The Red King

By Russell Proctor

Alice’s time in Wonderland is long behind her, but an old enemy is painting London’s streets with blood in this dark fantasy horror series opener.

There is nothing deadlier than a little girl’s dreams . . .

Alice Liddell had adventures in Wonderland many years ago. Now she is grown-up, married and living a respectable life in Edwardian London. But her dreams have come back to haunt her…

A serial killer stalks the streets. Children and adults are being brutally murdered and drained of blood. The Red King is on a quest for revenge against the seven-year-old girl who humiliated him years ago.

Alice joins forces with Dorothy Gale, who had adventures of her own in a land called Oz. Together they hunt the Red King before he can enslave the world.

But Alice discovers that the Red King’s rampage may be all her own fault—fighting her own dreams isn’t easy.

The Red King is the first of Alice’s adventures concerning the mysterious Jabberwocky Book she discovered in Looking-Glass Land, a book that holds the key to the survival of four linked worlds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781618684837

Book preview

1

The Queen is dead.

Long live the King.

The Red King smiled. It was a good kill: he had spared the Queen too much suffering, just a quick thrust through her heart with the Bandersnatch knife. Best to do the deed quickly; he at least owed her that.

Through the tower window, from out of the Forest of Forget, came the clash of metal and the thud of battle-horses’ hooves as the Knights hurried towards the castle.

Curse them! They would know the Red Queen was dead; all the Land would tremble at her passing. The animals in the forest would know, the creatures on the river would know, as would the people in the towns scattered across the chessboard fields. But he was ahead of them all. His escape was ready.

He left the corpse where it was, crossed the room to a thick tapestry on one wall and pulled it aside. Behind was a disused fireplace with a mirror hung above it. He gripped the edges of the Looking-Glass, long crooked fingers wrapped far around the wooden frame, and stared at his reflection for a moment, smiling. He had been asleep too long—for an age or more. This was a good day, the best day. No more sharing the throne, no more chess game. No more Queen.

He closed his eyes and breathed in, waiting for the last few seconds of the last ten years to run out. The timing was so delicate, so fine…

Under his fingers, the Looking-Glass’s wooden frame trembled for a moment, and was still. The air temperature plunged.

Now!

The King opened his eyes and looked into the mirror. His reflection blurred and faded. Colours swirled, shifted, coalesced again to form the drawing room of a comfortable house. His image was nowhere to be seen; the glass reflected neither the throne room, nor the tapestries on the walls.

Something behind him—a bright flash of light? He turned his head, but there was no one else alive in the room. Three loud explosions like thunder filled the air around him in quick succession. Then silence.

He tensed, suddenly afraid. Had the Knights arrived already? Were they pounding the castle with cannons? But no, that was not possible; the sounds must have been in his head. It was nerves; fear; adrenalin from the murder of his wife. He chided himself for being weak. Fear was irrational, something not felt by Kings.

He smiled and faced the Looking-Glass again.

It was time to pass through…Yet still he paused: was this right? Was it the way? While the Knights were in the forest surrounding the castle all was safe, for there they could not remember anything. The trees sucked away memory, drinking it through their roots, using it to confound those wandering beneath them. Even the Knights’ own names would be lost. But when they eventually emerged from beneath the brooding trees they would remember their quest. Then mercy would be the one thing left forgotten.

He glanced back again at the body of the Queen, at her open, staring eyes: so blue, as blue as the ocean that washed the shores of the Land. He had never noticed their lustre before. But she was quite dead. Yes, escape through the Looking-Glass was the only thing to do. There was no ruling the Land now. The Knights would see the corpse and rip out his heart for what had been done to the Queen.

But they would be too late: once the King passed through the Looking-Glass, the Knights could not follow. Let the silly creatures hunt all they liked. Now, he was free, and ready to begin again.

He used a chair to climb onto the mantelpiece of the large fireplace over which the Looking-Glass hung, took a deep breath, and stepped through. A moment of darkness as realities collided, a moment of disorientation as his body adjusted to being in a new universe, and he was there. No problem at all—a child could do it.

Once, long ago, a child had.

A room in a house surrounded him now instead of the castle. Richly furnished, with dark blue wallpaper; a fireplace filled with black, cold ashes; a heavy panelled door, carved with geometric shapes. Early dawn peeked through the curtains. So this was the world on the other side of the Looking-Glass. The King climbed down from the mantelpiece.

Sudden weakness hit him. His legs were unable to support his weight. Somehow, form and substance vanished here. He felt faint and grabbed the corner of the fireplace. An effect of the transition between worlds, perhaps. Life-force drained away.

