"What do you mean, you think so?" he demanded. "Either you have or you haven't"
I whirled on him. "I don't know if it's the same world," I snapped. "I don't see anything I recognize yet."
I felt Anthony step closer to me. I glanced to my left, confirming my suspicion that his handgun was, indeed, mere inches from my face.
I turned back to the other man. "Will you tell him to get his fucking gun out of my face?"
The man seemed calmer now, all of a sudden. "No, Mister Richmond. Not until you tell me what I need to know."
"What? You mean where we are? I just told you, I don't have any idea."
He snorted. "And, of course, you don't know how we got here."
"No. I don't."
He rubbed his chin. "Why don't I believe you, Mister Richmond? Hmmm? Why do I get the feeling that you're standing there, looking me in the eye, and telling me bald faced lies."
I let my shoulders drop. I glanced at Lydia. Her eyes were wet, and she was biting her lower lip.
"Lydia," I said.
"No," the man said. "No conversation between you two. Understood? I want you to keep your attention on me, Mister Richmond, and I want you to tell me everything you know about this place."
I stared at him for a moment. "Why should I tell you anything?"
I heard a click to my left.
"Oh," I said. "Right. That."
The man across from me smiled. I still wanted to call him Cigarette Smoking Man, but he didn't smoke, or hadn't yet in my presence, so the name just didn't work. It was probably copyrighted anyway.
"I'm waiting…" he said, all charm and patience.
I hated him with every fiber of my being.
"All right." I shook my head and glanced to my left again. The Glock was no further away from me. "Like I said, I don't know if this is the same world I was in before, but if it is, it's geographically similar to our own world. At least the parts I saw were."
The man nodded thoughtfully. "You were in an alternate version of Halifax, then?"
I nodded. "Yes. I was remarkably similar. But different."
His eyes were practically glistening with interest. "How was it diff—?"
He didn't finish his question. Something about the size of a shoebox struck him in the head, and he went to the ground. I turned to my left, which the direction from which the projectile had come, but I could see nothing. Anthony had whirled to face the same direction the instant his boss had fallen. He was pointing at nothing, scrutinizing the surroundings, a panicked twitch in his stance.
I took that opportunity to launch myself at him. I didn't know if he was so highly trained that he would sense my movement and spin back on me, but at that moment I didn't care. I just hoped that the sudden change of locale and the even more sudden attack on his boss would have left him just confused enough that I could catch him off guard.
I hit him full force with my body, and he went down. He didn't lose his grip on the gun, but he hit the ground hard, and I leapt on top of him.
"Jack, no," Lydia cried out, but it was too late for that. My guilt, horror, and adrenaline had taken over, and I was acting on instinct alone.
Anthony tried to turn over, but I squeezed hard with my legs and kept him where he was. I grabbed his gun arm by the wrist with both hands and twisted. He made a grunting noise, but his grip on the weapon did not loosen in the slightest. I knew I had to disarm him now; I couldn't hold him down for long, and once he managed to change his position, he'd be all over me. I had only seconds.
I slammed his arm to the ground and began pounding on his hand with my fist. He grunted again, but otherwise gave no indication that I was hurting him. He flailed at me with his other hand, but I kept moving my upper body around and avoiding it.
I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my lower back. He had managed to bend his left knee quickly and sharply, resulting in a blow to my left kidney with the heel of his shoe. I cried out in pain, but the injury only served to increase my anger and frustration. I pounded even harder on his gun hand.
A moment later, I was on my feet. Anthony pulled himself to a crouch and looked up at me. The sheer loathing in his eyes was nearly palpable. I stepped towards him, the Glock firmly in both my hands, its barrel pointing directly at his forehead.
"Get up," I said.
He stood slowly, never taking his eyes off me.
"Now," I said, "back towards the car."
He glanced behind him, then started stepping backwards, slowly, carefully. When he was a few steps away from the car, he glanced backwards again, adjusted his position slightly, and stopped.
"All the way back to the car," I said.
He stood his ground and glared at me.
"This is your gun," I said. "I'm pretty sure you know what it can do."
He smiled.
It occured to me that perhaps I had forgotten something. I remembered hearing the click of the weapon near my head as he had readied it to fire, so I was fairly certain the safety was off.
