The Hellbeast King by Stephanie Hudson
It’s a Sign
“I can’t believe I am doing this!” I hissed, looking up and down the busy London Street. This before stepping foot down the ominous looking alleyway that God only knew where it led to.
“Bloody, Fae!” I hissed again, cursing my cousin, and using the only swear word my mom ever used. Which meant it always came out sounding native to where she grew up, in Liverpool, Northern England. As for myself, well, I was born and bred in the same house in Evergreen Falls that we lived in today, and I mean that in the literal sense as I was actually born in my family home… at the bottom of the staircase to be exact.
Evergreen Falls was about an hour away from Portland, in Maine, and was also where my father was from, which meant my accent was a mixture of US and Northern English twang.
Thanks Mom and Dad for that one.
But, as for right now, what I was doing was chasing my cousin around London. It all started with a school trip she had begged me to go on, seeing as it was my last year of high school. Seniors like me could choose the trip, one encouraged for those that were thinking about studying abroad or travelling around Europe after college. But the main aim of it was for the Sophomore’s history class, and for us, it was a chance for two cousins to spend some time together before I went off to college. Although, my parents were hoping I would choose the one close by that my Aunty Kaz had gone to, who was Fae’s mother.
It also had to be said that Fae was acting out of character. Fae was short for Faith and was my cousin’s middle name, one we called her far more than her first, which was Amelia. She was a girl who was normally the epitome of good behaviour and as far as I knew, hadn’t broken a rule in her life! Making me question what it was about this trip that had tipped her over the edge. Because it was when we were on the plane together and she had just woken me from a surprising new nightmare (something I suffered from on a nightly basis) that she confessed the truth.
She had snuck out of a window and forged the consent form, meaning that her parents had no idea she was even on this trip. Of course, I had freaked out, despite it being a bit late by that point. But she assured me that she would call them when we arrived, so they didn’t worry further. To say I was shocked would be the understatement of the year, seeing as it was a case of good girl gone rogue. But part of me could understand it. As let’s just say that her father was a little overprotective and well, a teenage girl who wanted a life outside of school and home was only going to be good for so long.
Meaning one Amelia Faith Draven had hit her limit.
But as for right now… well, I had no clue what she was planning. But I had a bad feeling that it had to do with a boy she liked and potentially had met over the internet or something. Of course, I had heard horror stories of catfishing, so naturally I feared for her safety. Because, despite her love of history, I had a feeling that meeting with someone here was the real reason behind this trip.
Which was why I had followed her from our hotel on the Strand and onto Fleet Street, having no clue of the time. I just knew it was dark and here I was, finding myself playing detective spy on the streets of London. And why was I doing this…? Because she was nearly sixteen, which made me the responsible eighteen-year-old and someone old enough to legally drink in this country. Hence, why it was the right thing to do when she told me she was sneaking out of the Savoy hotel.
But, after her confession to me on the flight over here, I wasn’t exactly surprised to find her parents turn up shortly after, as naturally they had freaked out. Now, I know what you’re thinking, that my cousin sounded bad news, right…? Wrong. She was actually what you would consider the geek of the family and basically the smartest person I knew. Plus, for the record, like I said, she never did crazy shit like this. Which was why, when she begged me to come along and sign myself up for the trip, I now understood the one condition she had, which was that I tell my parents last minute so my mom and her sister, my awesome Aunt and Amelia’s mom, didn’t have chance to ‘chat’ about it.
My cover story was simple. Someone dropped out last minute and they needed to make up numbers, so I got the trip as a reward for being on the honour role, which I was. And yeah, so Amelia wasn’t the only smart one in the family, but she was definitely the smartest. But with her it was all about history and with me, it was all about nature. Well, that and at one time another passion… but hey, that seemed like a lifetime ago.
A happier one.
I shook off the melancholy thoughts and tried even harder to push the dream from my mind. Something I had to admit wasn’t that easy. Ever since the first time I fell I’d had the same nightmare, but the one on the plane had been different, and every night since I had dreamt of…
Him.
He had called himself my Hell Beast King.
I shuddered at the memory of it and pulled my dark hood down over my red hair, one that would have been a beacon and dead giveaway in letting Fae know I was following her. But come on, what else was I supposed to do? She was like a sister to me. We didn’t exactly have a big family and being that we were both only children, it made sense we became close, despite the age gap.
