Vampires Don't Belong in Fairyland Chapter 1

Once upon a time, the universe was naught but the chaos of raw magic. But where there is magic there is life. Born from the chaos was the Goddess Gaia, the First One. The goddess rejoiced in the chaos. In her joy, she danced, and the chaos was whipped up into balls and stars and ribbons. This made her smile, and laughing, she continued to dance, but eventually, she grew tired, and slept.
When she awoke, she found the chaos had died down, but in its place were new delights. Things burned, things shone, things grew… and she was no longer alone. Everywhere she looked, there were creatures that frolicked and played, as she did. But as she watched, she saw that they were not like her, after all. They were formed from clay and earth, not the pure energy that had spawned her. These clay creatures were weak and prone to destruction.
"I can do better."


Chapter 1:
The Stolen Pendant




Fairies didn't mess about when it came to naming things. They were the sort of people who called a spade a spade, although admittedly some of them called it a shovel. But when they named something, they named it well. The country was full of places called 'The Cave of Doom' or 'The Fountain of Death'. The Dark Forest was just such an aptly named place. Largely coniferous, the towering pine trees blocked out most of the sunlight. The persistent drizzle was adding to the murk. All kinds of nasty beasties lived in here, and like the majority of the populace, they were magical. Fairyland had a mana spring beneath it, which caused the evolution of all kinds of unusual flora and fauna, most of it dangerous. Fairies could handle such things easily as long as they kept their wits about them. The most dangerous thing a fairy could encounter was another fairy . . .

