Showing posts with label blogserial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogserial. Show all posts

Friday 6 May 2016

Party Crashers


<< < Chapter Twelve > >>

On the elevator landing of the twenty-third floor of the dark, empty office building, there was a heavy grinding, whirring and thumping sound that echoed throughout the complex. The grinding stopped with a thump that made the the elevator doors shudder. There was silence for a moment before a small ding, then the doors opened. Inspector Edison stepped out, gun in hand, pointed skyward as he carefully peeked out of the doors.
 “Looks clear,” he says, stepping out. The Duke followed behind him, laser spanner in hand, scanning the surrounds with a red beam of light. Edison withdrew his flashlight and lit the way in front of them. “What is this place?”
 “This facility was used by the Eighty-Eight,” said the Duke. “They were using it to try to integrate Belosian and Rathean technology.”
 “And they were trying to stick Duke’s Orb in a spacejet,” said Anise “Didn’t work out too well, they basically made a smart-bomb with enough rocket fuel to drown the whole planet.”
 “Uh huh,” said Edison. “So, you’ve met the Eighty-Eight before?”
 “We didn’t know who they were at the time,” said the Duke. “I thought they were just daft scientists, who’d made a deal with a rogue Time-Traveller. Here, this is it.”
Edison saw a door which had been forced open, the door jamb and strikeplate snapped off. He peeked around the corner, then stepped inside.
 “Whoa . . .” said Edison as he saw the smashed window. “What happened here?”
The night air was cool, but rather still, whistling softly around the edges of the smashed window.
 “Runaway spacejet,” said the Duke with a sigh as he looked around the empty floor. “They’ve packed up their cables, their equipment . . . “
 “So, you’re saying that they set up a space-ship in here?” said Edison, looking around. “How did it fit?”
 “It was relatively small,” said the Duke.
 “Well, they probably just broke in, then,” said Edison approaching the Duke. “I’ve seen this kind of organized crime operation before. Break in, use the space for some ‘nefarious purpose’, then break out. It makes it harder to find, since there’s no paper trail.”
 “Wouldn’t they have to be pretty clever to have snuck an alien spaceship into an office building?” asked Anise.
 “Not really,” said the Duke, scanning the room with different spectrums of laser. “Besides residual exhaust, and the window, there really is no trail here, paper or otherwise.”
 “They’re obviously a dedicated group of individuals,” said Edison. “Did you really think that finding the Eighty-Eight would be that easy?”
 “Not really, no. But at least we’re exploring all possibilities,” said the Duke.
 “There’s something I’ve been wonderin’ . . . ” said Anise, when her pocket starts ringing. “Oh, uh . . . one second, guys. This is Anise,” she says, answering her phone.
 “Annie, where are you?” asked a bubbly voice on the other end of the phone.
 “Uhh . . . out?”
 “It’s almost half-past eight, you said you’d come out wi’ me.
 “To . . .?”
 “Simon’s!” said the voice excitedly, “Come on, he even got a band. Mate o’ his, kinda cute.
 “Oh, uh . . . one moment,” said Anise. She hugged the phone to her shoulder. “Uh, Duke? I was invited to a party, like, pre-time-travel ago?”
 “You’re telling me this because . . .?” said the Duke.
 “Because I don’t know what to do. I know we’re busy on this space mission stuff, but if I don’t go, Bee will know somethin’s up. But, we are busy, aren’t we?”
 “Doesn’t look it,” said the Duke. “There are no leads here. How long is this party?”
 “Overnight.”
 “Hmm,” said the Duke, stroking his beard, “Well, that being the case, I don’t see why not.”
 “Okay. Ya, I’m good,” Anise says into the phone. “But hey, can I bring a friend? Or two?”
 “You filthy girl . . . yeah, sure, but stop dilly-dallyin’! Oh, and bring drinks.” Bianca hangs up.
 “Bye, Bianca . . .” says Anise sarcastically, putting the phone in her pocket.
 “Did I just hear you invite us?” said Edison.
 “Of course, you’re my mates,” said Anise. “Is that a problem?”
 “Definitely not,” said the Duke. “And it gives me the chance to scan over this planet . . . when does the revelry begin?”
 “Actually, we’re already late,” said Anise.
 “Nonsense,” said the Duke, heading towards the door. “I’m never late, the party begins when I arrive.”
 “Right . . .” sighed Edison, and the two followed him down the hall and into the elevator, where the Duke’s timeship was nested within.
The Duke immediately moved to the centre console, and began typing into the console.
 “So, what’re you scannin’ the planet for?” asked Anise.
 “Naquadah,”
 “Knack guitar?” asked Edison. “Why are you searching for that?”
 “Because the Eighty-Eight collect alien technology, yet for reasons I don’t quite understand, alien technology seems to be scattered all throughout your world, so that alone doesn’t help us,” said the Duke. As he spoke, the screen displayed a holographic display of earth, and covered it in a spherical grid-pattern. “But there’s one piece of tech’ that I can track: The wormhole generator.”
 “The what?” said Anise.
 “Ring-shaped device, nine chevrons? You don’t recall?”
 “Oh, right, the portal-thingy!”
 “ . . . yes, the ‘portal-thingy’. Well, the portal-thingy is made out of naquadah, which is a very rare material. If I scan your entire planet for it, when I find it, that will lead us straight to the Eighty-Eight.”
 “Okay,” says Anise.
 “Wait, hold up a second,” says Edison. “The reason you know they have a wormhole . . . thingy, is because you were there, and we left through a portal. Can’t we just go back the same way we left? Through a wormhole?”
 “Definitely not,” said the Duke. “For starters, it would be pointless. My goal is not to barge in with a big gun and wreck the place, and if I even tried I’d be killed in the process, that facility was the belly of the beast, and that generator was especially valuable to them. They captured me and risked decimating your world to keep it from being destroyed. No, I wish to understand the Eighty-Eight, so that I can find a way of stopping them without bloodshed. Only a madman would go face to face with an enemy he can’t perceive.”
 “Oh, yeah . . .” said Anise, “I was gonna ask before, before the call - If there are only eighty-eight of them, well, we know a lot of them already, right? We’ve seen Tattoos, Baldy, Traveller-lady, McDoctor & half a dozen guys in that warehouse. That’s about ten down, right?”
 “We can’t assume that ‘Eighty-Eight’ refers to the number of members,” said the Duke. “It could mean a whole lot of things . . . it’s the atomic number of Radium, the number of moons in the Sutides system, the number of . . . well, uh . . .”
 “It’s the number of keys on a piano?” offered Edison.
 “Yes. As well, it’s the approximate lifespan, in Earth years, of homo sapiens.”
 “And, uh . . . oh!” Edison clicks his fingers. “The DeLorean! It goes eighty-eight miles an hour to go back in time!”
 “. . . the what?” said the Duke. “I can’t even translate that.”
 “It’s from Back to the Future. It’s a movie.”
 “‘Movie’ . . . ? Oh, right, the hologram-like ‘film’ projection. Anise mentioned it. You might have to show me at some point, it sounds fascinating,” said the Duke as he stepped up to the console. “Anyway, the point is that we can’t be sure, so we need to keep an open mind, and look for more clues. In the meantime, Anise, I see no reason not to attend this party of yours. Where is it?”
 “Peckham, close to Warwick Gardens. Do you know how to get there?”
 “No, but if I access a detailed scan of the surrounds, I could get a facsimile of the cityscape. I just need you to point me in the right direction . . .”

The Lift flew through the night sky, softly groaning and whining as it moved effortlessly and precisely, an elevator car outside of its chute with exposed wires and brackets. The ship stopped still for a moment in the middle of the air, then began to descend. It landed softly at the kerb where several cars of other partygoers had parked. Inside, the Duke shut down the engine and moved around the console to a different set of controls.
 “Alright . . . just need to execute the scan,” said the Duke, he jabbed at the holographic keyboard with one finger, and immediately a large circle appeared, with the label "00.0%" hovering in the centre. “This will take several hours to scan the entire planet, pole to pole.”
 “Cool. Well, let’s go,” said Anise. The three of them stepped onto the road, but as the Duke locked the doors behind them, Anise stopped suddenly and spun around.
“Oh, crap, I forgot. Duke? Bee told me to get drinks.”
 “Drinks?” asked the Duke
 “Yeah, I usually bring wine or some bubbly.”
 “Oh, of course . . . I can help with that,” said the Duke. He turned around and unlocked the ship. After a minute, he’d entered the ship, and returned holding a large, black bottle.
 “Oh no . . .” murmured Edison.
 “What’s that?” asked Anise.
 “New Capitol black wine,” said the Duke. “It’s an antique vintage; made from nugberries fermented in the digestive enzymes of Howling mountain algae.”
 “You never told me it was fermented in algae,” said Edison.
 “Didn’t seem relevant,” said the Duke, gesturing forward. “Now, shall we?”
Anise lead the three up to a two-storey, square brick house nestled into a small block of suburbia. Anise knocked on the door, and as the three waited, they heard muffled pop-rock music through the walls.
The door opened to the sound of slightly too loud music and to the sight of a short woman with peroxide-blonde hair.
 “Annie? You got here quick.”
 “Hey, Bee. Sorry I’m late, I was doin’ some stuff . . .” she said, grabbing her friend in a hug. “I didn’t forget about you, darlin’.”
 “Not a problem, Annie,” she said, returning the hug. “But who’s this?”
Bianca released her friend, and smirked at the sight of the Duke.
 “Hello, tall-dark-and-handsome,” she said, then she turned to Edison, “and Prince Charming.”
 “Bee, this is Duke and Edison.”
 “Yes, feel free, you’re all welcome. Come right on in, boys.”
Bianca stepped inside, and the three followed her into a cosy entryway with a staircase to the right and striped creamy wallpaper. She headed to the end where there was a small kitchen, but the air filled with sound as they passed a doorway to the left where several dozen people were enjoying themselves, and a band and their equipment was crammed in the corner behind stuffy sofas; they were playing a cover of ”The Other Side”.
 “We’ve just got started,” said Bee, entering the kitchenette, “so you’ve not missed much, but Prem was going to line up some shots - hey, Sime! Simon, Annie’s here!”
A young man chatting in the dining room with light brown hair and rectangular, frameless glasses turned around; he had a black collar-less shirt and a bottle of cider in his hand.
 “Annie, darling. Great to see you,” he said, coming over and giving Anise a light, careful hug as though not to wrinkle her clothes.
 “Sime, it’s great to see you again,” said Anise, turning back “This is Duke and Edison.”
 “Ahh . . .” said Simon with a smile. “Which is which?”
 “Edison,” said the Inspector, with a nervous wave.
 “I’m the Duke,” said the Duke, and he stepped forward giving Simon a hug, just as Anise had done.
 “Well, hello . . .” said Simon with a smirk, as the Duke stood up once more.
 “Are you the host?”
 “That I am, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
 “Then may I offer you a bottle of black wine from New Capitol, as thanks?” the Duke asked rhetorically.
 “Excellent, I never say no to wine,” said Simon, taking the offered bottle. “Looks expensive.”
 “I have several in the Lift wine cellar,” said the Duke, offhandedly.
 “Okay, I’ll find somewhere to put this,” said Simon. The Duke nodded respectfully as he stepped past them into the kitchen.
As the Duke looked over the dozen or so people laughing, chatting and drinking, he stepped back to face Anise, leant down and whispered in her ear. “I’m afraid this is different to what I’m accustomed to; how does one traditionally engage in a party on your world?”
Anise patted his shoulder.
 “It’s not all that organized. First, let’s get you guys a drink, then we go and talk to people. . .”
Anise went over to one guy who was short and had a lot of freckles on his face, she whispered something in his ear, and he nodded, then she went to the fridge and found some cider for the three of them. Handing each of them a bottle, she moved to the kitchen drawer.
The Duke examined the bottle in his hand, holding it with only three fingers, his ring and pinkie fingers pointing out.
 “Anise, the lid to this beverage has no spiralled thread; I cannot op-” Anise effortlessly popped the top off with a bottle-opener. “Intriguing . . .”
The Duke smelt the bottle and took a swig, then turned up his nose.
 “Time’s end! . . . that tastes rotten.”
 “It’s cheap cider, Duke,” said Edison, taking a sip and frowning, “I don’t drink, and I know that Old Rosie is swill.”
 “It’s not swill,” says Anise, opening her own bottle. “It’s scrumpy.”
 “Scrumpy? Call it whatever you want, it still tastes like apple juice and dishwater.”
Anise sipped her cider slowly and defiantly.
 “Alright,” said the Duke, putting his drink on the kitchen bench. “Now, who do we talk to?”
 “Anyone,” said Anise, picking up his drink and handing it back to him. “Don’t let your drink leave your sight. I trust Sime and his friends, but it’s a bad habit.”
 “Alright, who wants shots?” asked Simon, returning to the kitchen. “Prem, get over here.”
 “Shots?” said the Duke.
 “It’s a small glass of spirits or something strong,” said Anise.
As she spoke, a short Philippino man with blond tips in his hair lined up twenty plastic shot-glasses, put a pouring spout on a bottle of peach schnapps and expertly filled all twenty, only spilling a few drops on the bench when uprighting the bottle.
 “Whoops,” said Prem, putting down the schnapps bottle, “I . . . am drunk.”
Everyone picked up a shot, and Anise picked up two, handing one to the Duke. He moved to take a sip, but Anise stopped him.
 “Nuh-uh . . . you do it quick, tip and swallow . . .” Anise’s hair swished as she threw her head back to drain the shot.
The Duke followed suit.
 “That is incredibly sweet, and very alcoholic,” said the Duke, cringing as though he’d just licked a lemon. “Is this common practice at Earthly parties?”
 “Common enough. Why?”
 “It’s really not my style, I’m used to a much more formal gathering.”
 “Come on, do you never let your hair down?” asked Anise. The Duke raised an eyebrow, and Anise glanced up at his smooth, brown scalp. “Okay, never mind . . .”

