Inbetween - Book 1 of the Guardian series

Chapter 11- Hunt and the mistake

Void space, close the living world, was strange. It wasn't exactly a colour, nor did it have a feel to it, it just existed. Fogs rolled through it, if they could be called that, clouds of gas and dust left over from the creation of the universe itself. There was light but from no source. And sometimes they would find something in it without having any idea what to expect.

It was a space which the paranormal used to 'cross worlds'. A place some cities had formed, just a few, between worlds. They acted as ports. Gateways from one to another. Many people passed through these void spaces without having any memory of the 'ports' between. Most passed through a port faster than they could blink. Even humans did it unconsciously, from time to time, blinking from one reality to an alternative without any awareness that anything had changed. That was how it was supposed to be. These cities were only meant for specific 'Guardians' to remain and observe what came in and out. 

Apollo's own duties were dependant on the living world itself. He didn't live in a 'port'. He lived in the In Between that was exactly between dead and alive.  Even now he didn't understand it exactly. 

Ducking a random alarm clock, which drifted past through the void, he gripped the side of the chariot harder as Artemis' hounds raced ahead of them unseen and on the 'scent'. They were approaching the area where it became the 'living void' and leaving the 'between void'. Artemis was already enclosing the chariot with thick glass till it resembled something closer to a small ship than a chariot. Her deer wouldn't suffer, they weren't actually alive, but she and Apollo could get hurt easily. With so much junk floating around it was possible anything could find them. 

It took them some time to find the building in the void, even with her hounds, after they'd reached the living void. Out here it was different, darker, murkier. Things couldn't survive here and anything they ran into was broken, dead, or close to it. The pressure of the 'living void' made the chariot groan. It always unnerved him, the way the living void was so different from the neutral one, how dangerous it was. Space was nothing compared to this place. Anything that could, had or would exist could pop in this place or vanish.

"There." Artemis replied softly as she slowed the chariot, sliding around a small yellow burning gas ball, perhaps the start of a future sun somewhere. The end of an old sun. Apollo didn't know.

There it was. A building in the middle of nothing.  Surrounded by gas and dust.

"How far from the port?"

"Far enough to be hidden. Close enough to reach. We'll let them know it's here." She replied softly. 

Then it was gone and Apollo scowled. The empty space filled fast with dust.

"Relax. They've put it into a living world." Artemis glanced at him as she pulled the 'reins'. "Three seconds."

Three seconds was all it took. Then they were in Earth. Scotland, he suspected, in the middle of no where. A field. Sheep. People entering the room as if it was very natural for a single room, something that might have been a basement, to appear in the middle of a field. 

"What year?"

"Fifteen twenty six." Artemis replied. Her clothing altered to suit the year, sliding over the armour, hair tying back. "King Henry the eight's trying to get Anne Bolyn into his bed. She's trying to get him into marriage.  Poor woman."

Apollo didn't care much about it. He changed too, changed to some rough homespun woollen clothing. Cap on his head, his long hair underneath it, and he followed her out. Her chariot now just looked like a regular cart. Tiny dirty ponies pawed the ground instead of large sleek deer. 

They didn't really need to do this but it was 'recommended' in case they were seen. Truthfully, Apollo thought it was slightly pointless with a basement sitting in the middle of a field of dirty sheep, but then the human mind might try and explain it. It would look like a stone box with a gap in the side A chariot and deer, with a man and woman shining, that could be seen as something else.