I stared at the ceiling, desperately trying to figure out Victoria's ulterior motive. I'd felt first-hand the fury of a grieving vampire, and given that she clearly still blamed me for Ashley's death, it seemed obvious that she was out for revenge. But how? A knock on the bedroom door derailed my train of thought. It swung open to reveal Elizabeth standing in the hallway, clearly in a state of shock.
"Kier, you have to see this!" She grabbed my hand and dragged me down the corridor until we reached a door that seemed identical to all the others. I cautiously opened it, wishing I had my Winchester to hand. As it turned out, I wouldn't have needed it. All the room contained was a gaping hole in the floor, too dark to see the bottom. With a hesitant glance over my shoulder, I stepped closer to the edge and knelt down to investigate.
"How deep do you think it goes?" Elizabeth whispered from just behind me, putting her hand on my shoulder.
"I don't know, it's too dark to tell, even for our eyesight. We could throw something down and listen for the noise when it hits the bottom?"
"My thoughts exactly." she said with a slight trace of a laugh in her voice, and as I turned my head to look at her she gave my shoulder a hard shove which sent me over the edge.
I fell for what felt like hours before I suddenly jerked to a halt in mid-air, still obviously far away from the bottom. A large television screen flickered into life on the wall, showing Elizabeth with a huge grin on her face.
"Hello sweetie," she laughed. "I suppose you're wondering what could have led your adoring wife to deceive you like this." She laughed again, and right before my eyes her hair changed from brown to black and her face morphed into that of... I snarled as I realised what had happened. Victoria had used her Eternal powers to transform herself into the one person I trusted in order to trick me into this pit. A robotic voice from off-screen caught my attention. It'd been heavily synthesised, but I still couldn't make out the owner.
"Do you have him? Is Kier Royle really there?" It asked. Victoria stepped aside and a robotic figure took her place. I groaned. It seemed Victoria had created android slaves. Wait, no... I looked more carefully at the shape on the screen. It was dressed in what looked to be an armour of some kind, but one that had been heavily mechanised. I could just about make out two solid steel katanas jutting out over its shoulders.
"Kier Royle..." It muttered in a synthetic whisper. "As I live and breathe. Though you'll be doing neither of those when I get my hands on you. Now I know you have lots of questions. But there'll be plenty of time for answers as I'm chopping off that pretty little head of yours. Just know this: The Samurai has you on its list, and there's only one way off it." The Samurai skulked away and Victoria returned.
"Well, my new friend certainly has a way with words. While I have you here, let me give you a little advice. See, there's two wolves that battle inside us all. One's good, the other one is evil. Now you're probably wondering which wolf inside you will win. The answer to that is simple; it's the one that you feed. You'll understand soon enough." Victoria beamed before she carried on.
"You probably know by now that this pit is essentially your grave. But I figured six feet just wouldn't do, so I decided to dig a little deeper just for you. Only the best for my big brother. You're in for a treat at the bottom, so I'd better let you go." One final laugh echoed across the walls of the hole, and as the screen shut off I started to fall again.
As I eventually hit the ground at the bottom of the pit with a thud, I felt someone stir beside me. I turned, and as I saw Elizabeth's face I recoiled. For all I knew this was another trap.
"Before you say a word, answer me this: What song did we play at Ashley's funeral?" Victoria had already gone rogue by that point, I reasoned, so only the real Elizabeth would know the answer. She smiled sadly.
"It was 'At War With The Thirst' by Fearless Vampire Killers. It was his favourite riff to play, and we figured it was ironic..." she answered confidently. I threw my arms around her.
"I'm so sorry Elizabeth, Victoria tricked me. She-"
"-disguised herself as me?" She finished. "Yep, she pulled the same trick on me too, so I guess we're both as stupid as each other." She got to her feet then helped me to mine. "So where the hell are we?" I shrugged.
"I have no idea. We must be at least 100 feet underground, even after the height of the Palace. We need to-" My words were cut off by the sound of footsteps. Elizabeth and I tensed up, ready for a fight. Suddenly at least ten pairs of glowing red eyes appeared in the darkness. The owner of one pair stepped forward into the little light we had, and Elizabeth let out a faint gasp of shock. Standing before us was a full-blown werewolf, its fur streaked a violent black and red.
The wolf closed its eyes and in a matter of seconds was replaced by a young woman around our age, her hair coloured in the same manner as the wolf's fur. She glared at us warily before she eventually spoke.
"So, her holiness finally got bored of you, did she Duke? Or did she catch you playing Lannister with your sister here?" She asked in a mocking yet accusing tone. Neither of us could form an answer, more than a little distracted by the fact that her clothes seemed to have been lost during the transformation.
She rolled her eyes and pulled on a tatty dress someone had thrown to her from the darkness. "You've got quite a nerve to be so prudish," she snapped. "Especially with some of the noises we hear coming from up there! Sorry that we don't share the same dress code as the almighty, but we can't all be born with a silver spoon up our ar-" She paused as she looked at our clothes properly for the first time.