High in the sky. there was a soft, bass humm in the air like a kind of gigantic bumblebee, as the Nembrian craft flew through the clouds. From the ground, the ship could not be heard, and looked like nothing more than a ripple; but above the clouds, it was a bulky, black and yellow machine the size of a dump truck which looked vaguely like an upturned armchair with four barrel-like engines pointing outwards and down, with a dome-like holographic projection underneath to cloak it.
Inside, the ship was softly lit, but the three occupants were wearing shiny black suits tight like a second skin, and wore brightly lit orange goggles with lenses the size of shoe-polish cans. They stood in a cramped room surrounded by buttons, levers and controls
One of the creatures croaked, pointing at a display in front of it, which showed a top-down image of the Duke’s timeship, and a scrolling scanner result with several thousand lines of data.
 “Roark, nyak-yek. Goyanshk errerngen,” it croaked, groaned and garbled meaningfully, turning to the other two in a voice harsh and guttural. “Browr-errk, nerg.”
 “Gallifrey’ak . . .” croaked one of the creatures.
 “Yek yek,” croaked the first. It scanned the area, the screen in front of it newly displaying several hundred red dots residing within the homes of the top-down view, but selected a light green dot which was surrounded by a dozen more that were red, and used the controls to surround the house in a yellow outline. “Nerg, oy grou browr-errk . . .”
The ship stopped and began to descend.

 “Good evening,” said the Duke, approaching a group of people chatting by the band, “I’m not quite used to this manner of scene. Are you all Simon’s associates?”
 “Yeah, duh . . .” offered one girl with a heavy fringe and black lipstick.
 “Well, I’ve only just met him this evening, I came with Miss Trevino. So, are you all co-workers? Cultural socialites? Academic disciples?”
 “Well, I work with him on the magazine, and I knew him in school,” offered one helpful man with long hair tied back in a ponytail, holding a wineglass.
 “Hey, did you say ‘Trevino’?” said one guy, with short brown hair and a beard who was holding a can of beer. “Anise Trevino?”
 “Yes,” said the Duke.
 “Where is she?” he asked, wiping some sweat from his cheek.
 “Well, approximately four metres to my rear, she’s standing next to Simon and Mr Edison, the blond-haired man-”
The man stepped past the Duke, headed towards the kitchen.
Anise’s face dropped as she saw the man.
 “Hey, Annie,” said the man. “It’s been a while.”
 “Hey, Swell,” said Anise, and the two stood awkwardly for a moment.
 “How’ve you been?” asks Swell.
 “I’m good,” says Anise.
 “Yeah, me too. Hey, uh, you didn’t respond to my text . . .”
Anise looked down at her shoes.
 “Swell, what are you doing?” said Bianca, stepping in when she saw the pair together.
 “Could you back off?” asked Swell, frowning. “We’re having a private conversation.
 “Can’t you take a hint?” said Bianca, “You’re a loser, Swell.”
 “Bee, don’t . . .” said Anise.
 “I don’t need you to tell me how she’s feeling! I want to talk to Anise.”
 “Is there a problem, here?” said the Duke, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder. Swell shrugged violently to get his arm off and stepped to the side.
 “Hey, don’t touch me, man.”
 “Duke, this is Maxwell . . .” said Anise, timidly.
 “Sir, you’re intoxicated,” said the Duke. “And if you don’t becalm yourself, I’ll eject you from this venue.”
Swell burst out laughing.
 “What the hell is this guy?” he said, pointing the hand holding the can at the Duke. “Is he who you’re with, is that it Annie? Are you sleeping with this guy? Is this why you’ve been bein’ such a bitch to me?”
 “Who ever taught you to speak to a woman like that?” asked the Duke.
 “Sorry Mister ‘white knight’. Or ‘black’ . . . whatever,” said Swell, turning back to Anise. “Look, this guy is a freakin’ nut cake.”
 “Swell, I went out with you because I thought you were sweet,” said Anise, frowning. “This isn’t sweet, you’re bein’ an arsehole. You’re just drunk, now let it go.”
 “I’m not DRUNK I’m PISSED!” said Swell, pointing his can at Anise. “You lead me on! And I trus-”
The Duke grabbed Swell’s hand, and twisted it behind his back so it looked like a limp chicken wing, then grabbed the back of his shirt.
 “I warned you,” said the Duke, as the man made a pained, whining sound.
 “Duke!” said Anise, shocked.
 “I won’t damage him.”
 “Let him go,” said Anise.
 “Yeah, what she said, let go of me you freak!”
The Duke nodded, and let go. As soon as he did, Swell spun around swinging a fist at his head, which the Duke sidestepped. Swell lost balance from the missed punch staggering over, so the Duke swung a swift uppercut that clocked the guy right under the jaw, dropping him like a sack of bricks on the living room carpet.
 “Woo!” said Bianca, “knockout!”
Anise frowned at her friend, then turned to the Duke.
 “Hey, can someone help me lift him onto the couch . . .” said Simon. Edison leant down to help him and Anise grabbed the Duke by the arm.
 “Duke, come here . . .” she said, and the Duke followed as she lead him out the kitchen door, and closed the door behind them so it was just them on some tiles behind the garage, which housed an old, blue Ford.
 “What on Earth was that?” asked Anise.
 “Just then?” said the Duke. “I was helping you to deal with an unsociable individual.”
 “You knocked him out, Duke, you call that help?”
 “Of course, he was threatening you.”
 “I was perfectly safe, Duke. He’s not stupid enough to hurt me, and even if he was I’m surrounded by friends.”
 “Then he was being idiotic,”
 “We’re all being idiotic, Duke, we’re drunk! That doesn’t mean you get to punch someone in the face!” said Anise.
 “Do you think he didn’t deserve it?”
 “That’s not the point, Duke. He was being a creep, but it’s because he’s immature and doesn’t know how to handle rejection; if you’d stayed out of it, I could have put him down gently and he’d slink off with his tail between his legs. You didn’t step in because you wanted to help, you did it because you wanted to ‘save me’.”
 “ . . . I don’t understand.”
 “Of course you don’t, you spend all day being a hero. But this is a party, Duke. I like that you’re decisive; I like that you’re in control under pressure. But you’re not saving the world today, Duke, you’re having drinks with my friends. I don’t want you trying to be a hero when I’m just trying to relax, okay?”
 “Alright . . .” said the Duke, and he nodded solemnly, “I’m sorry, Anise.”
 “Okay then. Apology accepted.”
As they stood there, there was the sound of high-pitched whirring and a clunk from deep in the garage.
 “Who was that?” asked the Duke.
 “A rat?” suggested Anise.
There was garbled croaking and a buzzing sound.
 “Do rats know how to operate a polyphasic drill?” said the Duke.
 “No . . .”
 “Then that was not a rat,” said the Duke. He placed his bottle of cider on the ground and removed the laser spanner from his pocket, pointing it at the garage door. With a flicker of red light from the spanner, the entire door automatically swung open, to nest up and over the blue car. Near the left side of the door, on the driveway, they saw a creature with orange goggles and a tight, black suit that jumped to its feet holding a strange, black device in its hands like a mix between a tommy gun and an electric drill.
 “Goyanshk!” croaked the creature, pointing the drill threateningly.
 “Easy now . . . I’m not here to hurt you,” said the Duke.
 “Nyak-yek wuark yarnch. Nrit grou!”
 “What’s he sayin’?” said Anise.
 “I don’t know, the translator’s not working,” said the Duke, stepping towards the creature. “I don’t want to harm you . . . put down the drill.”
The creature pressed a button on its belt.
 “Eeh-wa! Nerg!” it barked, and it suddenly jumped onto the roof, out of view. The Duke ran outside, and Anise followed behind. They heard a scampering sound which stopped suddenly, but as they got to the driveway and looked up at the roof, they couldn’t see the creature.
 “Where did it go?” asked Anise, stepping back to try to get a better view.
 “I have no idea. It appears to have just . . . disappeared,” said the Duke. “Perhaps it transmatted away, or jumped-”
 “Duke? What’s that?” asked Anise, pointing at the roof.
The Duke couldn’t see, so he walked back to join Anise. As he did, the new angle allowed for a full view of the roof tiles. On the roof, in what looked like bright sky-blue paint, were a series of alien symbols.
 “Now, that is fascinating . . . “ said the Duke.
 “Why, what does it say?” says Anise
 “I have no idea,” said the Duke. “The translator isn’t working, but not for lack of trying. The distinctive scythe and dot markings are similar to Mino, but I’ve never seen this particular language before. But, what’s interesting is that it’s only written on this house. Look around, only this house has been targeted.”
 “Simon’s house? Why?”
 “I’m not certain, but unless your friend is involved in some form of galactic espionage or astronomical research that you’re unaware of, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are targeting this house because I’m inside of it.”
 “And why would someone target you?” asked Anise.
 “You flatter me, Anise. I do have my fair share of enemies; but, considering that I’ve never met this species’ language before, it’s fair to say that I have no earthly idea.”
 “Well, what are we going to do?” asked Anise.
 “Nothing,” said the Duke.
 “Nothing?! But, what if we’re in danger?”
 “We’re probably not. Most of the time, although unusual, aliens are perfectly peaceful and harmless. I’ll scan the house for any more anomalies, you go and have drinks with your friends.”
 “Really? But, what about the alien-guy?”
 “If it’s around, I’ll find it. You’ll be perfectly safe. Trust me,” said the Duke, smiling. He began walking back into the garage, and Anise went back inside.

Edison leant over the couch, administering to the unconscious Maxwell as Simon stood behind him.
 “Is he going to be alright?” asked Simon.
 “Yes, he’s just knocked out. He’ll get a bruise on his neck, but there’s no real damage,” said Edison
 “It was a powerful blow, is your friend a boxer or something?”
 “No, he’s . . . more of a travelling scientist-pope good guy kind of thing.”
 “Okay,” said Simon, chuckling. “And what about yourself, Mister Edison, I’ve never met you before. You’re friends with Anise?”
 “Yeah, we both kinda met through the Duke.”
 “ . . . 'the’ Duke?”
 “Yeah, he’s kind of full of himself. But he deserves it, he’s a good guy; not all the time, but often when it counts.”
 “Do you love him?”
Edison looked shocked.
 “What? No. Why would you say that?”
 “Well, you’re bitching about him a lot, but you are clearly fond of him. I thought maybe he’d caught your eye. So, tall, dark and handsome isn’t your type?”
 “Uh . . . I mean, I don’t . . .” Edison ran a hand through his hair nervously. “That’s not really a thing that I, uh . . .”
 “What’s the matter? You are gay aren’t you?”
 “Shh!” Edison flinched, and he stood close enough to Simon so he could whisper. “I don’t like to advertise that. I don’t even know how you know.”
 “My gaydar is the best in London. I mean, the way you stand, the outfit, the way you act around Annie . . .” Edison sighed and stepped back from the couch.
“What’s the matter? Are you still in the closet?”
 “No, not really,” said Edison. “I just don’t like . . . I don’t think of it as very important.”
 “Isn’t it? It’s who you feel for - who you love - why keep it to yourself?” said Simon, and he added with a smirk. “plus, being gay has its perks.”
 “Look, I just prefer not to. Just leave it be, alright.”
 “Oh, but how can I?” asked Simon, stepping closer. “I’m fascinated. You’re not in the closet, so you’re not that ashamed of it, but you act as though you want to keep it a secret still.”
 “It’s not a secret,” said Edison. “But what is there to say? I like men - three words, that’s all there is to say.”
 “Now that’s not true,” said Simon. “You say you’re not a stereotype, but your boiling who you are down into a token, a bite-sized, watered-down tidbit of who you are. I mean, are you looking for love, do you like big guys or little guys? Bears, daddies, twinks? Are you looking to settle down, do you want kids? Do you like to play the field, or do you want that special man?”
 “No, I don’t do any of that,” said Edison
 “None? That sounds a bit sad.”
 “Sad? I’m not sad.”
 “Well, it’s like you’re looking at the candy store, but you refuse to go inside. I mean, do you actually want someone? One day?”
 “I don’t know,” said Edison. “Someday, maybe, but not now.”
 “Why not now?”
 “It wouldn’t be right . . .” said Edison, and he stared off into the middle distance. “It wouldn’t be right, while my father is alive.”
 “Ohh . . .” said Simon. “Now we’re getting somewhere . . .”

The front door opened and the Duke stepped back into the house, waving his spanner around as two red laser lights shone from each prong of the tuning-fork shaped device. He glanced around the house and shook his head.
 “Perfectly normal . . .”
He looked up as the girl with black lipstick stumbled into the entryway.
 “Hey, you’re the Dude, right?”
 “ . . . Duke.
 “Whatever, do you know where the bog is in this house?”
 “Bog? I’m afraid my translator seems to be malfunctioning this evening. Did you truly mean ‘bog’? Like a ‘swamp’?”
 “Look, guy, I don’t need your gibberish, I’ve gotta take a piss!” she said, crankily.
 “Oh, right. Well, there are no such facilities on the surface level, I can tell you that much.”
She huffed and walked past him, heading up the stairs. The Duke headed into the loungeroom through the side door, as the band stopped for a moment.
 “Hey, can someone get me a drink?” said the singer, in a Lancashire accent, and the man with a ponytail took a few steps towards them and threw a can in his direction. The singer caught it, cracked it and took a swig. “Alright, alright. I want to first say thank you . . . to Simon, I don’t do house parties, but Sime, I’d do anythin’ for you, mate for gettin’ our name on the map. Cheers.”
Anyone with a drink in hand raised their glass, can, shot or mug in respect. The singer skolled the can, then dropped it.
 “We are The Zingany Equation!” barked the singer, “And this is Be My Head!”
The drummer thrashed madly and they started another song. The Duke approached the centre of the room, pointing his laser spanner at the ceiling, when Bianca approached him holding two glasses of wine.
 “Duuuke, mate. What’re yeh doin’?”
 “Scanning the premises for any signs of unusual radiation; non-domestic energy; persistent fields; subspace anomalies . . . that kind of thing.”
 “Uh-huh . . . well, you don’t have a drink, mate,” she said holding out a glass.
 “Yes, I’m afraid I left it outside . . .” he said, peeling his eyes away from the ceiling. “But, I see you were diligent enough to have acquired me another. How thoughtful of you.”
The Duke cautiously took the glass from Bianca, only touching it with the thumb, middle and index finger of his free hand.
 “So, are you and Anise . . . official?” asked Bianca, having a sip of wine.
 “Official what?” said the Duke.
 “Y’know . . . are you exclusive?” said Bianca, in a harsh whisper. “Boyfriend, girlfriend . . . ?”
 “Oh . . .” said the Duke, looking back at his spanner. “No. No, we’re not.”
 “Oh?” said Bianca. “Then what did you do to get a plus-one to Simon’s?”
 “I saved the world,” said the Duke half-mindedly, as he scanned over the band’s electrical equipment.
 “So, you donated to charity or somethin’?” said Bianca, having another sip. “Well, you two seem pretty serious.”
 “I’m usually quite serious,” said the Duke, turning to look Bianca in the eye. “Especially with my friends. I take friendship very seriously.”
 “But, y’know . . . it seems like you really like one another. She seems into you.”
 “Does she?” asked the Duke, frowning slightly. “She does present a certain ‘fondness’, I thought of it as little more than social propinquity.”
 “I don’t know, she’s real easy with yer, and she only met you yesterday,” said Bianca. “And don’t you have feelin’s for her?”
The Duke took a slow breath, and stared off into space as he exhaled, the air buzzing lightly with Bianca’s anticipation.
 “ . . . do you hear that?”
 “What?” asked Bianca.
The Duke stepped past her and headed towards the glass doors leading to the backyard, dplacing his wineglass on the kitchen bench on the way past. He opened the door and the high-pitched whirring of a polyphasic drill could be heard. He stepped outside to see the alien, once more.
 “Stop right there,” said the Duke.
 “Nyak-yek will work, browr-errk,” said the creature, taking a thin, black tube from its belt. “Uk-nrug goyanshk party.”
 “Wait, please stop,” said the Duke. “The translator is deciphering your words. Please, wait.”
The creature dropped the tube into the hole, and with a sharp ZAP! sound, a line around the back of the house let off a plume of smoke, and instantaneously turned off all the power in the house.
 “Duke!” cried out Anise. The Duke glanced into the house and back at the alien.
 “I’ll get you later . . .” muttered the Duke, and he returned inside, closing the door behind him.
 “Anise, where are you?” asked the Duke. Several people took their phones from their pockets, turning up the brightness to use the screens as makeshift lanterns.
 “What’s happened, Sime?” someone asked. There was a loud creaking outside, then a soft rumbling sound underfoot.
 “Now, everyone, don’t worry. It’s an old house, we probably just blew a fuse with the amp. I have some replacements in the cupboard under the stairs . . .” said Simon. “Just sit tight, have another drink.

