Chapter One

Prime and Dawson Limited

Slizik punched the man to the floor and belted his stomach with a volley of kicks. Taking a handkerchief from his inner suit pocket, he cleaned off the specks of blood that dribbled from his bony knuckles.

“Mister Limerick,” he said in a quiet, patient voice, “Run along to your alchemist buds’ and ensure that you get the Formula just right. Mister Limerick, please do not endanger your life by failing again.” Slizik Prime gave an elegant cough into his bloodstained handkerchief before pocketing it again. He motioned his hand and Limerick scrambled from the floor, limped through the corridor and hurled himself into the nearest room.

Slizik smiled paternally while he looked around the corridor. Prime and Dawson Limited was his brainchild, a huge building packed with laboratories populated hundreds of research scientists working on the same, dark mystery that puzzled men such as Slizik Prime on a daily basis. Pity, he thought, people like Limerick dirtied the noble cause.

He blew a silver whistle that was around his neck while he walked through the corridor at a calm, steady pace. Soon after he dropped the whistle, several white coated doctors came out of the various doors and walked beside him, preparing to make notes on their clipboards. The “Seniors”, as Slizik liked to call them, oversaw the major experiments at Prime and DawsonLimited.

“Walk and talk,” he said in little more than a whisper, but it was more than assertive enough for them to scurry beside him, hooked on his every word. “Tell me: is Limerick’s lack of progress worthy of punishment?”

“Well sir, without the formula we cannot proceed with the autopsy…”

“That is not the question I asked, nor is this the time or place to discuss what you have just said,” spat Slizik, he stopped mid stride; his comb over shaking like an ineffective toupee. He paused to regard each of the Seniors in turn. “No one mentions you-know-what outside of my office. Prime and Dawson Limited has kept what you have just hurled out of your foul mouth a secret for years. No one but the us and the King know about,” he looked around then whispered, “the autopsy.”

He scowled at the loud-mouth before he led the procession to the end of the corridor, down a flight of stairs, across a hallway and into a lavish office on the ground floor. Pot plants aired the room agreeably and added to the pine vapour that seeped from a long desk in front of a huge bay window. Prime sat in his chair. The “Throne” as he so arrogantly called it. The Throne did not turn like most office chairs, it was rigid and unmoving, yet feeble to look at (a simple wicker chair with only a halved back).

“Gentlemen, The Autopsy will be the major discovery of the 20th century. We mere humans shall discover the secrets discarded as legends by fools and cretins before us. Merlin and his kin will cease to be a myth. We shall pioneer the pragmatism that has been only idealism in the past.” He paused to study their response. “I speak of what we know as magic.” He finished his little speech. Of course, this was reiterating what he had already told them, yet no matter how many times he gave the Magic rendition they remained sceptical. The Seniors were hard workers but they were doubters. There was only one thing worse than a doubter: a cynic. Slizik knew that Limerick was a cynic, even though the bastard would never admit his treason. He didn’t care about the company, the work, the vision. He cared about the payroll, Slizik suspected, he cared about the money and something else. The man had a motive. The company didn’t need a loose cannon at the brink of a global discovery.

“There is one man holding this discovery back. He is Sandley Limerick, head of the alchemists.” He gave a gentle cough that carried a dark edge. “Limerick is onto what we need his little potion for, I think he is deliberately delaying its development for a reason, and it’s not only about curiosity. The bastard knows we are onto something big and is trying to stop us.”

The Seniors glanced at each other then returned their gaze to their boss.

“I want him struck off the project.”

He dabbed his quill into an ink pot and started to write what was becoming a legal document. He did not look up until he finished, pausing to gather more ink. He folded it over and poured some hot, blue wax onto the seal and stamped it with the Prime and Dawson Limited logo: lightning coiled around a sword.

“Take the rest of the day off, I want you to take this to the King.” Slizik noticed their look of disgrace at such a menial task. “And it has to be you; I can’t risk anyone reading this document. If you decide to betray me and read it you shall find nothing there you do not already know.

He waved a frail hand to the door, dismissing them. He coughed delicately again before looking up at the younger of the Seniors. “By the way, it’s Limerick’s death warrant.”

And with that, Mister Prime made himself a cup of Chinese Tea in a flowery mug, then waited for it to go freezing cold and sipped it for the rest of the afternoon.