He looked at his hands. They were transparent. He was becoming a ghost, fading away to nothing. Panic hit him. He turned back to the Looking-Glass, but it was already too late; its power was gone in the transference. There was no return that way, not yet, not until the power built up again in ten years’ time.

The King’s body faded, washed out, until just a shadow remained, an outline of darkness on the carpet, the wan light through the window the only illumination to give any sign of his reality. Was this how forms existed in the other world? It was not right, not the way it should be.

Without warning, the door opened. He swung to face it, white teeth bared in a snarl, one hand reaching for the Bandersnatch knife in his belt. But his scowl turned to open-mouthed astonishment.

It was her! Older, taller, but there was no mistake—the same long blond hair, the same pale face: the girl in his dreams, the Yellow Child, the one who had dared to become a queen. She stopped with one hand on the doorknob, the other hand holding a lighted candle, looking into the room.

The King drew the knife from its sheath, but it, too, was merely a thing of shadow. The blade that just a few minutes ago had sliced between the ribs of the Red Queen could do this woman no harm. He groped backwards towards a small table on which a heavy vase sat, but his hand went through it, as insubstantial as a wraith’s.

The woman stood, peering into the room, the candle held high. Then she saw his faint ghostly outline, made more definite by the candlelight. There was enough form yet left to define the face and the robes and the crown on his head. They were familiar, coming back to her memory after many years.

Their eyes met for a fraction of a second, and she nodded.

‘You,’ she mouthed, and glanced at the drawn knife in his hand. But still she did not move or try to protect herself.

He screamed, a howl of anger and frustration and defiance, but no sound reached the woman. His mist-like body could not distort the air enough to be heard. The Yellow Child just stood and glared back at his mutely howling face. He rushed towards her, and at the last moment she flinched, holding the candle up between them. As his face came close to hers, he took on a more solid form. There was a moment when he might have been corporeal enough to grab her, to ask what was happening, why he was a ghost…

* * *

…Alice woke, body twisted under the bedclothes, one arm held up as if to ward off a blow. The bedroom was in darkness, just a thin stream of moonlight leaking through the thick curtains. On the dressing table, a clock ticked loudly: four o’clock in the morning.

She sat up as the last shreds of the nightmare fell away, ran a hand through her long blonde hair and sighed out a breath. Then she rose and crossed to the window. The curtains were slightly drawn. Outside, London lay in the quiet of dawn, still asleep, unaware. Alice remembered her vision.

He was here, the Red King. But why? Why, after all these years, could the Land not remain just a dream? The time was right: ten years. Ten years since the Looking-Glass had last spat out something from the ragged edges of the mind…

Alone in the darkness of the bedroom, Alice began to cry.

2

There were new worlds everywhere, Dorothy Gale decided. New worlds to go with a new century.

Most strange were the worlds next door, the ones that lay only a few days’ travel away. They weren’t reached by riding a cyclone or even falling down a rabbit hole, but by boarding a ship and spending a few uneventful days at sea. She stood outside Waterloo railway station and stared about her at the swarm of London, capital of the Old World: as far from Kansas as it was possible to be, she reckoned, without actually going back again. Wonders were nothing new to her, of course, but even the Emerald City’s grandeur had a rival in this seething metropolis.

Dorothy was used to arriving in a new land unceremoniously, dumped there with no resources; the last time had been by shipwreck with only a hen for company. But this was somehow more disconcerting, arriving with a suitcase borrowed from her cousin and a few other pieces of luggage that Aunt Em had insisted she would need. The train journey from Kansas to New York, the voyage across the Atlantic, another rail trip from Dover where the great ocean liner had docked: it had been an interesting four weeks. But it was not how she was used to travelling at all. Even though it was the way everyone else travelled—the way, indeed, one was meant to travel—it somehow felt wrong.

‘Miss Gale?’

A man stood beside her. He was tall, middle-aged, dressed in pin-striped trousers and black jacket, a thin moustache across his upper lip which literally looked like it had been drawn there. She backed away from him a step or two, hugging her handbag close to her chest.

‘I am Cartwright,’ said the man. He attempted to smile, but in Cartwright’s case this was never more than a sucking in of his upper lip so that his moustache disappeared. He nodded self-consciously. ‘Mrs Hargreaves’s butler. I presume you are Miss Dorothy Gale?’

Dorothy nodded. She had never met a real-life butler before: not, at least, a private one to an English person. She had seen pictures of them, and had noticed several valets and maids travelling with their employers on the ship. But a real-life butler who actually came to pick her up at the station—that was another new experience in this new world.

