The Netherworld

“There are a lot of people here,” Mitch said. They’d had to dodge and weave around people all the way through campus to the lecture theatre. It was only half full but still contained more people than Mitch had had to spend time with in an enclosed space since the Dance with the Dead. It was not a confidence-inspiring thought.

“Well, yes,” Nikola replied, “it is the first lecture of the year.” He smiled over his shoulder, “You’ll be fine.”

“Are you’re sure this is a good idea?” Mitch asked.

“Would we be here if I didn’t?” Nikola asked, “It would have been a lot easier to just let you sleep in.” Mitch had already decided that he didn’t like eight am lectures. People weren’t meant to be up and alert at that time of the day and that went doubly for vampires. Changelings didn’t seem to mind; Nikola had already been for a run.

“That wasn’t sleeping in,” Mitch said, “it was too early for sleeping in.”

Nikola laughed, “Let’s just sit down.”

“But…” Mitch froze. Vampires might have almost no taste buds to speak of but their sense of smell was excellent and the girl sitting at the end of the row he was passing smelled of blood. She must have cut herself shaving, Mitch told himself.

“Come on Mitch,” Nikola said. He reached back and grabbed Mitch’s arm, tugging him into motion.

“Sorry,” Mitch mumbled as he slid into an empty seat next to Nikola. Nikola just shrugged and sneezed and Mitch silently offered him a tissue. Nikola insisted that it was just hayfever and he’d be fine once he adjusted to the new environment, but Mitch still worried. Nikola got sick at the drop of a hat and he wasn’t sure he was up to facing an eight am lecture on his own yet.

Almost as if to confirm his fears, his gaze drifted back to the girl.

“Focus Mitchell,” Nikola said.

“It would be a lot easier if I had coffee,” Mitch said. Plenty of the other students held steaming cups but by the time he’d dragged himself out of bed it had been too late for him to be one of them.

“I’ll tell Amelie,” Nikola threatened. “I’m sure she’d be very understanding of your lack of coffee.” He sneezed again and Mitch added antihistamines to the top of his mental shopping list, right under coffee.

“How do you know I wasn’t thinking of setting you up with her?” Mitch asked.

“Because I can hear what you’re thinking,” Nikola reminded him. “And I’m not interested in girls.”

Mitch was suddenly very glad that he didn’t have any coffee, he would have sprayed it everywhere. He had to settle for almost swallowing his tongue instead.

“And you think now’s the time to tell me that?” he finally spluttered. He’d known Nikola for four years and been friends with him for almost half that time and he’d had no idea. In fact he seemed to recall Nikola flat out lying about it on one occasion, though the Academy had been cursed at the time and they hadn’t really been friends then, but that had been more than a year ago.

Nikola blinked, “Oh, right, sorry. I’m used to everyone in my life knowing about that. So, ah, yes, I’m gay.” He shook his head slightly, “Stars, that felt weird, I haven’t had to tell anyone in years.”

“Well maybe you should practice,” Mitch said. “God, at least I’m awake now.” Not that it would help him focus at all but their lecturer wasn’t here yet anyway.

“Who else would I need to tell?” Nikola asked. “Everyone at home knows.”

“Maybe you’ll make some new friends,” Mitch suggested, it had been known to happen.

“They’re human,” Nikola said as their lecturer finally walked in.

Apparently he wasn’t a fan of modern technology, or semi modern. He ignored the projector and whiteboard and started scrawling equations across the blackboard. He ignored the wireless microphone as well though Mitch wasn’t sure how well that would have worked with him and Nikola in the room. He’d already heard people grumbling about the crappy wifi though that seemed to be due to the concrete walls.

Mitch found his attention wandering. Today’s lecture seemed to be more about making sure everyone was on the same page than teaching them anything new, and it was boring. Nikola was barely paying attention as well, along with half their classmates. He could even hear a couple whispering about the murder in Leith Valley.

Mitch found himself looking around the unfamiliar faces and trying to avoid eye contact with those who were doing the same. He didn’t want to actually talk to any of these people, just being in the same room with them was enough. Mitch hunched his shoulders and told himself that no one was paying him an undue amount of attention. They couldn’t see his hypodermic fangs though the faerie glamour and firmly closed lips. Anyone who looked at them twice probably just liked blonds. Maybe they were wondering how someone could be as rail thin as Nikola. Hell, he wondered that at times; Nikola ate like a bottomless pit when he wasn’t sick but his metabolism could give a hummingbird a run for its money.

Nikola nudged his foot and tapped the corner of his book.

You’re doing fine.

So far, Mitch scrawled back.

You’re not going to hurt anyone.