Outside, on the tiles behind the garage, there sat an abandoned bottle of cider. It rocked slightly from the rumbling of the building, and tipped over. The liquid spilled out and it pooled on the tile, but as the puddle grew large enough, the edge of the spill touched the softly glowing green line which had been placed there by the aliens, and sizzled, quickly evaporating into steam. The entire house was surrounded by this barrier, which was cut into the ground one foot deep.
The wind picked up, and rolled the bottle towards the barrier as well. As it crossed the line it rolled off the edge and fell. After a swift drop it landed on the ground intact, just a few metres from Simon’s birdbath in the backyard below, but where the house had been there was merely a square pit of dirt as the house which had occupied it was rising from the ground a few feet every second.

The Duke found Anise standing in the entryway, using her phone to help Simon see into the small stair cupboard.
 “Anise, are you alright?”
 “No,” she whispered. “The lights are out, I think it’s the aliens.”
 “I know it was, I saw him do it.”
 “Yes, but what am I supposed to tell everyone? I can’t tell them the truth,” said Anise.
 “Why not?”
 “Because aliens don’t exist. Not to these people, anyway. They’d be freaked out.”
 “Ah, yes . . . right, I’ll handle this.”
 “Alright, here we go,” said Simon, holding a fuse up to the light of Anise’s phone. “This one looks good.”
He stood up, walked the length of the entryway and opened the front door, where it was pitch black outside
 “Simon!” barked the Duke, jumping to stand behind him.
 “Yes?” said Simon, standing on the doormat. “What is it?”
 “Perhaps I could do that for you,” offered the Duke.
 “No, it’s just over here,” said Simon, as he took a step back, the Duke quickly grabbed his arm before he stepped off the ledge, just a few centimetres behind his right foot.
 “No, Simon, you should make sure your guests are alright,” said the Duke. “Besides, I have a nightlight.”
The Duke held up his laser spanner and pressed a button which made the two prongs brighten up like ignited magnesium.
Simon squinted and shielded his eyes.
 “Alright, alright, don’t blind me,” he said, handing the Duke the fuse. “Here, the fusebox is just by the rectangular plant pot . . .”
He stepped past the Duke back inside, and the timelord sighed heavily with relief.
 “Duke, is everything okay?” asked Anise, stepping behind him.
 “No, Anise, see for yourself, said the Duke. He stepped outside, holding the doorframe with one arm, and holding out the other to both point outwards and offer something to grab in case Anise tripped. She stood on the threshold and looked out at the brightly lit suburbia below.
 “Oh my gosh . . . we’re flying?”
 “Hanging,” said the Duke, pointing to a spot above them. “Those aliens were drilling holes to place forcefield projectors into the ground. Now they’ve connected nano-lattice winchwire to the projectors and have lifted us off the ground.”
 “Well, what can we do about the power?” asked Anise.
 “We were severed from the main line, this fuse won’t do anything,” said the Duke, throwing it over the edge. He turned around and opened the fuse-box, then jammed his spanner into one of the connections. With the press of a button, green arcs of electricity surrounded the fusebox, and the lights inside the house turned back on. There was the sound of applause and whooping from inside.
 “What did you do?”
 “I’ve set the spanner to supercharge, and connected it into the house’s main supply. It could last us at least forty-three hours.”
 “Forty-three ? . . . wait, what if you need your spanner to fix this?”
 “I’ll do my best to make do without,” said the Duke. “You said to keep extraterrestriality a secret.”
 “Yeah, but surely you need to get us on the ground too.”
 “I can do both; but only by surrendering my spanner for the sake of keeping the lights on.”
 “So, how are you goin’ to get us down?”
 “I’m going to have a little chat with our alien visitors,” said the Duke. “I think the translator circuit is finally beginning to decipher their language. If I can discover why they have decided to take this house for a joy-flight, perhaps I can convince them to put it back.”
 “‘If’, ‘why’, ‘perhaps’? That’s not very encouraging, Duke.”
 “Do you trust me, Anise?”
 “Yes.”
 “Then trust me when I tell you that this is in all likelihood a simple misunderstanding, and I can get us all back on the ground even before my ship completes its scan,” said the Duke, with a grin.
“You go inside, and have drinks with your friends . . . and, if at all possible, make sure that people stay away from the windows and doors.”
 “Alright,” said Anise, and she went back inside the house.

Edison was standing beside the band, looking out the window behind them at the swiftly distancing suburbia below, when Anise entered the living room, telling people that the Duke had fixed the fuse. He went over to speak to her
 “Anise, what is going on?” he asked.
 “Oh, uh, aliens,” she said so only he could hear her over the band.
 “What, here?” he said, shocked. “Well, what’s the plan of attack?”
 “Duke’s handling it, just make sure everyone stays calm,” she said. “Don’t let them look out the windows and stuff.”
 “Right . . .” said Edison.
Anise snuck around the back of the kitchen and started to close the curtains as Edison locked the doors leading to the backyard.
 “What are you doing?” asked Simon, approaching Edison.
 “Nothing,” said Edison, taking three steps away from the door.
 “I’m glad,” said Simon, having a sip of a glass filled with what Edison recognized as black wine. “I was hoping I could continue our chat.”
 “I’m a little busy . . . and there’s not much more to say.”
 “But, you said your father knows you’re gay. I mean, what’s the problem.”
 “Look, I don’t want to talk about it.”
 “Why not?” says Simon. “Look, we’ve all gone through the coming out, some have it easier than others. I mean, I lost several friends when I came out, got into a few fights. Do you hate your father that much?”
 “No,” said Edison angrily. “I love my father! But he’s ashamed of who I am. The day I came out, he didn’t say anything, he didn’t even smile, he just sat there while my mother did all the talking. The next day, he took me out to the farm and taught me how to shoot. The next day he forced me to learn self-defense; I could never dance or sing or . . .” Edison sighed heavily and shook his head. “He said he was going to make a real man out of me. The fact is, he always thought that being gay made me weak, that I was never good enough. That’s why I don’t want to talk about it.”
Simon was dumbstruck as Edison pushed past him to close the front curtains.

The Duke was lying on the ground, peering over the edge where the house had been severed from the ground. He wiped a finger across the green, shimmering forcefield and quickly whipped his hand away, shaking it.
 “Lacks thermostatic shielding, they must be primitive space-farers,” muttered the Duke. He stood up, and moved around the edge of the house. The porch to the house was inset from the garage, but the edge was cut sheer one inch in front of the garage entrance, so the Duke clings to the side of the garage door mechanism to step around the pillar and into the carport. He walked in front of the car and stopped near to the winchwire from which the house was suspended, it was a little under an inch in diameter.
“This must transfer power to the field,” he muttered. He turned and picked up a wooden-handled hammer from a shelf a few feet behind him. He placed the metal to wire and raked the hammer down it. It made a squeaking sound, but not much else.
“Well-insulated,” he said, dropping the hammer behind him and gripping it with his hand. “Good friction, perhaps I . . .” his voice trailed off as he saw something in the clouds a kilometre away.
 “No . . . no no!” he shouted, as he saw a passenger plane appear. It was going to fly right overhead of them . . . right into the wires. He held onto the wire and swung out to look above them. He could barely make out the ship behind the holographic cloaking dome, but the wires were so still. “Oh, you idiots! MOVE!”
The wires didn’t move and so the Duke glanced around desperately. He saw the car, the gas tank, a bench full of tools, the water heater chained to the wall, a small laundry. He smirked to himself, then his smile dropped and he ran inside.

 “Everyone!” shouted the Duke, as he ran through the kitchen. “Everyone listen!”
Some people turned, but the music was so loud. The Duke pushed past people and walked up to the band. He grabbed the microphone.
 “Partiers and patrons, I need your attention,” he said, taking a few steps away from the angry singer, who was swearing at him. “I’ve just heard news that there is going to be an earthquake, a lot stronger than the tremor before. I need everyone to lie down on the ground!”
 “Aren’t you supposed to stand in the doorway during an earthquake?” said the long-fringed girl.
 “You’re all intoxicated,” growled the Duke. “It’s much easier and safer to lie down. Please, lie down, this will be over shortly! . . . Oh, also, there will be rolling blackouts.”
The Duke dropped the microphone and sprinted towards the front door and Anise followed him. She stood in the doorway as he ran out towards the fusebox.
 “What on Earth is going on?” asked Anise.
 “That is going on,” said the Duke pointing towards the plane.
 “Holy shit . . .” said Anise.
 “It’s alright, I have a plan,” said the Duke, removing the spanner from the fusebox with a loud ZAP! “Ouch! Drat . . .”
He marched back to the door and Anise stood aside then followed closely behind as he sprinted to the garage.
 “What’s the plan?” Anise asked, as he moved to the water heater.
 “Pendular motion,” said the Duke, using a bright red laser on his spanner to sever the water heater from the wall. Then, he rolled the tank onto its side. “Can you give me a hand?”
Anise moved beside him and the two of them rolled the tank towards the square patch of tiles behind the garage.
 “I don’t understand,” said Anise, but the Duke changed the settings on his spanner, stood back and aimed the laser at the bottom of the tank, which - as it was lying on its side - was facing the side of the house.
 “It’s simple, this tank is full of heated water, meaning that if I apply further heat, it will soon reach boiling point, then continue to increase in pressure,” said the Duke as the bottom of the tank began to change colour, then glow red, then yellow. “Since I am creating great weakness in the bottom of the vessel as I heat it, it will eventually burst, and shoot the entire tank off in the opposite direction. Actually, you should probably stand back.”
Anise went to crouch around the other side of the car, but she peaked her head over the trunk.
 “So, how will shooting that off to the side help?” asked Anise.
 “For every action, there is an equivalent and opposing reaction,” said the Duke. “The force of the projection will create an opposing force against the wall of the-”
BANG! The tank exploded and shot off, and the Duke stumbled as the house swung in the opposite direction. Steam filled the garage and Anise couldn’t see, but felt as the house tipped from zero to ten, twenty then thirty degrees, swinging on the wires. There was clattering and crashing as things fell from their place and onto the ground. The Duke gripped tightly to a crack in the tiles as they swung up, then began to swing backwards.
Inside the house, Edison was holding onto people, with one arm gripping the fireplace, and another holding Simon’s shirt. Some people were laughing, others were screaming.
Because of the burst of steam and closed curtains, nobody saw as the plane flew near them. There was a loud rushing sound as they swung the other way, then a loud ripping sound and a twang! as the very tip of the wing clipped some winchwire. The house didn’t even shudder, but the plane dropped slightly before counterbalancing.
Then, the house stopped swinging and the ground sat level.
 “What’s going on?” said Anise. “Did we hit something?”
 “No,” said the Duke, standing up. “The aliens levelled their ship to stop us from swinging.”
He dusted himself off, and turned to see Anise. “Are you alright?”
 “Yeah, I’m fine, just a little dizzy.”
 “That’s probably the affects of the altitude. And the alcohol.”
 “Well, it’s a bad idea to be drunk and high at the same time . . .”
 “Here. you go inside, make sure everyone else is alright,” said the Duke coldly, holding out his spanner. “And put this back, to power the house once more.”
 “What about you?” Anise asked, taking the spanner.
 “I’m going up there,” said the Duke, glancing at the winchwire near the rear-left corner of the house, on the edge of the backyard tiles. “Before those idiots drop us right out of the sky.”
As Anise returned inside the house, the Duke approached the wire, reaching into the pocket of his long, leather coat. He withdrew a pair of what looked like dark brown, fingerless, leather driving gloves with black padding on the palms; then he donned them and flexed his fingers, they fit perfectly. The Duke then jumped, grabbed onto the wire and started climbing, using his feet to steady himself as he pulled himself up with his arms in short lengths, climbing very quickly.

The lights switched back on inside the house and people started getting to their feet.
 “Is it over?” someone asked.
 “I can’t see out there,” said Simon, heading for the window. “It’s like fog . . .”
 “It’s fine,” said Edison, jumping to his feet and grabbing Simon’s hand. “Step away from the window. It might . . . in the aftershock, it might shatter.”
 “Thanks for your concern,” said Simon with a grin.
 “It felt like a rolllll-” fringe girl stood up as she spoke, “-lllller coaster. Loop-de-loop.”
 “You’re just drunk,” said Anise, now standing in the doorway to the entry. “It was a mild rumble, nothing more. Come on, it’s like a funeral in here. What happened to the music?”
 “Oh, yeah yeah . . .” said the singer, heading to the microphone.
Edison left Simon to head over to Anise.
 “What the hell was that?” he asked sternly. “We have to clean up, what happened out there?”
 “A plane was headed for us, so Duke swung us clear,” said Anise. “We just need to keep everyone safe in here until Duke can get to the top of the rope.”
 “The top of the rope? What rope?”
 “Well, the cable-things. We’re hanging from an alien ship by black cables.” said Anise.
 “And what is he planning to do when he gets to the top?” asked Edison.
 “I don’t know,” said Anise. “But he looked really pissed . . .”