For his part, Cartwright surveyed the young girl dubiously. He was not an expert on young girls, or females of any sort for that matter. The girl’s freckles and bright expression indicated nothing to his mind other than a fairly gormless naivety. The plain brown travelling dress likewise hinted at simple tastes and modest means. The thick, red hair—well, best just to ignore it completely.

‘It is my duty to escort you to Mrs Hargreaves’s home,’ said Cartwright, sallying forth despite his doubts. ‘She sends her apologies that she is unable to meet you in person, and that you had to find your own way from Dover.’

‘Thank you, Mr Cartwright.’ Dorothy found her voice at last, and performed a curtsey.

‘Please, Miss Gale, call me Cartwright. No mister is needed.’

The girl was from America; Kansas, apparently. From what he had heard of the place, they had no sense of class at all, no bearing, as his father would have said. Kansas was part of the Corn Belt, whatever that was. Full of farmers, no doubt, all decked out in overalls with pitchforks in their gnarled but honest hands. It sounded ghastly. He performed his sucked-in smile again, the moustache re-appearing afterwards like a moist caterpillar.

‘And I assure you that it is not necessary to curtsey to me.’

‘I didn’t know if I should do that,’ she said. ‘You bein’ my first butler an’ all.’

He sighed. ‘You’re a guest. A curtsey is inappropriate.’ He turned to her suitcase. ‘Is this your luggage? Permit me to obtain the services of a boy who can assist us with that. And we’ll need a growler.’

‘A what?’

‘A cab big enough to take your luggage. The omnibus will be too crowded. Please wait here.’ He strode off, leaving a faint whiff of moral indignation in the air.

A few minutes later he returned with a small but brawny lad in tow and a two-horsed Clarence cab ready to receive them. The boy helped the cabbie to load Dorothy’s luggage onto the growler and took the coin Cartwright handed him.

They rattled along in silence for a while, Cartwright staring out of the window with all the aloofness Dorothy had heard butlers should possess. She shuffled her feet and fidgeted with her handbag. Eventually she could stand it no longer.

‘Have you been workin’ with Mrs Hargreaves long?’ she asked.

There was a moment’s pause as Cartwright considered the dangers of entering into idle conversation with a guest.

‘Two years,’ he replied eventually. ‘Mister Hargreaves was good enough to take me in. Now, please refrain from talking. I’ve been asked to acquaint you with certain rules before you meet my employer. So be patient and listen attentively.’

Dorothy had briefly been to school, where she had learned the basics of reading and writing, until Uncle Henry could no longer afford to send her. The teacher had acted just like Cartwright, and said the same sort of things. It had annoyed her then, too.

The butler reached into a breast pocket and extracted a carefully folded piece of paper and a pencil. Dorothy could see lines of meticulous script. Cartwright cleared his throat.

‘Number one,’ he read. ‘On no account—’

‘Excuse me,’ said Dorothy politely, ‘but are these Mrs Hargreaves’s rules?’

The child would apparently continue to ask questions, despite his enjoinment to sit still and be quiet. How odd. ‘Not all of them. Some are mine. Number one–’

‘Which ones are yours and which are hers?’

‘Number one. On no account are you to enter the cellar.’ He made a small, neat tick next to that item on the list. ‘Number two—’

‘Why would I want to go into the cellar?’

They crossed the Thames on Westminster Bridge and headed for Trafalgar Square, then onto Mayfair. Some rows of houses on either side momentarily distracted Dorothy, who gazed out at the identical buildings, all attached to each other, surrounded by high steel railings. What a strange way to live. And so little grass or trees anywhere. Again she thought with a touch of nostalgia about the tiny one-roomed farmhouse she used to share with her aunt and uncle. That was odd—she had never felt sentimental about that rickety old shack before. It was far away now, of course, carried off by a tornado.

‘Number two…’

But Dorothy was only half listening as she continued to look at the city passing by. There were quite a few rules Cartwright was reading out, mostly about her not going to places in Mrs Hargreaves’s house where Cartwright did not want her going, times of meals and so forth. It sounded like an enormous house. After the first dozen mundane regulations, however, there were a couple of more peculiar ones.

‘Number thirteen,’ said Cartwright, turning the page over. ‘On no account are you to play chess or cards, or request to do so. Do you have any chess sets or cards in your luggage?’

‘Don’t play either of them. Uncle Henry plays cards occasionally, but Aunt Em gets mad if she finds out. She reckons he loses too much money.’

‘I am not interested in your family’s distractions. I am interested in you.’