Mitch sighed, he knew Nikola wouldn’t let him hurt anyone. He’d made Nikola promise to compel him not to if he so much as started to drool, but rationality didn’t seem to be getting much of a say right now. His gaze flicked to the clock and back, just ten more minutes and he could go home.

“We have to go get your blood first remember,” Nikola whispered inside his head.

“Get it from where? The Red Cross?”

“You’ll see.” Nikola sneezed and Mitch passed him another tissue. Nikola had never got into the habit of carrying them, he usually just used magic, but he couldn’t in a crowded lecture theatre and somehow he’d trained Mitch to carry them for him.

“Thank you.”

Mitch smiled at his friend and checked the clock again, nine minutes to go.

Mitch practically bolted when the final minute was up, ramming his sunglasses into place when the light stung his eyes. There were even more people around than there had been before his lecture but he was outside now, not trapped in a concrete box with a year’s supply of food.

“Wrong way Mitchell,” Nikola called from behind him.

“How was I supposed to know?” Mitch said, trudging back to him. “‘You’ll see’ isn’t a direction.”

“It’s one of those places you need to see to believe,” Nikola said, setting off in the opposite direction. If anything the new path seemed even more crowded and Mitch almost took Nikola’s hand to keep from getting separated.

“That wasn’t too bad was it?” Nikola asked, turning into a small, almost deserted courtyard. There were only a couple of students hurrying into the surrounding buildings.

“I guess,” Mitch said. It would have been better with coffee, or at midday, but he hadn’t felt an irresistible urge to bite anyone. “What about you?”

“You mean apart from the fact that it was mind-numbingly boring?” Nikola asked. He’d been taught maths in Faerie and you couldn’t get maths wrong in Faerie without rewriting the universe. Mitch couldn’t even begin to make sense of the language but Nikola could probably use it to turn the sky green.

“I’d have to completely alter the composition of the earth’s atmosphere to do that,” Nikola said.

“You could study something that you like,” Mitch suggested. “They do teach classical studies and languages here.” Nikola’s bookshelves were overflowing with mythology, most of it ancient and in the original languages. Nikola had a thing for first editions and despised translations.

“They teach translations and analyses,” Nikola said, “which is a fine way to ruin a good story. And I am taking a couple of the language papers this semester but they’re going to be painfully slow.” He sighed and Mitch shook his head. Nikola had a gift for languages but some of the more abstract areas of physics did have practical applications in his magic.

“Where are we?” Mitch asked, they’d exchanged the courtyard for a tangle of paths around the backs of buildings that no one ever used unless they were lost.

“On our way to see your supplier,” Nikola replied.

“You make it sound as if I have a drug problem.”

Nikola smiled, “You’ll have to talk to Amelie about that. There’s all sorts of research on the subject.”

“But you don’t speak biology,” Mitch finished for him. They both preferred their sciences theoretical but Amelie actually seemed to like biology.

They halted outside a perfectly ordinary door that didn’t appear to be home to a ring of blood dealers. It didn’t even have a protective eave to huddle under as they fumbled for the keys in the middle of the night. The only indication that it was anything special was the faint hint of magic.

Nikola reached for the handle, muttering something incomprehensible in Faerie. All Faerie was incomprehensible to Mitch though he’d memorised dozens of sigils for Alchemy. The door opened, revealing a perfectly ordinary corridor, and they stepped inside.

Mitch lurched into the wall and struggled against nausea that had no outlet. Forget about having his heart in his mouth, if felt as if that door had shoved his spleen into his foot, tried to yank his stomach out through his ears and used his intestines as silly string.

He ripped his glasses off, blinking as he tried to adjust to the dim red light and looked for Nikola, if he felt bad he didn’t want to think about what it had done to his friend. Nikola was leaning against the door they’d come through, his eyes wide and face flushed.

“What the hell was that?” Mitch asked. They definitely weren’t in the corridor that he’d expected to find them in. The room was too wide and room shaped and there weren’t any walls, just a succession of differently coloured doors. An ornamental fountain sat in the middle, the steady trickle of water offering a soothing counterpoint to their ragged breathing.

“What the fuck just happened?” Mitch asked. He staggered over to Nikola and hugged him, that at least felt normal though Nikola was shaking.

“Nethergate,” Nikola gasped, returning the embrace.

“Nether-what?”

“Nethergate,” Nikola repeated. “It’s like when we use Faerie to collapse space but with the magic fixed in place like that it can only reach about ten metres.”

“Very useful if you want to hide,” said a feminine voice. “Anyone who tries to use the door without activating the gate will just find themselves inside the building, this one’s a psych lab I believe.”

Mitch let go of Nikola and spun. A woman was approaching them though Mitch didn’t remember hearing any of the doors. He couldn’t hear her heels clicking across the flagstone floor either.

