Gloom Rising (The Book Wielder Saga 1) (2 page)

"Will Sir be dining with us tonight?" The receptionist Freak asked in an eccentric yet posh accent, leaning down to bring himself to eye level with Winston and spreading his long sharp fingers outward in a questioning gesture.

"No, no thank you." Winston stammered. It was the first time he’d been spoken to by a Freak. He remembered the sack of fruit and quickly pulled out an apple, placing it on the front desk. "For your trouble. Thank you for a nice stay," he said as politely as his fear-infested voice would allow.

The receptionist’s black eyes widened at the sight. “Oh, Sir is too kind! Too kind indeed! Be sure to come back anytime you like." And with the pleasantries dealt with, the Freak took on a darker demeanour. His thin fingers darted into the apple like a hurricane of knifes, segmenting it into perfectly cut cubes. He poked his forefinger into a cube and delicately placed it into his giant mouth.

Winston backed away and quickly made for the cracked glass double doors, wondering if it would have been his heart cut into tiny pieces at the blink of an eyelid and devoured as a delicacy if it weren't for the fruit. What he saw next definitely didn't help rid him of his fear of being on the menu.

Freaks had encircled the front of the hotel. They were all similar looking to the receptionist, puppets varying in shape and size, gender and colour. Winston felt like he had walked into a child's long discarded toy box. They all looked at him with their black lifeless eyes, filled with inhuman hunger. He was surrounded by a wall of living material.

"Make way!" A deep husky voice cried from behind the crowd. "Make way for the Mayor!"

The crowd dispersed slightly, opening enough to allow entrance to an ornate Spidercar-drawn carriage surrounded by burly puppet guards armed with brutal looking melee weapons. From behind the carriage's filthy black side curtain an enormously fat (or rather over stuffed) Freak hopped out. He was dressed as smartly as the Receptionist, if not more so. His suit, trousers, and top hat were striped black and white like a humbug. His mouth was in proportion to his round head but all of his teeth were glistening gold. He wore a broken monocle on one eye and carried a metal cane. He walked with a deliberately slow and purposeful strut towards Winston while his armed guards followed closely behind.

"Welcome Book Wielder," the Mayor said in a highly ostentatious voice. “Welcome to our beautiful city. I, as I’m sure you have guessed, am the Mayor! Now, I hate to cut straight to business but your predecessor and I had something of an agreement. I’m hoping that will be the case with us too, yes?" He eyed the sack of fruit greedily.

"Yes." Winston desperately tried to quash the fright from his voice. "Fruit for safe passage?" He placed the sack in front of the Mayor.

The Mayor Freak sifted through the contents and gestured for one of his guards to lift it into his carriage, while the other guards started forcibly scattering the crowd. He slapped Winston on the shoulder and almost knocked him over. "Very good, very good indeed! Now my boy, what brings you to my little slice of the Gloom today?"

"I'm heading to the tower that glows on the top floor," he said, pointing up at the copy of the World GOVT building in the distance, shining its light across the misty purple sky like a lighthouse on a foggy shore. "I need to retrieve something from there."

The Mayor looked shocked and put his arm around Winston. "Now my boy, that's a very bad idea, a very bad idea indeed! I tried to warn the last one of you and he ended up as Demon food! He was a good man, a good man indeed! He brought me plenty of tasty things from your world. Demons are so uncivilised, not like us good folk, no mind for good food at all. Now how about me and you go catch a show? Mortissa Aurorana is singing at the theatre tonight and believe me the rumours are true, her voice is just as sweet as rusty nails on a chalkboard!"

Winston tried wriggling out from underneath the Mayor's abnormally strong arm but gave up. "No, sorry, thank you for the offer though. I really need to get to the tower.”

“But my boy, you'll end up dead! If you're dead you can't bring me more sumptuous morsels!" He started sniffing. "What's that in your suit?"

Before Winston could answer the Mayor had dug his thick fingers in to one of his pockets and pulled out his chocolate bars.

"What is this? It smells so good!"

"That's chocolate." Winston began, glad to be out from the Mayor’s arm. "It's something sweet from my world. Take it out of the wrapper and try it."