But I had to be sure. I repositioned the gun slightly, aiming slightly to the right of Anthony and slightly down. I pulled the trigger.
The gun went off. Lydia screamed. The left rear tire began to hiss.
The safety was definitely off.
I aimed at Anthony's forehead again. He was still smiling. He was either trying to intimidate me, or there was something else I was missing.
He must have sensed my confusion, because he chose that moment to launch himself at me. I fired again, a fraction of a second before his full weight hit me at about waist level.
I gasped, the wind knocked out of me as I hit the ground. The gun flew out of my hands, landing with a clunk somewhere behind me. Anthony, for his part, appeared to be uninjured, as he now reared up above me and connected his fist to my face with a great amount of vigor.
I thought I heard a voice say "Enough," just before I blacked out.
When I next refocussed my eyes, Anthony was standing above me. His boss was standing next to him, holding a handkerchief on a large bleeding wound on the right side of his head.
"Get him up," the older man said.
Anthony bent down, grabbed my arm, and hauled me to my feet. I winced, both from the roughness of my ascension and from the sensation from the vicinity of my left cheekbone. I raised a hand to my face, wincing again as I touched the tender area. Anthony had a very strong right arm.
The older man sighed. "This little stunt of yours has accomplished very little," he said to me.
I looked at him, breathing rapidly and heavily. "I managed to get you boy's gun away from him, didn't I?"
He shook his head and drew his mouth into a tight line. "Yes, but at what cost, Mister Richmond? At what cost?"
I blinked a couple of times, I didn't know what he was talking about. But there was something about the way he was looking at me…
I suddenly turned my head to the right. I could see the car, but there was no sign of—
"Lydia," I cried, tearing my arm out of Anthony's grip and dashing for the vehicle.
Anthony made a move to stop me, but his boss put a hand on his arm.
"Let him go," he said.
I rounded the front of the car and stopped dead in my tracks.
"Oh, my God…" I whispered.
Lydia was lying on the ground, motionless. I stepped closer, afraid to see what I already knew had happened. Tears formed in my eyes, blurring my vision for a moment. I was glad of them, because I didn't want to see what I knew I was going to see.
I stopped beside her still form, looking down through the film of clear liquid in my eyes. I blinked, and the scene became clearer. I would have thought she was just asleep if it weren't for the small red spot in the middle of her forehead.
It was a bullet hole. There was no question of that. And only one bullet had been fired since we had arrived here, and that was the bullet I had fired. I had missed Anthony and hit Lydia.
I dropped to my knees beside her, the tears flowing more freely now. I reached out and put my hand on the side of her face. I pushed her hair out of her eyes. I stroked her forehead. Finally, I reached under her, lifted her by the shoulders, and pulled her to me.
I was aware of a strange movement. My body appeared to be jerking for some reason. It was only as I opened my eyes for a moment that I realized I was sobbing uncontrollably, my arms and torso jumping in spams as my lungs ejected burst after burst of toxic, accusing, loathing air.
I held her for what seemed like hours but felt like seconds. I finally pulled back and looked at her face. It was peaceful. It was restful. There was no trace of the hatred or torment I had seen sprayed across it after she'd gotten out of the car. She was asleep. She was dreaming beautiful dreams. She was free of fear, sadness, and anger.
"Get up, Mister Richmond," the older man said from behind me. "That's enough indulgence."
I stood slowly and turned around. He stood there, a smug half-smile on his face.
"That seems like a pretty high price to me," he said.
I strode towards him. He cocked a curious eyebrow, but I paid no attention. I shoved him aside and stepped back around the front of the car.
"I don't know what you hope to accomplish, Mister Richmond," he said. "The gun is still there. It's only a matter of moments until Anthony finds it."
The gun hadn't gone that far. I'd heard it land. It couldn't have been more than six feet away from the top of my head when I hit the ground. Anthony probably already had it in his hands.
I didn't care. I strode past the car and headed directly for the place where Anthony crouched, looking for the gun.
I didn't believe it. He couldn't still be looking for it. It was right there.
He heard me coming and stood, spinning around to face me. The hatred and loathing were still etched into his features. I was sure they held no match for what must have been near to rippling across mine.