“He didn’t have any trouble finding it,” Mitch said, nodding to Nikola.

The woman laughed, “We’re not trying to hide from each other,” she said. “Particularly not one of Fae blood, they refuse to teach anyone else how to make those bloody doors.”

“Doesn’t stop you working it out on your own,” Nikola muttered. “I assume you’re Rana.”

“Yes,” she smiled, “I’m the Queen of the Netherworld. Please, follow me.”

“The Netherworld,” Mitch hissed at Nikola.

“It’s the magical underworld,” Nikola replied, “what were you expecting?”

“Hellhounds?” Mitch hazarded, they were a traditional feature of the Netherworld weren’t they? “A dead end alley and a shadowy doorway?”

“Would you trust blood that you bought from someone in a shadowy doorway at the end of an alley?” Nikola asked.

“I guess not,” Mitch replied, looking around warily and identifying nothing more threatening than a series of doors and a fountain. “Really no Hellhounds?”

“We use ghouls for security,” Rana said, “but I can sell you a Hellhound if you want one.”

“Uh, no thanks,” Mitch said hastily. He didn’t think their backyard was large enough for a Hellhound and Nikola was allergic to dogs, something that Nikola himself often forgot in favour of playing with them.

Rana reached out to open one of the innumerable doors and there was a faint clink. The red light glimmered off a series of interconnected rings adorning her hand, fine chains linking them to a heavy bracelet of faerie steel that shimmered with sigils.

“Another Nethergate?” Mitch asked, swallowing nervously.

“Don’t worry,” Rana replied, “this one works properly.” She stepped through it and Mitch glanced at Nikola.

“It looks fine,” Nikola said, “and she was telling the truth.” Mitch still hesitated and Nikola took his hand and squeezed reassuringly. “Everything will be fine.” Mitch snorted, he was familiar with Nikola’s definition of fine, but when Nikola stepped through the door he followed.

Despite appearing to lead into a hallway the door deposited them in a large, brightly lit office. Apart from being underground it could have belonged in a law firm. Shelves lined with smart leather jacketed books lined the walls, a portrait of the beach took the place of a window and next to it hung framed certificates. A massive oak desk sat in the middle of the room, an equally massive ergonomic office chair behind it and two comfortable leather chairs before it. There was even a pot plant in the corner. A real pot plant, not the fake kind his mother used.

“What can I get for you gentlemen?” Rana asked, motioning for them to take the chairs while she leaned on the desk.

Mitch made an inarticulate noise and tried to work a little moisture into his mouth. He’d never had to ask for blood before, it had always been provided for him.

“Blood,” Nikola said, sparing him the necessity of asking for it this time. “AB negative. A year’s supply.”

Mitch was glad Nikola was doing the talking, Nikola was a lot better at coherent than he was and apparently far more attentive. He’d never told Nikola that he preferred AB negative, his own blood type. Vampires could drink any type of blood but their own was more efficient.

“Payment?”

“I can fix the front door,” Nikola said.

“Then we have a deal,” Rana said. She rounded the desk and fished a medallion of faerie steel on a silver chain out of the drawer along with a needle in sterile packaging. She tapped a few buttons on her computer, pausing occasionally to peer at the medallion, before returning to the front of the desk.

“You’ll need to key the medallion to you,” she said, offering both to Mitch. “You can use it to access the public areas of the Netherworlds and acquire your blood.”

“Netherworlds?” Mitch thought.

“There’s more than one,” Nikola replied. “The medallion will work at any of them.”

Mitch sighed and took needle and medallion, he could guess what came next. He tore open the packaging on the needle and pricked the ball of his thumb with it. He pressed the welling blood to the medallion and it somehow sank into the metal.

“The needle as well,” Nikola silently prompted. Mitch pressed the needle to the medallion and it sank in without a ripple or any discernible effort on his part.

“No one ever told me that vampires wear so much magic jewellery,” Mitch muttered, holding it up. It was a hair bigger than when Rana had given it to him but there was no other indication of its vampiric tendencies or the needle.

“The Academy’s curriculum was sadly lacking in a number of areas,” Nikola replied. Mitch nodded. He hadn’t always been the best student but he was sure that he would have remembered if they’d mentioned the Netherworld. Given the apparent availability of Hellhounds and human blood Mitch suspected that it was roughly equivalent to not telling them where to find the local drug dealer.

“Time for a tour,” Rana said, leading them back to the entry hall. “Surface doors are blue,” she pointed to the dark blue door they’d come in through and Nikola moved towards it.

“You’re not expecting anyone are you?” he asked.

