Superhero Adventures, UK Style

They stared around them. It seemed as though Mace was getting the most attention from the gathered ferrymen but surprisingly not because of her skin colour (though they did refer to her as a ‘blackamoor’) but because of her style of dress. Her skin-tight outfit seemed to cause a mixture of ogling and averted eyes from the ferrymen. Her bike also drew a lot of unwelcome attention – was it some sort of a chest and if so, where were the carrying handles?

Akira put his hand on her shoulder, his other on the bike and stepped back into the shadows where he proceeded to make both them and himself invisible.  Unfortunately, the bike’s stationary presence made it impossible for them both to walk away first before vanishing.

A couple of the nearest ferrymen gulped as the machine that resembled the legless body of a horse and the woman in the strange clothing suddenly vanished from sight with the bald, beardless man. Mary continued to look as though nothing unusual had occurred in the hope that the couple of people who’d seen them vanish might think that they had imagined the disappearance. It seemed to work as a couple of the ferrymen shook their heads or slammed the side of their skulls with the palm of their hand as though to shake the vision away and continued their inane chatter.

Over their commdots, Mary could hear the now invisible Mace explain that without modern technology to transmit the signal they needed to be aware that their connection would be limited to Bluetooth – they could transmit and receive no further than about 100 metres at most. Beyond that range, they would not be able to keep in touch with each other.

In front of them, the rutted cobbles seemed to indicate that this area was usually a hive of industry. Carts, carriages, horses and pedestrians should be crowded around even at this late hour instead it was eerily quiet.

The cobblestoned road in front of the claustrophobic ancient-looking houses was drenched in slops people had thrown out and water falling from the overhanging roofs. Another hazard was the choking black smoke belching forth from nearby factories. Where was everybody?  Looking at the style of dress of the ferrymen and the style of the buildings Mace estimated that they had to be sometime in the 17^th century.

Only the sedan chair with its female passenger occupied the street as it hurried in the general direction of London Bridge, followed behind by the original bearers confused as to whether they had just rented or sold outright their livelihood and seeking to stay close until they could find out for certain.

Then behind them, midway across the Thames they heard a loud shout and two struggling figures appeared in mid-air, falling quickly towards the stagnant river below.  Akira was sure that it was Locker and the vampire tumbling down towards the dark and slimy water and with a heavy splash vanished beneath the surface.

Several seconds passed and neither of them surfaced. The ferrymen were gossiping amongst themselves about vanishing objects, dark skinned females and men falling from the sky and wondering if this and the ‘curse’ were somehow connected to the comet that had been seen in the night sky’s a couple of years before. Several of the ferrymen crossed themselves as they looked across the water for any sign that the falling men had managed to reach the surface.

There was no sign of Boire or Locker. Somehow, the rest of the team had arrived before them and now they had to watch and hope that Locker might have a trick or two in his suit that would bring him safely to the surface. Did Locker’s suit include a rebreather or some form of floatation device, they wondered.

They couldn’t help also wondering did a vampire need to breath underwater and if so, how long could they hold their breath for?

Akira and Banshee jumped on the bike, which like themselves was still rendered invisible, and headed out above the river trying to see if they could see anything under the water. Unfortunately it was too polluted to see anything below the surface.

Akira considered trying to use his TK to form a force bubble on the bottom of the river but, without confirmation of what was down there how could he be sure that he would pull anything up? Even if he succeeded, all he would do is trap his teammate inside a bubble of water. The tide was flowing out and might already have dragged his body downstream with it, away from the search area. Akira felt powerless.

As they waited, hoping to see Locker surface, Akira muttered a quote from Sun Tzu, “Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like…” then contacted Mary still on the dockside. The transmission at that distance was intermittent but they managed to make it clear that perhaps they should follow the mysterious group with the sedan chair, still visible running alongside the river bank, as after all there had to be a reason Boire had arrived when and where he had? Meanwhile perhaps Banshee could figure out a way to search the riverbed for Locker?