Half-way up the rope, The Duke hung, clinging with his feet as he stopped to catch his breath his bald head was covered in sweat. The rope was almost 30 storeys high, and he looked up, seething, at the ship above. Then he glanced down at the roof of the house. The symbols which he couldn’t read before, the alien writing, was finally being deciphered. There was the slightest blurring behind his eye before he could see the words:
Earthlings Have Rights Too
 “What are you people doing . . .?” he snarled. With a yell, he lifted another arm up, and grunted deeply as he moved, heaving every time he pulled himself another few inches higher, keeping his arms close to his chest. In a short minute he was passing through the holographic camouflage, and he lifted himself up the last three metres, where there was an enormous pulley, extending from a bulky arm, and underneath was an inspection gantry, a metal platform with railings that the Duke stepped onto as soon as he was high enough. He fell on all fours, breathing ragged, as he looked at the ship in front of him. With a cough he got to his feet, approached the air lock and pounded a fist against the yellow metal. He was about to yell out, when he saw a lever labelled ‘Emergency Entry’. The Duke pulled the lever and there was a blaring sound as the door shifted inwards and slide to the side. He stepped inside, and the door slid shut behind him. There was a hissing sound as the room’s pressure was levelled, and the Duke noticed that the air was made to be cool, but humid.
The airlock itself was barely larger than a broom closet, and the other door was wire-reinforced glass, revealing a dimly lit interior on the other side, and a red light was flashing around the edges of the door.
 “Open this door!” yelled the Duke, banging against the glass. “I am the Duke of Rathea, and I demand to speak to whomever is in charge!” A skinny alien in a tight, black suit came into view, and took the orange goggles away from its face as it looked through the glass.
Where the goggles had been were big, round yellow eyes  with black rectangles for pupils, like the eyes of a goat, but its skin was mottled and green. The creature pressed a hand to its belt.
 “It’s the politician,” croaked the creature. “He’s aboard.”
 “And I demand to speak to your leader!” yelled the Duke.
 “And it demands-”
 “Bring him here,” replied the radio with a buzz and a click. The alien pulled a lever and the door slid open. The Duke stepped out and marched in the direction from where the alien had appeared. Shortly, he came to the end of the hallway, which opened out and down to an open space, with a ladder at his feet leading into the command centre of the ship. The Duke looked down to see two more aliens standing at panels surrounded by controls.
 “Which one of you is in charge here?!” demanded the Duke.
 “Here,” croaked the shorter alien, stepping forward. “I am Alnag, I planned this.”
 “Then can you please explain to me what in all of existence do you think you’re doing?”
 “This is a protest!” announced Alnag. “A Bluespace protest for these humans you so heartlessly ignore!”
 “Ignore?” asked the Duke, raising an eyebrow. “Are you insane?”
 “This TransPlanet policy is evil!” chimed in the second alien, grunting emphatically. “Your consulate will not get away with this unlawful genocide!”
 “Silence!” barked the Duke. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, I couldn’t even speak your language an hour ago! I have never heard of any consulate or this policy, but I need you to return this stolen building to its foundation immediately. You are endangering the lives of several dozen humans in that, and countless more in those flying machines.”
 “How could you be unaware of the consulate?!” said Alnag, confused. “You are a time lord, you must be involved if you are in this region.”
 “No,” said the Duke. “The time lords aren’t involved in anything, anymore . . .”
There was a loud straining sound, then a twang as one of the cables loosened. The three aliens covered the sides of their heads as the ship vibrated from the shudder.
 “Crane number three is failing!” said the second alien. The alien behind the Duke pushed past him, jumping down into the command centre to help pilot the controls.
 “I don’t understand, it’s designed to lift a warship. Why can’t it lift a house?”
 “It was the near-miss,” said the Duke. He spun and slid down the ladder, then turned to face the aliens once more. “It was much more ‘near’ and much less ‘miss’ than I’d hoped. I heard it collide with the wire, it must have damaged it.”
 “We can maintain the weight distribution, but if the forcefield generator fails, the artificial cradle will collapse. We need to lower the load before the cable snaps.”
 “Is there no way to boost power?” said the Duke. “Can you tell me where you were taking the house? Is there a power source there?”
 “We weren’t taking the house anywhere,” said Alnag.
 “What?”
 “We were just flying up and around, so the TransPlanet fleet can see us. This is a protest.”
 “ . . . a publicity stunt? You ripped a building full of people out of the ground for the sake of a publicity stunt?!”
 “We want to show them that humans deserve to live too.”
 “And so you chose a house full of alcoholics?”
 “We were headed for the human queen’s building,” said Alnag. “But, we took the opportunity when we saw you.”
 “Right. Perhaps, this was the better choice . . .” said the Duke, pushing past the second alien. “What’s your name?”
 “Grennit,” croaked the alien.
 “Alright, Grennit. Now, correct me if I’m wrong,” said the Duke, pointing around the console. “Articulated propulsion control, automated downward counter-balance thrust, pivoting around a reinforced knuckle, with a . . . micro-petrol engine?”
 “Sounds right,” said Grennit, “But, we have a micro-fusion cell . . .”
 “Drat . . . that will make things a little harder,” said the Duke, and he took the controls.
 “What are you doing?”
 “Trust me, I come in handy during a crisis. I’m going to fix this mess, but if someone could balance the cargo, that would be appreciated. Otherwise, hold onto your goggles . . .”

In Simon’s dining room, everyone was sitting around the table, drinking, and picking cards from around a half-full glass of a pink liquid. Fringe girl took a card and read it.
 “Jack, Lords,” she said, and all of the men at the table groaned before taking a drink.
 “You’ve barely had any,” said Simon. “If I get an eight . . . “
Anise heard a soft humming, and looked at her bottle of cider. It was slowly crawling across the table from the vibration. She quickly picked it up and stood.
 “Hey, uh, everyone? Everyone, I think now is . . .”: Anise blinked heavily as she stumbled. “Wow, drunker than I thought. Anyway, I want to toast Simon! For . . . being awesome.”
 “Hear hear,” said someone and everyone else picked up their drink to sip. Anise stood and stared for a moment, trying to think. As people finished their respective toasts, they stared at Anise.
 “Anise, are you alright?”
Anise clicked her fingers, jumping to action.
 “I’m just drunk, is all . . . is it my turn? I think it’s my turn.” Anise sat and picked up a card. It was an ace. “Ah, a ten! I get to make a rule. Well, what about everyone keeps hold of their drink. If it touches the table, you take a sip.”
 “Ahh, clever,” said fringe girl. Anise took a drink and put the card in her pocket.

At an empty lot near Warwick Gardens, a great shadow loomed over the lawn until the hanging building aligned with the rectangular cavity cut into the ground, then lowered until it was a foot above the grass. After a minute of gentle adjustments and tweaks, the entire house lowered down into the hole like a key into a lock. There was a hiss of escaping air, then a thud.
From between the four cables that had suspended the house, one of the aliens descended on a much thinner wire attached to his belt. Using the wire as a kind of bungee, the alien swiftly hopped from one corner of the house to the other, disconnecting and deactivating the forcefield generators, the cables retracting after each was detached. Finally, after collecting all four generators, the alien too was retracted. He sailed quickly through the air, swiftly rising the wire on his belt, before the retracting wire slowed as the alien was drawn up into the ship through a round opening, before a five-bladed leaf shutter constricted closed around it.
 “Good work, Unwick,” said the Duke. “Now onto the other matter. Why were you protesting this ‘TransPlanet’ policy?”
 “It will kill everything on this planet,” said Alnag, as Grennit unbuckled his shipmate from the wire.
 “How?” asked the Duke.
 “They plan on mining your sun,” said Alnag, shaking his head. “It’s small enough to be plundered without gravity being an issue, but it would destabilize this system.
 “It would destabilize the solar reaction,” said the Duke. “I’ve seen other star-miners before, it destroys planetary systems. Do they know this system is occupied?”
 “Yes, we told them that it could kill you all, so they created the ‘TransPlanet’ policy.”
 “Which is?” asked the Duke.
 “They promised that any creatures they destroyed through their mining would be replaced.”
 “Replaced . . . one life exchanged for another?”
 “That’s the policy.”
The Duke shook his head.
 “I can’t allow that to happen . . .” said the Duke, and he turned to climb up a ladder to the side of the drop-deck.
 “What do you plan on doing?” asked Grennit. “We saw this as our last hope to stop them, but we couldn’t even get their attention.”
 “I can,” said the Duke. “Can you contact the consulate using the communications circuit on this ship?”
 “Why would we do that? We’d be contained,” said Alnag.
 “But you will save the people of Earth. You’ll be heroes. I just need to speak to them,” said the Duke, turning to face Alnag. He stepped closer, towering his full height over the small alien. “You recognized my authority. If you understand the power of a time lord, then so will your leaders. I need an open audio broadcast, to send them a message on all subspace frequencies.”
Alnag nodded and Grennit adjusted the controls until there was a buzz from a set of speakers.
 “The Consulate of . . .” the Duke frowned, “where are you from?”
 “Nembria,” said Grennit.
 “Yes, Nembria!” said the Duke. “I am the Duke of Rathea; Field Director of Temporal Logistics with the Timelord Academy; His Brilliance, Consecrated Lightseer of the Bei’sianu Temple; Specialist in the Enigmatic and the Paradoxical, and Secretary of the Seven Worlds of the Conduit . . . and I want to know who is the contemptible tyrant responsible for the attempted genocide of this protected planet!”
There was a moment of silence, before a small alarm on the control panels chimed.
 “We’re being summonsed,” said Grennit. “I’m putting it on the projector.”
The curved wall of the command centre was filled with the light from a projector which showed the life feed from the video call. The video was of a mottled amphibian-looking alien with a dark green, business-suit like outfit. From his eyes, the Duke could see it was the same species as the three men around him.
 “This is Consul Glurn, I represent the Consulate.”
 “Consul, what are you doing in this sector?” asked the Duke.
 “We are conducting a final appraisal before we calibrate our thermal plasma scoop.”
 “Then you will cease and desist,” said the Duke. “This planet, and indeed its sun, is protected under Article Fifty-seven of the Shadow Proclamation. Subsection . . . twenty-eight I believe.”
 “Under whose authority?”
 “Mine,” said the Duke, and he reached into his pocket to take out a maroon, pocketbook with a circular symbol and a stylized emblem that looked like cephalopod stamped in gold on the front. He opened to the front of the book, where there was a sketch of his face on one page, and printed round emblem on the other, this one looking like a historiated number 8 in a circle. He faced it towards the camera on the control console.
“I declare this planet to be a level five on the civilization index, and under my protection. If you do not cease all operations and leave immediately, I will consider it an act of war and have you as well as your entire consulate incinerated. Do I make myself unmistakably clear?”
The video disconnected and the projector stopped.
 “They stopped,” said Grennit. “They’re turning around.”
 “Congratulations, gentlemen. You just saved over seven billion unsuspecting lives,” said the Duke, and he placed the pocketbook back into his jacket. “Now, would you mind returning me to my friends?”
 “Just like that?” asked Alnag.
 “If you wouldn’t mind . . . you did interrupt me in the middle of a party,” said the Duke.

The Duke’s feet touched the ground, and he disconnected the wire from the belt around his waist, heading into the house. As he opened the door, he glanced at the fusebox, saw his laser spanner and walked over. Yanking it out of the machine, the lights of the house flickered, but remained on.
 “That’s the best landing I’ve executed in eighty years . . .” the Duke murmured to himself, “Even lined the wires up.”
As he entered the living room, Anise jumped up and ran to the Duke, but stumbled on the way.
 “D’you . . . uke. Duke,” she said, grabbing his arm to steady herself. “I was so worried. Are you okay? Are we okay? Is the this . . . okay?”
 “Yes, we’re safely on the ground. It turns out some people thought I was more important than I was; and I resolved the whole mess by proving I was more important than that.”
 “Okay . . . so, the house is landed?”
 “Yes, the house is landed,” said the Duke. Anise smiled and grabbed him in a hug. “Did you have a good time?”
 “Yes. Scary, weird, but good,” she said, then she leant up and whispered. “I drank too much though.”
 “Yes, I can see that. Edison?” said the Duke, and the Inspector looked up from the couch, where he’d been sitting and got to his feet. “Are ready to leave?”
 “Yeah, if you want,” he said, adjusting his shirt. The Duke moved for the door and Edison followed, but Simon stood up from the table.
 “Wait,” said Simon, as he walked over to Edison. His face was a bit reddened from drinking, but he spoke calmly and seriously. “Do you . . . have to go?”
 “Yeah, he’s kind of my ride,” said Edison.
 “Alright, well, it was interesting meeting you, Edison,” said Simon.
 “Likewise,” said Edison, with a curt nod. He turned towards the door.
 “Are you really going, just like that?” said Simon. Edison stopped.
 “He is my ride.”
 “That’s not what I meant,” said Simon, leaning in closer to his face. “What do I have to do to persuade you to give me your number?”
 “Oh, uh . . .”
 “Sorry, I have had a bit to drink. Am I too forward?”
 “No, I’m just not used to this kind of thing.”
 “Cute guy like you? You should be.”
Edison laughed nervously.
 “Uh . . . do you have a pen?”

Inside the timeship, the Duke was standing impatiently by the console as Edison entered.
 “If you want to stay, you can stay,” said the Duke. “I never force you to follow me, Inspector.”
 “No, I was just . . . making friends,” said Edison. “Where are we headed?”
 “The Bermuda Triangle. Duke’s found where the necrodria is,” said Anise.
 “Naquadah,” corrected the Duke. “Are you ready for our next trip?”
 “Sure,” said Edison.
 “Good,” said the Duke, pressing a button to close both the outer and Lift Lobby doors. Then he began entering the coordinates on the console “Because I have had more than enough partying for one day.”
The Duke pulled the ignition lever on the console, and the Lift vworped away into the vortex.

