Shadows in the Mist

by Jeri Westerson

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was dark when we reached the caves. Both wolves were waiting for us at the entrance, their eyes reflecting our flashlight beams.

  George stood a little away from WereNick. “Are you gonna change back, Nicky? C-can you understand me?”

  The black wolf trotted forward and licked George’s hand. George snapped it away, holding it against his chest.

  “I think it’s best they stay as wolves,” said Doc. “Their hearing and sight are keener in that form. But don’t worry, deputy. He can understand you. He’s still Nick.”

  Upon hearing his name, Nick sat and woofed a little, panting. His tongue lolled and muzzle smiled, like some big, friendly German Shepherd.

  “How will we find the rift?” I asked, gripping my flashlight with a sweaty palm.

  “With this,” said Doc. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the scrying stick, an ordinary twig with a crystal and a feather tied to one end. The crystal was glowing. “It’s already working,” he said, eyes glinting.

  “But those caves have miles of twisty tunnels. How will we find our way back?”

  Jolene shivered in her coat. “Anyone bring bread crumbs? Or yarn?”

  “I can help,” said Erasmus, a little reluctantly, I thought.

  “Well then,” said Doc, holding the scryer aloft, like a Lord of the Rings character. “Shall we?”

  We all went in, the werewolves taking up the rear. I felt safer with them watching our backs.

  “This ritual,” I asked when I caught up to Jolene. “What is it, exactly?”

  She switched on her tablet, and the blue light glowed on her face, giving her a strange pallor. “Well, once we open the gateway rift, we say, ‘The passage is open. Let the demon Andras return to his own.’ Of course, roughly translated from R’lyehian, it’s more like, ‘Realm of darkness threshold; call the native of darkness to the hidden pit!’ It’s still what we want.”

  “But what about Erasmus? He’ll be standing right there. Will he be sucked in there, too?”

  “Even if I were, I am held here by the book. And my amulet you wear.”

  I touched it. Funny I used to touch it all the time when I first began wearing it. But now that I’d gotten used to it, it had become a part of me. It was warm, as always. Warm like Erasmus himself.

  “This is all very complicated,” I muttered.

  “As well it should be,” said Doc. “It wouldn’t do to have just anyone be able to open Netherworld rifts.”

  George tightened his hold on Nick’s clothing. I also noticed he had his gun out, for all the good it would do. “I still don’t like this.”

  I nodded though he couldn’t see me. “No one does, deputy.”

  Doc led us through the pitch-black cave. Outside the beams of light we cast, it looked as if there was absolutely nothing in front or behind us.

  Doc made his first turn into one of the many passages, following the bright flickering of the scryer. Once I passed through, I knew we’d gone past the point of no return. I wanted desperately to grab Erasmus’ hand, but I somehow felt that he wouldn’t appreciate it. He was on high alert. His eyes ticked from here to there, his jaw tensed tight.

  I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but there seemed to be a glow up ahead. When it didn’t fade, I was certain it was the vortex…rift…whatever they were calling it. Yes, there was definitely a distinctive green glow ahead, which we all seemed to notice at the same time.

  Ed couldn’t seem to help himself from cautiously taking out his gun. Well, I supposed if I could fire a chthonic crossbow quarrel into it, he could shoot a lead bullet.

  The glow was brighter the closer we got. When we turned a corner, there it was. A green, glowing crack in the air, rotating slowly. It did seem more of a rift than a vortex, if I was getting my terms right. There was something oddly three-dimensional about it, seen from all sides as it was. Like you could reach your hand in, though that would probably be a bad idea.

  Doc and the coven didn’t waste any time. Seraphina set down her bag and started removing candles from it. “These are going to smell a little when we light them,” she said. “They’ve been infused with blessed oils, not the most aromatic in my collection, but the most effective for what we want. We need to create an atmosphere to summon him and send him through. I ask that everyone take a candle and hold it throughout the ceremony. Mr. Dark, you are excused. It’s probably best you keep as far from the rift as you can.”

  Erasmus said nothing as he moved toward the back of the cavern, into the shadows he seemed to like best.

  “Kylie, I want you to hold the biggest one.” She handed me a fat pillar candle…that really stunk. If it was worse when we lit them…

  She situated us around the rift that hung there, glowing. I saw Ed holding a candle and looking around suspiciously. George kept glancing back at WereNick, who sat with Jeff well into the shadows and away from the rift. At least George had sheathed his gun.

