Always Darkest Read online

  Justin could see Mason, Tori and Willa heading his way through the crowd all holding hands to make their way through the crowd. Mason came up to him and placed his hand on his shoulder.

  Justin asked, “What happens now?”

  Mason replied, “Now the party truly begins.”

  Several more hours passed and the party raged on. The crowd got drunker and the dancing and comments got lewder. Justin did not see the mermaid again even though he looked for her every chance her got. Soon people started leaving for their homes and some were passed out on the floor. Mason led them all to the outside courtyard to hash out the plan.

  Tori had just had the most amazing night. She had danced for what felt like hours with Mason, his strong hands guiding her through the crowd on the dance floor. She missed her sister, but this was the life. She felt like a princess in a fairytale.

  The night air was cool and made chill bumps appear on her bare arms as they stood out in the courtyard of the castle. The moon was full, and looking through the naked limbs of the tree her little group was sitting beneath at the silver orb of the moon she could not help but think this would be and excellent painting. She had played with painting a little while she was in college, but really she never took it too seriously. They are called starving artists for a reason ya know. But here in this place, anything seemed possible.

  “So is everyone ready?” Mason said breaking her little dalliance with the moon and the nature of art.

  “What exactly am I supposed to do again?” she asked.

  “You, my lady will be charming to the guards in the dungeon.”

  “And if they don’t want to be charmed?” she asked.

  “Then distract them with your boobs.” He said grinning.

  Willa good naturedly hit him with the back of her hand. “Mason Rey I did not teach you to talk to a lady like that!”

  Tori’s jaw dropped and she brought her hand to her throat in mock indignation. Mason chuckled.

  “Don’t worry I’ll be right around the corner, if they take it too far, I’ll rescue you.” He said giving her that smile of arrogance and assurance that she had already began to associate with him.

  “And if my boobs aren’t enough to distract them? Then what do I do?”

  “They are men. They will be distracted. Your assets are quite, uh, considerable. I’ve been distracted all night.” He stood up. “Okay everyone, its show time!”

  Willa placed her hand on Tori’s shoulder as they walked. “I knew you would make a good angel.” Willa laughed as softly as she could. “Your name is Victoria, now you get to be a Secret Victoria Angel. Ha! Get it?”

  Realization dawned on Tori, “You mean Victoria’s Secret Angel? Oh my god!” Willa was still snickering at her own little joke and the laughter was infections. Tori began to laugh so hard she couldn’t stand herself. Mason and Justin looked back at them and they were still both laughing.

  “What is so funny?” Justin asked.

  Mason just looked back at them and grinned.

  “It’s a lady joke.” Willa said still laughing.

  Justin and Mason shared a look and shook their heads.

  They walked back into the castle the same way they came in earlier that night. The ballroom looked quite different with people lying on the floor in various states of drunken slumber. She knew they were going to feel like crap tomorrow. She had definitely been there and done that enough to know two glasses of wine will make you feel fine three or more will leave you sick and sore. Mason led them down several quiet hallways that were lit with only torches. Finally down a large stairway that seemed to go on forever. At the bottom of the stairs, he stopped and motioned for Tori to go straight down the hallway. He, Justin and Willa took a passageway to the left. Tori thought he knew this dungeon well enough. Perhaps he had spent some time in the king’s dungeon himself.

  She walked toward the light and saw the two guards sitting on chairs around a small square table playing a card game just as Mason said they would be. There swords propped against the wall to either side of them. They were both dressed in formal guard uniforms. When they came into site she began to stumble and feel along the wall for support. They didn’t even notice her till she was right upon them.

  “Ma’am you can’t be down here!” said the guard with the curly brown hair.

  “I am so sorry. I, I think I had too much to drink, it is my first time at the castle and I think I have gotten myself lost. Could you help me find my way back upstairs and out of the castle? This is like a maze or something.” She said trying her best to believably slur her words enough to make her seem drunk, but not enough to make her seem disgusting. Seducing was hard work.

