Shell Shocked (The Cosmic Carapace, #1) (19 page)

Spencer opened his mouth to ask what the hell he meant, when Spangler took off at a run along the wall at a surprising pace. He turned to look at Becky, who did the same. In the confines of the window they found themselves far closer than they had ever been, their lips just a few inches from each other. For a moment, Spencer could think of nothing but kissing her, then Becky pulled back into the room and the spell was broken. She moved over to the bed and picked up the tortoise.

“Well the good news is, we don’t have to go down to the dungeon to get the tortoise, somehow its made its way back to you on its own.” She untied the rope from around it and passed it to Spencer. “Here.”

He took the animal from her and moved towards the door.

“Mabel, can you go out first and if the coast is clear, give two knocks?”

She nodded and stepped out of the room. Almost instantly they heard two sharp raps on the wood and followed her out. The corridor outside was deathly quiet. A door punctuated it’s outer wall every few feet, presumably for more rooms like the one they had entered. Mabel gestured for them to follow her and moved quickly down the hall to the left. It curved round slightly and eventually came to a single door in the end wall. "The servant's stairs are behind here, you can take them up two more flights and you’ll be at the level of the Queen’s chambers. You’ll have to find her yourself from there, as I never go up there." She opened the door a crack and poked her head round.

“It’s all quiet out there, good luck!” She grinned at them and scurried back the way they had come. Spencer tucked the tortoise under his arm and pushed through the door. The staircase was narrow and dimly lit with smoky, fat, yellow candles which burned lazily in brackets on the wall. They began to climb quickly, taking two steps at a time. They came to the next floor up and paused before the opening. Spencer leant his head round slightly, trying to see if there were any guards, but there was nobody. He could just hear the faint sound of angry voices coming from further down the hall that led away from them. He waved Becky on with his hand and they moved past the opening and continued upwards.

They heard voices before they’d even reached the next floor. They started moving more slowly, creeping up a step at a time, Spencer ahead holding the tortoise in front of him like a talisman. As they came to the opening, they stopped and listened for a moment. Two men. Talking some nonsense about horse racing, and clearly not paying attention to their current security role. Spencer risked sneaking a look, one man was either side of the doorway, leaning on the wall facing down the corridor, which ran away from the staircase.

Spencer gestured to Becky to wait where she was, then as quietly as possible, moved across the gap to the other side. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the blowpipe Becky had given him from Norbert’s stash. The other side of the archway, Becky did the same. Held held three fingers up and counted them down silently, before darting round the edge and firing at the man on the opposite side of the door. He realised too late, that instead of firing at the man opposite her Becky had jumped and fired at the closest man, who now slumped with two little blue darts sticking out of him.

“John?!” The man in front of Spencer stared, dumbstruck at his companion's collapse before turning his head round to the opening of the stairs. He met, full in the forehead, the shell of a tortoise which was being swung with some force by Spencer. There was a dull thud and he fell to join his partner on the royal blue carpeted floor.

“Spencer! Don’t use the tortoise like that!” Becky punched him on the arm and moved off down the corridor. It hurt far more than Spencer liked to admit. He looked at the tortoise, who looked at him in the same, sullen way and hadn’t appeared to notice he had been used as a weapon. He mumbled an apology to both the tortoise and Becky and followed her down the hall.

The first door they passed on the right was open, and showed a huge bedroom that upon further inspection was empty. The next door down the hall was on the left and shut, it had a silver crown inlaid in its deep brown oak causing them to give knowing looks to each other. Spencer knocked, before they both darted back to hide in the first bedroom, leaving the door open just enough to see the door across the hall. After a few moments, the door opened, revealing a small, dark eyed young woman who looked nervously around. Behind her, Spencer saw Lisa.

He froze for a moment.

Seeing your ex-girlfriend in another world dressed as a queen was slightly disconcerting. It took him a moment to process the scene, and it was only when the girl who had opened the door began to close it that he snapped out of it.

“Erm, excuse me, but I have a delivery for Her Majesty.” He stepped out of the door and held the tortoise out in front of him. The girl narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

“You’re delivering a tortoise?”

“Who is it Clara?” Lisa’s voice came from within the room. Spencer decided to drop the tortoise delivery pretence.

“Lisa! It’s me! Spencer!” There was a sound like the suck of the sea dragging out pebbles, then a screech erupted.

“My Spencery Wencery!” Lisa ran forward and burst past a confused looking Clara. Spencer barely had time to steady himself before she leapt at him, grabbing him into a tight squeeze. Becky came into view behind Lisa’s shoulder, Spencer gave her a weak smile.

“Erm, hi Lisa, nice to see you. Look, we need to go and...”

“Oh Spencer! I can’t believe you came all the way to this place to find me! You must have missed me so much!”

“Madam, I really think you should let go of this... this man!” Becky walked over to the girl smiling, and jabbed a tranquilizer dart into her arm before she knew what was happening. Clara's eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped slowly against the wall. Hearing the noise, Lisa managed to tear herself away from Spencer long enough to see the prone figure of Clara.

“Oh! Spencer! What did she do to her?!”

“Er.. yeah, sorry about this Lisa.” He jabbed his last tranquilizer into her neck. She turned back towards him, her eyes wide with shock.

“Spency?!” She murmured, before fainting into his arms. He looked up at Becky, whose eyes reminded him of those few electric minutes before a storm.

––––––––

S
pangler could feel his knees screaming in protest as his feet pounded against the stone floor of the courtyard. He rounded the corner and came face to face with a group of around ten men, nine of them raised crossbows to greet him. The one who didn’t, who stood at the front of them, was Lord Garsh. They both froze as their eyes met. For a moment, Spangler thought he detected slight panic there. The moment was brief. Lord Garsh broke into a broad smile and folded his arms.