Monday 11 August 2014

Bloodbath

<< < Chapter Nine > >>

Edison sat on the couch by the door as the Duke wandered around the Lift console, adjusting levers and checking the computers.
  “So, where are we going this time?” asked Edison.
  “I'm still considering that,” said the Duke. “I haven't quite decided.”
  “How do you decide?” asked Edison. “Is there some masterful path that we're following?”
  “At the moment, I'm investigating Earth's timeline,” said the Duke.
  “Hmm?” grunted Anise, leaning heavily against the console.
  “I am still trying to determine who exactly the Eighty-Eight are. The Traveller seemed quite familiar with me, and implied that we have some common history, but I have yet to experience that for myself.”
  “Alright then. When are we going?” asked Edison, with a smirk.
  “Well . . . why don't you decide, Inspector?” asked the Duke.
  “Decide where we're going?” asked Edison.
  “Exactly,” said the Duke, cranking a lever which fired up the time rotor. “To which time shall we travel? You choose. Any time in Earth's preceding history or awaiting destiny.”
  “I'm not quite sure,” said Edison. “Most history, to me, is more interesting to be read, not lived.”
  “There's nothing in your planet's history that interests you?” asked the Duke. “It's over four billion years old, and you don't think any of that history is interesting?”
Edison considered this for a moment, rubbing his face. When he looked up waving a finger thoughtfully, the Duke smiled.
  “Eighteen Eighty-Eight,” he said. “April, either the seventh or the eighth.”
  “Oh?” said the Duke, setting the temporal co-ordinates. “You seem to have changed your mind. May I ask the significance of that date?”
  “I like murder mysteries,” said Edison. “And that was the start of one of the most famous, unsolved mysteries in the history of the English police force.”
  “So, you wish to find the answer? I like the sound of that, Inspector,” said the Duke, then he yanked the ignition lever. The ship began to slowly rock back and forth as they span backwards through time, the temporal engines groaning, creaking and moaning.
The Duke manned the controls, adjusting their course as they flew, to maintain a steady flight.
  “Duke?” murmured Anise. “I don't . . .”
Suddenly, Anise collapsed against the console. Alarms started beeping and the ship groaned and whined.
  “Anise!” screamed the Duke. He ran over, but the ship had swayed towards him and he had to ascend the incline.
  “What is it?!” Called Edison, as he ran over to help.
  “She's activated the weapons' targeting system!” said the Duke. He carefully slid Anise to the floor, laying her down and Edison headed over to tend to her as the Duke deactivated that octant of the console, silencing the alarms. Edison was still too far away, so before returning to the helm, the Duke leaned down to Anise on the floor.
  “Are you alright?” he asked.
  “No . . .” she said, her eyes turning glassy. Suddenly, she sat up and bit him in the neck.
  “DUKE!!” screamed Edison.
The Duke cried out in wordless pain, his hands slowly reaching to grab Anise but they grew weaker and weaker as she dug her teeth deeper into his flesh.
Edison was at a loss for words. More and more alerts and warnings started to flash on the console as Anise drained the life out of the time lord. Finally, the Duke's body collapsed on top of her, but Anise pushed him aside, he fell on his back, two small, slightly bloodied punctures in his neck standing out from where she'd bitten him. Edison was at a loss for words as he looked at the unmoving form of the Duke. That's when the ship crashed.

Edison flew from his feet. His back hit the far wall of the console room and he fell forward onto hands and knees. Anise held tightly onto the console to ride out the crash, but it was all over in less than 10 seconds. A high-pitched shriek followed by a thunderous boom as they collided with something, then hissing steam, fizzling sparks and a shift in momentum as they felt the impact.
Edison staggered to his feet and assessed the situation. The console was beeping and chirruping warnings as sparks erupted from the top of the column. The time rotor was still grinding and wheezing, but the ship was motionless. The Duke had slid closer to him, and Edison could see his cold, lifeless eyes. And Anise stood by the console, her teeth - and fangs - bared.
As quickly as his shaking hands could muster, Edison drew his gun and pointed it at Anise. After a moment's hesitation, he turned off the safety.
  “Stand back, you!” he shouted, his voice wavering and fearful, full of adrenaline. “Don't you make me pull the trigger!”
The woman before him was a stranger, but he recognized her face as Anise. The expression was foreign, but the body was hers.
  “Please . . . don't make me.”
Anise hissed angrily,
  “Help . . . me!” she growled through gritted teeth. Then she turned and ran for the door. It opened automatically and she fled. Edison wasn't sure how to react, he felt like he should follow her, but the Duke's body was still lying on the floor in front of him. After a moment of pointing his gun at the open door, he returned it to his belt pack and leaned down next to the Duke. He placed two fingers against the Duke's neck, closed his eyes and silently begged for a heartbeat. He felt a slow, calm pulse in the Duke's neck, and was relieved, but the Duke wasn't moving.
  “Duke?” said Edison. He tapped the Duke's cheek, but due to his nervous energy he ended up lightly smacking his face four times very quickly. “Duke, wake up.”
The Duke didn't move.
  “Duke?” said Edison. and he tapped his other cheek, starting to panic.
The Duke sat bolt upright and inhaled deeply.
  “JESUS!” screamed Edison, almost jumping out of his skin.
  “Inspector . . .?” the Duke said, coughing. “I feel terrible.”
  “You're terrible? You scared the crap out of me, I nearly had a heart attack!”
  “I suppose you could say the same of me,” slurred the Duke, he wiped his hand against his neck and looked at the blood on his fingers. “Help me get to my feet, would you?”
Edison nodded to himself and grabbed the Duke's hand to lift him up. He was quite heavy and when he was on his feet he had to lean against the console to stay upright.
  “What the hell just happened? What happened to Anise? Where the hell did she go?”
  “I've lost a lot of blood, Inspector,” said the Duke, shuffling along the console and talking slowly, “so could you ask one question at a time?”
  “What happened to you?” asked Edison.
  “Could you please get me a bandage? There's a first aid kit in the compartment there.” said the Duke pointing to the far wall. Edison headed over to the wall, with alternating squares and octagon pattern in the metal. He clicked a roundel panel which popped out a handle, and he pulled it up to open the wall compartment like a roller door.
“For reasons which . . . I don't know, Anise attempted to drain all of my blood,” muttered the Duke. “She damned near would have succeeded, but one of my hearts stopped beating, to stem the flow of blood.”
  “Your heart stopped?”
  “Yes, but the other one kept me alive,” said the Duke. “Two hearts; twice the . . . circulation system. Means I kept enough blood to survive . . .”
Edison found a square, metal box with a green crescent moon symbol on it and brought it over to the console. He opened it and found a bandage inside, but it looked soiled with damp patches of some orange substance alternating along the entire thing.
  “I think it's dirty,” said Edison, holding it up. The Duke took it from him anyway.
  “It's medicine,” said the Duke. He unrolled two feet of the bandage and tore it off with his teeth, then tied the piece of cloth around his neck. “It will absorb into my skin, and help to heal and clean the wound.”
  “Alright, but what about Anise?” asked Edison. “What the hell happened to her?”
  “I have no worldly idea . . .” said the Duke.
  “It's like she was a vampire.”
  “A what?” said the Duke. “Help me to the couch, would you?”
  “A vampire,” said Edison, as he held the Duke's arm to walk him across the room. “They're a myth. They grow fangs, drink blood and burn in sunlight.”
  “I can think of several aliens with those characteristics,” muttered the Duke as he sat down, sighing heavily as he did so. “But, Anise is not one of them, she's human.”
  “Yeah, but vampires are said to be undead humans.”
  “Un-dead? Do you mean 'alive'?” asked the Duke, frowning deeply.
  “No, undead. Y'know, dead, but not really dead.”
  “Anise isn't dead,” said the Duke. “And she's not a vampire. She's a human that's been infected with . . . something.”
  “Something? That doesn't help at all.”
  “Edison . . .” growled the Duke. “I'm trying very hard not to pass out right now, could you permit me some breathing room?”
  “Right, right. I'm sorry,” said Edison, running a hand through his blond hair. “But what are we going to do now?”
  “First, I'm going to need a drink of water. Second, we're going to find out where we are, and try to figure out what's become of Anise . . .”
The Duke sat his head back on the couch. He looked very tired as he closed his eyes and exhaled deeply.
  “Then what?” asked Edison.
  “Then . . . then we bring her back.”

Edison helped the Duke to rehydrate with water from the lower decks and got him back on his feet, but he was still severely weakened, stumbling from the couch towards the console.
  “We're looking for a parasite,” said the Duke grabbing the console to stand. “Whatever she has, it's not airborne, waterborne or passed by skin contact since otherwise, we'd be affected . . .” the Duke said, he spoke fast but he was slurring some of his words. “It's not bloodborne, since I'm unaffected. It must be an insidious parasite.”
He shuffled around the console until he found the right section.
“And it must have an incubation period, since she hasn't been alone for over two days, so she must have ” the Duke paused for a moment. “Unless she was bitten by something while in your presence, such as when I was kidnapped by the Traveller.”
  “Hold on, wait wait wait . . . how do you know we aren't affected?”
  “Because we're not showing symptoms,” said the Duke.
  “But she wasn't showing symptoms either until she up and bit you.”
  “ . . . fair point,” said the Duke. He shuffled to the right and started typing on an oddly-shaped keyboard. Edison watched the holographic screens appear, two circles each showing an image of both himself and the Duke which said “Full Body Scan in progress”. After a moment, the images flickered through their skeletal systems, circulatory systems and muscles. Finally the scan completed, and floating letters appeared beside each of the circles.
the first read: "Edison - Full Body Scan Complete - HEALTHY" and
the other read: "ρ1Θη0 - Full Body Scan Complete - HYPOVOLEMIA"
Each of the diagnoses had a section of fineprint underneath, with the detailed results of the comprehensive scan.
  “What the hell is that?” asked Edison, pointing to the Greek letters.
  “That's my name,” said the Duke, dismissively. "Neither of us are infected.”
  "But you're low on blood," said Edison. The Duke smacked the panel and the holographic screen vanished. Flicking a switch, a slightly transparent, blue hologram of Earth appeared, about the size of a basketball.
  “Thank god we're still on Earth. But where on Earth?” asked Edison.
  “There,” said the Duke, pointing to a blue square on the holographic globe, situated in above in the Mediterranean sea, in the middle of a Western European landmass.
  “Where exactly is that?” asked Edison, squinting.
  “I don't know  what it's called,” said the Duke. “I'm not from here, remember.”
  “Well, I don't know where it is either, I suck at geography. What about the year?”
  “Sixteen hundred and nine.”
  “Alright . . . that doesn't help much either.”
  “Then we'll have to work it out as we go,” said the Duke. “Come on, we'd best be going.”
The Duke stepped away from the console, but rather than walk to the door, he stumbled to the far wall, over the Persian-style rug and leant heavily against the wall next to a wooden umbrella stand with gold trimmings.
  “Duke, this is ridiculous, you can barely walk.”
  “I'm fine!” growled the Duke. He leaned down and he retrieved a short, black and silver rod of some sort from the umbrella stand. It was a foot long, had an ornate handle which looked like a doorhandle set atop a ring and chrome bands around the ends. The Duke clenched the handle and with a little schwick! of metal it quickly extended into a walking stick. The Duke leant on it heavily and walked towards the door, which opened automatically.
  “Why do you have a walking stick in your control room?” asked Edison.
  “I had weaker legs in my youth,” said the Duke heading into the lobby. “Now, enough questions. Come on, Inspector. The longer we wait, the harder it will be to find Anise.”
As soon as he stepped into the lobby, the Duke slammed into the right wall and cried out, more from shock than pain.
  "Duke! Are you alright?!" yelled Edison as he ran over to help. But he watched as the Duke lifted his legs off the floor and knelt sideways. "What the . . .?"
  "The ship landed at an angle," said the Duke, rubbing his sore arm. "Watch your step."
The Duke opened the door and climbed out, with considerable effort. Edison was fascinated as he walked into the lobby. Out the door he could see the dark horizon, green hills and the shadows of tangled, twisted trees; but it was all sideways, tilted almost seventy-five degrees counter-clockwise from his standing position.
Edison reached both hands into the lobby, and by swivelling on his foot he rolled inside and fell onto both hands, and found himself pressed against the wall via gravity, arms out, as though he were doing push-ups, he was staring straight at the glass wall, and through it he saw brown dirt and he could hear running water. He shuffled out of the door sideways, stepping over the door jamb and stood up.
  "That was weird," said Edison, rubbing the mud and grass off his hands. After cleaning most of the muck off his hands, he took his flashlight from his belt and checked his surroundings. He turned to see the ship, using his flashlight to see. The Lift was in the guise of a glass, cylindrical elevator, with metal on the roof and base, each etched with fine details, and it was sitting in a one-foot deep moulded divot in the grass created by the force of its impact with the ground. along the ground behind it was a smear of mud that began at the river nearby.
He turned around to see the Duke looking off in the distance, hunched slightly because of his walking stick.
 "So, where do we start?"
  "We know one thing for sure about our parasite," said the Duke, before turning around to face his companion. "It drinks blood, so it will probably be looking for more."
  "So, we're looking for people?"
  "Or animals, yes."
Edison started walked away from the river and scanning the ground with his mag-lite as he slowly made his way up the embankment.
  "What are you doing, Inspector?"
  "I'm inspecting," said Edison, he rose up to the top of the slope where there was a dirt path and then scanned the ground with his flashlight. “Well, looky here . . .”
  “What is it?” asked the Duke as he hobbled up the embankment.
  “How many people do you know that would have rubber-soled sneakers in the sixteen-hundreds?”
The Duke joined Edison and saw a detailed shoe-print in the dirt path.
  “Is that an anachronism?” asked the Duke.
  “No, it's a shoeprint. But it doesn't belong in this time period, it can only belong to Anise.”
  “Good work, Inspector. Lead the way,” said the Duke, gesturing along the path. Edison began walking down the path, with the Duke keeping up pace behind him, the dirt crunching underneath their feet.
  “Is this really what we're doing? Hunting down Anise?” asked Edison. “I mean, it's Anise.”
  “It's her body, not her mind.”
  “But what do we do when we catch her? Before she ran, she spoke to me. She said 'help me' . . . is Anise still in there somewhere? Or was that the parasite, playing tricks?”
  “I don't know, Inspector. But that parasite must be weak. It fed on me the instant it gained control, so it must have been starved. Perhaps she was still fighting it when she spoke to you. In either case, if we get to Anise quickly enough, we can restrain her, return to the ship and use the ship's equipment to disinfect her.”
  “That's a brilliant plan, Duke. But you seem to be forgetting that I have no idea how to catch a vicious, vampire infection-bug Anise-thing. And you're half-drained of a vital fluid. How are we going to restrain Anise? Wave your cane at her?” asked Edison.
  “You know, there was a saying back on Rathea . . .” said the Duke, sounding exhausted as he spoke through gritted teeth. “Don't question the duke!”