  The other guard, the one with the shaved head spoke up. “We can’t leave our posts ma’am. You see we are the prison guards and we have to protect nice ladies like you from the scourge of society. There are a lot of dangerous criminals behind bars down that hallway.” He said gesturing to the hallway behind him. Tori noticed him eyeing her chest. Men! Then the two guards shared a look.

  Curly haired guard spoke up again. “Of course, if you want to stay down here and entertain us till the morning replacements come in we’d be happy to show you out then. It can get awfully lonely down here all night.” He was closing in on her. Where the hell was Mason?

  She began to back away towards the door through which she had come. “I think I better give it a try, my uh, my husband will be worried if I don’t get home soon.”

  “Not so fast,” the bald guard said grabbing her arm, “there are penalties for wandering into the dungeon. We are going to have some fun with you.”

  She struggled against them as they wrestled her to the floor. She screamed as the curly haired guard started ripping the strings loose from her beautiful corseted top.

  “Scream all you want, no one is going to hear you down here.”

  That was the last words big baldy got to speak that night as Mason came up behind him and hit him upside the head with the his fists.

  “What the….” Curly exclaimed as Justin hit him with the hilt of his sword.

  Tori scrambled to her feet as Mason and Justin tied and gagged each guard. “Did you really have to wait to the last minute?” She said as she tried once again to tuck her assets into her corset.

  “Sorry,” Mason began, “we had to wait until they were fully distracted. Did they hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “Turn around let me lace you back up.” His agile fingers quickly worked the strings and she once again felt secure in her costume.

  Once the guards were secured, Justin popped up. “I got the keys.”

  “Good.” Mason said. “Granny, do you have the note?”

  “It’s already on the table next to the empty wine bottle.”

  “Well done my friends, now let’s go set free the wayward tinker Thomas.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Once the guards were taken care of Mason led everyone to the cell where Thomas was being kept. Thomas was on his knees with his hands folded on his cot. He was praying. “Please get me out of here. Please let me see my wife and son one more time.”

  Mason cut off his prayer. “Thomas it is time to go.”

  The old man looked up and saw Mason and then Tori in her angel costume. He grabbed his chest for a moment. “You have got to be shitting me.” The old man said half laughing. “I was just…and then you…and she….”

  Mason deftly used the keys they had gotten from the guards to unlock his cell. “Come with us, we need to get out of the castle as soon as possible.”

  . Thomas was a man of about seventy, with close trimmed grey hair, hazel eyes and he still spoke with the heir of a military man. He wore brown pants, a black shirt and a military vest. He didn’t waste any time in getting up and following them through the maze of the dungeon and out of the castle. They hurried to the awaiting carriage and back to Mason’s home.

  Mason led everyone into his kitchen and everyone sat around the table.r />
  “Excuse my manors, but prison food is horrible and I am starving.” Thomas said. “Do you have anything to eat?”

  “I understand. No offense taken.” Mason said as he got up and brought some wine, bread, cheese and cookies to the table.

  “So why exactly did you bust me out of jail?” Thomas asked as he reached for a cookie.

  “Why exactly were you in jail?” Mason countered.

  “Oh, it’s a bunch of shit,” said the old man.

  “I’ll start then.” Mason said. “Well you see, my fiends here Tori and Justin seem to have come from the trash world. It has been rumored that you came from there too and we were hoping you could find a way to get them home. You seem to be the trash world specialist.”