Mary stepped away from the dockside and once she was completely out of sight turned both insubstantial and invisible and floated across to where she’d seen the two struggling bodies fall into the river.  She flowed down into the river and tried to look through the dark of the water. Clouds covered the moon and the water was so polluted it was impossible to see more than a foot at most through the river-turned-sewer. Despite her incorporeal state, she still needed to breath. She could remain under for a couple of minutes at most, best to make the most of it, She drifted down through the water (or was the water through her, she found herself wondering) looking for any sign of either of them on the river bottom. She did find after about a minutes’ searching a perfectly shaped dip in the river bottom like part of a large sphere but no sign of what might have made the indentation. She followed the tide out and towards the bridge far downstream, seeing several shadows in the riverbank that seemed to indicate several underground rivers and streams emptying out into the Thames. Could they have made their way across to them? Given every outlet she’d seen was itself under water, that did not seen a viable option but she checked them anyway. There was no sign of either of them and she was forced to surface and take a breath or three as she tried to figure out what to do now but it had been too long. In the end she headed in her covert form back towards the nearest dock and dry land.

Meanwhile Mace and her invisibility-generating partner had headed back towards the shore, flying above the rooftops following the Sedan chair as it and its convoy manoeuvred its way effortlessly through the near deserted streets that was the inner city, still heading in the direction of the bridge.

As they looked around, they realised that one of the streets they’d seen ‘change’ from a terrace of modern houses to a Tudor appearance during the paradox flux back in their own time had actually existed in this era. It was almost as they had seen it after the paradox had changed it, though it was currently dirtier-looking in its full lived-in and smoke-stained glory.  Had the paradox actually brought this row of houses forward in time somehow, they wondered?

Down below, the city stank. The streets were covered in manure and the remnants of late night chamber pots had just been emptied out of windows into the street below. There was no sanitation, and open drains flowed along the centre of winding streets. The cobbles were slippery with animal dung, rubbish and the slops thrown out of the houses, muddy and buzzing with flies and awash with sewage.

The few people that could be seen beneath them walked around slowly, avoiding the worst of the slops with handkerchiefs or nosegays pressed against their nostrils. The streets were otherwise eerily quiet.

Despite the hazards the sedan chair did not slow down as her two crow-like bearers manoeuvred over the slippy cobbles with ease, their pace constant and measured at all times, machine-like in their precision.

Most of the doors were closed and in front of many of the houses small stalls stood empty and abandoned. Some of the inns were still open apparently but they also were near empty of customers.

Several of the dwellings had a hastily spattered red cross painted on the door with the words ‘Lord have mercy upon us’. This far into the city plague victims were everywhere and the dead and dying were lying in the street or being carried out and thrown onto handcarts to be wheeled away to be buried in hastily dug mass graves.

Many others were just sealed in their houses with plague victims to die. Mace grimaced and revised her estimate of the date – the last, the worst, of the great plagues in London had been 1665 to 1666.

She looked down and saw the sedan chair suddenly swerve off the road and continue down a side alley before continuing in the same direction along a parallel street, as though deliberately wanting to avoid something. Below on the original street they could see a handcart carrying a couple of corpses had stopped and a man dressed identically to the lady’s escort, down to the black plague mask and tri-corner hat, was apparently examining one of the bodies. Unlike the lady’s men, his movement was almost inhumanly fluid and dignified rather than mechanical. He moved like a dancer. Despite the similarity in looks and dress, it was clear that the figure below was not part of the lady’s entourage.

They had to investigate. Akira tried to contact Mary over their commdots but the distance was too far and her call of “Mary, Mary, Mary” wasn’t received or responded to.

He looked down at the rats scuttering about underfoot and shuddered. Mace smiled, “Actually rats received a bad reputation, I read somewhere it was actually transferred on gerbils or guinea pigs from the East.” Akira wondered if the fleas that transmitted the actual plague knew that and were equally discriminatory about which host they used to get about now..?