#

Robert Dawson pushed his glasses back up to the base of his nose before returning to his clipboard to scribble a note. He took a seat at his portable desk in the Observation Room. A weak oil lamp carried a diminished glow, the only source of light to work from. His eyes were tired but his enthusiasm was not. For the last six weeks his company had moved from being the laughing stock of all London, to the verge of a huge discovery. Prime and Dawson Limited shares were about to rocket. And it was all due to the blue skinned monster chained against the wall of the Observation Room.

Dawson glanced up at it again, never bored of its unique blue skin colour, black eyes and anatomical contrast with a human body. Its only movement was that of its chest, beating up and down as it breathed in and out. Its humanoid limbs were still, almost as if it was waiting, saving energy.

But this magnificent Thing was to be executed.

He hated the idea, why should they kill the Thing and risk losing the secrets of magic, perhaps it was an art that could be learned – if it was dead they would never discover its uses. The creature should be studied, tortured to test its reaction to pain. Then whores should be forced on the Thing to see if the beasts could be reproduced. Skin samples should be tested with light and extreme heat. But no, Prime was adamant that it would be killed. The problem was how.

The pistol on his desk had fired several rounds at the creatre. Each bullet disintegrated before they touched the Thing’s dark blue skin. One unlucky Senior had been forced to try and stab it only to find the knife had turned on him and stabbed him multiple times. Slizik Prime had not been pleased with the attempts, but Dawson had been rooting for the beast. Its capabilities were certainly, without a doubt superhuman. It possessed magical powers – able to defend itself from all forces of attack. They had tried poisoning, burning, strangling and decapitating the blue creature, all the attempts had resulted in the death of the pursuer.

Sandley Limerick’s research team had discovered a weakness in several test cells. Its blood contained no iron but only unknown metal compounds, their properties not dissimilar from gold. A formula was now being produced which could displace the gold like substance and end the existence of this creature. The Formula was a rare variant of Silver named Silver Ferride. And that was its weakness. If the Thing came in contact with silver then it was fallible.

“Not so strong after all, are we?” laughed Dawson, taking a crafted silver rod from under the desk and moving towards the Thing. Invisible hands tossed it away.

“So powerful, so magnificent and we are throwing you away,” he said, his eyes flitting all over the body of the male monster.

The Thing’s eyes opened wide and it rattled its chains for the first time. It opened its mouth and words in fluent English came out, “Shield yourself with anything you can find.”

Dawson raised an eyebrow, he was certain it would not try to escape. Its powers were protective; his observations had deemed it incapable of escaping its prison. Yet now it was threatening him, warning him?

He involuntarily stepped backwards, his glasses slipped from his nose and smashed at the feet of the blue entity. He knelt, feeling around for them only to be blown backwards by a force of heat and light. A blur of red light and grey dust exploded into Dawson’s short-sighted view. The floor beneath him shook and cracked, a fissure forming under his legs. He fell into the foundations, his hands flailing helplessly.

A blue figure immerged into the blurriness, and then Robert Dawson was lifted up and dragged out of the Prime and Dawson headquarters, the whole building collapsing onto the small houses and offices surrounding the HQ tower. Dawson felt intense heat on his skin; the place was most definitely ablaze.

Then something hit his temple and he went out cold.

#

Slizik Prime and Robert Dawson sat in Prime’s plush office. Dawson felt like a mere labourer, being told how to run the company by someone much more powerful than he.

“Prime and Dawson limited is a failing company,” Slizik told him. As if he didn’t already know! Dawson had been worried about the entire thesis of the company since its beginnings. It had started as a firm that hired out researchers to any company that needed data analysing and compacting into something the big-wigs could use and understand. Now, they were on a mad crusade to discover the stuff of legends years ago. Might and Magic. Since Prime had suggested it five years previous they had found nothing. Until now. “Hopefully, our little friend should change all this.”

“Where did he come from?” It was the millionth time of asking, Prime wasn’t telling him everything.

“The King.”

The Monarchy. Dawson rolled his eyes, to him the Monarchy was yet another failing industry. He adjusted his little glasses and bit his lip. Prime was testing his patience.

“And where did the King get this freak from?” said Dawson, pacing the office, trying to avoid Prime’s careful gaze.

“Does that matter you fool – cant you see what has happened? I have discovered the answers to questions asked for a thousand years.”

“I am the major shareholder of this company, not you Prime.”

Prime coughed into his handkerchief, wheezing now as if he had a tennis ball down his throat. “Let’s face it, my part in this company is greater than yours. Now – you do your job: observe our guest. And while you prance about with your chemistry set I’ll actually run the business and make the important decisions.”

