ribs, hoping to elicit some kind of response, but it was a futile gesture. Flug had his headphones on and was caught up in the middle of watching the in-flight movie, a remake of a certain space themed film that probably can’t be mentioned due to legal reasons. The film that Flug was watching however, an affectionate and inspired re-imagining of said unmentionable film, can.

  It was called The Vampire Bites Back, an uplifting story in which the handsome hero, Puke Piehorder, at the behest of his tutor, the ancient and sagacious Yodel, travels across the galaxy to face his father, the evil and tyrannical Lord Harsh Trader, in a ferocious final battle bidding to deny his destiny in joining Trader running his very successful second hand spacecraft empire. It was a blockbuster of epic proportions that had won four Lecters at the recent Mortuary Awards. Flug didn’t actually have a clue what was going on, of course. It was only during their recent trip that he had discovered that there weren’t little people living in the magic TV box and that you didn’t have to stand outside looking up at the heavens to watch Sky Sports. Still, at least it was marginally better than the poor excuse for entertainment they had had to endure on the outward journey. It was about a Mafia Don who was confined to a wheelchair. It doesn’t matter how convincing the actor or how grisly the torture scenes as he slaughtered his enemies and took control of h
is territories, there is nothing in the slightest bit intimidating about a character called ‘The Quadfather’.

  “Anyway,” Ollie cut in, “you’re only in a bad mood because of what happened at the hotel.”

  Stitches looked at him with a look of disgust and revulsion on his weathered face.

  “Well, wouldn’t you be?” he said.

  After cracking the difficult, and quite frankly exhausting, case of Jocular’s’ missing lycanthropes, Ollie had taken some time to sort through some of his Uncle’s vast accumulation of paperwork. There was all the usual stuff. Bills for cape cleaning (blood is hell to shift), receipts going back hundreds of years (he found one for a gas powered fang cleaner dated 1756), letters of thanks for work done and some magazine renewal forms (two of which were for publications that Ollie had (a) never heard of and (b) never wanted to hear of. They revelled under the headings of ‘Bleeders Wives’ and ‘Double O Positives, How does all that fit in one cup?’ Ollie was sure that his Uncle would only peruse these publications for the articles on the latest hansom cabs, but they went in the bin regardless). There was also the odd invitation or two. One of them was asking old Gorge to attend the Antichristening of his Demigodson, so Ollie replied to that one informing the sender of his late Uncle’s demise. The second one was an invitation to attend a conference in London where all of the delegates gathered to hear lectures, join in discussion groups and get involved in workshops doing table top exercises and giving presentations. The whole weekend was organised by the BBC (British Bloodletting Corporation) and the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Preservation of Carnal Acts), two charitable bodies whose sole intent was the advancement of the modern day undead. Ollie had figured that not only would it be a chance to get away for a few days to relax and blow away the cobwebs, which in Stitches’ case was the literal truth, because his armpits were a constant problem, but he might get some valuable networking done. Not a bad idea, now that he had a computer with darknet access installed in his office.

  Also, being the generous soul that he was, he asked his colleagues, the bounty hunters, if they would like to join them. Sadly though, Mr Singh wouldn’t shut the shop for anything less than the destruction of the entire planet (bet your life he would still open on Christmas morning, though) and Dr Jekyll had gone into hiding after an unfortunate incident with a load of fruit, a farmer’s daughter and the whole back catalogue of The Worzels. So what with Ronnie being away and Ethan not fancying it one bit (‘well he does look dog tired’ was Stitches’ response. A response which had earned him a hearty smack to the head that had left him looking backwards for an hour or so) it was just the three of them. Stitches was actually looking forward to it, apart from the flying of course, and Flug had come along simply because he could not be left alone. Or to put it another way, he was too simple to be left alone. The last time that Ollie had allowed him to fend for himself had been about a month ago. The remodelling to the kitchen hadn’t taken as long as he first thought, but the remodelling of poor old Hector Lozenge was going to take a lot longer. He had knocked on the door in his usual drunken state, after forgetting where he lived. When Flug opened it and saw the poor man standing in the rain and soaking from head to toe, he had picked him up and done the most natural thing that he could think of. Still, the new tumble dryer was a lot better than the old one, especially as it didn’t have clumps of bright red but very dry skin stuck to the inside.

  The only proviso for the trip though was that they had to go incognito. A half vampire, an eight foot monster and a slowly disintegrating zombie couldn’t very well wander the streets of England’s capital city, scaring every man, woman and child that they came across. Unless it was London fashion week of course, in which case they would have fit right in.

  The first person they thought of to help them was Professor Crumble, but on reflection the idea was shelved because the chances were that they would be trying to conceal their identities by wearing market stall quality masks of comedy werewolves, and talking in very unconvincing foreign accents. That being the case they went to Mrs. Ladle, who had been more than happy to help. She had got to work preparing a transformation potion that they could take on the flight over. It also had the added benefit of allowing the taker to still see themselves as they truly are. Only those humans looking at them got the effect. The only thing she didn’t mention was the fact that she had absolutely no idea what non-undead form they would take. At least they’d be nice. Chocolate. Lovely. And it would nicely mask the taste of ground troll shavings that was in it, which is always a bonus, because that tasted worse than anything else, ever. Even kebabs.