His hands were empty. I still found it hard to believe. If he was unarmed, then so much the better for me. If he had the gun hidden on him somewhere, I still didn't care.
He crouched slightly, feet apart, hands raised. It looked like a martial arts stance, but I didn't know for sure, and I still didn't care. His whole body could have been finely tuned weapon, for all I knew, but I still didn't care.
All I cared about was the black rage that soared across the battered and barren landscapes of my mind. The red hot fury that coursed beneath it. The white hot dagger point of vengeance that threatened to cut through everything else.
Anthony had known exactly what he'd been doing. He had positioned himself in front of the car in such a way that Lydia was directly behind him. He'd known that I'd fire at him as soon as he rushed me, and he'd been prepared for that, so he'd ducked a split second after starting to move. The bullet had sailed right over him.
He'd made me shoot Lydia. He'd planned the whole thing out in his mind, in those few seconds between my gaining the gun and firing it. He'd thought quickly, and he'd managed to turn all my plans into bitter filth.
The rage took me, and I threw myself at him. My entire body tingled with the black rage, the red fury, and the white vengeance. I flew through the air towards him. The air seemed to crackle as his form became larger and larger in my field of view.
Our bodies connected, and the blackness consumed me.
——————
When I regained consciousness, I didn't know where I was. I was no longer outdoors, and I was lying on my back. The room was dimly lit, and the ceiling was unadorned. I was a firm but yielding surface. A blanket or sheet was draped over my torso and legs.
I raised my head. Bad idea. It was throbbing, and lifting it off the—cot? bed?—just made the throbbing worse, so I put it back down again and tried to relax.
I tried moving my arms and legs. They were unfettered, it appeared, and fully functional. I was able to blink, open and close my mouth, and wiggle my toes and fingers. My breathing seemed unimpeded and unaided.
I was apparently undamaged. Except for the sore spot on my face from Anthony's punch.
I lay there for a while longer, then tried lifting my head again. The throbbing had lessened enough that it didn't cause me to feel nauseated, so I took the next step and tried to sit up.
This met with limited success. The throbbing worsened again, so I sat forward and brought my knees up, hanging my head down between them. This helped a bit, but I had to breathe deeply for some minutes, before the throbbing began to subside. I knew I wouldn't be moving quickly any time soon.
I slowly raised my head and looked around. The room was small, clean, and bare. Near the door was a small table with a lit candle set upon it, the room's only light source. In the corner next to the table was wooden chair. Beyond that, the bed on which I now sat was the only other object in the room.
I removed the blanket—I saw now that it was woven from something like wool—and swung my legs off the bed. I sat on the edge, heart racing, head beginning to resume its throbbing, and tried once again to be still.
I wondered what had happened. I remembered lunging at Anthony. I remembered getting closer and closer to him as I hurtled through the air, but after that, nothing. I couldn't remember a thing.
Just the emotion. The sheer blackness of hatred I felt for him. The boiling heat of my despair. The white hot blade of my vengeance. Beyond the feelings, I recalled nothing at all. Not even the moment of contact with Anthony's body.
I must have blacked out again.
But what was I doing here? And where were Anthony and his boss? And where was—?
I sob shook my throat as I recalled what had happened to Lydia. My fists balled into tight, dense cudgels, and the hot, black feelings rose up in me again. The sob tasted like bile.
I tried to damp it down, but this met with very little success. The feelings of guilt, shame, anger, hatred, vengeance—they all battled for dominance and attention. They would not be denied.
I bent my head down as far as it would go. My fists came up into the air of their own accord and then down upon the bed with the force of sledge hammers. The bedframe shook as I screamed out in pain.
I looked at my hands. The right one was bleeding along the edge below the pinky. The left was going to have a killer bruise in the same spot. But at least I was now fully awake and not focussed on those overpowering emotions.
The door opened. A man in a black cloak entered. The deep hood effectively hid his face in shadow.
"I think I've seen this movie," I said.
His head cocked slightly to the side. "You speak oddly, stranger," he replied. His voice was deep and smooth, like a good radio announcer's.
"Oh, great," I said. "Now we're into trite fantasy novel dialogue. This day just keeps getting better and better."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said.