Akira signalled for them to land in a nearby alley and dropped his invisibility on both himself and Mace as he exhibited the necessary gestures to call down the illusions of Idolon on himself.

Seconds later an exact duplicate of the Plague Doctor stood where Akira has been seconds before.  He smiled behind his illusionary mask; he looked, smelt and presumably ‘tasted’ like the man examining the corpse in front of him.  Having not heard him speak though, his voice was still his own.

Akira stepped out of the alley and tried to walk across to the other dark, masked figure examining the corpse of a young girl. As he stepped round some effluence in his path, he noticed the man he assumed was an actual Doctor of this time, took a step back, wearily watching him as he approached.

Time for action, thought Akira as he began his spiel, “Be not afraid my man, colleague of mine. I merely come to see how things fare in the Borough.”

The response from the masked figure opposite was gruff in response, “I do not recognise you sir as a member of the College!”

Akira explained, “I am situated in the shadowy corners of the College, we have not met before methinks?”

The masked figure in front of him bowed sarcastically, “I doubt that sir, yet you claim expertise in the surgical arts, so pray give me your observations on the victim before you.” and stepped aside to allow Akira to look closer.

The girl’s corpse was pale, skinny and at first he observed what he expected to see, the darkened and dead tissue in her fingers, toes and nose probably caused by gangrene but then noticed that her lymph nodes were only slightly swollen which indicated that she had died in the very early stages of the infection. Looking closer he realised the skin’s pallor was due to a lack of blood in the body and on her neck was recently healed scarring around two puncture marks, positioned over her jugular.

He moved over and checked the neck of the other victim, before looking across at the other masked figure, “They both appear to have been exsanguinated. This last corpse has none of the signs of the plague at all…”

Before he could continue the handcart pusher dropped his pipe from his mouth as he started pointing behind them both at the alleyway and began crossing himself as he muttered, “Holy Father, Son and Holy Ghost protect me.”

Akira spun round even as Mace on the back of her grav-bike took off and headed into the sky heading towards the built-up bridge. Over his commdot he heard her say, “Enough of this fooling around, I want to check out where the group are heading which appears to be towards the bridge.”

As she spoke he heard cries from the living on the street shout, “Witch, the devil is upon us, the devil is upon us,” then from somewhere nearby a single musket shot rang out. It completely failed to hit but the shot caused the outcry to increase as windows were flung open and further cries of “witch” rang out over and over again.

Nearby and invisible, Banshee was following the route taken by the Sudan chair as fast as she could fly when he saw a figure soaring through the air heading towards the bridge and the heads of executed criminals on spikes displayed on the roof of the gatehouse. Then several more musket shots rang out as the garrison on the bridge opened fire on the ‘embodiment of evil’ flying towards them.

Distracted by Mace’s flight, Akira failed to see the other masked figure suddenly turn and run, his feet seemed to hover just above the excrement that coated the cobbled street.

Behind him a woman, apparently a relation of the dead stepped out, unaware of the turmoil created by the ‘witch’ and with tears in her eyes thanked  a distracted Akira and explained that they were very lucky to have had not one but two doctors from the College of the Darkened Sun attend her loved ones. In fact, many of the rich and famous were flocking to the Church of the Martyr in the grounds of the college, as it seems that none of their surgeons or doctors had been affected by the spread of the plague so far, despite their close proximity to the dead.

Akira was sure his ‘colleague’ was heading in the same direction as the previously diverted Sudan Chair and that his feet weren’t actually touching the surface. As the man with the cart pointed the distant ‘witch’ out to the woman whose family had died and as she shouted out for “God to punish King Charles for his misdemeanours, the end of the world is upon us.” Akira set off in pursuit of his Doctor, copying him by levitating so his feet were a centimetre above the surface of the road as he pretended to run. He couldn’t help himself, he shouted back, “Don’t worry, I’ve seen the end of the world and it doesn’t happen today.”