“You really are an arrogant, little twonk,” his glasses were bouncing off his nose now. “No decisions will be made without my consent.”

“We shall kill him. Eventually.” Prime seemed unfazed by the notion, and began to stir his tea.

“Kill him? We shall do no such thing,” Dawson was seething now, his face red and blotchy, he caught his breath. He wanted to hit his partner in the face and smash the teacup over his head. “It is a phenomenon, this Thing the King has given us, we must study it and present our findings to the world.”

“And have it as a danger? People will be scared. It must be killed and then we can present our findings from the Autopsy. When it’s dead people will come from as far as Rome to see the body. They will pay a guinea a time to touch its skin or hold its hand,” he sipped the tea, “and it will be preserved for the rest of our life time. Money, my friend is the only reason I led this little escapade to discover magic. And now it has paid off.”

“But.. but... its murder!”

“No it isn’t, the beast was never alive.”

“It’s alive now…”

“Only a handful of people know that, and after the autopsy they can be… erased,” Slizik was smiling in a patronising way as if his plan was infallible. “No, it will be killed – the entire company is working on a way to finish it as we speak.”

“I refuse to be a part of this,” Dawson charged forwards and knocked the tea onto the floor. “You are a plutocrat and a sneak. What you are doing is Scientific Heresy!”

Slizik sniffed then took a document from his desk drawer. “I thought you may act like a four year old. I took the liberty of drawing up a Stock Termination form. Sign here and I shall buy out all of your stock in Prime and Dawson Limited.”

Dawson took great pleasure in tearing up his little contact and throwing it in his face. “I’ll leave this company when I die, no sooner and no later. Good day Slizik – please, don’t bother coming for dinner on Saturday, my wife may have the urge to poison your pot roast.”

He stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

Slizik Prime twiddled his thumbs on his desk, shaking his head at the man that had once been his friend and brother. He sighed at the spilt tea, to him it was a bigger loss than his friendship.

#

Mister Prime watched intently as the hangman’s noose was forced over Sandley Limerick’s head. The trapdoor opened and the crack of his neck echoed throughout the small gathering. He paid particular attention to Limerick’s eyes – they rolled into whiteness as he died.

Only three hours after the building had exploded, the King had signed the Death Warrant of Sandley Limerick, and Prime had taken no time at all to organise a hangman’s stage in the remnants of the rubble. Prime thought Limerick had a hand in the escape of the Thing, which had kidnapped his partner Robert Dawson. He wheezed into his handkerchief and discarded it into the rubble.

He turned to the crowd of people, the survivors. The majority had been crushed. Those on the ground floor had got out quickly enough. Slizik and Limerick had been conversing in his office at the time of the explosion in the sublevels. They had got out and watched as the tall building, everything Prime had aspired to, fell before them.

“I have no further use for any of you. All the Seniors perished,” he remembered how he had killed all of them just after they had delivered him the warrant a little time after the building had fallen. Only he, the King and Dawson knew of the Thing’s existence now. And it would stay that way until he reclaimed the beast and killed it.

“Go home,” he said in almost a sob. “Never come back. Prime and Dawson Limited is no more.”

He wiped some soot from his jacket. Snapping the whistle from his neck, he placed it into his inner pocket. It seemed foolish to carry it when there were no Seniors to summon. But it was silver, silver was the weakness of the enemy and therefore it could be useful later. He caressed it – the weapon against his foe.

Most of the idiots stayed, gobsmacked, upset. “We can’t just go – we need jobs. We have families,” one pleaded.

He pulled out the pistol and shot the cretin dead. Quickly he replaced the gun into his pocket. “Go home,” his voice trembled with a terrible warning. Some of them screamed and ran, others helped the dead man.

Slizik did neither; he kneeled in the dust and fingered some of the brickwork that once held together his company, his brainchild. “Kill the creature,” he spat. He felt next to his heart, a bottle of liquid Silver Ferride snuggled next to it – he had forced Limerick to give it to him at gunpoint in his office. The Formula would kill the monster. Then, The Autopsy would begin.

He withdrew the gun and pressed it into the back of a female research scientist. “Come with me.” He pushed the woman onto the pavement and ordered her to flag a cabbie. They sidled in and Slizik slammed the door, muting the screams surrounding the dead body. It drove off with orders to drive to Dovely Palace – the house of the King.