The young king made his way through the forest, using the dripping, shrieking canopy for cover. The dark leaves of the conifer-like trees and the general gloom of the place hid him from view and the racket its denizens were making masked any noise he made. His night blue, silk shirt stuck to his skin thanks to the moisture-laden air but suitable clothing had not been a priority when he'd left the palace. There'd been no time to get a weather forecast. He'd just grabbed the sword and got out.
    He darted from tree to tree. Just because he couldn't be seen from the air didn't mean there weren't enemies already inside the forest. He'd hidden the sword. That was the important thing. If he got caught, he could do something about it. But if that woman got hold of the sword too . . . If only the Light Guard had held out a little longer, he could have done this better. But then, that was how these things worked. You were handed a mysterious artefact and instructed not to hand it over to anyone and it wasn't until later that you found out it was the key to destroying the universe or whatever. Usually right after you'd handed it over to someone. Mysterious objects
weren't supposed to come with a manual or an explanation, that would spoil all the fun. He had cheated a bit by handing it to a family member, but that didn't count. His cousin didn't know anything about the sword or what it meant. The problem was that with both the pendant and the staff being in enemy hands, it wouldn't stay hidden for long.
He could see the edge of the forest now; the moonlight pierced through the shadows like a spear, outlining the exit. He couldn't hear anything other than the squawking and whistling noises of the forest. That wasn't good. He had expected to hear battle. One of his platoons should have been here guarding the forest perimeter and he knew that the Wild Troopers were on his trail. Something was wrong. He sighed, attempted to unstick his clothing to no avail, and walked right out of the forest. There was a yell and he was seized by three enemy soldiers. Two of them grabbed his arms, the third grabbed his hair.
    “All that skulking around for nothing,” came a female voice. “Hold him up, I want to see the expression on his face.” The soldier yanked his head back.
    “Good afternoon Lady Lir,” he greeted her pleasantly, ignoring his treatment. He gave her a toothy grin. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. Obviously that was not the expression she'd wanted to see. Good. An annoyed enemy was a careless enemy.
    “Smug as ever,” the woman said, narrowing her dark, grey eyes and sweeping her long, black hair over her shoulder. She was wearing the traditional attire for a fairy queen; a long, green dress, embroidered around the hems with silver and gold. “That's 'Your Majesty' to you, Tyrian.” So she was trying to annoy him too. How dare she address him by his name alone! He ignored the slight;
    “Ever aiming for higher titles, aren't we Lady Lir?”
    “Where is the sword?” she demanded.
    “It would be a bit pointless to have gone through all that trouble just to tell you, now wouldn't it?” he replied. The woman made an indignant noise.
    “I changed my mind,” she told the fairy soldiers. “I do not wish to look upon your insufferable visage any longer.” She turned away.
    “Come now Lady, where's the fun in winning if you don't play the game?” he continued. “You wouldn't be satisfied to pluck the crowns from our heads just like that, now would you?”
    “This is no game,” the queen hissed, spinning back around. She bent down so that her face was almost level with his. “If you and the others only understood that, I wouldn't be doing this. The people need to see how unworthy you all are. You don't deserve the three treasures, any of you.”
    “Are you saying you do?” Tyrian asked her. She bit her lip and her eyes flicked downwards, but then her sneer returned.
    “I have the staff already,” she said. “It was pathetic how easily I crushed the Light Guard. It's only a matter of time, now. Your resistance is pointless.” Villain dialogue? When had she started doing that? He wondered if she even knew she was doing it. At least his tactics were working.
   “Ah, so many things in life are pointless, are they not?” Tyrian replied, still smiling. The queen slapped him across the face with all her might. Ow. Villain actions, too. They were working all right. A bird screamed in the distance.
    “We'll see how long you can keep up that attitude,” Lir hissed. “It was foolish of you to come alone. It's exactly this kind of stupidity that pushed me this far.”
    “We must disagree on the definition of foolishness, Lir,” he replied. He attempted to shrug, and winced as the soldiers tightened their grip. “It would have been amazingly stupid to hide something and tell an entire platoon where it is. Do have some sense.”
    “So you risked capture to hide it from me? How noble of you,” she spat the word. “But it's too bad,”-she pulled out a large green stone in the shape of a tear drop and brandished it at him-“as long as I have this, I will find it.” The stone was attached to a golden chain from which it dangled tantalizingly in front of his face. “I will drag you all through this wretched forest until I find the door you sneaked it through and when I do-” There was another eagle-like scream, but now it was closer, and accompanied by others, rising over even the din of the nearby forest.
    There was a flurry of feathers, and a harpy hit one of the guards straight in the back, causing him to let go. He unbalanced the other two guards as he turned round to fight the slashing, flapping thing off. Woman-shaped and sized, covered in thick, brown feathers with the wings and claws of an eagle, she was a good match for any fairy soldier. And she wasn't alone. Harpy after harpy plummeted down upon the Wild Realm soldiers, like a feathery, talon-filled rain. Tyrian wrenched himself free and snatched at the pendant in the queen's hand, ripping it from its delicate chain. He plunged forward, through the mass of warring fairy soldiers and harpies.
    'So that's where my battalion went,' he thought to himself as he ran. 'Good old Aurelia, setting up a double ambush.' Nevertheless, he felt a twinge of annoyance. 'Whatever took her so long?'
    “Seize him!” the queen screamed behind him. Several of her soldiers tried to obey, but the harpies made sure they regretted it, catching them in their backs and shoulders as they turned. But there were more fairies than harpies, and just as he thought he'd broken away from the scuffle, some of the fairies broke free and he was surrounded by enemy troops once more. There were five of them, too many for him to take on alone, and there would be more any minute-
    “Hand over Her Majesty's pendant and you won't have to suffer,” one of them commanded. Tyrian tutted.
    “Confident, aren't you?” They had reason to be, of course. He tried to keep them all in his sight, but it was impossible. He knew the two he couldn't see were advancing on him, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. Now the guards he could see started to move forward-
    “You're the one who's going to suffer!” a female voice yelled. Seconds later a yokai woman with brown and gold striped hair landed in the shrinking circle. Her fringe was long, partly covering her face, framing her malevolent, green eyes as she flexed long, silvery war-claws at the fairy soldiers. She was followed immediately by a black griffin, which landed on the other side of the king and screamed in the enemy's faces, driving them back.
    “Aurelia, that was terribly cliché dialogue,” Tyrian scolded her.
    “Sorry Master Tyrian.” She flashed him a grin, revealing a mouth full of pointed teeth. “I wanted to make a better entrance, but I was too busy trying to stop you getting your head chopped off.” She hissed like a cat at the advancing guards, who were still deciding what to do about this turn of events, and unwilling to tackle the huge griffin that was pacing back and forth and threatening to pounce.
    “What took you so long?” Tyrian complained, determined to get the subject off his chest.
    “The thing about a great, big flock of harpies Master Tyrian,” the woman began with a hint of impatience, “is that they're very easy to see. Not much of an ambush, right? So we had to go up really high. Took us a while to come down again, you know.” The woman shrugged. “So what now?”
    “Now, you will hand over my pendant,” Lir commanded, pushing her way through the soldiers at Tyrian's back. She had several guards fending off the attacking harpies and a few more came forward to tackle the griffin.
    “Now we run,” Tyrian commanded, motioning for her to follow. They turned and sprinted, crashing through the guards in the front, leaving an enraged Lir to deal with the still battling harpies and the griffin.
    “You got the pendant?!” Aurelia yelled as they ran. She slashed the face of a soldier that tried to bar their way and he fell aside, screaming.
    “Yes, but I need to hide it too!” he yelled back. They finally shook off the straggling soldiers and continued to run, determined to put some distance between themselves and the enemy. He'd had a hard enough time deciding where to hide the sword, now he had to think up somewhere to put this blasted thing. Somewhere out of Lir's reach entirely would be best, but where? He glanced behind at the battlefield and swore. Lir's troops weren't as far away as he'd like. There was no time. He'd just have to go.
Anywhere would do.
    “I don't suppose you can look after the kingdom for a while?” he said. “Looks like I have to make another little trip.”
    “Right you are, Master Tyrian!” She looked behind her, skidded to a halt and spun round.
    “What are you doing?” He almost fell as he forced himself to stop, turning and eyeing the pursuing troops.
    “Oh, you know!” she shouted back. “The traditional 'faithful servant hangs back while their master gets away' thing. I'd say you need a distraction right now.” She pulled off a salute. “Go! I'll see you later! Hide that thing good! I can't wait to see the look on Lir's face when she sees you've got away!”
    “I'll be sad to miss it,” Tyrian laughed. “See you later!” He gave her a nod, turned around and dashed off.