The Mayor quickly stripped the first bar of its outer foil and took a bite with his gold teeth. Winston could only compare his ecstatic reaction to someone on a pretty good drug rush. The Mayor was dancing around like a lunatic and making random happy noises. He quickly devoured the rest of the bar and stashed the other in his pocket.

"Now I better be off." Winston started to edge away.

"Oh my, oh my, oh my!" The Mayor seemed to regain some of his senses. "No, no, no! I can't have you walk all that way my boy! You incredible bringer of succulent delights!" He screeched out an ear piercing whistle and an unoccupied Spidercar hastily rushed to meet him, cracking the road as it went in its haste. "This is Olex, oh he's a good car, a good car indeed!"

The Spidercar chirped happily, sending spouts of steam from its brassy joints.

"Olex will see you safely to the nasty Demon tower,” The Mayor continued, "and back if you make it out alive. I do hope you do make it out of there okay my boy, if you're dead you can't bring me more yummy treats!"

"Thank you, Mr. Mayor." Winston carefully made his way to the side of Olex where a crude step allowed for entrance into the open topped, four-seated passenger compartment. He made himself as comfy as possible on the squidgy old seats.

"Good luck my boy," The Mayor cried after him as Olex made its way down the street.

Winston watched the Freaks of the Gloom Capital go about their business as he was ferried to his destination. Now that they weren't so interested in eating him alive, the city didn't seem that different from the one in the real world. It was surprisingly easy to associate normality with the place if he didn't focus on it too much. He almost allowed himself to fall into a false sense of security when they arrived at the circular road that lead around the tower. Olex whimpered and wouldn't go any further so Winston got off and thanked him. The Spidercar chirped a nervous yet pleased sound and waited for his return like a loyal pet.

If the tower looked threatening from a distance, being up close to it certainly did not help. The thing seeped an aura of malice and oppression, and the air was thick and heavy. Winston felt as if a thousand eyes were watching him, their weight pushing down upon his shoulders. He crossed the deserted road and slowly began his assent up the steps that would lead to the plaza that the dreadful building it was situated on. He reached the top and was confronted with a large path that lead to the seemingly unguarded entrance. Tall statues of horrific humanoids tearing their own flesh off were placed evenly along it, and off the path there were gardens of blackened grass and fountains pumping out the black bile that was Gloom water. Winston knew that in the real world these would have been dignified statues of the heroes from the Great War and very well kept gardens.

"Hey." A voice spoke from behind one of the statues.

Winston went for his gun and flicked the lid of his lighter but the speaker walked out onto the path with one hand in the air, the other holding a medium-sized black briefcase. He was a scrawny looking blond man with pale skin, and by the looks of it he was in his early twenties like Winston. His hair was slicked back, also similar to his own except Winston's was jet black. His eyes were light blue and filled with a confidence that overcompensated for his stature – Winston's were dark green and probably filled with fear and doubt at this point. He was dressed smartly yet practically, all in black with various straps and compartments fastened to himself including a couple of holsters, wearing trousers covered in pockets but not enough to restrict movement. Over the top he wore a long black fabric coat with many pockets and fine silver markings woven neatly around the edges. It was these markings that lead Winston to focus more on the briefcase he carried, for it too had a fine silver marking barely visible on the black leather; it was an equilateral triangle divided into equal parts by three lines going from each corner into its centre. It was the sign of the Trinity of Old, the oldest living Supernaturals and the governing body of the Supernatural society. Or at least it was before the Great War. The gangs now had more power than they could control, but the Trinity possessed a weapon that all Supernaturals feared, which in turn made the Trinity feared.

“Hey, I don't want trouble. I just want to talk." Even his voice carried an air of confidence with it.

"You're with the Trinity, right?” Winston asked, taking his hand off neither lighter nor pistol.

"Unfortunately I am, but I don't want to be. That’s why I've been waiting for someone from the Shadow Circle to arrive. That was your man up there, right? I tried dealing with him but he was already up there and dead before I got here. Figured if I kept coming here and waiting by the entrance they'd send another one of you."

"I'm not with the Circle. Not yet anyway. This is like my audition for the job."

"Fuck." He lowered his hands and walked casually towards Winston. "Well, I'm going to help you get whatever's at the top of that tower, and after you can tell your boss all about what a fine asset I'd be to the Circle." He reached into his pocket which made Winston flinch, but it was just a contact card. "Chill out. If I wanted to kill you I could've done it quite easily when you were eyeballing those statues. The names Lewis Thorne, by the way."