Anise watched the town precariously balanced atop a gnarled bough. It was almost entirely silent, still and dark. Almost. Her eyes stalked the quiet streets, scanning for unwary prey; she looked the picture of a predator, but behind those eyes she was terrified.
The Duke is dead. The Duke is dead and I killed him . . .
What's that movement? . . . just a rabbit, not worth the effort.
I watched the life drain from his body . . . I'm a monster . . .
There! The peasant woman, old but full-blooded. They watched as an old woman wandered out of a simple, stone house, headed to the privy.
No no no, please, no! Don't hurt her! she screamed, and tried to stop herself. All these voices in her head, it was difficult to tell them apart. Anise had so little control, but managed to tighten the grip of her fingers on the tree branch above, she wanted to hold back, to hold herself there, keep the monster here.
  “Let go,” Anise snarled. If you could stop me, you would have saved the alien.
I won't let you do this.
  “Stop . . .” Anise grunted through gritted teeth. “Help . . .”
Her fingers wouldn't loosen, but with a loud snap! Anise yanked the branch off the tree. Anise's eyes flickered back to the peasant woman, she was looking off towards them, trying to find the source of the sound.
Anise growled, viciously. Now it will try to run, we'll have to rip it's throat . . .
No! Please. stop this!
The more you fight me, the worse it will be for both of us . . .

Edison and the Duke moved at a steady pace along the path, despite the Duke's limp, headed into a little village. The sun had yet to rise, but there was a soft, blue light in the sky so they could see the small cobblestone and brick houses around them, many with large yards fenced in around them for farming. However, Edison concentrated on the ground, watching with his torch.
  “Her footprints have definitely disappeared,” said Edison as they wandered deeper into the village.
  “Perhaps the ground is firmer here,” muttered the Duke.
  “No, look,” Edison turned around and pointed the torch behind him. “See? You can just see my footprints. The arch there. The toe . . . I think we're going the wrong way.”
  “We're definitely not going the wrong way,” said the Duke.
  “What makes you so sure?”
  “I can smell blood . . .” said the Duke, gesturing along a side path with his free hand, leaning his right on the walking stick. “Down that way.”
The pair of them walked slowly down the path, but Edison's torchlight quickly fell on the body in the middle of the road.
  “Oh my word . . .” muttered the Duke. He stood over the body, leaning heavily on his cane as Edison knelt down to inspect the body. She had collapsed and was lying a a grisly, disconcerting angle. Her legs played like the hands of a broken clock, stark and lifeless.
  “She's as pale as paper,” said Edison, grimly. “Her legs have been broken and her throat has been, slashed.”
  “No blood fell on the ground,” said the Duke. “Only upon her gown.”
  “But she's anaemic. She must have been drained as well . . .” said Edison. He leant forward and touched the woman's cheek. “Cold, but not freezing . . . in this temperature, she couldn't have been killed very long ago.”
Edison stood up, still looking down at the body in his torchlight.
  “I don't know, Duke. This is getting serious if she's killing people.”
  “We have to continue on the trail. Has she left any more footprints?”
  “Not that I can see . . . she mustn't be running along the path anymore. I'm not good enough to follow a trail over the grass,” Edison said glancing at the fences either side, and the houses. “We'd best get moving, we don't want to be spotted when the townspeople wake up.”
  “But where do we go next, Inspector?” asked the Duke.
  “I don't know, Duke . . .”
  “You're an Inspector . . . inspect,” growled the Duke. “You're not thinking clearly. Consider: she fell on her back, and was slashed on her front, which means Anise was facing . . .”
The Duke limped around to stand at the foot of the body. “ . . . thusly.”
  “Well, leaning down,” said Edison, then he frowned slightly, “ . . . but the look of the blood on her gown means she was standing when her throat was cut . . .”
  “So if she ran, she would have fled that way,” said the Duke, pointing down the road.
  “Not necessarily. She ran up that way, she could have turned back,” said Edison. He moved back down the road. “Duke, over here.”
The Duke turned to see Edison pointing his torch at a deep shoeprint in the packed, dirt road. It was a lot clearer than the shoeprints they had been following.
  “She jumped,” said Edison, pointing at the nearby house. “Off that roof or perhaps the fence. She must have jumped down here for the force to have left this imprint.”
Edison turned around, following the point of the shoeprint's toe-tip, and it lead right back to the body.
  “That explains how we lost her footprints along the path,” said the Duke. “She's not running along the path.”
  “Then, we're stuffed” said Edison. “If she's not running along the path, then how can we follow her?”
The Duke inhaled deeply as he considered.
  “You're forgetting something, Inspector. I can smell blood.”
  “I can't,” said Edison. “What does that mean?”
  “This poor woman's body was exsanguinated,” said the Duke. “But I can still smell it, off in that direction,” said the Duke, pointing over the houses on the other side of the path.
  “You think you can smell Anise?” asked Edison. “What are you, a bloodhound?”
  “No, I just have experienced senses,” said the Duke, glancing at Edison. “It's a common trait amongst Gallifreyans.”
  “Galley-what? I thought you were . . . like, Rathean.”
  “I'm a lot of things. Quickly, now.”
The Duke began limping down the path, following his nose towards their quarry.

The pair of them crossed the river and followed the path around as the sun began to rise at the cockerel's call. Atop a large hill before them, they saw the side of a stocky, stone castle, masterfully hewn and visible from far across the land now that the sun lit it.
Edison returned his torch to his belt as the path before himself and the Duke curved, to lead around to the front of the castle, where presumably another path lead to the entrance. But the Duke stopped and stepped away from the path, turning towards the brush which was scattered around the base of the hill. There, he stood and looked up at the castle.
  “Drat . . .” growled the Duke, softly.
  “What is it?” asked Edison.
  “The scent trail leads this way,” said the Duke, pointing up to the top of the hill. “And, as you can see . . .”
  The Duke lowered his gesture to point to something shining white in the light of the sun. They were torn and broken, but they were unmistakably a pair of white running shoes.
  “Do you think she knows we were following her?” asked Edison.
  “No,” said the Duke. “Most likely, she needed bare feet to climb the hill.”
  “But why? Why would she go to the trouble to climb up to the castle?”
  “She hunts in the dark, perhaps she rests in the day. It's a large building, big enough to hide in.”
  “Well, how can we get inside?” asked Edison. “We can't go up that way.”
  “I'm afraid we'll have to get in the old-fashioned way. Knocking on the front door.”
  “You think they'll let us in?” asked Edison.
The Duke untied the bandage from around his neck and put it in his pocket.
  “They'll let in a duke,” said the Duke. “Go fetch those shoes, and we'll make ourselves look a little more presentable, shall we?”
  “The shoes? What for?”
  “We're in a different time, Inspector. This is no place to be leaving temporal litter, as there's no telling who might pick it up.”
As Edison picked up the shredded remains, the Duke checked to see what was in his pockets. when he returned, the Duke took the shoes and stuffed them into a large pocket near the base of his leather coat. Then he used his old bandage and wrapped it around Edison's neck, folding it into a loose knot, hiding the soiled portion of the cloth within the knot, the Duke tied the bandage into a makeshift cravat, tucking the torn ends into the v-neck of Edison's grey shirt.
  “There, much more regal. You'll be my valet, do you understand?”
  “Not really. How are we going to catch Anise if we're busy playing valet?”
  “We'll ask very nicely.”

The Duke slammed his fist into the large gate several times, sending echoes through the morning stillness.
  “I'm the Duke of Rathea, and I demand you open this door!”
  “Uh, Duke?” said Edison, in a harsh whisper. “Do you really think we'll get in their good books by waking everyone up ten minutes after sunrise?!
  “It's a matter of emergency, we have to find Anise.”
  “But we can't tell them that! If we say Anise is a vampire, they'll probably burn her at the stake.”
  “Then we'll withhold the knowledge that she's infected with an alien parasite. We'll tell them she's . . . sick.”
  “Why will they listen to us anyway?”
  “I told you, Edison, I'm a duke. Open this door!” yelled the Duke, banging the gate again.
  “Hold up, sir,” called a voice from above, from out of the window of a guard watch box.. “We hear you, the messenger's just announcing your arrival.”
  “Thank you!” called back Edison, before turning back to whisper to the Duke. “That's another thing, you can't be 'Duke of Rathea' here.”
  “Well, what do you suggest?”
  “I dunno. Say you're the duke of . . . Russia or something.”
  “The duke of what?”
  “It's a country. I think they have dukes. Or czars of something . . . what's important is that Russia isn't thirty billion lightyears away.”
  “Two point five million,” corrected the Duke. “But alright, if you insist. I'm the Duke of Russia.”
After a few minutes, the doors slowly opened, and revealed behind them a large, well-tended garden and courtyard, and in the middle of the path stood a dwarf, well-dressed, but not ornately. Duke and Edison were speechless for a moment.
  “Hello, comrade,” said Edison, putting on a bad, Russian accent. The Duke slowly turned to look at him.
  “Don't do that again,” he said. He turned back to the little man. “Good morning, sir. I'm the Duke of Ra-Russia. I apologize if this is early, but this is an emergency. Are you the master of this domain?”
  “I am Fizckó,” replied the man. “I serve Lady Trencsén, but I'm afraid she has no time for visitors at the moment. I'm sure you understand.”
  “I'm not sure you understand, sir,” said the Duke slowly as he limped a few steps towards the little man. “I'm the Duke. And this is an emergency. There is a killer loose in your castle. Decorum be damned, man! Your lady is in danger!”
  “A killer?” asked Fizckó. “And you two know who he is?”
  “Anise Trevino,” said Edison.
  “Come this way,” said the man, turning and waddling down the path. It looked as though one of his legs were shorter than the other, as his gait leant to the left. The Duke and Edison followed, walking calmly as he walked briskly on short legs.
“The word from castle guard is that a man snuck into the castle in the morning hours, at the change of the guard. If he supposed he'd not be seen in the confusion, he was mistaken, there were more eyes to watch him scale the wall.”
  “It's not a man,” said the Duke. “Anise is from my own palace, and she is a very cunning woman.”
  “Aren't they all, sir?” joked Fizckó. “We're on alert, just protecting the silver and linen.”
  “You'll need more than that,” said the Duke.
The lot of them passed through another secure door before entering the castle, proper. There were attendants by the door and Fizckó approached the nearer man.
  “Tell Lady Trencsén that there's a criminal in the castle, and two guests looking for them: The Duke of Russia and his man.”
The attendant disappeared into the castle. It was surprisingly warm and well-lit for a stone castle. With lush carpet, detailed portraits, and exquisite architecture and furniture. There were more servants in the castle, many could be seen walking swiftly around in the areas through the open archways.
  “So, this killer lady of yours,” said Fizckó, “she must be mighty important if the Duke of Russia is after her. With the troubles in Muscovy, it's odd that you would travel so far after one girl. And with only one man.”
The Duke considered this a moment.
  “She's my daughter,” he said, clicking his fingers. “Yes, daughter, you understand my dilemma?”
  “Only too well,” said Fizckó.
From deeper in the castle, they heard the fussing of handmaidens, then a well-dressed woman entered the room, with a trail of servants behind her. her skin was pale and her hair was brown, and woven neatly behind her. She wore an exquisite, red dress with a high collar, frills and embroidery common of that era. And she had wide, expressive brown eyes, but their only expression was one of mild disinterest as she approached the duo.
  “May I introduce, The Right Honourable Countess of Trencsén, Báthory Erzsebet.”
Edison frowned for a second, then a look of horror.
  “Bat-tory?” he murmured to himself. She stood before them, looking cold and humourless.
  “Who are you?” asked the Countess, sounding bored. then suddenly she shouted at Edison “Address him, man!”
  “My Lady,” said Edison, flinching. “Uh . . . The Great Duke of Russia . . .uh . . .”
He glanced at the Duke, but he offered no help as to his name.
“Piono . . . Trevino.” he managed.
  “Your Serenity,” said the Countess, “why are you in Slovakia?”
  “We're here after my daughter,” said the Duke. “She fled from me, and we believe she has breached your castle, hiding somewhere within.”
She stared at the Duke in a way that made Edison uncomfortable. Her eyes didn't move a millimetre, unflinching.
  “Breached?” she said, the word foreign on her tongue.
  “She snuck in, my Lady,” said Fizckó.
  “Another one?” she said.
  “The same one. The thief is a woman,” said Fizckó.
  “And a killer,” said the Duke.
  “ . . . You're here to get rid of the thief in my castle?” she asked the Duke.
  “Absolutely,” said the Duke. She considered this a moment, glancing back and forth between the two of them.
  “Oh, thank God,” said the Countess. She put a hand to her face, suddenly tearing up. She waved another dainty hand at her face as though to fan the tears. “That monster of a woman! She's killed my bedmaid!”
  “My Lady?” said Fizckó, confused.
  “Yes, in the gardens! I saw her there.”
  “Would you come with me?” Fizckó asked the pair of them.
  “Of course,” said the Duke and they followed the man again, this time through the castle.
  “Duke . . .?” whispered Edison.
  “What is it?” asked the Duke.
  “We're in terrible danger,” said Edison. He glanced at Fizckó and spoke quieter. “That's Elizabeth Bathory.”
  “What does that mean?” asked the Duke.
  “You know, Eliz- . . . that's right, you're not from here,” sighed Edison.
  “Is everything alright, sirs?” asked Fizckó, turning to look at the pair of them.
  “Yes, what is it, Edison?” asked the Duke, stopping and staring at him. Edison glanced at Fizckó warily, he knew the dwarf couldn't be trusted.
  “Bathory is . . .” Edison considered a moment. “Steeking.”
  “Pardon?” asked the Duke, then in a low growl through clenched teeth asked “How do you know that name?”
  “Deep in your ship, I met him,” said Edison. “And she is like him.”
  “It's this way to the gardens, sirs,” said Fizckó.
  “I understand,” said the Duke, replying to Fizckó, but looking at Edison. “Completely.”