He ran on until he was sure he'd be out of sight. He could still hear faint screams in the distance, but his troops must be beating them back or they'd have been here by now. He found himself by a clear, placid lake. It was a desolate place, surrounded by sand, dust and thorn-covered trees. But the aesthetics of the scenery were unimportant. He had to find a door. It was impossible to go back to the one he'd used before, it was too far away, he'd have to double back around the Wild Troopers and in any case, hiding them both in the same place was just plain stupid. What was that saying humans had about putting all your eggs in one basket? Which was a stupid phrase, when he came to think about it. If you were collecting eggs, which was presumably the reason you had a basket, you wouldn't want to go messing about with lots of them. That would just make things more difficult.
It seemed to be safe enough to stop here and look.
    “Now if I were a door, where would I be?” he wondered aloud. A raven perched on the nearest tree cawed;
    “In a door frame!”
    “Not helping!” he complained back at it. That was the problem with Otherworld doors. Normal doors were found in a door frame, certainly. But unless they were made specially, doors to other worlds were not. They were in trees, or on the reflection of a lake at sunset or in some really unforgiving cases, at the end of the rainbow. He'd almost missed a wedding thanks to that one. Blasted leprechauns, always making things difficult to find. You'd think if they invited you to their wedding it would be different, but oh no, everything had to be traditional. Looking down, he saw the pendant was glowing, ever so faintly. He lifted it up and it glowed a little brighter. He turned around to look at it without the sun in his eyes and the glow dimmed again.
    “Hmm.” Tyrian swung the pendant about in a circle, noting the degree of luminescence. “So that's how it works. I always wondered.” He walked in the direction where the pendant glowed most fiercely and came to the tree the raven was perched on. Studying the trunk, he found a not so innocent-looking knot on it. It glowed in resonance with the pendant. He pushed it, and the door concealed there opened. He walked through it and immediately stepped on something cylindrical and metallic. He stumbled and planted his face on a brick wall. He swore and rubbed his nose. Hiding the pendant in his shirt, he looked around to get his bearings. The door had vanished. He poked the air where it had been. Nothing. Clearly the return door was not here, if indeed there was a return door at all. That was rather inconvenient, but it was generally how Otherworld doors worked and at least it meant that he couldn't be easily traced. Otherworld doors could usually only be used if you knew they were there, and he doubted that Lir would risk sending her troops somewhere they'd get stuck when she had the Dark Army and the remains of the Light Guard to fight.
    He was stood in an alleyway, between what he assumed were two houses. The bricks were red, or at least they were supposed to be; sun and smoke had turned them a dirty orange. He kicked aside the can he had tripped on. The alley was strewn with rubbish; there were a few black bags piled on one side, and one had burst, sending cans, banana peel, used teabags and brightly-coloured wrappers everywhere.
He jumped when someone walked right past the mouth of the alleyway. He breathed a sigh of relief when he realised they'd walked right by, but then there was another, and another . . . Pressing himself against the brickwork in the shadow of a tall, plastic box, he peered out and watched. After a few minutes, it became clear that the people – the humans, he
realised with delight– passing by were paying the alleyway no mind at all. He had a sneaking suspicion that he knew where he was. He walked confidently out of the alleyway and blinked in the sunlight, which flashed off the cars as they sped past. He grinned to himself. He was right.

