World of Night

Getting Going

“Great,” mumbled Marton, “Just great. We only have to wait for the police and my day will be perfect.”

“Grumpy!” hissed Dom, covering the receiver with his hands, “Let it be and leave that child alone! You’ll alert her parents!”

Marton mumbled something Dominic would rather not have understood and continued to glare at the girl. The child was rather plain with brown hair and wide brown eyes. She seemed to be about five or six years old and was staring intently at the two men in the telephone booth. Marton had been staring back at her for more than fiveminutes now.

“Just call your mysterious source and let me be,” Marton grated back, “The sooner you make that damned call, the sooner we can get away from here.”

“I am trying to make that call!”

“Why are you still talking to me then?”

“Because you...” Dominic started, shutting up as the receiver on the other end of the line was finally picked up, “Oh hello, this is Dom Monaghan speaking...”

Marton rolled his eyes. Laughing the little girl ran away.


~***~


“Care to explain once more why we are doing this?” Viggo asked, raising an eyebrow at Sean.

“Because we are trying to be inconspicious?”

“Ah,” Viggo nodded, “And why exactly can we achieve that by holding hands?”

“Because to everyone looking we’ll appear to be just another gay couple?” Sean suggested with apparent exasperation.

“Do you really think that holding hands will make us seem more inconspicious when the police and the newspapers are telling everyone out there that we are murderers and have to be stopped at all costs.”

“I don’t know,” Sean struggled to keep his voice down, “If that’s not reason enough for you, just assume that I want to hold your hand because I’m actually stupid enough to like you.”

“Okay,” Viggo grinned, tugging Sean close enough to put his arm around the other man’s waist, “That’s a reason I can live with.”

Sean sighed and smiled apologetically at the old lady on the other side of the road.

“How far is it?” Viggo asked after a while.

Sean shrugged. “Not far. They are near, I can sense them.”

“Sense?”

“Yes, sense. I’ll explain later.”

“Don’t you always,” Viggo mumbled, looking completely innocent as Sean glared at him, “What?”

Sean sighed again.


~***~


“Harry!” Craig glared at his lover, “Stop it!”

Surprised Harry turned around. “Stop what?”

“Stop scowling and growling at Karl.”

“I am not!”

“You are!”

“Not!”

“Are!”

“Not!”

“Quiet!” Karl and David yelled in perfect unison, stopping toglare at the other two men, not caring about the curious looks they attracted from the other passers-by.

“That,” Dave said gravely, “Is the fourth time you two have had that discussion in only half an hour! Just be quiet if you have nothing else to talk about!”

Craig sighed helplessly as Harry swiftly blockedhis view of the Aussie.

“What do you think gives you the right to yell at my boyfriend?” he growled, “We are only here as a favour to you! We can always leave if you cannot bear our help.”

“I did not mean that,” David said slowly, “I’d just feel a lot more confortable if you could argue with a little less volume...”

“Down Dave,” Karl interrupted, “He won’t understand if you try to talk to him as though he was a rational human being.”

Craig yelped, jumping forward to wrap his arms around Harry as the older man made a lunge for Karl.

Snickering the Kiwi took a step back. “See?” he said to David, “Pure animal instinct, nothing else.”

“Karl,” Dave sighed, shaking his head, “Please excuse me while I go and try to find something to knock my head on,” he said to Craig, “I don’t think I can take these two alpha-males and their attitudes any longer.”

Both Karl and Harry fumed with indignation as Craig’s laughter joined David’s. Craig let slowly go of Harry as he felt the older man relax in his arms.

“Well then,” David said, “Can you two manage to stop marking your respective terrorities and call a truce till we’re safely back home?”
Silently Karl and Harry glared at each other. Finally both of them gave a short and reluctant nod.

“Come on, Craig.” David took Craig’s arm, “Let those two get on.”

Karl and Harry followed them in an icy but mutual silence.


~***~


“Sean?”

“Not now.”

“Sean.”

“I said not now!” Sean hissed, studying thesweets displayed in the shop window.

“Sean!”

“What?”

“You said your friends were almost here...”

“Yes?”

“Why are we hiding then?”

“Because I want to make sure that it’s really them and not somebody else.”

“Didn’t you say that you can sense them?”

“Yes. Could you let go of me for just a minute?”

“Sorry,” Viggo took a step back, crossing his arms in front of his chest, “Can’t you sense whether it’s really them or somebody else?”

“Viggo?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll explain later, okay?”

“No,” Viggo frowned, “But I guess I have no choice.”

Sean nodded, relief flitting over his face, “Can you se anyone on the other side of the road?”

Viggo turned, resting his back against the glass of the window Sean was looking through.

“There are some fifteen or twenty passers-by,” Viggo reported, trying not to squint, “Anyone special we are looking for? A group of about four people maybe?”

“All male?”

“Yeah.”

“Coming towards us?”

“Probably....”

“One tall, dark and handsome sulking with tall, blond and rugged and two smaller men, one blond and one brown-haired?”

“Sounds like them, yes.”

Viggo nodded. “Yupp, they’re almost here. You might want to turn around again. They know where you are anyway.”

“What?”


~***~


The first raysof the setting sun found a very angry Viggo sitting on something that looked as though it might have been a couch once and glaring angrily at Sean. An unpleasant, musty smell permeated everything in the room.

“Viggo, please,” Sean tried again with a deep sigh, “I am not trying to make fun of you.”

A piercing sea-green glare met his eyes.

“Viggo.”

“No.”

“But...”

“Just no, Sean,” Viggo leane back into the faded cushions, “I know I said I’d go with you but that was when I though that you were still remotely sane. I will not be part of your paranoia or whatever else this sudden display of madness is.”

“Viggo, you know that I have certain... strange talents... and I told you that my people were different...”