The woman was battered and bruised, all over her arms and face., and the lower half of her dress was covered in blood. She had been discarded in an area surrounded by a large, stone wall and filled with trees.
  “What do you think, Inspector?” asked the Duke, sadly.
  “It's a classic case, Duke . . .”
  “What do you mean?,” asked Fizckó. “A classic case of what?”
  “Uh, Anise,” said Edison. “. . . 'Anise' is famous for torturing young girls. burning or cutting their thighs. Beating them. They say it's a . . . beauty thing.”
  “You're saying there are two monsters here?” asked the Duke, quietly.
  “No,” said Edison, but he raised his eyebrows and nodded his head.
  “Well, that explains why she was attracted here,” said the Duke. “The smell of blood. I thought it was her, but we were following the same trail.”
  “She's trying to pin it on her,” said Edison.
  “In any case, this won't lead us closer to her,” said the Duke.
  “She won't come here?” asked Edison.
  “She already did,” said the Duke, he pointed up at the stone wall. “Even from up there, she could see the blood has dried.”
  “Then this is a dead end. No clues as to where she is.”
  “Who is she trying to blame?” asked Fizckó. “I don't understand, this is simple murder, isn't it?”
  “She's blaming it on Anise,” said Edison. “I mean, Báthory.”
  “What are you two playing at?” asked the dwarf, stepping closer. “The Lady Trencsén is not involved in this grisly business.”
  “Of course not,” said the Duke. “However, our quarry is hiding in the castle, somewhere. We'll need to search it, top to bottom.”
  “Our own men are searching every room.”
  “They won't be good enough,” said the Duke. Fizckó considered him a moment.
  “I'll ask the Countess.” Fizckó turned and waddled back into the castle.
  “He can't be trusted,” said Edison. “History says she had a few accomplices, one of them a little cripple named Fizckó.”
  “No one can be trusted,” said the Duke. “Even we can't be trusted. Lies upon lies, it's making my head spin.”
  “So, are we going to go searching rooms, then?”
  “No, she's mobile, if we search each room one by one, she'll just keep moving. What we need is a way to track her.”
  “Mobile . . .” said Edison.
  “Yes, she moves quite quickly.”
  “No, mobile,” said Edison, he opened up his hiking pack and took out his iPhone. “Everyone in London has a mobile phone, but no one in this era would. Can't you track something like this?”
  “What is it?” asked the Duke, stepping closer.
  “it's called a mobile phone, you dial a number and it calls another phone, so you can talk between them.”
The Duke took the phone from Edison's hand and reached into his coat, retrieving his laser spanner.
  “Can you call her now?”
  “Well, no. You need a cell tower to transmit the signal, and they won't be built for four hundred years, and I don't know her number.”
The Duke pointed his spanner at the phone, a series of coloured lights flickered from the two prongs of the spanner and the screen of the phone flickered with graphical glitches and programming code.
  “This uses a primitive signal . . .” muttered the Duke. “But the range is impressive, I can relay the signal through the timeship's communication system. Use that as a rudimentary
'cell tower'. You say Anise has one of these?”
  “In all likelihood, yes. Can you track it?”
  “No,” said the Duke. “We'd have to go back to the timeship to hone in on her device. However . . .”
The Duke selected the keypad and dialled a number. After a few seconds, they heard an electronic ringing sound from within the castle. With a glance at one another, the two ran after the sound.
  “How do you know her phone number?” asked Edison.
  “I don't,” said the Duke. “I set it to call every other phone on Earth, simultaneously. Luckily for us, there's only one here.”
  “You're a genius,” said Edison.
Slipping past some servants, the duo came to the stairs and made their way up as quick as they could. Edison grabbed the Duke's arm to help him, but as they reached the top of the stairs, the phone stopped ringing.
  “What happened?” asked the Duke, glancing at the phone in his hand. “Does it only ring for a short time?”
  “It rings longer than that, usually,” said Edison, then he joined the Duke looking at the phone. He saw the call timer slowly ticking away. “She answered the phone . . .”
The Duke looked confused, so Edison took the phone from him.
  “Anise? Is that you?” he said into the phone, as they climbed to the top of the stairs.
  “I don't like being hunted,” said Anise, but she spoke without her usual chavish accent or enthusiasm, it obviously wasn't Anise herself speaking, but the parasite speaking through her. Edison also heard someone else moaning in the background of the call.
  “The ringing came from that way,” said the Duke, pointing down the corridor. They walked slowly down the hall.”
  “You started it,” said Edison. “We're looking for you.”
  “I know. I want you to stop.
  “Why?”
  “What is she saying?” asked the Duke.
  “I don't want to die-” Edison pressed the loudspeaker “-you're trying to stop me. I did nothing to you, and you're trying to kill me.
  “We don't want to hurt you,” said the Duke.
  “We don't?” said Edison under his breath. The Duke ignored him.
  “However, you've taken our friend, and we want her returned.”
  “She is ours,” said the parasite within Anise. “Without her, we cannot survive . . . Stop Me!
Suddenly Anise growled and they heard more struggling and moaning on the phone.
  “Down there,” said Edison, pointing to the far room. They ran over and burst in. They found a bedroom, and by the bed Anise was standing with phone to her ear in one hand, and her other held a handmaiden, arm around her neck grabbing the lower half of the girl's jaw with her hand, the long claws ready to tear out her tongue. Both of her hands had claws, several inches long, her toes were also sharper, as were her teeth, bared, and blood stained her purple shirt.
  “I thought you'd find me,” said the parasite. “So I brought a friend.”
The servant girl looked terrified, but couldn't speak or scream with Anise's fingers in her mouth.
  “Don't hurt her, don't hurt anyone else, we just want Anise back,” said the Duke.
  “I killed you,” said the parasite.
  “I'm not that easy to kill,” said the Duke. “Tell me what you are, and I can help you. I can take you somewhere safe, where people like me won't try to stop you.”
Anise shakes her head.
  “You want me dead, I can see it. The Eighty-Eight wanted to kill me too, just for feeding. I need to feed, or I'll die!”
  “Not on humans,” said the Duke. “You drank my blood, so if you can feed on other creatures, I can take you to a world with animals larger than this continent. You could feed for a lifetime on one creature. Just give me back Anise.”
The parasite looked interested but still fearful. The maid in her arms wailed, tearfully.
  “I can't sleep until they die,” growled the parasite. “I feed until I sleep. If I can't feed, I die!”
  “It's not always that simple,” said the Duke.
  “You're lying! You're the Eighty-Eight! You're lying to me! You're all lying! . . . Let go.
  “Anise?” said Edison.
  “Help me . . . No!” the parasite screamed and dug its fangs into the maiden's neck, the girl began screaming.
  “Anise!” yelled the Duke.
Bang!
The stone wall behind Anise popped and pieces of debris went flying as the bullet hit it. The maiden dropped limply to the floor and, in a panic, Anise leapt across the room, and slipped out the window. Edison was breathing heavily as he lowered his gun.
  “Edison . . .” the Duke stammered, shocked. “You'd shoot her?”
  “What the hell else was I going to do?!” screamed Edison. “She would have died.”
He bent down to check on the woman.
  “She's just fainted,” said the Duke, dismissively. “We need to return to the ship.”
  “What? We can't leave now,” said Edison, he crawled over the carpet and picked up Anise's phone which she'd dropped as she fled. “We can't track her anymore.”
  “I know how to track her now, but we'll need to return to the ship,” said the Duke.

The residents of Cachtice Castle were keen to throw out the Duke and his meddlesome companion; thankfully they were done playing Russian with the Báthory lot and went back to the ship. Edison spent the trip, explaining the history of Elizabeth Bathory to the Duke, and wondering if they were contributing to the vampire myth. The Duke didn't speak at all, not until they returned to the ship, still laying on its side by the river.
  “Help me lift this, will you?” asked the Duke. Edison assumed it would be heavy, due to its contents, but the Lift weighed no more than what it appeared to be; it wasn't light, but together they managed to stand it on its base. It was smeared with mud and stood slanted on the riverside, but it was much easier to enter. Then the Duke walked right inside.
  “You said we can track Anise with this?” asked Edison.
  “Yes,” said the Duke, as he hobbled over to the console.
  “How?” asked Edison. Hooking his cane to the edge, the Duke typed on the computer section of the console. A holographic screen appeared which read 'T.T. Capsule Information System'.
  “When it was screaming, the creature described its life-cycle: feed, die, sleep - it gave me all the information I need to narrow down the species. A parasitic, mind-controlling, teratomutating bloodsucker with a life-cycle of infection, consumption, then hibernation.” The database responded by opening a file, with the spinning image of a luminescent, fat, blue worm and several lines of data titled 'Gemohane Leech'. “Gee-mow-ha-nay . . . it could be no other.”
  “Alright, how do we track it?”
  “Heat. This leech comes from a much colder climate - hence the hibernation - Anise will be several dozen degrees hotter than a regular human . . . ”
  “Alright, let's track her,” said Edison. The Duke typed in some information into the computer.
  “Already done,” said the Duke. Then he leaned against the console, head down.
  “Okay . . . now what?”
  “Now, we need to come up with something brilliant,” said the Duke.
  “I believe that's your department,” said Edison, with a smirk, but the Duke continued staring at the console.
  “I'm a fool,” said the Duke.
  “What are you on about?” asked Edison.
  “It's my fault,” said the Duke. “The Eighty-Eight. The creature kept talking on and on about the Eighty-Eight. It must have come from the warehouse.”
  “What warehouse? What the hell are you talking about, Duke?”
  “Before you came aboard, Anise asked to travel with me. I felt that I owed her that much and I thought it would be safe. Then we met with soldiers in a warehouse stockpiling alien artefacts. We escaped just in time, but she left my sight, she must have been infected then.”
  “So, why does that matter?”
  “Because it was my fault!” screamed the Duke, turning around. “She was there because of me! I left, but I came back from Rathea to travel with her! It's my fault she's was infected, it's my fault she's a murderer and it's my fault we're in this mess! If I had stayed on Rathea, this never would have happened!”
  “What do you want me to say, Duke?” said Edison, looking confused. “Do you want me to say 'It's alright'; 'it'll be okay'? . . . I'm out of my goddamned league, here. You can't go losing your head now as we get to the home plate. I can't do this without you, I didn't understand half of what you said. Meanwhile, that Anise-leech thing is out there, raising hell.”
  “I don't know what to do, Edison,” said the Duke. “If it were anyone else, I'd just kill them. I don't know how I can save her . . . But I don't think I have the hearts to kill her . . .”
  “Hey! We're not killing anybody!” yelled Edison. “You're the Duke of Rathea, man! Think! We have this database in front of us, surely we can use it to identify some kind of . . . Achilles heel. Does the Gemohane leech have a weakness?”
The console beeped behind the Duke, and the page of data scrolled down and enlarged a specific portion.
  “Biological weaknesses of the Gemohane leech,” Edison read aloud. “That's helpful.”
  “How did you do that?” asked the Duke half-mindedly as he read the screen.
  “I dunno. It's your ship . . .” muttered Edison.
  “Fragile skin membrane. Must feed regularly. Here,” the Duke pointed at the holographic screen. “Highly susceptible to alcohol, even small traces, induces vomiting and disorientation.”
  “Alcohol? So, we throw some beer in her face and she's fine?”
  “No, it says the skin membrane is fragile. We need her to drink it,” said the Duke.
  “How the hell can we do that? Throw a kegger?”
  “She drinks blood, doesn't she?” asked the Duke. “If I drink enough alcohol for it to diffuse into my blood, she need merely drink it, and the leech will lose control.”
  “You're gonna get drunk?” asked Edison, he smirked at the thought, then frowned. “Duke, you can't. You're still low on blood from the last time she bit you. Do you want her to drain the other half?”
  “I'll be fine,” said the Duke.
  “No,” said Edison, he unwrapped the cravat from his neck and handed it to the Duke. “I'll do it.”
The Duke was grim-faced, he didn't like the idea, but nonetheless he nodded his approval.

The Duke descended into the ship's cellar and returned with two large bottles of a dark liquid he called “an antique vintage of black wine” and a silver goblet decorated with blue stones. After only two glasses, Edison was feeling lightheaded. By the third, he was starting to go red in the cheeks and had to sit down.
  “Are you alright, Inspector?” asked the Duke.
  “Uh, y-yeah . . . of course of course.” said Edison, flopping his hand dismissively.
  “Have you never drunk wine before?” asked the Duke. Edison laughed out loud.
  “Nope,” he said. “Have you?”
  “When the occasion calls for it. But never this quickly,” the Duke said, refilling Edison's goblet. “You're going to be terribly dehydrated in a few hours, but I daren't dilute your blood-alcohol.”
  “I can't see you drinkin',” said Edison, drinking. “I can't see you doin' anythingk fun. Nothing that doesn't involve the . . . the 'world' coming to an end.”
The Duke just watched, stoically, as Edison sipped more wine.
“I think you like it,” said Edison.
  “Like what?” said the Duke, humouring him.
  “The world endin'. Or hay-liens attacking. And before? You wanted an Anise to bite you.” Edison pointed an accusing finger, forgetting that he was holding wine and spilled it on the console room tiles. “Oh, shit.”
  “It's alright,” said the Duke, leaning forward. he took the remnants of the bandage-cravat from Edison's pocket and used it to wipe the floor.
  “I think you're dangerous . . .” Edison whispered to the Duke, leaning next to him. “Sometimes . . . it's like you got a death wish.”
  “On the subject of danger,” said the Duke, standing as Edison quaffed the wine, “And tongue-loosening liquids, I'm curious, Edison. How did you get aboard my ship?”
  “I walked on,” he said between sips.
  “How did you get past the door?” asked the Duke, topping up his goblet.
  “You left it unlocked.”
  “I didn't,” said the Duke. Edison seemed to consider this for a moment, but instead just giggled.
  “I'm the Duke of Russia . . . Rarr ra ra . . .” he said, then he started laughing uncontrollably.
  “I think you've had about enough . . .” said the Duke. He took the goblet from Edison's hand and returned to the console. Placing the cup by the glass column, he accessed the computer. With some quick typing, he located the human lifesign with anomalous heat signature, and plotted a course. The Duke then unhooked his cane from the edge of the console and walked around to the helm.
  “Hold onto your seat, Inspector,” said the Duke.
  “There aren' any seatbelts!” said Edison, giggling.
The Duke pulls the ignition lever. The console room shuddered, as they lifted off the ground. The time rotor wheezed and whirred as the Lift rose off of the ground and disappeared into the clouds.
  “We should adjust our visage to something a touch more modern,” said the Duke, as he shuffled around the console. He swiped at a touchscreen, flipped a switch, twisted a dial and pressed a button, in response the ship hummed softly. “Much more apropos.”
The Duke leaned against the console walking back around, double-checked his co-ordinates, then steered the ship through the air, they slowly meandered through the sky, then the Duke sent the Lift quickly downwards. The gravity in the ship seemed to lessen slightly as they flew down. He attempted to slow their descent for a softer landing, but as they hit the ground with a firm bump, dropping the Duke to the floor.
  “Duke!” slurred Edison, he stood and tried to run over to help his friend, but fell over instead and started giggling to himself.
  “Anise is close, now,” said the Duke, straining as he picked himself up from the floor. “Now, we need to set up our . . . 'trap'.”
  “Can you help me up?” asked Edison “I seem . . . hmm, to have lost my feet.”
The Duke looked over at the policeman, as he struggled to reach for his cane.
  “I'm starting to suspect that this was a bad idea . . .”