"You're not the Duke. You look like him, but there's no way he'd dress so... commonly. Who the hell are you?" I glanced warily at Elizabeth. This girl seemed to be the leader of the pack of werewolves, and one wrong word could lead her to give the kill order. Watching her eyes dart impatiently between the two of us, I could tell that she wouldn't hesitate if she didn't believe our story. In the end I decided it was in our best interests to just tell the truth, at least we could die with our honour intact.
And so we told the werewolves everything. From the burning down of the original Palace, to the battle with the Eternal, all the events leading up to our arrival in Eternia. The pack leader listened intently, nodding occasionally to show her understanding. I closed my eyes as I finished, knowing full well she wouldn't believe such a far-fetched tale. Eventually the pack leader spoke.
"So let me get this straight. You're from an alternate reality, the Duke is basically your evil twin, and Victoria is your step-sister who also just so happens to be an evil demigod?" I nodded, and she smiled. "Fair enough. I mean, crazier things have happened, right? I'm a werewolf standing here talking to a vampire, I've got no right to be cynical." She held out her hand. "The name's Tash." We both warily shook her hand, still half expecting an ambush.
"I'm Kier, and this is my wife, Elizabeth."
"I know, there are versions of you both here. Although over here Elizabeth's married to your step-father." She gasped. "Maybe that's the event that split this reality from yours? This is your Flashpoint!" Elizabeth and I stared blankly at Tash. "I guess you don't watch a lot of TV where you're from... Anyway, I take it you want to overthrow Victoria and her Unholy Trinity?" We nodded, and she beamed.Well, lucky for you, I know a few people who want the same thing. Obviously they're staying under the radar for now but with you helping them I think they'll want to make a move." Tash turned away, only to find three wolves blocking her path. She narrowed her eyes. "There a problem?" The wolves shifted until three muscular men stood in their place.
"They're ours. You know the system." Tash flipped her multi-coloured fringe out of her face.
"You think I give a damn about the system? These two are my new friends, so I'm letting them go. As your pack master, I command you to let us pass." The taller of the three stepped forward.
"You set one foot out of that door, you're not our pack master anymore."
"Fine by me," Tash snapped back. "You guys suck anyway." She turned to us. "Come on guys, these fleabags aren't worth our time." She led us through a doorway which led into a narrow tunnel, which in turn eventually led to the open streets. Tash suddenly stopped and pulled out two blindfolds. "Nothing personal." she assured us. "It's just our leader isn't as trusting as I am, and she wouldn't really want you knowing the location of our hideout until she's had a chance to suss you out. As I said, nothing personal." She allowed us to put on the blindfolds before she guided us off.
As we walked, Tash kept talking so that we could follow her voice. She explained that Victoria had engineered the werewolves as her own personal mercenary army, offering the reward of conditional immortality to anyone who willingly joined. People had signed up in their droves, so many that Victoria had felt the need to organise fights to the death in the underground pit in order to thin out the numbers. She told us that one of the recruits had been her teenage sister Hannah, leading Tash to join up in the hope of finding her.
"There's no line I won't cross for my family." she said firmly. "I've always said I'd die for her since the day she was born, so I didn't think twice." She informed us that during the transformation process the person's most dominant personality trait carried over to the werewolf version, and while that had manifested as aggression and blind subservience in most, hers had been her natural instinct to rebel and question authority.
"That's why I joined the Resistance. The rest of the city may not see Victoria for the tyrant she is, but I sure as hell do. I broke away from my pack one night, and took to the streets to search for Hannah. I didn't find her, but instead I found someone better. I found a vampire who desperately wanted to see Victoria's reign crumble. She wouldn't tell me why, but she assured me she wouldn't rest until she watched that palace and all its occupants turn to ashes." I smiled wryly.
"Well, as luck would have it, I'm somewhat of a veteran when it comes to burning down my family home." Elizabeth laughed beside me.
"I should hope so, we need all the help we can get. You can take the blindfolds off now, we're here." I removed my blindfold as Elizabeth did the same, and we tried to assess our surroundings. We seemed to be in a theatre of some description, one that looked to be 1920's in design. The backstage area had been modified into a kind of makeshift barracks, while it looked like the main auditorium was used as a briefing room. I felt Tash silently move behind me.
"Agent C will see you now." She announced melodramatically. She led us down the hallway towards the dressing rooms, one of which was no doubt Agent C's office. I glanced warily at Elizabeth. This reality seemed to be teeming with the ghosts of our pasts, and so far none of them had been friendly. Tash knocked on the door tentatively, and as it swung open I became aware of two things. The first was the Winchester rifle, much like my own, aimed directly at my face. The second was that it was being held by our adoptive mother, Christina Royle.