Chapter Two

The Cabbie and the Cartographer

Maver took a seat at the round table in the cellar of a derelict public house. The large meeting room was illuminated by scented candles that doubled as effective rat poison. He glanced at the vermin skulking in the corner shadows, he smiled. He and the rats had a common ground – they were both wanted dead at this point.

Since his escape from Prime and Dawson HQ, he had acquired grey robes. The robes combined with his bald head made him look like an overgrown, blue monk. He stretched out his hands before helping himself to some vinegary wine. His blue skin was wilting, forming black splotches on his arms, hands and legs. It was due to lack sun-light. He had escaped one prison to wind up in another one. At least I aren’t chained up this time, he thought.

A cage hung from the ceiling containing a tall thin scientist who curled up in the centre, his lab coat soaked in urine. Robert Dawson, part of the company who wanted him dead. He smiled at how the tables had turned.

Several men and women entered, all in typical business attire. They took their seats and the meeting began. He looked at the tallest and the most handsome man, Maver had known him the longest and also envied him the most because of his beautiful complexion, seven foot height and his long, black hair. This man was a born leader, not only because of his imposing physical appearance but because of his sharp expression, quick thinking and extreme intelligence.

The leader, aliased The Cartographer, passed around scrap pieces of paper. Maver traced his finger along several roads and located The Screaming King Inn. They were in the cellar of the very same place. But, the most important thing on the map was the red “X” – that was where the next meeting would take place. ‘Nancy’s Legs’. He chuckled at the choice of location, a derelict brothel house. Pocketing the paper, he listened to the leader of the underground group.

“First of all, welcome back Maver, I trust you had a pleasant stay,” The Cartographer said, they all laughed.

“The food was a bit off, but on the whole the accommodation was superb.” Maver glugged down his wine, it was distasteful to laugh at one’s own joke but rewarding to hear the laughter of his comrades.

“Now,” The Cartographer’s expression changed to one of utmost severity, “A major threat to us has been removed,” he nodded to Maver, “Obliterated in fact. Nothing is left of Prime and Dawson Limited.” They all looked at the empty chair. “Sadly, sacrifices had to be made. Limerick was hung, he was blamed for the incident to cover up for Maver’s little trick. He died for a good cause.”

There was a few minutes silence and a toast to boot.

Maver ended the silence and stood up. “There is bad news.” They all looked taken aback.”Prime and Dawson Limited, despite Limerick’s best intentions developed something deadly. Something which can destroy us,” he said in anything but a dulcet tone. “We counted on Limerick to prevent any kind of weapon being created. Our task was to blow up the building and instead we have given our foes a weapon against us. Silver Ferride.”

Maver sat and pressed his face into his hand.

The Cartographer stood up, moved around the table to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, “It’s not your fault – we sent you there to blow HQ, we didn’t count on the alchemists inventing a weapon with Limerick in charge. Sandley did his best, but sadly it was not good enough.”

He cast aside The Cartographer’s hand. “I shouldn’t have let them take the skin samples, I got carried away. I never thought they would be able to develop a weapon. I became complacent. ”

A woman in a red frock and a flowery hat giggled uncertainly, “But the building was destroyed, therefore the Formula must have been as well.” She was known as The Florist.

Maver shook his head, “No,” He said, becoming annoyed at how she was presumptuous. “We can only hope Prime didn’t get his hands on it before it was destroyed. If Prime has the Formula then, my friends its been a good life while it lasted.”

There was muttering and cried of outrage. “And yes – Prime survived.”

They all looked up to the cage above. “And him?” The Cartographer asked.

“Robert Dawson. He isn’t like his partner, he is a Family man, his only sin is his curiosity.”

“What shall we do with him?” a balding man asked known to the group as The Boatman.

They paused and mused for several moments. The Cartographer made a complicated gesture and the cage hovered down and landed onto the table. The door opened. Maver clasped his gnarled blue hands around the bars and looked at the man who studied him, jeered at him and had kept him in a cell. He made himself look menacing by scrunching up his face to highlight his dark, alien eyes.

“Hello Mister Dawson,” he whispered, smiling as the man jumped and backed away. Dawson’s glasses had been mended but he was tempted to smash them again. The Cartographer gave Maver a stern look.

“I never wanted to hurt you! I was against your death!” he screamed.

“Because you wanted to study me! You wanted to experiment on me – cut me up. I’m not some kind of lab rat,” Maver slashed his arm through the air which sent Dawson to the bottom of his cage. The Cartographer intervened, and using his superior magical skill prevented Maver from hurting him anymore.

“I would like you to join us, we need a scientist among us and with our recent problems you would be more than helpful.”

“Yes,” Dawson said, his eyes widening with opportunity. “Anything, I would love to help—”

“—Enough sucking up,” Maver advanced, surprised at The Cartographer’s offer but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Maybe Dawson knew other things about Prime and Dawson Limited. Useful things that could bring down Slizik Prime.