The Lift had been re-camouflaged as a red stagecoach, and the Duke was sitting within as Edison stood outside, standing crooked and occasionally swaying and wiggling to catch his shifting weight. They had landed beside a large copse of trees, far from the homes and trails around, although they could still see the hilltop castle over the trees.
  “Anise!” Edison called out. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
  “Don't go yelling, Inspector,” the Duke called from the window.
  “I thought we were trying to catch her,” said Edison, turning around.
  “Yes, by luring her towards you. You're the bait. Yelling is doing nothing . . . except annoying me.”
  “Well, how . . . hexactly is she going to find me?”
  “She'll smell you,” said the Duke. “Sense your heat.”
  “Smell me . . .” murmured Edison. “Then shouldn'n I smell like blood?”
  “ . . . perhaps.”
Edison starts staring at his hands, then sticks his thumb in his mouth. He slowly gnaws at it, but starts making pained noises.
  “Gah! That hurt,” he says, looking at his thumb. “It didn't draw blood.”
The Duke sighs heavily, picks up the wine bottle and his cane and steps out of the carriage. He walks up to Edison and in one quick move, swipes the metal handle of the cane across the back of the policeman's hand.
  “Ow! You scratched me!”
The Duke raises an eyebrow and waits patiently for Edison to get a clue.
  “Hey, look, I'm bleeding!” Edison says excitedly, pointing at the thin, red line on his hand.
  “Here, have a drink,” said the Duke, holding out the bottle. “We need to keep your blood-alcohol at levels toxic to the leech.”
Edison takes a swig, frowning at the taste.
  “This stuff is really bitter,” he said.
  “Well, it's very old. Be thankful it's not vinegar,” said the Duke. He took back the bottle and returned to the carriage.
Edison folded his arms and stared at his shoes as the minutes ticked by. The sun was getting higher in the sky, approaching midday.
  “Duke . . .?” said Edison.
  “Yes?”
  “Duke . . . I don't feel so good,” said Edison.
  “You are unhealthily inebriated,” said the Duke. “I'm sorry, but . . .”
  “Butt?” said Edison, turning to the carriage again. However, the Duke had fallen silent. Within the forest, he could see a dark figure moving and they were moving very fast. It dashed through the upper branches of the trees, he couldn't see Anise, but he knew it was from the speed and ease of her movement.
“Duke? What're you . . . I feel sick.” said Edison. Suddenly he retched, and threw up black wine and bile onto the grass. As he did, Anise took that moment of weakness as a chance to attack. He wiped dark spit off of his face with his sleeve as Anise grabbed him from behind.
  “Chess,” groaned Anise as she hesitated for a second, then bared her fangs and sank them into his neck.
  “Guh-argh!” Edison groaned as he felt the cut into his neck. Anise fed on him hungrily curling her claws around his face, holding him tightly. The Duke watched her feed from Edison, waiting for the alcohol to affect her, but as the seconds ticked on, it felt less like he was poisoning the parasite and more like he was watching another one of his friends die.
  “Edison!” screamed the Duke, leaping out of the carriage. Anise didn't react, she continued to feed. The Duke limped quickly towards her, when Anise made a strange rumbling noise in her throat, like a guttural growl, which made him stop short. At first, the Duke thought that she was growling at him, but with a snort she dropped Edison, spat out a vibrant spray of crimson blood, speckling the Duke's coat with blood and then she started coughing heavily.
The Duke saw that Edison was bleeding from two puncture holes in his neck, and was glad. Dead men don't bleed, so for now at least he knew the Inspector was alive.
  “What have you done?!” shrieked the parasite, and she screamed like bloody murder.
  “It's alright!” yelled the Duke. “I'm not here to kill you!”
  “Liar!” screamed the parasite, blood dripping down Anise's chin as it yelled. “You're killing me!”
In a mad fit, she ran at the Duke and shoved him back. With inhuman strength, she sent the Duke flying back several metres, landing at the foot of the carriage with a sickening thump.
Anise started pulling at her hair, screaming in pain and confusion.
It was then, with cool, calm precision and drawn to the sound of screams, that Countess Báthory entered the clearing. The skirt of her dress was red with blood and she held scissors in her hand.
  “You shouldn't scream so loudly,” said the Countess. “Someone might hear you.”
The Duke tried to jump to his feet, he tried to run and stop the Countess, but he was sore and weak. Edison was still collapsed and bleeding on the ground. Before he could even sit up, Anise ran at Báthory with animalistic rage. With one slash of her claws, Anise shredded the front of Báthory's dress and shoves her back, but she's starting to look sick and woozy. Báthory attacks, slashing with her scissors driving a shallow cut along Anise's neck and collar bone, then pushes her down.
  “You're a murderer,” said Báthory, seething with anger. “But you're no better than any of my girls! You'll be mine as well!”
Thwack! 
A cane smacked Báthory in the side of her head. She stumbled and dropped her scissors, but didn't fall. She regained her bearings and tries to pick up the scissors, but the Duke grabbed them as well, and they both fell to the ground, struggling, the Duke on top trying to pry the scissors from her grasp.
  “You can't hurt her!” screamed the Duke.
  “She's a demon! She had to die!”
The Duke took the scissors from her, but then Bathory bit the Duke on the neck. She didn't have fangs, but her teeth dug in painfully. The Duke cried out as she threw him off and stood up. The parasite was very weak now, Anise's body was seizing and convulsing on the ground. Báthory walked over and grabbed her by the neck, dragging her back to her feet. Holding tight with both hands, the Countess was cutting off Anise's air supply, suffocating her with her bare hands.
  “You're . . . mine . . . now . . .”
As Anise's face turned red, suddenly she vomited blood. A torrent of scarlet covered Báthory, as a dimly glowing, blue, slug-looking creature slid out of her mouth as well, landing on the sodden ground. In shock, Báthory stumbled backwards, coated with blood on the slashed front of her dress.
  “How dare you!” she screamed. She turned back and saw the Duke, still holding the scissors in his hand as he lay on the ground. She marched over and stomped on his wrist, then yanked the scissors from his fingers. Anise looked scared and confused as Báthory turned back towards her, her teeth reverted to normal, the claws on her hands and toes grew brittle and snapped off, and she saw the murderess heading for her.
  “I'm going to flay you like a braying lamb,” Báthory threatened as she stalked towards her prey, relishing the moment before she would stab her in the heart. She held up the open, metal blade.
Bang!
A flourish of forest fowl took flight, and Báthory stopped dead in her tracks. She placed a hand on her chest as fresh, bright blood spilled from the bullet wound. She was in utter shock, and after a few seconds, she collapsed to the ground. Edison, still lying on the ground, pointed the gun away and struggled to get to his feet.
  “Oh my god! Chess!” said Anise.
  “Anise?” said Edison. “Is that you? As in you you?”
She nodded, but there were tears in her eyes.
  “Oh my God . . . oh my . . .” she fell to her knees and wept, as she saw the blood everywhere. Edison got to his feet, and made a beeline for the Duke.
  “Come on, buddy,” he said, offering a hand. The Duke got to his feet, and the two leaned against each other to stand upright.
  “Anise?” said the Duke. But she looked absolutely devastated, and she sobbed louder.
  “I'm sorry . . .” she said, between sobs. “I'm so sorry!”
  “It's not your fault,” said the Duke. He leant on his cane and walked over to help the girl to her feet. It was a struggle, but he got her to her feet, and he walked her to the carriage-shaped Lift. Ge sat her in the seats then turned to Edison, who was staring at Erszebet Báthory as she lay on the ground. The Duke walked over to join him.
  “What is it?” asked the Duke.
  “I've stuffed up, Duke,” he said. “Big time. I've stuffed up.”
  “What is it?” he said.
  “I shot her,” he said, pointing at Báthory. She wasn't dead, but she was slowly dying as she lay on the ground, bleeding. “She doesn't die, now. She dies locked up. I've changed history, I . . . I really messed up.”
  “She won't die here,” said the Duke. He leant down and picked up the scissors from the ground, then walked over to the patch of blood thrown up on the ground, where there was a fat, blue, iridescent leech almost three inches long, probing around blindly for blood and warmth. With a groan, the Duke leant over and pinched the scissors with the end of the scissors, not enough to cut through, but enough to pick it up.
  He then turned to the body of Báthory at his feet, and dropped the Gemohane leech on top of her.
  “What are you doin'?” asked Edison.
  “The leech's abilities will allow her to heal. Together they will survive.”
  “What?!” said Edison, shocked. “No! This is wrong! You're letting the leech go?! After everythin' it did?!”
  “History says she will be punished and locked away” said the Duke, watching as the leech bit into Báthory's abdomen and slipped under her skin. “I am guaranteeing its capture and death.”
Edison shook his head.
  “This is wrong, they'll only kill again,” he said.
  “History needs its heroes as well as its monsters, Inspector,” said the Duke. “We cannot choose what should and should not have happened.”
  “You've already made a choice, to do nothing,” said Edison.
  “It's been a long day, Inspector,” said the Duke. “So forgive me if I have to remind you once again: Don't. Question. The duke.”
The Duke turned and returned to the Lift, and after a few seconds of hesitation, Edison joined him.
They entered the control room, and saw Anise leaning against the console, covered in sweat. There were some light smears of blood on her hands and her hair was a wet, ragged mess.
  “Anise?” said the Duke. But as she saw him, fresh tears spilled into her cheeks.
  "Oh GOD!!" she screamed, as she collapsed to her knees. "No!"
  "Anise, calm down," the Duke said sternly, like an order. But she didn't.
  "All those people!" she shrieked. The Duke dropped his cane by the door and quickly marched over to her, taking a knee beside her.
  "This is not your fault, it couldn't be helped," he whispered.
  "I . . . I can't," she sobbed. The Duke looked at her, sorrowful, as she cried.
  "Anise," he said, placing a finger under her chin and tilting her head up to look him in the eye, "You are an innocent girl, you don't deserve any of this."
  "How can you call me innocent?" she cried, tears smearing the make-up on her face. "All those people?"
  "I know, it's unfair," he said. "But don't worry, I can fix this . . ." The Duke helped her to her feet.
  "How can you fix this?" she asked, her crying stopping for a moment, a glimmer of hope in her voice. Edison leant on the couch as he watched the Duke comfort Anise.
  "Look into my eyes," said the Duke. Then he stepped forward, and with one hand around her waist and another cradling her cheek, he closed his eyes and kissed her.
Edison was speechless and he dropped his jaw as the two of them embraced. It was a passionate kiss, warm and soft, and the Duke held her as she slowly wrapped her arms around him as well and as he leant into her she lost herself in that moment. Finally, after a few seconds, they slowly disentangled from one another and Anise opened her eyes again.
  "Whoa . . . where am I?" she asked. Her eyelids drooped and the Duke leant her down on the ground as she fell asleep.
  “What the . . .? Duke!” yelled Edison.
  “Be quiet,” said the Duke. “She's asleep.”
  “Wha- . . . wh-w- . . .What the fuck?” stammered Edison. “She's traumatized, and you kiss her?”
  “In order for our minds to communicate, I needed to be in close proximity. I held her close to bond with her thoughts, so that I could take away her memory.”
Anise lay peacefully on the ground, her pleasant slumber a shocking contrast to the blood and sweat all over her body.
  “You kissed her . . . to make her forget?” said Edison.
  “Yes,” said the Duke.
  “What the hell is wrong with you?” asked Edison. He stumbled as he stepped towards the Duke, but despite his blood loss and drunkenness, he managed to stand and think properly. “That's your solution? Just wipe her mind - poof! Gone! Pretend it never happened?”
  “It should have never happened,” growled the Duke. “She didn't ask for this . . .”
  “I always knew you were dangerous,” said Edison. “Is this what you do? You trounce around space-time, spreading damage, then when you royally bugger it up, you just make everyone forget?”
  “I won't forget!” roared the Duke. Edison fell silent as the Duke slowed his breathing and tried to calm down. “I can't forget, but she can. And a sweet, young, innocent girl like her shouldn't remember such monstrosity; to be traumatized for life for something that was entirely my fault. This mistake was mine, I deserve to live with the consequences; she doesn't.”
Edison was still upset, but rather than argue, he sat down on the lounge and wiped at the bite mark on his neck, which was still bleeding.
  “I just have one more question,” said Edison. “Will she remember that you kissed her?”
  “No,” said the Duke, glancing back at Edison. “And you won't tell her, either. It would do her more harm than her memories.”
  “Then did you really need to kiss her, to do your mind-meld thing?”
  “That's two questions,” murmured the Duke, he was silent for a moment before he turned to his friend. “Inspector, I understand that my actions are changing the course of people's lives. Don't think for a moment that I make my decisions idly. I understand the weight of my every deliberation . . . but as a duke, sometimes you have to make the big decisions. Even when you know that what you're doing is wrong.”
Pulling the ignition lever, the Duke manned the helm and rose the Lift up into the sky, above the clouds. After rising to a safe altitude, the Duke finds the first aid box with the green moon on the lid and walks over to Edison with it.
  “Here, we'd best get you healed, then clean up. And rehydrated,” said the Duke.
  “You said that history has its heroes and its monsters,” muttered Edison, as the Duke unravelled another length of healing bandage. “How do you know that you're not the monster?”
  “From experience,” said the Duke. As he tied the bandage around Edison's neck, he glanced towards the doorway, where his black cane had been discarded. “I wasn't always the best man I could be; but I'm learning from my mistakes.”
Edison watched as the Duke picked up the cane, then without using it he slowly limped around the room, to the umbrella stand. He clicked the handle, reducing the collapsible cane down to its portable length then dropped it into the stand.