This was Earth.

This was perfect.

* * * * *

Lucinda walked along her usual route to school for the first time in nearly seven weeks. School. Ugh. She supposed the summer holidays had to end eventually. Too bad this was no day to be in school. The sun was shining, a cool breeze was blowing, birds were singing. It was a day for picnicking by a gurgling stream, a day for skipping through the woods, a day for rescuing damsels in distress or fighting dragons even, probably at the same time. Granted, those last two options were not what your average schoolgirl would consider a good activity for sunny weather, but Lucinda Martin did not exactly have the hobbies of an average schoolgirl. And that was true even before she'd got a part-time job as a prince and started to spend all her free time fighting monsters and bringing down evil tyrants. Lucinda went out of her way to avoid being 'normal'. That was another reason she hated school. Everyone and everything there was so normal and boring. The upside, she thought as she plodded along staring into the middle distance, was that this would be her last year of high school. At least that was something. She'd be sixteen soon. College would probably be a lot more interesting.

With a jolt, Lucinda realised that she'd been going the wrong way. The whole of the summer holidays, except for the few weeks she had stayed in America, her daily routine had been to head to work. Whether she'd been needed at work or not had been of no consequence. When you can take a walk in an enchanted forest, learn how to make an instant freezing potion or spend the night in an eldritch castle why would you bother spending summer at home on dull, old Earth? Her feet had automatically taken her the way she took to work, and she was almost the whole way there. That wasn't good. She'd been understandably loathe to set out and wasn't doing great for time. She turned around and headed the right way.

Then she heard the argument.