No one was close enough to each other to maintain contact Banshee realised as she headed across the river towards the sky-weaving Mace, who was still being targeted by musket fire despite their lack of accuracy. On the roads back on the North Bank, Banshee could catch glimpses of the Sedan as it travelled through the streets and passed the road leading to the bridge.  Behind them, on the road closest to the riverbank, she saw two beaked figures running as though one was in pursuit of the other down towards an old darkened church set several streets back from the river, just east of the bridge itself. Both were moving too fluidly and fast to be travelling by normal means.

Then the Sedan chair vanished from view in the various back streets. No time, Banshee flew as fast as she could manage towards the dodging grav-bike, unfortunately even this close she couldn’t warn her as her own comm device was disrupted by her insubstantial state and she wasn’t willing to make the situation worse by becoming visible.

As soon as she got close enough to touch her and the bike (she daren’t leave the bike!) she turned substantial and then again disappeared from view with her and her bike. One lucky shot rang out passing through Mace’s now incorporeal body.

To those on the ground it looked as though the ‘witch’ had somehow split in two for a split second before she and her unholy mount of a legless horse had vanished. Cries of panic emanated from the admittedly small gatherings of people on the bridge.

A messenger was immediately dispatched to the Royal Court to inform his Majesty of the portents they had just witnessed.

Meanwhile Banshee flew as fast as she could towards the steeple of the church, close to where she’d last seen the woman in the mask and her entourage. The bike had deactivated due to being rendered insubstantial, she had to hold onto both Mace and it at all times.

Back on the ground, Akira had lost some ground trying to follow his plague doctor as he ran through various back alleys and side streets, though still heading in the general direction of the church. He turned a corner and there was his doctor entering a large and expensive looking town house next to the blackened church spire he’d seen earlier.

The figure pushed passed a pair of servants and went inside even as the oak doors slammed shut behind him. A painted plaque on the side of the building declared this the Chapterhouse of the College of the Darkened Son. Behind the large house on the next street were a number of less salubrious dwellings belonging to local tradesmen, mainly bakers. It seemed that in this day and age, whenever that might be, the rich and poor lived side by side in the cities with the poor occupying whatever land or building they could obtain and the rich living unaware of the poverty imposed on their near-neighbours.

As Akira tried to work out how to get inside, the Sedan chair and its crow-like entourage arrived and two of the beaked black figures immediately headed to the corner and began running down the street behind the chapterhouse. The woman exited the chair, which was just abandoned. There was no sign of the original bearers but Akira was sure they would find it soon and would reclaim it despite having sold it once already.

The woman in the mask moved to the door as one of her followers, the one in the three-faced mask, banged on the door so hard it threatened to break it loose from its hinges.

The door opened slightly, reluctantly and he heard the figure say, “We have been sent by the Court of Shadows and the Parliament of the Dawn and must speak with the ruling Council at once…” The door was opened at that declaration and one of the beaked figures immediately stepped inside.

This was his chance, Akira tried to manipulate the current illusion he’d cast upon himself to make his movements more robotic and to try and replicate the whirling and oily smell he’d noticed previously. Then he stepped forward and into the light of the burning torches set either side of the great door.

Two of the black masked figures, perfectly instep with each other immediately intercepted him. His presence was obviously not accepted. With no knowledge of what they might sound like, he spoke up, “I’m sorry, I got left behind.” The two in front of him again stepped forward towards him, perfectly in step and he heard a clicking sound emanate from behind their beaked masks.

He did his best to copy the sound but the two in front of him stood their ground even as the lady, her many-faced companion and remaining associate entered the door beside their companion. Then to Akira’s surprise the two blocking his passage began walking backwards, again perfectly in step and without ever removing their apparent gaze from him, into the property and the door slammed shut behind them.

