The terror of the Barrowhounds and the tension of
the tunnels leading to this place demanded something of the silence that
followed them. They wanted silence
filled with fear, with the shock and awe of a moment of pure, unrelenting
horror. They served like dramatic
arrowheads, each pointing towards a silence where a pin could drop with crystal
clarity and yet be drowned out in the ears of all who heard it by the sound of
their own terrified, racing blood.
The silence that filled the throne room of the Blood
Forts was of a very different sort, however.
It was not shocked, it was not terrified or overawed. If anything, it might perhaps be described as
embarrassed.
"You're... you're Blood Dragon?" Siren
demanded, incredulous.
"That'th Lord Bwood Dwagon, weally," the
Vampire replied sheepishly. "The
title'th weally wather important, I think."
"I'm sorry," Siren continued, trying to
get a hold of the mixture of rage and laughter that was boiling up within her,
"we were expecting someone a little more... terrifying."
"But I'm completely tewwified," he
replied, before opening his eyes wide with realisation and adding, in a smaller
voice, "Oh, I thee."
They stared at each other for a moment then, Siren
and her friends on one side and the Vampire, ridiculous in his cape and his
over-long teeth, on the other.
Ellis was the first to laugh.
The sound was so shocking that Siren spun on the
spot to where her friend stood standing, shaking with mirth. His head was held back, his mouth open and
his eyes, not quite shut, sparkled within their lids, holding unshed tears of
amusement.
“I don’t think there’th any call for that…”
Siren turned around to see the Vampire looking
confused, embarrassed and a little annoyed.
Then he covered his ears.
"Oh, come on!" she shouted, "it's
only laughter."
"Twy withtening to it with Vampiwe
heawing! It weally hurtth."
"Oh this is ridiculous," Siren said in
frustration, the anger which had been building since Blood Dragon had first
appeared now ready to be unleashed, "most of our party are hiding in your
vestibule, terrified that you're going to drink them dry and here you are,
barely able to withstand a broadside of laughter!"
"I'm thowwy that I didn’t live up to your
ekthpectationth.” He crossed his arms,
“but, well, you are technically invading my houthe.”
“There’s a very good reason for that,” Siren
replied, glad to finally be getting somewhere with this pathetic specimen of
the undead. “We’re on the run from
Lakhma’s lackeys and we thought this place was deserted.”
The Vampire sighed.
“I twied to make it clear that it wath not! Didn’t you wead my door? Didn’t you hear my whithperingth?”
“I did,” Annabella said bluntly, “but you didn’t
sound like you do now.”
“Well, hypothatick projection allowth one to
thuperthede the limitationth of the flesh.
What about the bawwicade? It wath
there for a weason!”
“Look, we’re sorry if we’ve interrupted you, Lord
Blood Dragon,” Franck interrupted without a hint of obsequiousness, “but we
really don’t have anywhere else to go, so if you’re not going to kill us I
wonder if you might allow us to use some small part of your clearly vast crypt
to set up our own operations.”
“And what thort of opewationth did you have in
mind?”
“Oh, the usual, hiding in terror, gradually moving
to propositions of desperate action, secret plans, smuggled parts, massive
machines, saving the world. That sort of
thing.”
Blood Dragon raised an eyebrow.
“Are you, by any chanth, a Philosopher?”
“Why yes, as a matter of fact I am,” Franck replied,
offering his finest, thin grin as she stepped up toward the dais. “The Former Baron Von Spektr, at your
service.”
Siren rolled her eyes. She could already see where this was going.
Turning her back on Franck and the Vampire (and
leaving Ellis to his staring) she made her way over to where Harker and
Annabella were standing.
“What do you make of all this?” she asked Harker.
“I’m torn somewhere between ‘Vampires aren’t
extinct!’ and ‘absolute disappointment, although why I’m disappointed that
we’re not being made into thralls is beyond me.”
“I know the feeling,” she replied. “How are you holding up, Annabella?” she
asked, leaning down towards the strange littler girl.
“The whispering has stopped now. I think he was trying to scare us away.”
Siren nodded.
“Still, if Blood Dragon accepts Franck’s request, we might be able to
use that to our advantage.” She gave the
girl a smile, then sighed, “We’re going to have a lot of trouble convincing
everyone else, though.”
“Especially my brother,” Harker added.
“He’s braver than you give him credit for.”
“He’s a complete waste of space, Siren. I have no idea why you like him so much.”
She took a deep breath. This had been coming for a while.
“He’s sweet, Harker.
He’s a genuinely nice guy and he means well in all he does.”
“He only helps you because he has a crush on you!”
“And you don’t?
I think you’re getting your Blakes mixed up.”
“Siren, you know how I feel about you and… sure I
probably wouldn’t be mixed up with half these people without you here, but…”
“But nothing.
I appreciate your help, Harker, whatever your motives, but Gulliver
would have helped my friends even if they weren’t my friends. He may be a bit clumsy and he may be a bit of
a wet blanket sometimes, but he’s my friend and I’m proud of him.”
“I just don’t understand,” Harker said with a sigh.
“Then maybe you should get to know him a bit
better. Brothers can be friends, you
know.”
Harker opened his mouth to say something else, but
was interrupted by Franck’s sudden appearance at their side.
“Lord Blood Dragon has kindly agreed to let us use
some of his state rooms as a sort of base of operations for the foreseeable
future, provided that I let him get in on some of the Philosophickal side of
things.”
“That’s… great, I think,” Siren replied. “We’d better send for the others.” She looked meaningfully at Harker, “Perhaps
now is your opportunity to make amends?”
The handsome pirate sighed again, “I’ll give it a
try,” he said. “Are you coming
Annabella?”
As pirate and girl made their way out of the throne
room and into the enormous corridors of the Blood Forts, Siren turned back to
Franck and looked a question.
“So now what?” she asked.
“Well,” he replied, “firstly I’m going to help Lord
Blood Dragon sort out his hypostatick lighting system-”
“-It’th been theveral hundred yearth thinthe I latht
gave it a onthe over-”
“-and then we need to work out how we’re going to
overthrow a tentacular deity-”
“-Can’t abide tentacleth mythelf. Too wubbewy.
Get thtuck in your teeth-“
“-and rid the world of the machinations of the Noble
Society-”
“-Ghathtly bunch, fwom what Fwanck’th been telling
me-”
“-and all that with only the resources of an ancient
crypt-”
“-It had all the mod-conth five thentuwies ago-”
“-a doubly-dispossessed pirate crew and a group of
Philosophers, monsters and down and outs so unusual they wouldn’t look out of
place in the pick-and-mix at Sparks and Menacers.” He scratched his head. “I might need to lie down for a while before
I can work it all out…”
Siren didn’t know what to say really, but as Ellis
drifted past, staring at all the gilt and marble around him as if he’d never
seen walls before, she knew there was one more thing.
“Actually,” she said, biting her lip against the
sudden rush of heat to her eyes, “there is one thing I’d like to sort out
first.”
“Yes?” Franck asked, a sudden gentleness in his
eyes.
“I need to get Ellis back.”
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