There were two voices; a grown man, who had what she thought of as a 'posh voice' and a girl, who sounded like a typical teenager, considerably less posh, and about her age. It was coming from the park, which she was currently walking parallel to, along the road. Lucinda considered her next move. It sounded serious. The girl didn't want to do something or other, and the man was being quite insistent. It might be a misunderstanding; maybe it was just a father and a daughter, having more or less the same argument she'd had with her parents this morning about school? Lucinda sighed. She was going to be late, but she couldn't call herself a prince if she wasn't going to act like one in this world too. She hurried along the road towards the park entrance and went through the gate.
She hadn't gone very far in before she spotted them, a man in a blue shirt and dark trousers with black hair, and a girl with short brown hair, wearing the same blue and gold school uniform that Lucinda was wearing. The man's shirt looked like the night sky; it was decorated with silver stars.
    “Look, this isn't how this is supposed to go!” the man complained, sounding half way between annoyed and desperate.
    “I don't care how it's supposed to go,” the girl retorted, “I'm not taking that thing and you can't make me! It's probably full of drugs, I should report you to the police right now!”
    “This is no way to behave at all,” the man complained, frowning. “You're supposed to accept mysterious objects without pause and then worry about them later. Please, I don't have much time and this is important!” Lucinda, having realised that
wading into a fight in a deserted park on Earth, where stories don't work properly, was a bad idea, nevertheless took a deep breath and strode towards the couple as boldly as she dared. She called out, feeling a lot less confident than she sounded;
    “What's going on here? Is there a problem?” The girl gave her a contemptuous look before glaring at the man again. He pushed the hair out his eyes;
    “Yes, there's a problem!” he replied, sounding more huffed than angry. “It's of the utmost import-ance that I hand this pendant over to someone for safekeeping, but this lady here refuses to take it! This is not the proper behaviour for this situation.” Lucinda blinked. This was Earth, wasn't it? She stared at the man. There was something off about him, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. He looked like he was from the Far East, but his accent was British. That was nothing unusual. What did strike her were his violet eyes. They were possible, or so she'd read somewhere, but very rare. It wasn't that, though. There was something strangely familiar about his behaviour.
    “I'll take it,” she replied, holding out her hand. The man breathed a sigh of relief. He handed over a heavy, green stone, about half the size of her hand.
    “Thank goodness somebody knows the proper protocol.” His face fell and his voice took on a serious edge. “You mustn't hand it over to anyone and you should keep it a secret. Understood? It's very important.”
    “What's so important and secret about it?” the brown-haired girl asked him, folding her arms. “Is it valuable? Why are you giving it away?”
    “Don't ask such silly questions, I can't go telling you, can I?” the man replied. To Lucinda he said, “You'll do as I ask?” Lucinda nodded, but she couldn't help herself;
    “It really doesn't have drugs in it though, right?”
    “There's no medicine in it whatsoever,” he confirmed, sounding slightly baffled. “Now I really must be off.” He flashed her a toothy grin and disappeared. It was a bit too toothy. Lucinda jumped. That wasn't the species she'd thought he was at all.
    “Freaking weirdo, now I'm lost and late,” the girl complained, striding off down the path. Lucinda stashed the mysterious green thing in her bag and looked at her watch. She swore. They were both late.
    “This way!” she said, hoisting up her school bag. “We might make it if we run!”

Lucinda was certain the girl had followed her, but she disappeared as soon as they were through the school gates. She slipped into the assembly hall and sat on the end of the front row. It was full of first years, who looked terrified enough as it was, without a fifth year looming over them. The nearest two glanced over at her before looking back at the front hurriedly as the headmaster coughed and gave Lucinda a meaningful look. She hadn't missed too much, just the messing about before the real speech began. It was the usual stuff. First years, high school is going to be wonderful, second years welcome back, third years, ooh this is a terribly important year, and so on. Lucinda got bored somewhere around 'New students, we welcome you to this school-' and her mind wandered to the strange man from the park. She could have sworn he was a fairy. He hadn't had pointy ears and he hadn't been a small twinkly thing, but Lucinda was wise to that. Her best friend Erlina was a fairy. A fairy princess in fact - the most fairy-like kind of fairy you could get, story-wise. She too had often expressed distaste and even outright anger that people and events on Earth just didn't behave like they did in Fairyland and the rest of the Otherworlds. But . . . his teeth were not fairy teeth. She knew someone else with teeth like that, and 'fairy' would be the last description they called to mind. Perhaps that was part of the disguise. She wondered what the green stone was. It hadn't looked particularly special, but magical objects often didn't. It was always the unobtrusive wooden spoon that granted eternal life, whereas any bejewelled masterpiece was probably a trap or at the very least a highly impractical waste of rubies. Oh well. She'd find out soon enough. That was how stories worked. Of course, that did mean that something bad was going to happen. Whenever you were handed a mysterious object with an unfathomable purpose all manner of nasty things came out of the woodwork, mostly intent on stealing said object and quite likely also intent on leaving your corpse in a ditch. But that was okay. Sort of. She had
friends who knew how to deal with that stuff.