  As they descended, the three of them had knocked back the liquid. Ollie took on the appearance of a rather well dressed city gent complete with briefcase, bowler hat, umbrella and smug self-satisfied expression. Flug became the member of a death metal band sporting long greasy hair, demonic tattoos that covered most of his body, jeans so filthy that a Hell’s Angel would have wanted to put them through the wash, and a t-shirt with the band name, OX STOMPER, emblazoned across the front.

  Stitches, however, hadn’t been so fortunate, and neither Ollie nor Flug had the heart to tell him what he had become. It wasn’t until they walked through the door of the hotel and the zombie bumped into someone only to hear ‘Sorry love, my fault’ that Ollie enlightened him.

  “You know how the Stella girls dress?” he said, trying not to laugh.

  “Oh my God, yes.”

  “You make them look rather understated.”

  “Oh no. So I’ve got to spend the next two days walking around looking like a high class call girl?”

  Ollie shrugged and pursed his lips.

  “Not so much high class. More like no class.”

  “Great.”

  “Oh, and do me a favour. Pull your top up, your boobs are falling out.”

  After a highly articulate outburst and being asked to watch his/her language or risk getting thrown out, they had gotten on with the conference.

  They had attended a very informative lecture on ‘What not to wear to a summoning’ that was presented by a rather flamboyant and extremely well groomed Satanist, who called himself ‘The Cloven Poof’, before enjoying a workshop on ‘Business Relationships. How to end them and where to hide the body’. The only disappointment had been the cancellation of the performance and discussion forum from the GLC (the Goblin Light-theatre Company), after their coach had caught fire on the M4 and they had all popped.

  All in all though, it had been an interesting and productive trip. They had even managed to get in a bit of sightseeing, but only after they had convinced Flug that Big Ben was a large bell in a clock-tower, and not a giant monster with four faces and a pointy hat who shouted DONG at unsuspecting passers-by. Stitches, on the other hand, had had three dinner invitations, one proposal of marriage and an offer from a rather unsavoury Eastern European gentleman to ‘take him up the back passage in Soho where I have a very interesting selection of bouncy, rubber things’.

  The aircraft lurched slightly as it started to descend, causing the nervous zombie to hold onto the armrests even tighter. A light came on in the overhead display showing a buckle and a clip. A voice rattled over the ancient intercom, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to start our descent into Skullenia airport. Please extinguish your cigarettes, lanterns, joss sticks, fire imps and dragons and fasten your seatbelts.” (Airport was a bit wide of the mark, as no doubt the plane would be. It was more an old field, littered with bits and pieces of animals that hadn’t gotten out of the way in time. If ever you see a news report where an aircraft has been downed by cow strike, you’ll know where it happened).

  “Fasten your seatbelts,” muttered Stitches disapprovingly. “What a waste of time. If this thing crashes at five hundred miles an hour, I don’t think a four foot length of fabric is going to help much. There wouldn’t be enough left of me to go in a sick bag.”

  “If you don’t stop moaning, I’ll put you in a Hoover bag when we get home.
”

  Half an hour later they had collected their luggage from the seemingly endless carousel, and were queuing up to go through Customs and Exorcise. Stitches followed Ollie and Flug through the barrier.

  “Anything to declare?” asked the officious ghoul at the checkpoint.

  “Well, those shoes don’t go with that shirt for a start, and that tie, where did you, ooof.”

  Two hours later and with not one part of his body unprobed, Stitches re-joined the other two.

  “You’ll never learn, will you?” commented Ollie knowingly, throwing his cases on top of the cab and eliciting help from his colleagues with his coffin. “Always have to be a smart arse.”

  “Funny you should say that,” Stitches replied, struggling with the top end of the casket. “My arse is smarting a bit as it goes. Amazing where they think two hundred fags will fit.”

  “Good job they didn’t check in your mouth then. I doubt they have the manpower to search such a vast area, especially without helicopters and sea-going search vessels.”

  “Why would you put a fag up your bottom, Stitches?” asked Flug, a look of confusion on his face usually seen on old people trying to understand something, and the younger person trying to explain it to them.

  “To keep the tobacco dry.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  They got into the cab and settled in for the journey home, passing a large overhead sign that read ‘Thank you for flying on the Astral Plane,’ before hitting the dual dust track home.

  * * *

  “I don’t understand it at all,” said the distinguished looking gentleman, shaking his head in puzzlement. “We’re always so careful with our security arrangements. In the four hundred years that this museum has been in existence, there has never been an incident such as this. It’s dreadful, not to mention potentially catastrophic.”

  A second figure detached itself from the shadows of the room and approached the first.

  “What do you mean, Mr. Curator? Not to denigrate what has occurred, but it is after all only a few pages from an old book that have been taken.”