But as for what was happening right now, I knew some blame had to be directed at my aunt and uncle because like I said, it wasn’t exactly surprising that at some point their daughter would push back. I mean, there were only so many times you could be told no when you asked to go out with your friends or to a party. Okay, so yeah, sneaking out and boarding a plane to Europe was a little excessive for a first-time act of defiance, as I was thinking something a little more low key… like the usual underage drinking with a friend or something. I mean, she did grow up in a nightclub for God’s sake, so I would have had money on that one. But then, that was Amelia for you, when she committed to something, she didn’t do it by halves.
God, and everyone had thought I had been the wild one.
That had always been my nickname growing up. Not because I was a juvenile or anything, but more the fact my parents could never seem to contain me. If I could have lived in a tent outside with nature, then I would have been the happiest kid in the world. In fact, my dad, Frank, loved it! I had been a tomboy through and through, and someone he could take camping and teach how to fish. I knew every knot there was and could have made them with my eyes closed. I could start a campfire with rubbing twigs together, and my dad joked that I could speak to the damn fish as I always caught more than him.
He used to joke that I used to whisper to them and could have just ask them politely to jump onto the boat and they would have. Of course, we always threw them back, because, hello, animal lover here. In fact, had I not grown up with a dad who loved steak so much and was a master at the BBQ, then I would most likely have turned out to be a Veggie.
Unfortunately, my will power only went so far and damn it, I loved a cheeseburger!
“Seriously, Fae, what the hell are you doing here?”I questioned on a whisper, feeling the comfort of my own voice as I glanced behind me for the millionth time, unable to shake the feeling that I was being followed. Then, I looked up at the building I had seen her slipping into, frowning when I read the antique illuminated sign overhead, one that flickered as though I had suddenly been sucked into some old-fashioned horror movie.
It read…
‘Ye Olde
Cheshire Cheese
Rebuilt 1667’
Wow, that was old. I mean, I was no history buff, but even I could appreciate something that old. I looked around the space, seeing that I was now stood in a mix of incredibly old and new rebuilt parts of modern London. The ‘Wine Office Court’ as it was called, started with a dark menacing alleyway, that looked more like some narrow tunnel that could have led to some drug cartel’s secret hideout for all I knew. Let’s just say, it didn’t exactly look inviting!
But then it did get marginally better after this, as it opened up into a line of fancy looking townhouses that grouped together as one would have made up a mansion-sized house. A pathed street was sandwiched between the two different buildings before opening up into what looked like a courtyard. One that was surrounded by the backs of office buildings before a single lane road could be seen straight ahead.
“Again, what the hell are you doing here, Fae?”I questioned under my breath, not expecting an answer. But then the writing in the old-fashioned glass sign above me started to blur, and I found myself staring at it in shock. Yet no amount of rubbing my eyes would make sense of what was happening or would make it go away.
Of course, none of this helped my fragile state of mind, as by the time my vision had refocused, it now read something entirely different…
‘Cerberus
Devil’s Elite
Fight Club
666’
“What the Hell?!”I hissed, questioning my damn sanity. I could have sworn blind that I just saw it read something different, unless I had read the name of the place off the sign on the wall and my mind had placed it there… if that was even a thing?
Did your mind do things like that?
I knew that it had the power to rationalise things that you thought you saw or heard. Like I would see a flash of something in the woods when hiking sometimes and tell myself it was just a deer or a buck. Not the man-sized wolf it had looked like at first. There was always an explanation for things. Like the shadows in my house, or old pipes groaning, things like that weren’t ghosts, they were just physical elements that came with living in an old house.
I mean, just how many ghost stories did you hear from people who lived in brand-new houses or apartments, and surely people died in all sorts of places. But you never heard of people seeing a ghost of a white lady lying on sun lounger by the pool, pretending she was sipping on a margarita whilst star gazing. And why did they only come out at night, huh, why weren’t they seen much in the day? Why would they have to hide if they were ghosts? And if the reasons were to be believed, they were only there because they had unfinished business and didn’t go into the light at the end of the tunnel like they should have. So, what if someone’s unfinished business was missing out on that beach holiday they had been saving for before they died?
Okay, so yes, I was rambling in my mind but hey, that’s what I usually did when I had cause to be scared shitless! Because according to that sign, my cousin had just disappeared into someone’s bloody fight club! And what was with the name ‘Devil’s Elite’? Was that the name of some type of gang? And that name, Cerberus, where had I heard that from before?
Was it someone my Uncle Dominic knew, as I swear I remembered hearing it before?
But more importantly, wasn’t it also the name of a three headed dog?
Or more like…
“Oh shit, I muttered as my dream came back to me and I found myself then uttering,
“A Hell Beast that guarded the Gates of Hell.”