  Doc found his place to stand. He took the scryer from his pocket. As he lifted it, it began to shine with a light so bright I couldn’t look at it. In a flash, all our candles were lit at once. It startled me so badly that I nearly dropped the crossbow. And boy, did the candle smell bad, like rotten eggs. Like sulfur.

  The coven began to chant: “Shogg nglui. ‘Ai n’ghft-oth Andras r’luh ebumna.”

  Over and over, they chanted the strange-sounding words. I didn’t like the sound of them. They made me feel adrift, lost. A terrible feeling of anxiety came with them. But how could that be, with mere words I couldn’t understand? The coven was so in sync that I began to sense a strange reverberation in my ears. But it was more than that. Everything started to shake. A deep thrum sounded, like the ticking of a clock…or the beating of a heart. It was regular, rhythmic, and it grew stronger each time they chanted.

  The glow of the rift began to change. It, too, brightened and darkened with this rhythm. The brightness became even brighter. I could feel in my gut this pull, this thrum, stronger and stronger, with an anxious intensity. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hurl the candle away, cover my ears, and close my eyes—but none of that was possible.

  Still they chanted, “Shogg nglui. ‘Ai n’ghft-oth Andras r’luh ebumna.”

  With a sonic boom that nearly knocked me off my feet, he was suddenly there. Andras. And he was angry. His eyes glowed bright red, his feathered wings outspread and fluffed up. His hands were curled into talons.

  “Who summons me? Who dares?”

  But the coven kept chanting, and though he didn’t lean toward it, his body seemed to stretch toward the rift, like some weird drawing, like a watercolor blurring and leaking toward one side. When I cast my glance toward the others, nothing looked normal. Everything was becoming a little out of focus and stretched, and that infernal throbbing was getting deeper and louder. “What?” Andras muttered. “What is happening?”

  I stepped forward the tiniest bit. “We’re sending you back.” I didn’t know where I got the courage to speak. My voice was a little shaky, but there it was. My need to know overcame my fear. “How did you use the Booke? How did you do it?”

  “You’re sending me back? No! I haven’t fulfilled my purpose.”

  “How did you use the Booke?”

  His eyes were panicked now and an even brighter red, like lava. “The book? Are you so ignorant that you don’t know?”

  “Then tell me.”

  A wind pierced the wall of green light from the rift and began to blow. It grew louder as the gateway opened wider.

  “Tell me how you did it. Tell me now!”

  He looked perplexed and annoyed, even as he stretched still further toward the rift. His face got blurry. “You are the Chosen Host. You should know.”

  “I don’t! Tell me! I know it’s a gateway.”

  “Of course, it’s a passage. But it’s also a tool. You merely have to—”

  A sudden roar behind me made me spin. My candle jolted, and smelly, liquid
candlewax flung outward, bright for a moment before disappearing into the utter blackness. The crossbow was jerked from my hand. Erasmus snatched the iron arrow from the flight groove, crying out as the iron sizzled in his hand. With another roar, he flung himself forward and sunk it like a knife deep into Andras’ chest. He shoved it all the way in with the flat of his hand.

  Andras howled. He was being stretched and distorted by the pull from the rift, but something else was happening to him, too. He fell to his knees and splayed his arms. It wasn’t like what the Booke did.

  It was much, much worse.

  He screamed as he suddenly went up in flames. I could clearly see the layers of him—skin and muscle—flay off like the dripping wax of a burning candle. His wing feathers were all aflame and smoked in dark, billowing clouds. He twisted in agony as layer by layer seared off until he was a fiery skeleton, skull mandible open in a silenced scream until it fell away at my feet. And then all his blackened bones simply crashed to the ground in a jumbled pile only to turn instantly to black, sooty ash.

  The chanting stopped. We all stared at the blackened pile of ashes that had once been my demon nemesis.

  With the cessation of the chanting, the rift stopped brightening and darkening. But it was still open, still waiting, and though Erasmus had said it wouldn’t take him, his body was doing a remarkable job of looking like it was being pulled in.

  “Close the rift!” I cried.

  Doc, who had been staring with shock at the murdered Andras, woke himself, raised the scryer and yelled unfamiliar words that I could only assume were ordering the rift to close. Slowly, the rift stopped pulsating light and began to pull back into its familiar crack shape. I didn’t feel in my gut that it was open anymore, but my Grandpa’s ghostly warning was suddenly sounding in my head, Village in danger. Door is opening.

  Erasmus stood defiantly in front of the rift, rimmed by its eerie light.

  I slammed the candle to the ground. “Why did you do that?”

  “He had to be stopped.”