"I didn't really think you would," I replied. "But since you're here, can you tell me where I am?"
He appeared to think about this for a moment. "You're in a safe place," he said finally.
"Hmmm…" I said. "Do you think you might narrow that down just a little bit?"
"Not at this time," he replied.
I nodded. "Not at this time."
I slid off the bed and stepped over to him. With a suddenness and force I didn't know I had in me, I grabbed him by the neck of his hood and hauled him towards me.
"Now, you listen to me," I said through gritted teeth. "I've had a really fucking lousy day. I've been through the worst hell I can imagine, and I'm not going to sit here and take this kind of wishy washy bullshit from you. Do you understand me?"
He nodded slightly.
"Good. Now, I want you to tell me where I am, how I got here, and what happened to the other people who were with me?"
"I can't tell you anything," he whispered.
I shook him. "You'd better tell me something," I said. "You don't want to upset me any more than I already am."
I could see his chin now, but not much else. His jaw was quivering slightly. I assumed it was from fear, and found some satisfaction in that.
"The other men are quartered just as you are," he said. "The dead woman—"
I slammed him against the wall, hitting the table with his calf as I did so. The candle tipped over and went out.
"Lydia," I screamed. "Her name is Lydia."
"Lydia," he said tentatively, "is in a place—where she will not be disturbed."
I shook him again and let go of his hood, turning away immediately and walking back to the bed. I put my hands on the edge of the thin mattress and leaned into my arms, my head hanging down between them. The tears came again, and I was damned if I was going to let this cloaked son of a bitch see it.
A moment later, footsteps sounded in the hallway outside. Three men, clad in robes identical to the first man's, entered and looked about.
"Thomas?" the first one said. "We heard a disturbance."
Thomas—the one I had just roughed up—stepped away from the wall and straighted his robe. "This one…" he nodded in my direction. "…is a passionate one. I believe the dead woman was of some importance to him."
I turned around again, wiping the tears from my cheeks, and stepped towards him. "You sanctimonious son of a bitch," I said, raising my hands again.
The two men closest to me grabbed my arms and pulled me back towards the bed.
"There's been quite enough of that for one day," the first one said. He appeared to be the leader.
I struggled against them for a moment, then let my arms fall slack. "Her name is Lydia," I said weakly.
The two men leaned me back against the bed before letting go of my arms. I put my hands on the bedframe to steady myself as my eyes unfocussed and I stared off into nothing. My head was throbbing again, and my heart was pounding.
"I just want to know where I am." My knees were nearly shaking now. I could barely stand.
The leader nodded. "We'll tell you everything you need to know. In time. We don't know anything about you, friend. We don't know if we can trust you. I hope you'll understand."
I nodded weakly. "I don't know anything about you, either. So I don't know if I can trust you."
"You can trust that we'll keep you safe as long as you're here."
I shook my head in an attempt to refocus. Bad idea.
"Who are you people?" I asked, turning my gaze upon the leader.
"My name is Daniel," he said. "Thomas, you've met. Behind me here are Quentin and Frederick. That's all we can tell you for the moment."
"Why do you keep your heads covered like that?"
I heard a faint chuckle issue from within the depths of the hood. "You are the persistent one, aren't you? Let's just say we have very good reasons for keeping our faces from view. Again, that's all I can tell you for now."
I was about ready to collapse at this point. "Help me up onto the bed, would you?"
Daniel and the man closest to him—I wasn't sure if it was Quentin or Frederick—each took me by an arm and lifted me until I was sitting on the edge of the bed. I swung my legs up and let my head and torso collapse backwards. Daniel pulled the blanket out from under me and draped it over me again.
Within moments I was gone.
——————–
When I awoke again, the candle was upright and lit again. My head felt slightly clearer and my body a bit stronger. I tested the waters by sitting up, but no wave of nausea hit me, no throbbing of the temples this time. I nodded in satisfaction and pulled the blanket off. I swung my feet off the bed and perched on the edge. No adverse effects from that, either.
So far, so good.
I stepped to the door and tried the knob. It was not locked. I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. It was as plain and unadorned as my room. Between the austerity and the robes, I had a hard time thinking that this was anything but a monastery.