As Akira skulked out front trying to come up with a plan, Banshee and Mace (and the accompanying currently deactivated bike) had identified the abandoned sedan chair out front from above and had elected to head round the back of the property where the grounds were and hover just outside the main chamber on the first floor. Inside was a gathering of gentlemen in their finery. It took only seconds to realise all had a pallor to their skin and at least one of the faces was very familiar, it was Bron Pelles who’d directed them to the Vault and the recovery of the Sanguine Grail in their own era – the vampire they knew better as the Fisher King.

Beside him was a court fop who’s gentlemanly flourishes failed to disguise the hunger for power in his eyes. Others addressed him as either ‘Count’ or ‘St. Germain’. Another had the cruel countenance and wild moustache like a Turk and was proclaimed by the noble-looking figure behind the desk as ‘Prince Drakul’. There was little doubt that everyone in that room was a powerful vampire.

The two of them hovered outside the window with its small panes of glass and listened as best they could as several of the gathered ‘nobility’ wandered around the room, addressing the seated figure as his ‘Majesty’ and as ‘The Blood King’ as they declared the ‘London Court’ in session.

Drakul immediately rose and began to demand the Courts support for the next stage of the plan to overthrow the Court of the King and gain total and open control of the Country.

This would apparently be a precursor to the conquering of the known world, the destruction of Lilith and the rendering into shreds of the Covenant in the process, according to the plethora of angry voices that followed.

As he spoke, the only doors to the chamber opened and a woman in pristine white silks and a carnival mask stepped inside.

She was accompanied by four figures in plague doctor masks and another, slightly smaller figure with a mask consisting of three faces, the grim face currently facing forward.

She spoke, her voice pretty but firm and perfectly modulated, “Gentlemen, your Majesty,” the last was accompanied by a curtsey from the lady and a synchronised bow from the other figures that had accompanied her. “I have been sent by the Court of Shadows and the Parliament of the Dawn and authorised by the Pact of the Great Silence to attend on you and read to you the following proclamation.

I bring you all an ultimatum, a decree from both the Court of Shadows AND the Parliament of the Dawn – destroy the vampire army gathered under this city and resume their covert existence or face utter destruction.”

She paused for a second as though allowing her words to sink in before continuing, “My Lords I must inform you that your reign of terror is at an end. The Court cannot allow the Vampire Nations to extinguish humanity or bring it to its knees in this way.  You have spread your demon seed too wide, hiding your appetites by also disseminating the great death. We cast you out from the great City of Venice and will do so here, no matter what the cost. I warn you to leave and enter hibernation with your kin and favourite Chyldren. If you do so, you would live. If you elect to stay, then as representative of the Watcher Caste it is my duty to ensure that the Pact of the Great Silence is enforced.

And as you can see, I and my Cohorts are immune to any of your endeavours.”

As she spoke, she ripped off her silk dress and removed her mask to reveal a bronze-coloured robotic body and a mechanical head that had flared panels on either side of the cranium that the mask had disguised. There was something ancient, almost Egyptian, about the design. As her entourage, bar the masked figure with three faces, similarly disrobed, she continued, “This, I the Clockwork Queen promise.”

The man behind the desk looked at the ‘Queen’ and his countenance seemed to melt away leaving a demonic blood-red face filled with anger staring back at her.

Downstairs at the grand entrance Akira had decided to approach the main door with a slightly different strategy. He knocked and when the door was opened by the pale-skinned servant he said as authoritatively as he could muster, “I have been sent by the Parliament of the Shadows and the College of the Dawn, I seek entry.”

He hoped he’d heard the declaration correctly and momentarily panicked as the door slammed shut and he could hear indistinct talking on the other side, then the door was flung open as a large but still pale-looking figure, easily 6 foot 6 tall man stood to one side and said, “Enter of your own free will.”

Yeah, that wasn’t creepy at all. The powerful servant genuflected as Akira entered the hallway and pointed towards the stairs that led below ground. “This way ambassador, your audience awaits.”