‘I can understand Mrs Hargreaves not likin’ cards or chess. But why can’t I play ’em if I want to?’

Answering foolish questions was none of Cartwright’s concern, particularly questions to which he did not know the answer. Mrs Hargreaves had forbidden chess and cards, which was reason enough. He ticked number thirteen a little more firmly than the others.

‘Number fourteen. Mrs Hargreaves serves tea at four-fifteen each Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoon. You will be prompt in attendance as Darjeeling is not pleasant lukewarm. Besides, she often has ladies in attendance who don’t like waiting for guests.’

Dorothy refrained from asking what Darjeeling was.

He double-checked both sides of the paper, made sure that each item on the list had a tick beside it, folded it and slipped it back into his pocket. Another job done. ‘Any questions?’ he asked.

‘I’m allowed to ask questions now?’ she asked.

‘Of course.’

‘In that case, Mr Cartwright, I don’t have any.’

The butler sighed heavily and gazed out of the window for the first time since the journey began, sucking in his moustache thoughtfully. Then he let it out again with a dull pop of wet lips. Dorothy only just prevented herself from laughing.

The rest of the ride continued in silence.

3

Alice Pleasance Hargreaves (neé Liddell) poured a measure of whisky into her teacup, added water from a carafe, then returned the decanter to the tantalus. She sat back on the white-upholstered long chaise in her drawing room and took a slow sip. The whisky was raw in her throat at this hour of the morning. No doubt Cartwright would have something to say if he knew. But even if he did, the level of whisky in the decanter was none of his business.

Around her feet on the floor was a pile of well-read newspapers. The one on top was today’s London Times. Of course, most of the main news still dealt with the funeral of Queen Victoria who had been laid to rest just nine days earlier. The nation would be in deep mourning for a while yet. Alice herself had never known any other ruler of England. But she was not interested in that news at the moment. The pages were turned over to the minor articles, the sensational pieces more favoured by the working class than one of Alice’s position. Along with a week’s worth of the Times were other daily and weekly papers and magazines published in London. All had been read over several times; some had articles circled in ink and notes written in the margins in Alice’s small, fine calligraphy.

The girl should be here soon. No doubt Cartwright was laying down the law as he saw it, which Alice was fine with: children needed order and rules to follow. But for some reason she felt a little nervous. This was no mere child, this was Dorothy Gale. Alice took another sip of her whisky and wondered for a moment if she should tidy up the newspapers before her guest arrived. But no—they might be needed, and she had not finished with them yet anyway. Another thing for Cartwright to dislike.

She bent down and picked up that day’s Illustrated London News. It was turned to an article that took up a bare inch at the bottom of one column.

A ghost had been in Whitechapel. Not a newsworthy event, normally, but the Illustrated London News enjoyed such reports as much as any other paper. The report was no doubt exaggerated anyway, as some imaginative journalist filled in missing details. This ghost had been seen in broad daylight, drifting across the road. A horse and cart passed through it before it could stop, and perhaps a dozen people reported seeing the apparition. It was bizarre enough to rate a mention in the news, although Alice had her doubts that it had occurred at all. Whitechapel was a slum area of London where humans had lived out hard lives for generations, and all sorts of ignorance and fancies prevailed there.

She picked up another paper, from a few days ago, The Daily Telegraph. Her husband would object to having this working class broadsheet in the house. But then, Reginald objected to a lot of things. He was, however, presently in Singapore for some time on business, so Alice felt free to indulge herself. In the Telegraph was a story about a woman found practicing witchcraft who ‘vanished without trace’ when a neighbour reported her to the police and they came knocking on her door.

And in the London Police Gazette was a graphic photograph of a body huddled in a doorway, a knife plunged into its chest. Little was visible of the body’s features, but of course the Gazette would try to be as discreet as possible in its portrayal of gore. There was a close up picture of the knife taken by the coroner’s photographer. It appeared to be an ordinary carving knife, not like the one Alice had glimpsed the night the ghostly phantom emerged from the Looking-Glass. But that meant nothing: the tools of a killer were universally to hand.

It was possible that these newspaper reports scattered across the carpet might have nothing whatever to do with Alice’s business, but she couldn’t risk ignoring anything that might be a clue. Ghosts, murdered women, witches…the trouble was she really didn’t know where to start. It might make just as much sense to do the crossword or read the results of the flower show.

A knock at the door: Cartwright’s polite rap. He and the girl must have arrived while she was absorbed in the papers. Alice drained her whisky and set the cup aside, then drew the papers together into a neater pile, letting them remain on the floor.