"I'm Winston Reynolds." He pocketed the lighter and contact card, holstered his pistol and shook Lewis' hand. "So why do you want to leave the Trinity?"

"Because they're a bunch of miserable old fogies who want to spend all their time sitting underground in their tunnels and chambers. When I became a Book Wielder a year or so back I thought I'd been recruited by the leaders of the Supernaturals, not a bunch of boring old has-beens desperately clutching to what little power they have, trying to convince the gangs to hide underground with them. It's pathetic. The Shadow Circle's the most influential gang in The Capital and on the continent, and when we make it out of this shit hole they’re going to have two Book Wielders in their arsenal!”

“Yeah, I'd heard that about the Trinity. I'm definitely lucky to have the opportunity to impress the Circle, but there's Demons in that tower. They killed one Book Wielder easily enough, how can you be so confident that we can succeed where he failed?"

"Because we came prepared for the job!" Lewis kneeled on the floor, opened his briefcase, and pulled out four 9mm pistol clips. "Two for you and two for me. Sanctium filled rounds, the only thing that keeps the Trinity in the loop these days. Supernaturals, Freaks, and Demons beware." He pulled his own pistol out and loaded it.

Winston looked closely at the clip. It looked normal enough, but a radiant blue light glowed from within. He emptied his regular clip from his pistol and replaced it with the Sanctium clip. "Is it true the Trinity managed to retrieve the alchemical formula for Sanctium from the Witch Hunters before they were destroyed?"

"I don't know. They say they have it but they only let their oldest, most trusted members in on the secrets. Just one of the many reasons I want to jump ship. I have my own theories about the matter but they’re a work in progress. Anyway, where abouts is your book?"

"Top Floor of the Hotel Noir."

"Fuck me, you've got a long way to go after this is over. You’re going to be knackered and holding an artefact all the way through Freaks-ville." Lewis opened one of his pouches and pulled out a vial of clear liquid marked 'NRG'. "It's an energy potion, self-brewed. Should do the job, though I don't know how you're going to manage handling that artefact all the way back. I'd help out but I've already been here way too long waiting to see if someone would show, and my book is only over the road from here."

"Thanks, for this and for everything else, but I've got a deal with the Mayor for safe passage and he gave me a Spidercar in exchange for some chocolate. That's what I eat instead of energy potions. Haven’t been able to get much potion brewing experience living at home with my parents."

"Chocolate, that's good thinking. I made the mistake of drinking the water here on my first visit; tasted like death." He shuddered as if the memory was painful. "Wait – how do you know if a Freak is a Mayor or not, and how did you hammer out such a good deal?"

"Well, he introduced himself as the Mayor. Plus his guards were shouting it at the other Freaks. I gave him a big sack of fruit like the normal tradition for safe passage and we just talked. When he took my chocolate and ate it he acted like he'd done some powerful drugs, and then he introduced me to the Spidercar, Olex." Winston thought it sounded pretty simple but Lewis was looking at him as if he was insane.

"You speak Freak?! You know names?! No one speaks Freak, they all just sound like they're talking gibberish!"

Winston looked confused. "I've always been able to understand them, though before today it was never conversation. Just death threats and murderous rants. I usually cross over in low populated areas, you see. Maybe my book taught it to me?"

"Hmm, could've done. It’s the only explanation I can think of. Must have a good future for you if it's bestowed such a gift of knowledge. Hope it's taught you how to fight well too. I don't bother bringing fruit anymore, Freaks generally don't bother me unless I bother them first. I must have spent so much time here they see me as a part of the mangled furniture," he laughed, although Winston was sure he could detect a hint of nervousness in it.

"That's good I guess. Well, shall we get this over with?"

"Sure. The Demons we come across in the lower levels will probably only be lesser grunts to whatever's up top so I'd keep those Sanctium rounds until we get there. I see from your lighter you've learned the trick about natural forces in the Gloom as opposed to magical ones." He pulled a stun gun from one of his holsters. "I'm a fan of electricity myself. Combined with your fire we should be able to clear the trash quite easily."