“No one who can’t use one of the other doors,” Rana replied. “Public areas are green,” she pointed out a whole series of doors. Most of the doors appeared to be green though with the red lighting it was hard to be sure. “White is private property,” she indicated the door to her office, “and red is the bloodbank and bar.” She led the way to two doors off to their left. “Anything else is best regarded as off limits.”

Mitch looked at the rainbow coloured doors and nodded. It wasn’t as if he felt any urge to explore anyway, he didn’t even want to think about what the bar with its blood red door might entail.

“Use the medallion to access the main entrance and the blood bank,” Rana said, “you won’t need it for the public areas.” Mitch nodded and pressed the medallion to the handle, it turned easily under his hand, opening into a sterile white room with the same red lighting.

A sturdy counter lay in the middle of the room, separating them from a large door that led into an industrial sized fridge. A young man lounged in the desk chair, his feet up on the bench and a magazine in his hands. He gulped when he saw Rana and scrambled to right himself, almost overturning his chair.

“Rana,” he said, shoving the magazine out of sight. “What can I do for you?”

“This young man has come for his weekly allowance of blood,” she said. She motioned towards a scanner sitting on the counter and after a second’s hesitation Mitch pressed the medallion to it. There was a flash of green light and frantic typing as the man tapped away at the keyboard before nodding to himself and hurrying into the fridge full of blood.

He returned a couple of minutes later and set an insulated shopping bag on the counter. It was neatly zipped shut but Mitch imagined that he could hear the blood sloshing around inside it. At least he’d be inconspicuous as he carried his blood home.

“The usual storage instructions and rules are inside,” he said, “refrigerate it as soon as you get home and don’t dawdle in this heat. And remember that a year’s supply is a fixed amount. If you guzzle it all in a month then you’ll have to pay for more.” He flopped back into his seat, not quite daring to pick up his magazine again with Rana in the room.

“I think that’s everything,” Rana said, leading him back into the entry hall. It was saturated in magic, the space around Nikola seeming to twist and distort and he manipulated the magic adorning the door.

Rana muttered something under her breath, her face pale, and they waited by the door to the bloodbank until space snapped back into alignment and the magic vanished.

“It’s done,” Nikola said, not even turning to look at them. He opened the door and bright sunlight streamed into the entry hall along with a gust of warm fresh air. Mitch crept over to him and looked out into the alley. All things considered it was a pretty big alleyway to house a secret door into the Netherworld.

“Satisfied?” Nikola asked.

Rana examined the door closely and Nikola rolled his eyes behind her back. Finally she gave a short nod.

“Have a good day gentlemen, do let me know if I can ever do anything else for you.”

“Of course,” Nikola smiled, the expression somehow fake. “Come on Mitch, let’s put your lunch away before it goes off.” Mitch followed him back outside, wincing as the sunlight struck his eyes and fumbling with his sunglasses.

“That felt surprisingly legitimate,” Mitch said once the Nethergate was safely out of earshot. There was still the occasional person about but most of their fellow students had vanished into the lecture theatres.

“It is,” Nikola replied. “It’s one of those things that the magicians prefer to turn a blind eye to, particularly as they can’t stop it anymore than they can the dance.” Mitch shuddered.

“What was she?” he asked.

“Damphir,” Nikola replied, “a lot of the magic born mixed races end up in the Netherworld. Magicians tend to shun us.”

“Sorry.”

Nikola shrugged, “Most of the Netherworlds are run by the damphirs, they’re more intelligent than ghouls and don’t have the same baggage as vampires.” He sneezed and blew his nose.

“Fantastic,” Mitch muttered, “as well as killing me when they have children of their own, my children are going to be underworld bosses.”

“They’ll probably be anaemic as well,” Nikola said. He sneezed again. “Or haemophiliacs. And Lisette and Spencer both have perfectly respectable jobs.”

Working for a vampire, Mitch finished in his head. He trailed behind, eyeing a cup of coffee that had just been carried outside by another student.

“Mitchell.”

“I like coffee,” Mitch whined. They had juice, tea and hot chocolate in the house but if there was any coffee it was of the invisible kind.

“Your lunch will get warm,” Nikola said as Mitch inched towards the coffee shop. He could hear the coffee beans calling his name as they were ground up.

“There isn’t even a line,” Mitch said, “and I’m a cryomancer, I can keep it cool.”

“Refrigerating blood is not a hit and miss procedure Mitch,” Nikola sniffed, “you can’t afford to experiment with it.”

Mitch gave him his best puppy eyes but Nikola’s nose was running and his eyes were red and puffy and it was Mitch who gave in first.

“Let’s go home,” Mitch said, “I can get up ten minutes earlier in the morning if it’ll mean getting coffee before class.” Nikola smiled at him before stifling another sneeze.