  Tori could tell Mason was ever so subtly appealing to the man’s ego. “Well that I am and that is precisely why I am in jail. You see, I came over almost fifty years ago when the government tested a bomb out in the desert. I was a private back then and was sitting on the ground behind my jeep eating a sandwich when the test commenced. Next thing I knew I was sitting in the middle of the desert, but there was nothing but rocks and hard earth as far as I could see. The land was similar but no jeep, no one and no military vehicles of any kind. The earth was still shaking and for a moment and I thought that maybe I had just been thrown by a blast. The ground continued to shake and then I realized it was an earthquake. When the ground stopped shaking I began to walk. Eventually I came upon a town. Red Rock was the name and after making a fool of myself with enough folks it dawned on me that I wasn’t on Earth anymore, I had initially convinced myself that the three suns was just a trick of my eyes. Then other things began to show up from Earth. It seems the bomb testing had ripped a tear, or opened up something between out two worlds. I lived in Red Rock for twenty years, looking for a way back home. I had a wife and a baby back on Earth and I was going to be damned if I didn’t try everything in my power to get home. Obviously nothing worked. Do you have anymore bread? And maybe some more wine if you please?”

  Mason got up and retuned with more food. After he had had a little more Thomas continued. “Thank you. Anyway, I studied the newspapers that would sometimes come over and I realized a correlation. Any kind of traumatic event like for instance when the bombs were dropped in World War II triggers a natural weather event here, like an earthquake or storm. And vice versa, then when all that magic was being thrown around in the war a few years ago here, it gave the earth all kinds of natural disasters. The two worlds are connected. It seems the energy transfer goes both ways, but the matter is a one way door. Damn, my son would be almost fifty now. I’d give anything to see him just one more time and know that he is okay. I wonder if my wife, my Pearl, is still….” He trailed off and Tori could see the sadness showing through the wetness building up in the eyes of the old man. She placed her hand on the old man’s hand.

  “You are so sweet dear.” Thomas used the back his other hand to wipe the tears from his eyes. “I got in a little trouble in Red Rock when one of my attempts to get home went awry. Then I came here to Nathis. The king soon saw my use as I could replicate a lot of the things from earth and make others work. It was just luck as I founds a few packs of batteries lying on the ground back in Red Rock. People were amazed by a damn flashlight.” He laughed a little hysterically. “I have been in his employment ever since. That is how I got to be known as Thomas the tinker. Really I was just Thomas the hungry solider who had been given guard duty for a bomb test. The reason I was in jail was I finally found a way back. I told the king thinking he would be happy for me as we had grown close over the years and I have talked to him about my Pearl many times. He asked me to stay and I refused. So I was thrown in for insubordination. The king no doubt thought a few months among the rats would improve my attitude and productivity considerably. He is going to be mad as hell when he discovers that I escaped.” The old man laughed heartily. “Speaking of, the king and my escape, we need to get the hell out of here or we are all going to be keeping each other company in the dungeons tomorrow.”

  “Well, the guards are probably going to be inmates as well in the morning.” Mason said.

  Willa looked at Thomas, “you may not be as old as me, son, and I’m tired. How exactly can you travel between the worlds?”

  Thomas smiled. “We need only two things, a wizard and a gun.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “You need a wizard and a gun?” Mason asked looking a little bemused. “It can’t be that simple.”

  “It is. I wish I had figured it out years ago. I should have figured it out years ago.” Thomas said shaking his head. “It is really very simple. The wizard needs only to cast the circle. Then a gun must be fired into the ground, causing a disturbance as well as blending the magic of Three Suns with the ‘magic’ of Earth. This will cause a mini tear that will last only a few seconds. Whatever is within the circle when the gun is fired will be transported back to Earth.”

  “Have you tested this theory?” Justin asked.

  “If I had, I wouldn’t be here now, would I?” Thomas said harshly.

  “Sorry,” Justin said.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It will work. I am sure of it.”

  “I have guns.” Mason said. “I’m not so sure where to find a wizard that would do it. Or one I would trust with the knowledge of going between the worlds.”

  Willa opened her previously closed eyes. Tori thought she had been sleeping, but apparently she was still listening. “I know just the man for the job. He lives about ten miles from my cottage. He and I know each other well. Why I treated him for a burn on his foot not two weeks ago.”