He headed over towards the stone steps leading deep below ground and without hesitation started down, followed by the large servant. There was a scrabbling sound like claws skittering across stone emanating from deep below and he saw large indistinct shadows on the wall. Ok, accepting an invitation to go into the bowels of the Earth might not be his brightest idea so far. He smiled and pretended to take another step down even as he teleported himself back to the now unguarded front door. It was after all the only place inside the building other than the cellar steps he knew well enough to teleport to.

Behind him, several nearly human figures scrambled through the cellar door towards him, some clinging to the walls by some supernatural means. The clattering of their teeth in anticipation revealed canines that belonged on wolves not humans.  “Looks like Dinner is going to be on me, literally.”

He had an idea, one he’d used very successfully before. His mind though also remembered when he’d also used a similar defence on a courageous young teen to ease his ego. Regardless it was still his best form of protection. He gestured and began to pull the light from around him into the palm of his hand. Then, with a word and a gesture he manifested the Shining Sun of Sirrion and cast it into the air in front of him, its reddish rays filled the hallway and stairs, turning some of the figures immediately into dust and desiccating and withering others, only the large servant seemed apparently unaffected by its rays.

It was only later he wondered why he had decided to call on the Scarlet Sorcerer for help rather than use the illuminations of Abbridon.

Upstairs, two things happened simultaneously. The Clockwork Queen opened her hand and manifested a key standing upright in her palm, which she proceeded to turn. Suddenly both Akira and Banshee felt a mystical energy field spring out from a central source and start spreading across the city. It had a familiar mystical ‘taste’, one they had experienced before in a French Crypt that threatened to bind a vampire within its walls, unable to escape. Akira had been forced to travel through alternate dimensions to escape it with his vampire companion on that occasion. It was a mystical vampire cage built large.

At the same time as the Queen was activating her trap, a tunnel of light began to appear on the wall opposite Banshee and Mace’s window and a familiar figure dressed in body armour stepped though. Behind him, he left a huddled, unconscious mass lying on the dank cobbles of a room that could not logically exist on the other side of the wall. The armoured figure smiled, showing off his canines as he stepped forward and bowed. Boire!

It took Mace and Banshee a couple of seconds to recognise that the huddled mass on the other side of the portal was a dead or unconscious Locker. It was impossible to say which he was as the figure on the ground didn’t move, his battered armour preventing anyone from detecting any possible signs of life.

Boire signalled that he wished to approach the court and he was quickly surrounded by the various vampire figures, though the Blood King, his crimson face showing genuine anger at the intrusion, held himself aloft.

The only part of the discussion that Banshee and Mace could make out was a statement repeated by St. Germain, “So in return, one day in the future when we should meet you again, we are bound by blood oath to elevate you to be our equal in whatever court we then possess? Agreed!”

Seconds later, three of the courtly figures rushed passed the automaton guards and jumped through the portal with Boire. Dracula, The Fisher King and St. Germain had obviously agreed to his offer though the rest of the Court, including the Blood King, appeared to have elected to stay and fight.

If there was a vampire army gathered under the city, perhaps they did not wish to abandon this opportunity when faced with just the treat of being temporarily imprisoned by the metal figures facing them.

However, this was hopefully ancient history to Banshee and Mace and their concern was more on how they might rescue their friend, assuming he was still alive. Mace raised her wrist bow and unleashed a wooden uncapped bolt at Boire. His body armour protected his chest but his neck was exposed. The bolt materialised as soon as it left her arm, shattered the glass pane and sliced his jugular but failed to bring him down. The sudden loss of blood succeeded in leaving him dazed, though he was now aware that there were other players around.

Then just behind the pair of them in the next street down a building exploded into flames, which quickly spread to nearby buildings, too quickly. They heard a distant voice call out for volunteers to help save the bakery and realised that the chapterhouse had to back on to Pudding Lane. Seems the plan was to trap all the vampires inside the city by creating the great fire of London. That fire had destroyed the threat of the plague, what history had apparently failed to record was which plague.