“I said no, Sean, I refuse to believe any of this nonsense.”

“But...”

“One simply doesn’t use portals to go somewhere.”

“I told you,” Sean pinched the bridge of his nose, “It is the truth. I explained....”

“No.”

“What?”

“You didn’t explain anything Sean. You just talked a lot of rubbish.”

“Viggo...”

“Sean...” mimicked perfectly.

“You know what I can do...”

“Yes, and I am sure that someday the gene mutations responsible for that will be isolated and classiefied and....”

“Fine!” Sean snapped, “Let’s just assume that there are others with such mutations...”

“That might be possible...”

“Stop interrupting me! Where was I? Ah, yes,” Sean started pacing again, “If you admit that there could be others – and there are – then couldn’t it be that those gene mutations gave us the means to build such a portal?”

“You’re trying to say that a twist of nature gave you superior technological knowledge to that of us - what did your scowling friend say? – normals?”

Sean winced, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Harry didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

Viggo merely raised an eyebrow.

“He didn’t,” sean insisted, “He’s okay once you get to know him better.”
“I can just imagine,” Viggo mumbled, “And I’m sure even this hackneyed tale of yours is supposed to make sense once you get used to it.”

“Just let him be, Beanie,” a voice suddenly commented from the doorway, “He’s one of those who are unable to believe anything.”

“I am quite able to believe the things I see, thank you very much.” Viggo glared at Harry, “And what I seem to be seeing here must be a case of group paranoia.”

“See?” Harry interrupted them again, addressing Sean once more, “Just leave him and come home with us. Your normal here,” he nodded at Viggo, “Will do well enough on his own.”

“No!” Viggo and Sean yelled at the same time, both of them glaring at Harry now.

“I am not leaving Viggo behind,” Sean insisted.

“You should.”

“He saved my life!”

“So did I,” Harry reminded him icily, “More than once.”

“Harry,” a new voice inerreupted them reproachfully, “If Sean wants to take Viggo along, then we’ll take him along.”

“But Craig, love...”

“No...”

“But...”

“Why don’t you go have a look at what Karl and David are up to?” Craig suggested, “I’d like to have a word with Sean and Viggo.”

Harry remained where he was.

“In private.”

Viggo almost could not believe his eyes as Harry really turned and left with only one more glare towards him – a glare promising death.


~***~


“Are you sure that this contact is safe?” Marton asked for the umpteenth time.

“Yes,” Dominic regretfully eyed the bottom of his beer glass, “You know,” he frowned, “There seems to be a problem with my beer.”
“And what might that be?”

Dom grinned. “It’s strangely translucent.”

“Oh yeah?” Marton sneered playfully, “That could be because it’s empty.”

“Really?” Dominic inspected the glass, “I think I hadn’t noticed.”

“Stop changing the subject.”

“Am I?”

“Are you what?”

“Changing the subject.”

“Yes,” Mareton growled, “And I’m sick of everybody’s little games. Who’s your contact?”

“Not gonna tell you.”

Fists clenched. “Dominic...”

“Let’s just say that he carries messages between me and a very powerful man in the military.”

“Military?” Marton repeated, “And you think he’s safe?”

“Yes I do,” Dominic signalled for the bartender to refill their glasses, “And I’m sure he’ll manage tofind a safe place for us.”

Marton looked more than just doubtful.


~***~


“I can’t believe I was crazy enough to agree to this madness.”

“And I can’t believe that Craig really managed to talk some sense into you,” Sean retorted, giving the American’s hand a squeeze, “But I’m glad he didit.”

Viggo just grumbled something unintelligible and stared at Harry and Karl, who were walking in front of him. Quietly they marched to the room in the safehouse where the portal was, each of them lost in his own thoughts.

“Crazy,” Viggo mumbled from time to time, his glare becoming less baleful with each barely audible grumble.


~***~


“Well?” Dominc asked, gesturing at the non-descript but nevertheless luxurious hotel room, “Isn’t this something else?”
“It surely is!” Marton answered from the mini bar. He was taking stock of the amount of alcohol in the room. And he liked what he counted. At least most of it.

“So,” he grabbed a baby bottle of vodka and flopped down on the bed, “Tell me again what you were doing before the underground whackos got you and where the fuck did you get a contact like this?” He paused for a moment. “And which line of work requires such contacts and sources?”

“Journalism.”

“Journalism?”

“Yupp,” Dominic decided to settle on Campari for the beginning and joined Marton on the bed, “I was a freelance writer for the Times before those lunatics got me.”

“So that source is from a story you’ve been working on?”

“Yes,” Dom emptied the bottle with one gulp, “But I haven’t got around to publishing that particular story yet. And I probably never will, considering what’s been happening. What were you doing before...?”

Marton sighed wistfully, “I’ve got a small motorbike shop in Soho and I thought I was happy with my boyfriend.”

“David?”

“Yeah,” Marton piled the remaining bottles of vodka on the awfully coloured bedcovers, “Guess what I felt like when I found out that he wasn’t exatcly what he seemed to be.”

“How did you find out?”

“Oh, wasn’t too much of a spectacle,” Marton let himself fall back into the soft cushions, vodka bottles safely stored in his hands once more, “Just a bunch of snipers and the likes rushing into our flat and trying to kill us.”

“Ouch,” Dominic winced.

“You can say that again.”

“How did you escape?”

“He had a portal in his study,” Marton growled, “One of those fucking portals!”

“At least you weren’t unconscious when they took you down.”

“No, but I had no choice either.”

“Damned Nighties,” Dom giggled, feeling the first effects of the alcohol.

“Indeed,” Marton agreed, toasting with his last bottle of vodka, “To a world of night left behind!”

“To a world of night left behind!”Dominic echoed, taking another hearty swig of Campari.