  Mason stood up. “So we must to go to Black Rock again. We will head out in the morning.”

  Thomas raised his hand like a boy in a classroom. “The morning will be too late! Have you forgotten you just broke a wanted criminal out of jail? When they are found the king will send his men here. You didn’t kill the guards and they will tell it was you that broke me out. Mason, everyone around the castle at least knows of you! We have to leave here tonight!”

  “Thomas, settle down. My granny is exhausted and she will get some rest. I dosed the guards. They won’t remember a thing in the morning. It will look like they got drunk out of their minds, giving you an opportunity to escape. They will have no idea where to look.” Mason sounded so in control of everything. Tori couldn’t help but get a little turned on by the authoritative tone in his voice.

  “They will still be looking for me! I can’t go back to the dungeon! I have to get back to my wife! How do you know your poison worked? Who carried around poison with them anyway?” Thomas seemed to be getting more upset by the moment.

  “I do. It comes in handy from time to time.” Mason said smiling. Tori wondered if he had also built up a resistance to iocaine poison just in case, and repressed a giggle. She was exhausted too and a little slap happy. This was so not the time. Mason went on, “I know the best poisoner in Three Suns, and I know it will work. I have used it before. Besides, if we leave tonight, we will still have to go through the gates and that will look even more suspicious. I will not risk my granny’s health and that is final!”

  “Okay,” Thomas said relenting.

  Willa opened her eyes and spoke again. “Tori let’s go up to bed. Mason will find places for Thomas and Justin to sleep.” Willa stood up and Tori took her by the arm to lead her up the stairs, looking back at Mason as he was still talking with Thomas and Justin.

  When they were in their room, Willa sat down and slowly took off her shoes. “Woo, it has been one hell of a day! Could you get the nightgowns I packed for us out of the satchel?”

  “Of course,” Tori said pulling out the nightgowns and handing them to Willa.

  “This one is for you dear.” She reached a white cotton gown to Tori.

  “Thank you.”

  “Well, I didn’t want you running around naked. I don’t think Mason would mind though.” She raised her e
yebrows and pursed her lips.

  “Willa!” Tori said. “Doesn’t matter anyway, I’m going to the washroom. Goodnight.” Tori could hear Willa laughing as she left the room. She is crazy, Tori thought, crazy in a sweet nice, helping her out even though she didn’t have any reason to sort of way. She reminded her so much of her grandmother, who had died ten years ago. Yes, she thought Mason was handsome, and he had a charm she couldn’t quite stop thinking about but, Tori knew she didn’t belong here. She knew she had a life back home, and she would be back there soon enough. Mason would just be a pleasant memory she could call upon in the middle of a lonely night.

  When Tori returned to the bedroom she could hear Willa snoring, loudly. She got into her side of the bed thinking that she would be asleep soon as she was absolutely exhausted. She turned on her side. She pulled a pillow over her head. She even tried to gently nudge Willa hoping it might stop the loud snoring. It sounded like a bear, if the bear had swallowed a freaking chainsaw. Tori remembered the comfortable leather couch in Mason’s study and in her frustration she got out of bed and headed downstairs.

  The door to the study was closed and there was no light coming in from under the door so Tori eased the door open. She didn’t see anyone inside so slipped through the door.

  “Tori, is that you?” Mason said.

  Tori jumped. “You scared me. I didn’t think any one would be down here.”

  Mason was sitting on the sofa where Tori had intended to sleep. “Sorry to disappoint,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Come and sit down.” He patted the space beside him on the sofa. Tori felt her heart race at the invitation. Then she reminded herself it was an invitation to sit on a sofa, not bear his children. For God’s sake woman, get a hold of yourself. Tori went and sat down next to him. “What brings you out of bed and into my study?”

  “Did you know your granny snores like a beast?”

  Mason laughed. “She does, yes I knew. It’s a wonder everyone in the kingdom doesn’t know.”