‘Come in,’ she said, at the last moment checking that her hair lay in an attractive sweep across her left shoulder. Her husband always felt it made her look more affable. Besides, Alice was not one for the current fashion of waving the hair.

Cartwright opened the door with a minimum of noise and movement. ‘Miss Dorothy Gale,’ he announced, and waited, poised for further instructions.

The girl who came into the room was small and nervous-looking, not at all what Alice had expected—almost a timid mouse. Not an auspicious start. As she entered, a white cat sidled in past Dorothy’s legs and jumped onto the long chaise where Alice was sitting as if it, too, was anticipated.

Alice rose and smiled. ‘Hello, Miss Gale,’ she said. ‘I’m Alice Hargreaves. Please come in.’

Dorothy entered, looking about the room wide-eyed.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Hargreaves,’ she said, and remained staring.

It was an opulent room. The carpet was rich and deep, the furnishings lavish, the tables and shelves covered in fragile ornaments of china and glass. A book case against one wall was filled with volumes of all sizes and thicknesses. In the fireplace, coal burned against the winter chill.

‘Your mouth is open, Miss Gale,’ said Alice. ‘I don’t regard that as a major breach of etiquette, but I fear you might find it embarrassing.’

Dorothy shut her mouth with a snap, suddenly ashamed of her awkward farm-girl ways in the presence of this lovely woman.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hargreaves,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve just never seen so many books in one place before. And your house is real nice.’

‘Those are my husband’s books,’ said Alice. ‘Besides the newspapers, Reginald reads little other than English history and the most atrocious adventure stories. I believe Monsieur Jules Verne is one of his favourites. I don’t have time for such fantastical trivia. My books are in the library.’

Dorothy gasped. There was a library in this house? A whole library? She clutched her handbag as if it was full of confidence.

‘But please, sit down,’ continued Alice. ‘You must be tired. Cartwright, I’m sure Miss Gale would like some tea.’

‘No thanks, Ma’am,’ the girl replied. ‘We don’t drink it back in Kansas, and I’ve never taken to it, like.’ She sat down in the high-backed chair indicated, her feet not quite reaching the floor.

‘Sadly, neither have I,’ said Alice disarmingly. She glanced at the tea cup on the table and hoped it remained unnoticed. ‘That is, I do indulge occasionally merely to keep my guests company.’ This was true. Although polite society demanded she give and attend tea parties, she hadn’t enjoyed one in many years, not since... Alice smiled to herself. Well, that was a memory that arose out of the dim past. Suffering through a tea party with an insane milliner and two talking animals was enough to make anyone never want to touch the stuff again. ‘But can I offer you anything at all?’

‘Jus’ maybe a glass of water, thanks, Ma’am.’

With a practiced style, Cartwright moved to the sideboard and poured some water from the carafe into a glass, which he placed in front of Dorothy, slipping a small lace doily under it at the same time. He glanced at the teacup on the table, but declined to even shake his head.

‘Thank you, Cartwright,’ said Alice. ‘Nothing will be required for me. Please take Miss Gale’s luggage to her room.’

After the butler had left, the girl and woman looked at each other in silence for a while. Alice continued her quiet observation of Dorothy, who was still gazing around the room. Yes, a very small child, thin and gawky. So young, so naïve. Maternal instinct arose in the older woman and she almost wanted to tell the girl to return to Kansas, that she was sorry for inviting her, that things had changed now and Dorothy would be better off not getting caught up in them. But it was too late, of course. Far too late. They would just have to see the business through. Outside the window, London shivered under the February sky. Inside, Alice shivered too, despite the fire. The cat leapt onto her lap.

Opposite her, Dorothy tried to keep her eyes from tracking around the room, taking in this new world. A butler, a library, books. On a small table beside her was a delicate china figurine of a satyr. She hugged her arms in close, remembering the Land of Porcelain she had once visited in Oz, where even the people were made of fine china. Enough damage had been done there.

Sitting ramrod-straight on the long chaise, Mrs Hargreaves stroked the white cat, which had started purring.

‘So, Miss Gale,’ Alice said, taking the conversational lead as hostess. ‘I’m glad you could come at such short notice. I hope your trip was pleasant.’

‘Yes, thanks, Mrs Hargreaves,’ the girl replied, nodding. Her Midwestern accent sounded ridiculous here in Mayfair.

The older woman seemed to notice the cat for the first time. She lifted it down onto the floor, where it curled up under her feet. ‘I’m plain old Alice Liddell to you, Miss Gale. I think you’ve earned