#

The King’s men trained their rifles on The Screaming King Inn from a series of terraced houses across the road. Gold Gorgon, squad leader, looked down the barrel of his rifle and trained it saloon style doors. His hand coiled around the trigger, ready to strike.

#

After the interrogation, Dawson was tied with rope – a precautionary measure - and Maver led him out of his cage like a collared dog. “Come on boy,” he teased,tugging on the robe so his neck burned. The Cartographer did not approve.

The cellar door opened, before Maver went through he created a draft through the room and the scented candles extinguished. He followed the others and The Cartographer into an empty barroom. They headed towards the exit. The Cartographer stopped and closed his eyes.

“The Gorgon’s are outside the door,” he whispered.

Maver turned to Dawson. “Say nothing. The King’s men are outside,” he translated to civilian terms. Not everyone was constantly followed by the Elite British Guard.

If it wasn’t for The Cartographer’s principal ability they would have all just perished. It had been useful for the last dozen meetings: the ability to detect all life presences in a two-hundred yard radius. The Gorgons had been following a few of the group, thinking they were terrorists. The Gorgons did not yet know about magic and the like. All of them turned to The Cartographer for orders.

“Maver, take the prisoner back down to the cellar, discreetly try and make a back entrance,” he whispered. “Everyone else, follow me, The Cartographer strode to the door, ripping off his jacket as he went. The other Sorcerers followed his lead. The Boatman man pulled up his sleeves stupidly as if he was about to brawl. The Florist pulled of her hat and let her hair hang so she looked like a warrior princess. Maver bit back his disappointment; he wouldn’t be able to join in the festivities. He pushed Dawson down the cellar stairs to vent his annoyance.

In seconds, the scented candles had been relit.

To hell with discreet. Maver hurled a huge force of magic against the wall of the Screaming King, the dust cleared and a hole formed, leading out into a labyrinth of slum back-alleys. He tugged at Dawson’s collar and they proceeded through the “back door.”

#

Slizik Prime opened the door of the cab, “Come back with the tea and tobacco within the next five minutes sweet-pea, or I’ll have to kill the Cabbie,” he said it as if it was a slap on the wrist. He closed the door and watched as Mary-Lou, the kidnapped scientist went inside the Herbalists and began asking for Prime’s creature comforts.

He averted his gaze to the shaking, sweating cabbie – a middle aged, obese jerk with no other skills than to drive a car for a shilling a week. “How’s business?” he said conversationally, rapping his gun on the side of his seat.

“Er… not too bad.”

Prime took out his wallet and handed the cabbie a ten pound note. “Welcome aboard. You are my permanent chauffeur.” Slizik smiled while the Cabbie, at the sight of the money, stopped his shaking and relaxed slightly.

Mary-Lou opened the door and handed him some chewing tobacco and a bag of tea. He scrutinised the quality of the tea leaves and sighed, “It’ll do. You’d never make a house-wife though.” The Cabbie laughed at his new bosses joke. Excellent, thought Prime, a sycophant.

They had visited the King a few hours ago. The Cabbie and Mary had been detained whilst he and the King planned the course of action. Slizik was pleased with the result, he had an endless amount of money at his disposal now and an entire platoon of the royal military arm, The Gorgons, at his command.

“Cabbie, go to North Park Street, the Screaming King Inn,” he said and the Cabbie shifted gear and made his way through a network of lower-class estates. A hooded subject carrying an unconscious man had been sighted entering the inn a few hours before. As soon as the King had mentioned this, Slizik knew that it was the monster and his idiot business Partner. “Kill the creature,” he whispered, the gun clenched in his hand. He chewed on a stick of tobacco for a few seconds before spitting it out of the window.

Now, the Gorgons were waiting for the Thing to exit and then it would be shot at and detained. It would not be killed. Yet. He touched the bottle of Silver Ferride in his top pocket. It was like a game of cards, and Slizik Prime held a royal flush.

The ground shook beneath the car and soon the Cabbie was swerving around the road like a mad man. Slizik was thrown against his seat, “What the hell are you doing?! You.. maniac!” He shot a round through the cab roof with the gun. “Calm down.” But then he understood the problem. Rocks, bricks and pieces of metal fell from the sky and struck the earth with tremendous force, loud bangs and ear-splitting explosions roared from up above where light of every colour erupted from the hands of half a dozen men and women. The purple uniformed Gorgon snipers were lined across civilian housing, in windows and doorways, firing a salvo of bullets down at their indestructible foes.