“Arthur, so good to see you.”

Spangler felt the presence of the man. It felt like they were two opposing magnets being faced towards each other, repelling with a force that seemed impossible to overcome. This was never meant to happen, the two of them were never meant to exist together.

“Hello Aubrey.” A slight flutter ran through the men behind Garsh, hearing his first name had somehow surprised them.

“So your plan after all this time is to turn up alone and attempt to fight me? Or did you hope that the rabble you seem to have roused on the streets would come to your assistance? Maybe now is the time to tell you that they appear to be retreating faster than my men can even chase them?” He gave a cold laugh at this and looked over his shoulder at the men behind him, encouraging them to laugh too. He was reward with a series of low chuckles.

“I am here to surrender myself to you.”

“Well, well, well, finally lost your fight have you Arthur? Given up on your little ‘team’ have you?” He pronounced the word team as though it was something he’d just had to scrape off his shoe.

“What we did was wrong Arthur, we have brought so much misery to the universe, to all of the universes.” A few of the men looked at each other at this point, confusion on their faces. “What you don’t realise Aubrey, is that we were never the ones with power after the accident. It was someone else entirely.”

~~~~

S
pencer and Becky laid the unconscious form of Lisa on the giant four poster bed of the Queen’s bedroom. They had already moved the similarly comatosed body of Mabel into the other guest room, far enough away to not be affected by the Vibobbler’s effects. Becky pulled the device from her handbag and laid it on the bed. Then she removed a small bottle of fog and passed it to Spencer.

“I am
not
going to miss drinking this stuff.” He held the bottle up to the light, it swirled like smoke in the light. She smiled at him.

“Oh I don’t know, you get used to it.” He frowned at her in disbelief, unscrewed the lid and took a large swig. He felt the familiar punch to the throat and held onto the bed post while his knuckles went white. Becky took the bottle from him and followed suit.

“Ready?” she asked once she had taken a moment herself to recover from the drink. “This is probably going to be rough, we haven’t had much and it won’t have had time to take effect.” He nodded in acknowledgement and watched her turn the tiny handle which sat on the side of the device. He felt the air thicken, the room swam slightly and his internal organs seemed to try desperately to get outside of his body. It
was
easier than the first time, but that wasn’t saying much.

The room changed around them, focussing into another bedroom, decorated differently, but still in an opulent manner. As soon as he was able to stand and move again, he moved over to the window and looked out. Outside he saw cars moving along a busy street on the far side of a large courtyard, similar, but different to the one they had been in not long ago in Alexandria. A crowd of tourists bustled in front of large gates. He knew where he was.

“Er, Becky? We may have a problem.” He turned to see Becky fiddling with the device, already setting it to return them back to Alexandria.

“What is it?” She asked distractedly.

“I think we’re in Buckingham Palace.”

~~~~

Q
ueen Lisandra opened her eyes and looked around. She appeared to be at the racecourse still, but... the place was deserted. There were no footmen in the room, no handmaids stood nearby, waiting to tend to her every whim. She walked over towards the balcony, as she stepped out it was clear that a considerable amount of time had passed since she had last been... been what? Conscious she supposed. The stands were empty, the crowds were gone. The bunting had been removed from the fences and there wasn’t a horse in sight. Now that the initial shock was wearing off, she was getting rather annoyed. In fact, bloody furious was a more apt description. She hoisted up her skirt and marched towards the door. Someone was going to take her back to the palace this instant, and then, someone would pay dearly for this.

~~~~

L
ord Garsh sneered at Spangler, one side of his neatly trimmed moustache rising with the curl of his thin lips.

“What on earth are you talking about Arthur? Look around you.” He raised his arms out wide, gesturing to the palace which rose behind him like a mountain. “I control all of this, is that not enough power for you? The country is virtually mine!” He laughed in a high pitch, peculiar way.

“A country?” Spangler spoke quietly, showing no sign of anger. “A country is nothing. You never really understood did you?”

“Me?” Garsh shrieked, “It was you who always thought small Arthur! You wanted to just test your theories, to publish dusty academic papers that nobody would read or care about, I wanted to change the world! To own it!”

Spangler shook his head slowly. “That’s the thing Aubrey, you and I were never the ones who had that power.”

~~~~

M
r Pall stepped round the corner of the narrow alley and smiled. A few hundred yards away he saw around twenty men hauling a contraption on wheels which had various tubes running out from the large metal body that sat on the back of the cart. The sound that came from it was deafening. The sound of a fake riot. He’d caught up with the group of palace guards who had been sent out to deal with the rioters, and found them edging slowly down each street, spooked into a slow cautious advance by the noise which seemed to always be just around the next corner. He’d left them and hurried on on his own, cutting into side alleys to help pinpoint where the noise was coming from. It was easier in the smaller spaces where the sound was rolling around like waves against the wide, paved roads.

Now that he had seen what was responsible for the noise the guards had found so worrisome, he was impressed. It was quite a clever idea, and if it hadn’t have been for him, it would have worked. He jogged back through a couple of alleys and came out onto a main street where the guards were still cautiously edging their way along.

“Come on you idiots! There’s no riot! It’s a few blokes making a load of noise with a machine!” The guards stopped and looked at him in confusion before seemingly coming to the conclusion that it was safer to believe the dangerous man in front of them and risk running headlong into an army of rioters, than it was to actually tell him to his face that they didn’t believe him. He turned to run back towards the sound, and after a brief, nervous pause, they followed him. By the time they reached the alley where Pall had seen the noisy group, the machine had been moved almost to the end of the street. He stepped out and continued his run towards them, the guards fell in behind.