The League of Doorways (A Book of Vampires, Werewolves & Black Magic) (The Doorways Trilogy - Book Two) (5 page)

Chapter Seven

Anna Black felt the boat slow. It listed from left to right on the oily black waves. The paddlewheels on either side of the floating stagecoach stopped spinning as the giant seahorses steered it towards the shores of the outer-rim. Anna looked to her left. Tanner lay on his side. His fever seemed to have broken. It had been several hours since he had last screamed out in a state of delirium. In that time, Anna had managed to sleep. She didn’t know for how long, as she had lost track of time, deep in the bows of the strange boat in which she was held prisoner. Her Uncle Fandel felt the boat slow too, and he lifted his narrow face off his chest and looked over at her through the gloom.

“It feels like we’re docking,” he whispered, and she couldn’t help but notice the fear in his eyes. “It’s our last chance to get out of here.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she glared. Anna broke his stare and looked at the peacekeeper. His face looked thinner than it had when they had first been taken prisoner. His hair looked whiter somehow.

“Hey, you,” Anna said, nudging him with her foot. She still wore the nightdress she had been wearing the night she had escaped from her uncle and the jeans and boots she had found at the
railroad station just outside the town of Tud.

The peacekeeper groaned and his eyes flickered open.

“Are you okay?” Anna asked him.

“Thirsty,” he whispered.

“I am too,” she said back. “I think we are going to be taken ashore.”

Tanner peered blearily about the bow of the boat, as if trying to remember exactly where he was. Then, looking over, he spied Fandel and whispered, “Why aren’t you dead yet?”

“Nice,” Fandel sneered back. “I think we’re all going to be dead soon.”

“Not you,” Tanner hissed, struggling to pull himself up into a sitting position. With his arms tied behin
d his back, he cried out as the wound in his shoulder exploded with pain. The world swam darkly before him and he gritted his teeth. With his head rested against the bow of the boat, he looked at Fandel and said, “Van Demon and his crew aren’t going to kill you. They need you to lead them to the box.”

“What’s inside this box?” Anna asked, looking at Tanner.

“It contains the Heart of Endra,” Tanner explained as he tried to focus on the pain which made his left shoulder blade and arm feel as if they were on fire.

“And what is Endra?” Anna asked him, her brow furrowing.

“The world in which you now find yourself in,” Tanner said through gritted teeth. But before he had a chance to continue, the hatch above them slid back and Julio’s decomposing face appeared in the square of light.

Chapter Eight

Willow Weaver followed the man through the woods as he strode ahead. She could have easily kept up with him, but she hung back deliberately, just in case she was being led into a trap. How had he known that she was a Noxas? Had he had dealings with her kind before? She guessed that he had, as there was a smell about him that reminded her of home. But that didn’t mean he was a friend. Maybe in this world, it was his job to round up those who had come through the doorways from Endra. He said that if Willow had wanted to live then she should follow him – but how long did he intend on letting her stay alive
?

So
, fearing that she might be led into some kind of trap, Willow hung back, her blood-red eyes looking and her nose sniffing the route that he cut through the woods for any sign of a trap. The man wore a hat which covered most of his face in shadow. He was tall and wore a knee-length coat and boots. His hands were gloved and they brushed against his thighs as he headed deeper into the woods.

The man didn’t speak until they came to a small hollow. Tree roots sprouted up out of the ground like long broken fingers clutching at the air. A fine mist filled the
hollow, and the man climbed in. The mist rose up and circled his waist.

“Come on down,” he called out to Willow, who stood on all fours at the edge of the hollow and peered down at him. Sensing the giant wolf’s hesitation, he waved at her and said, “You have nothing to fear
, Noxas. I am like you.”

It was then that Willow realised that he hadn’t been waving at her at all. The man had been stirring the mist up all around him. He disappeared behind it like a magician performing a cheap trick. Willow tried to stare through the mist, but he had momentarily disappeared from her view. Then the mist settled again, like early morning fog covering a mountain lake. Although the man standing before her looked different
without his hat an gloves, Willow knew it was him. He smelt the same, and that smell of home was stronger than before. The man’s hair was loose, and not only did it hang around his shoulders, thick lengths of hair hung from his cheeks and beneath his chin and his hands, which she could now see were claws.

“You are a Noxas,” Willow howled softly at him.

“Yes, I am,” he smiled, revealing a set of sharpened teeth. And his grin looked suddenly wild and crazy, just like the glint in his yellow eyes.

“Who are you?” Willow asked.

“I’m Wally Willabee,” he grinned insanely. “But you can call me Wally.”

“I’ve been sent to find you,” Willow woofed at him.

“Why would anyone want to find me?” he asked, his eyes spinning brightly.

“Because you lead the League of Doorways,” Willow told him.

“The League of Doorways?” Wally mused thoughtfully, that smile never leaving his lips. “And even if such a thing existed, what do you want from the League of Doorways?”

“Help,” Willow howled.

“Help with what?” Wally asked, and Willow noticed his smile falter just slightly.

“The Queen of Endra lay dying
, Wally Willabee, and our number is too small to offer a decent resistance,” Willow explained. “Wilberforce has sent me to bring you home...”