The assembly had dragged on forever, but it was finally over. The students were called out of the assembly hall class by class. Lucinda had to scoot out of the way, as the classes were being called in order and she was in one of the last ones. Eventually, her form was called and she followed her classmates out.
    “Hi Lucinda,” came a voice from behind her. She turned to see Shu smiling at her.
    “Hi Shu,” she responded. “How are you? Did you have a good summer?” Shu had made her acquaintance last year, shortly after she arrived. They didn't have that much in common and they didn't hang out outside of school, but they sat together in some classes and they got along well enough.
    “Not bad, not bad,” Shu replied. “I spent the summer with my grandparents in China. It was a lot of fun. I only get to see them twice a year, and at New Year's the time is so short, so seeing them for a few weeks in summer is great.” She laughed. “I got put to work though! I spent a lot of the last few weeks feeding chickens.”
    “Oh, they live on a farm, don't they?” Lucinda asked.
    “Yeah, Grandma Zhou does, anyway,” Shu confirmed. “My other grandparents live elsewhere.”
    “Sounds like you had a nice summer.” Lucinda smiled.
    “How was yours?” Shu asked. She tilted her head to one side.
    “Oh, not bad,” Lucinda answered. “I was put to work too, only in my case, by my boss. She's kind of allowed!” Both girls laughed.
    “What sort of work do you do, anyway?” Shu asked curiously. “I'm sure I've seen you around town in a red suit . . ?” Lucinda gave a nervous laugh this time.
    “Oh, yeah,” she responded. “That's a work thing. I have to dress up a lot. That's er, that's mostly what work is about. Dressing up.”
    “I see,” Shu mused. “Sounds interesting. Maybe I should come visit you there, sometime?”
    “Oh, er,” Lucinda faltered. “Maybe. I don't know if my boss would be happy about it, though-”
    “All right, all right,” the teacher boomed, quelling the students' chatter. He was a new teacher, young, with short black hair and a crisp white shirt. “Sit down. I'm sure you can all catch up during break. Now, we have a new student this year, Rina Walker.” He indicated a girl sat towards the back of the class. Lucinda turned to look. It was the girl from this morning. “Would you like to introduce yourself, Rina?”
    “No,” the girl shook her head and hunched up a little. “I moved here in the summer, that's about it.”
    “Oh. Well,” the teacher hesitated, caught off guard. “I suppose it's not great to get so much
attention on your first day.” He chose to ignore Rina's obstinacy and plunged on, “Right then. Here are your timetables, come and get them as I call your names-”

Lucinda's first class was maths. It was her most hated subject and a terrible way to start a new school year. The class was even more boring than the assembly and she couldn't focus on the problems at all. Why did they expect people to be able to do something like maths first thing on a Monday morning? By the end of the lesson she would have quite liked to see whoever drew up her timetable and give them a good talking to.
    Finally it was over and time for the morning break. Her classmates had been equally as bored, and they rushed to the door. As she stood up to pack her things, she was knocked hard by a careless student; her bag fell from the table and her books and pencils went everywhere. She cursed and knelt to pick them up, hindered by the students who were in too much of a hurry to stop and help. Shu stopped though; she started to gather up Lucinda's books and made a rude gesture at a girl who stepped on one. Lucinda tutted as she chased a pencil right across the floor. She banged her head on another table as she tried to stand up and it was then she noticed that Rina was helping too.
    “Is that everything?” she asked, handing Lucinda a few errant pens.
    “I think so,” Lucinda replied, taking them. “Thanks.”
    “Right then.” Rina picked up her bag without another word and left. She hadn't said anything before she'd left this morning, either. Lucinda stared after her.
    “Is it just me, or she a bit weird?” she wondered aloud. Shu snorted.
    “Because you're totally not,” she retorted.
    “Fair point,” Lucinda conceded, rifling around in her bag. She opened it to take a closer look inside. Then she glanced at the floor.
    “Right, what have you got next then?” Shu asked.
    “German . . . I think,” Lucinda replied, distracted.
    “Oh, me too. I guess we have the same schedule?”
Lucinda tipped her bag out onto the desk.
“Something wrong?” Shu asked.
    “It's gone,” Lucinda muttered. She got down on her hands and knees and scanned the floor, looking under the cupboards and the teacher's desk. But it was no use. The green pendant had vanished.