Hundreds had died daily during the plague, Mace had to wonder how many had been killed by the Black Death and how many, like the two victims they’d come across earlier, had been killed as food for the vampire army hidden around the city?

Whatever was happening now though was ancient history. Rather than interfere and change that history, they had a team member to try to rescue. Of the three vampires Boire was rescuing, Dracula and the Fisher King had both survived through to their own time and history said a Comte de Saint Germain, supposedly an immortal, had still been around in the mid 1700’s so it seemed likely that Boire hadn’t tried to alter history too much on this occasion. Regardless though, their own priority was saving Locker.

As though on cue, Banshee flowed through the window with Mace intend upon reaching the portal and their friend before it closed. To their surprise one of automatons’ turned towards them, his hand flipped down and some sort of foam sprayed them. It took Banshee a second to realise that the foam had hit them despite them being insubstantial and did not just go through them.

As though in confirmation, her Commdots activated and she heard Akira’s voice as he tried to avoid being torn apart by a large bestial vampire somewhere.  They both heard Mace’s murmur about the foam being “just like a party in Ibiza” and Akira’s “Is that you? Haven’t heard much from you lately, is there any chance of some help? I’m surrounded by vampires.” “Snap!” replied Banshee as her invisibility dissipated with her immediate return to a substantial state.

A weaponised automaton stood between them and Locker. Banshee pointed at the portal and explained to the robotic figure, “Look, we don’t want to fight you or stop what you’re doing, we just want to try and rescue our friend.” She pointed at the unmoving heap behind the blockade of vampires. As though to illustrate the danger one of the automatons wandered too close in an attempt to block any more vampires from stepping through and Dracula reached out and tore its head clean off. It instantly dropped to the ground deactivated.

Downstairs the miniature sun was starting to fade and it had seemed to have minimal effect anyway on the hulking brute stalking him. From the basement stairwell, he could hear a number of others waiting for his defence to die away.   He could teleport outside but the only other place he knew inside this building was the basement stairwell. Not a good choice he concluded as he glanced at the shadows in the stairwell leading up to the floors above.

His memories of his fight with the Claremont pupil had reminded him of the kids’ ability to shadow walk and he suddenly remembered how he might duplicate that feat. It was a spell known as the Crooked Path of Kar’Kradas that called upon the demonic creature known as the Whisperer in the Shadows between worlds to grant access to the shadow realms. It only occurred to him later that he never remembered studying that particular spell before.

It allowed the summoner to step into a shadow and reappear in another shadow some distance away but it required a separate summons every time you teleported or changed direction.

It was also reliant on the shadow being in or next to a corner and if you lacked knowledge of where you wanted to go, you were reduced to travelling in straight lines between the nearest shadows though not necessarily within line of sight. It was as though Kar’Kradas was creating its own series of ley lines linking up nearby shadows.

Akira hadn’t time to think, he mouthed the words to create the correct state of mind as he gestured creating non-Euclidean geometric patterns with his fingers to force Kar’Kradas to react by fashioning his shadow web for him to travel through. He stepped through the nearest shadow and stepped out on the top of some stairs surrounded by locked doors. He gestured again and this time found himself being cast out, abandoned on a corridor that led down to a guarded door. Shouts, which included a couple of voices he recognised, were coming from behind the door. He ran towards the entrance, failing to observe the etheric claw that slashed at the air where he’d been standing a second before it then dissipated into the shadows. Akira was too busy dealing with the two ‘guards’ to notice.

Inside, another of the automatons got too close to the portal and this time Boire ripped its head clean off as Mace made a dash passed the queen and her escorts towards the portal while firing off a series of bolts at the vampires blocking entry to the other side and Locker. Four bolts fired, two hit, staggering Dracula and Boire away from the entrance and giving her room to slam her bike through. Banshee rushed in after her as the door exploded open and seeing what was happening Akira joined them on the other side of the portal as it closed, trapping them with the four vampires in a dark chamber…

To be continued