#

Gold Gorgon shielded his eyes from a light strike yet continued his entourage of shooting at the targets. Supernovas of heat and light were hurled up towards the third storey of the temp base, blasting holes and entire houses into smithereens.At first, Gorgon readjusted his protective eye wear thinking he had a bad case of shell-shock, but this was not the case. The targets seemed to be wielding nothing short of magic – like in the fairy tales he read to his kids. His bullets had been deflected so easily. It was like he was firing confetti. The grenades seemed to have little effect – hell- they even seemed immune to the mustard gas. They were impervious to anything the Gorgons could throw at them whether it be hand bombs, bullets or machine gun fire.

A little across the way Red Gorgon set up a Gatling Gun and began to rotate the lever sending out dozens of rounds per seconds. Gold Gorgon watched as each of the bullets became jammed in the gun, it overheated a blew within seconds, sending Red Gorgon into semi-consciousness.

Once the light had dimmed, Gold Gorgon shouted, “Aim at the leader!” He pointed his gun at the tall man who was at least seven-foot high, on a standard battlefield he would have been hard to miss. Jet black hair to his waist, handsome, looked odd in a London slum dwelling.

He reloaded and fired three rounds at the leader, but the bullets fell inches before contact. He needed to change tactics; he ducked under the window sill to protect himself from another barrage of light strikes and scanned the rest of the street. If he exploited the weakest one it would gain them at least some ground.

A bomber car screeched to a halt outside the temp base, yellow words, “TAXI,” emblazoned on the side. An older man with a wavy blond comb over left the car and withdrew a small pistol. The man sprinted as best he could to the Gorgon building and passed through the men on the ground floor. A few minutes later he came into the bedroom. Gold Gorgon looked at him, expecting some explanation.

“I am Slizik Prime.”

“I don’t give a damn. If you are the backup I sent for, get a proper gun and start shooting.”

Prime replied with a cough followed by a sigh. He pulled out a document with the royal seal at the bottom. It was titled: “Order of Control.” It took Gold Gorgon only a split second to realise what this meant. Prime was the guy in charge.

“Sir,” he nodded.

“That’s better, give me a bullet.”

“But – sir?”

“Give me a bullet!”

Gold Gorgon handed over a single live bullet. Prime took it and smothered it in a silvery liquid from a bottle he had been holding. “Load it and shoot it at the weakest one.”

Gold Gorgon had no choice; this man was in total control of the operation. To refuse him would be to refuse the King. He emptied his rifle, loaded the silver-covered bullet, aimed and fired at a balding man who seemed to be doing little in the counter-attack. The bullet did not stop and fall like he expected but carried on and hit the man square in the chest. He fell back and bled like any mortal would have done.

He turned to Prime who had watched the whole thing with a smug grin on his face. “Well done Gold Gorgon, you and I shall get along swimmingly.”

The counter-force was stunned for a few moments before they retreated into the Screaming King Inn.

“Forward!” The Royal Gorgons left the civilian base and charged towards the Screaming King Inn where the enemy was cornered like a skulking rat.

Gold Gorgon led the way while Slizik Prime, paced confidently behind, a smug grin on his arrogant face. They cleared the bar area before entering a cellar. Gold Gorgon sighed. “The targets have escaped.”

He turned to Prime for direction who looked like had just received an unexpected slap in the face. At the end of the cellar a gaping hole was carved in the wall where all of the Sorcerers had escaped.

“Follow them,” Prime snapped, his eyes flitting to each of the Gorgons who did nothing but stare at Gold Gorgon. Prime loaded his pistol and shot Blue Gorgon in each of his legs who collapsed and screamed in agony. The others became immediately alert. Prime coughed heavily before snatching a radio device from the man he had just disabled. “An update on the hour, Gorgon-leader,” he said shaking the device.

“But how are we supposed to kill them?”

“You can’t. Follow them closely and in the next few days you shall receive a very nice present from Uncle Prime, some new bullets. Ones that can kill these Things.”

They shared a glance, a battle for power. Gold Gorgon submitted and called his men onwards, splitting them into several surveillance groups.

#

The Taxi was waiting for him where it left off, the Cabbie giving an optimistic smile. Prime did not share it and instead stormed into the vehicle, taking some tobacco instantly.

He looked at the gun and then at Mary-Lou who was now silent. He moved over to her and placed his hand on her leg, his gun hand moved to the nape of her neck where he began to caress her skin.

He remained utterly calm and collective, not betraying any sign of emotion or anger of his recent failure. He muted the screams of the female scientist as he forced himself up on her, venting out his anger by violating her body for several minutes – his hands pausing to thrash her down while he took advantage of the extra strength the gun gave him. He pressed the gun into her chest while he completed the demoniac rite.

Afterwards he took out a clean handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “You definitely wouldn’t make a housewife,” he said to the woman raising a finger to silence her. She obeyed and simply stared at the leather seat in front of her. The Cabbie had said nothing during the act; he had just looked out of his window, pretending nothing was happening. Prime nodded at him through the driver’s mirror.

“Morton Chemicals, driver. Forget speed restrictions – take me there immediately.”