I took a closer look at the walls. They appeared to be made of plaster, and they did not look old. If it was a monastery, it was certainly a modern one. Or as modern as a Victorian 1940s monastery could get, I supposed.
For the hundredth time, I wondered if I was in the same world I'd visited before. My encounter with Irene and Councillor Greaves seemed to have occurred a lifetime ago. I'd been to my own world and back again since that time.
I started to think about what I'd seen in Irene's world, and what I'd seen so far here. There was very little overlap. I'd seen ships in the harbour when I'd arrived here, but I hadn't seen any ships during my visit with Irene. I'd seen vehicles and buildings in Irene's world, but I'd seen no vehicles here other than the sedan that had arrived here with us, and the only buildings I'd seen were warehouses.
It felt like the same world, but that was nothing even close to hard evidence. I needed to be sure.
The only things I'd seen that were common to both worlds were the black cloaks. As soon as Thomas had entered the room, I'd recongized his attire. The man who had so unceremoniously booted me off the train wore the exact same garment.
Again, it was nothing that would be admitted in court. After all, one might see cloaks like that on any number of worlds. But it was a start, and if this was the same world, then that meant Thomas and his people had some kind of power. The power to open doorways between worlds.
Like Irene.
I felt like I was beginning to get somewhere. I didn't have a firm grasp on things yet, but bits and pieces were starting to come together. I knew I'd have to rely on my wits and my powers of observation, because it seemed that Thomas and Daniel were closed mouth sorts. I was unlikely to get much in the way of useful information from them.
At least not yet.
As I stepped further out into the hallway, I heard footsteps in the distance. Quickly, I stepped back in and closed the door behind me. I resumed my seated position on the edge of the bed and waited.
The door opened a moment later, and one of the black cloaks walked in. From the height and the gait, I assumed it was Thomas.
"Thomas?" I asked.
His body language indicated surprise. "Yes," he said. "How did you know?"
"Your build," I said. "The way you walk."
"You're observant," he said.
"I'm a writer."
He nodded. "Are you hungry?" he asked.
"Now that you mention it," I said, "I'm famished."
"Then come with me," he said, stepping back to the doorway. "The morning meal is being served as we speak."
I slid off the bed and followed him. "You didn't lock me in the room," I said.
"No. We didn't feel it necessary." He turned his head back towards me for a moment. "The other two, however…"
I snorted a chuckle. "Yeah. I imagine you would have had a whole lot more trouble with them."
"They are—" He appeared to think for a moment. "—violent men."
We turned left at the end of the corridor and proceeded down an even longer one. Eventually, we came to double door, and Thomas opened it and stood aside.
I entered a large dining room. Men in black cloaks were seated around a large burnished wood table. Again, the walls were unadorned, though this time there was natural light coming in through a set of large windows on the opposite side of the room.
As I looked around, I noticed a jarring incongruity. At the end of the table farthest from me sat two uncloaked men. One appeared to be in his sixties, the other much younger. Both wore ordinary white shirts with their cuffs rolled up.
I suppressed a chuckle. My nemesis and his lackey were no longer in control of their situation, and the fact of it tickled me no end.
God knew I needed something to cheer me up.
"Please take the unoccupied seat," Thomas said, gesturing towards the very place I'd been looking.
I looked again and finally clued in that there was an empty space next to the older man. He was sitting at the end of the table, and Anthony was sitting perpendicular to him, his back partially towards me. The seat across from Anthony was the vacant one.
My mirth swiftly abandoned me.
"You've got to be kidding," I said. "I'm not sitting next to them."
Thomas gestured again. "That is where guests sit," he said.
I sighed and walked to the far side of the table. Older Man noticed me immediately, and watched with a sneer as I moved towards the empty seat. Anthony's head turned towards me as he noticed where his boss was looking.
I stopped behind the chair and immediately froze. I could feel the blood draining from my face as I looked at Anthony. He wore a patch over his right eye, and the right side of his face was raked and pitted with scars. The uncovered eye stared at me with enough hatred for both, ten times over.
I looked at Older Man. He seemed to have cheered up since my arrival.
"Well," he said, "this should provide some delightful breakfast conversation."