“To do what
, exactly?” Wally asked, and now his smile had faded.

“To help defeat a sorcerer named Throat who threatens to destroy our world...” but before Willow had a chance to finish, Wally had cut in.

“I don’t live in that world no more,” Wally told her, the mist coiling up all around him.

“But you live in this one,” Willow barked, her tail twitching behind her. “And as you know
, both are reflections of each other. What happens in Endra also happens here.”

Wally stood and thought about this for a moment, then said, “Go back into Endra and tell that old crazy Wilberforce there is no League of Doorways. It doesn’t exist.”

“He says it does,” Willow shot back. “If you can’t do it for Wilberforce, then do it for an old friend.”

“What old friend?”

“Warden Weaver.”

“Warden?”
Wally mused. “If Warden needs my help, why didn’t he come himself?” Wally asked.

“Because he is blind,” Willow told him.

“How do you know this?” Wally asked her.

“Because he is my husband,” Willow barked. “Warden needs your help. We need the help of the League of Doorways.”

“It can’t help you,” Wally said, looking up out of the hollow at her.

“So it does exist then?” Willow said.

“Yes,” Wally said.

“Then lead me to it.”

“I already have.”

“Where is this group of Noxas who will save us?” Willow said, scanning the immediate area with her fierce, red eyes.

Then, patting his chest with his claws, Wally grinned and said, “I am the League of Doorways. There is no one else. It’s just me.”

Chapter Nine

While the others had slept, Bom had headed out into the dying sunlight and hunted down some more of the bristly-haired desert rats. Zach woke to the smell of the meat cooking over the fire which Bom had built earlier that day. William lay on his side, his giant paws placed under his head like pillows. Neanna was awake, sitting against the far wall of the overhang, cloak pulled about her, knees drawn up beneath her chin.

Where was Faraday?
Zachary wondered, sitting up and searching the cave. How would they find their way safely across the outer-rim without him? Then Zach spied him, standing just outside the rocky overhang. The dying sun in the distance was no more than a red ribbon on the horizon, causing a crimson shadow to fall away behind Faraday. He stood as tall as William at about six-foot-four, and his black shoulder-length hair swept back from his odd-looking face in the cool evening breeze.

“Gonna eat?” Bom suddenly asked Zach, taking a cooked desert rat from out of the fire and tearing it to pieces with his thick fingers.

From the shadows, Zach watched the Captain shove lumps of the pink-looking meat into his mouth. The noise he made chewing mouthfuls of the dead rat was disgusting. Greasy streaks of juice ran from Bom’s mouth and into his bushy beard. He armed them away and then belched. The noise rumbled about the overhang like thunder.

William stirred with a start and sat
up. “What was that?” he barked, reaching for his catapult. Then, spying Bom sitting cross-legged before the fire and stuffing his mouth full of food, William sighed and said, “Oh it’s just you, you greedy hog!”

“Be quick, or I might just eat the lot,” Bom grumbled. “The rats ain’t so big out here
, and I’m starving.”

“When ain’t ya starving,” William said, crossing over to the fire. Using his claws like
a set of knives, he hooked one of the dead rats from the fire and dissected it. “Not eating?” William asked as he glanced over at Zach and Neanna.

Without saying anything, Neanna
blinked
across the overhang, took one of the rats, then blinked
back
into the shadows again. Using her fingers like tweezers, she plucked meat from the bones of the animal and ate it. Zach didn’t feel hungry – he felt anxious about what lay ahead. He wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing by placing his trust in Faraday – in a machine. But what choice did he have? If the stories were true about the outer-rim – no one had ever survived – not even those peacekeepers the Queen had sent. With his back against the wall, he sat and watched Faraday. The man hadn’t moved, not even an inch, since Zach had woken to find him standing just outside their sleeping place. His long arms hung by his sides, his head turned towards the last rays of sun. It was as if he were a statue.

“Are you okay?” someone suddenly asked, their breath warm against his face. Zach snapped his head round to find that Neanna was now sitting beside him.

“Sure,” Zach lied and smiled at her.

“You look worried, Zachary Black,” Neanna said, placing several thin strips of the rat meat in the palm of his hand. She folded his fingers over it, and then looking into his eyes, she added, “Eat, you’ll need your strength.”

He enjoyed the way her fingers gently brushed over his, and he placed his free hand over hers. With the faintest of smiles, she slowly pulled her hand away.

“Thanks for the food,” Zach smiled, feeling embarrassed that he had tried to hold her hand. Looking away and back at Faraday, he slowly started to eat the meat Neanna had handed to him.

“You don’t trust him, do you?” Neanna whispered, and her breath against his ear made gooseflesh scamper down his back.

“Do you?” he asked, turning to face her. Neanna’s bright blue eyes peered back at
him out of the gloom, and he felt his heart quicken.

“I’m not sure yet,” she said, her voice low and soft.

“I guess we can always turn him off,” Zach half-smiled at her.

“I guess,” she said back. “There is something I don’t like
, though.”

“I know what you mean,” Zach said thoughtfully and looked back at Faraday standing alone outside their camp.

Just after sunset, Zachary and his friends left the overhang and followed Faraday in the direction of the outer-rim and the Clockwork City that lay
before it. They walked in silence, their feet sending up tiny puffs of dust as they passed over the arid desert floor. The moon hung high above them like a giant blue sphere. The sky was black, star-shot, and vast. It seemed to touch the ground in every direction that Zach looked. They hadn’t been walking for long when Faraday led them towards a small outcrop of rock that jutted up out of the cracked ground.

“Get down,” he said, crouching.

They knelt beside him and peered over the rocks.

“What’s that?” William asked, pointing to something a short distance away.

Zach followed William’s stare and his heart leapt. He knew what it was. It looked like a car. But what was a car doing in the middle of the desert – what was it doing in Endra? He wondered. Moonlight glinted off its dark black body. Then before Zach had a chance to tell his friend what it was, Neanna also pointed over the rocks and said, “And what’s that?”

All of them turned their heads to see what looked like a person limping across the desert floor towards the car. The figure was thin, no more than a pile of bones held together by a covering of skin. There was a squeaking noise, and screwing up his eyes and peering through the darkness, Zach could see that the figure was pulling some kind of shopping cart.
It was made of wood, and it was the wheels which squeaked on a pair of dusty axels.

“Who is that?” Zach asked Faraday in a low whisper.

“One of the hermits who live out in these parts,” Faraday said in that synthesised voice of his. “I thought they would all be dead by now. They came after the city fell. They are small in number and live on what they can scavenge from the land and what remains in the city.”

From their hiding place, they watched the figure approach the abandoned car. As it drew near, they could see that it was a man. He was naked, except for a piece of filthy cloth that he wore like a short skirt. He was so thin and gaunt, the moonlight reflected back off his cheekbones and ribcage. His eyes were no more than two sunken sockets in the centre of his face. The hermit pulled his cart alongside the car and stopped. He scratched his bald head with a set of painfully thin fingers,
then opened the passenger door of the car. It wailed so loud on a set of rusty hinges, that Zach and his friends covered their ears with their hands. Faraday seemed not to be bothered, as he crouched behind the rocks and watched the emaciated man search the inside of the vehicle for anything of value – or anything that he might be able to use.

Then from out of the darkness
, several sets of bright white lights appeared. They seemed to skim just above the ground and they were approaching fast.

“What are they?” Bom panicked, getting to his feet as if to run away.

With lightning speed, Faraday shot one arm out and gripped the back of the Captain’s armour. “Get down and be quiet,” Faraday ordered. Then looking at us with his black eyes, he added, “all of you.”

They pressed themselves flat to the floor and watched the lights approach out of the distance. By the time the hermit had noticed them, it was too late. Shielding his eyes against the glare of the lights, he watched as if frozen to the spot as they raced towards him. The
sounds of emergency sirens filled the night. Zach peered around the edge of the rocks to see several masked men approaching at speed. On seeing them, Zach blinked and rubbed his eyes. At first glance, he thought they were riding on the backs of Bengal tigers. But after taking a second look, he realised the creatures they rode were, in fact, machines.

The tiger-like creatures were similar to motorbikes, and they bounded towards the hermit with emergency lights flashing and sirens screaming. Unlike the motorbikes Zach was familiar with back in Earth, these weren’t propelled forward on wheels, but just like a tiger, they raced forward on four powerful, robotic legs. Even their engines roared like the beasts they had been inspired by. The bikes were coloured black, but had orange and yellow flames painted along their flanks. It had been these markings which
, at first glance, had given Zach the impression they were tigers. He guessed these were just one of the creatures Faraday had described as becoming entangled with the technology Cribbot had smuggled back into Endra, along with the animals.

They bounded through the night, their engines growling, their burning eyes acting as headlights in the darkness. They skidded to a halt, their giant metal paws spraying sand over the hermit.  Zach noticed that one of the tiger-bikes had what looked like a sidecar attached to it, and this hovered above the ground. The masked riders dismounted and approached the skeletal man.

“Who are you?” one of the riders asked the man.

Zach watched the riders, and guessed they were like cops, as they were dressed all in black. They wore padded coveralls, which were tucked into sturdy-looking boots. Their heads were covered with hoods, which formed a tight seal around the black respirators which covered their faces. A circular shaped canister protruded from the side of these masks, and they made a deathly rasping sound, as they breathed in and out. Around their waists they each wore a belt. Their hands were covered in thick
, black rubber gloves, which gripped what looked like guns.

“I’m just out here scavenging,” the hermit said, his voice sounding fearful.

“Under whose authority?” one of the riders demanded.

“I’m just looking for food…” the old man began.

“You need authority to be so close to the outer-rim,” another of the riders wheezed from behind his respirator. Then without warning, the lead rider pointed his gun at the hermit and shot him. The retort of the weapon echoed and bounced off the rocks that Zach and his friends hid behind. Bom gasped in horror, and Faraday was quick to clasp his hand over the Captain’s mouth.

“What was that noise?” one of the riders barked.

“I didn’t hear anything,” another said. 

The rider who had shot the old man raised his gun again and made his way towards the outcrop of rocks.