  “It was controlled. He was heading toward the rift. I just needed to know—”

  He straightened his coat and raised his chin. “He needed to be stopped.”

  I stomped up to him and jabbed my finger in his face. “You knew I wanted to know more about the Booke. You knew that, and you deliberately killed him to stop him from telling me something, didn’t you?”

  “I did no such thing. He had to be stopped.”

  “You’re lying!” I stomped my foot. “Why are you lying?”

  “Because he’s a demon, Kylie.” Sheriff Ed suddenly closed his hands around my arms and pulled me backward, away from Erasmus.

  My finger was still aimed at him like a gun. “You know things you still aren’t telling me!”

  He clamped his mouth shut and would obviously say no more. Andras was definitely dead. He couldn’t do me any more harm. But what of Erasmus? What wasn’t he telling me?

  Despite how close we’d become, he had still lied. And that hurt the most.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  There was nothing to do but go back home. Erasmus clearly wanted to flee, until I reminded him in a deadly voice that he’d promised to help us leave the caves.

  He said nothing, only turned on his heel and stomped into the darkness. Doc helped me find my discarded flashlight, and we silently followed him. I couldn’t get the sight of Andras’ burning body out of my mind. Like hellfire. I suppose it literally was. Horrible. And though maybe he deserved it, I couldn’t drum up enough hate to believe it. Maybe Erasmus would die like that if the Powers That Be got ahold of him. I was steaming mad at him, but I didn’t ever want him to suffer like that.

  I glanced down at my crossbow. Amazingly, the bolt had returned, unburnt, unscathed.

  Ed must have been thinking along the same lines as me. He sidled up to me and said quietly, “I don’t want to see that happen to Shabiri.”

  “Oh. So you’re getting feelings for her?”

  “No. I just don’t think—even as crafty as she is—she deserves that.”

  “She helped the Ordo summon Baph—Goat Guy.”

  “Maybe she didn’t even know the harm it could do.”

  “She had to know more than she’s letting on.”

  He grunted a reply and then gestured toward Erasmus, trudging ahead. “What are you gonna do about him?”

  All I could do was shake my head. I was so furious I could barely think straight, let alone talk about it. I felt betrayed and stupid and used. He let us go on with this ritual, all the while he had planned to kill Andras himself. He had used us to draw the demon and make the weapon that killed him. Was it some old grudge? Was he afraid I’d learn more about the Booke than I should? Was he jealous of the power? It didn’t make sense, and the idiot wouldn’t tell me.

  Jeff and Nick had changed back after we’d made the long hike back to the cars. Doc threw Nick his keys to the Rambler. “See that Seraphina and Jolene get home. I’m going to ride with Kylie.”

  Ed cast a longing glance my way, his arm on the door of the SUV and his foot resting on the running board. When I didn’t acknowledge him, he frowned and ducked into his car. It rumbled as he pulled out of the gravel parking lot.

  Erasmus glared at me and vanished. Doc strolled to the passenger side of the car and got in. There was nothing I could do but get in, too.

  Before I started the car, he put his hand on my arm. “Wait a moment, Kylie. I’d like to talk to you. Start it, if you like though. We could use some heat.” I did and got the heater going.

  “Kylie, there’s no denying these past three weeks have been—well, for lack of a better expression, life-changing. You’ve gotten into some very dangerous situations. Experiences an ordinary person would never have to face.”

  I nodded. It was suddenly a bit overwhelming, and I found I couldn’t speak through the lump in my throat.

  “It’s been an emotional roller-coaster.”

  I nodded again.

  “And I know…you have feelings for Mr. Dark…”

  I shook my head furiously. No, that had to end. If I couldn’t trust him with my life, why should I trust him with my heart?

  “Well, be that as it may, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t say that I blame him all that much for his actions.”

  I turned to him, incredulous.

  “Far be it from me to approve of what a demon does, but that fella has had a lot to contend with. I’ve been studying the life of Constance Howland. As much of it as I can. And it seems to me that from the time she opened the book to the time she…she died, it was barely a week and a half. The other names that Mr. Dark mentioned to you, former Chosen Hosts, I looked them up too. Near as I can tell, once they had the book in their hands, they didn’t last more than a week. And you’ve had three weeks, going on four. Something is different this time. I have the sense that it’s about our participation—the coven and our willingness to help you. And now there’s Ed and George…and Jeff, when it gets down to it. There’s never been anything like this in the history of the book, I’m willing to bet. And that’s not all.”

  I didn’t want to hear anymore. I lowered my forehead onto the steering wheel.

  “He has feelings for you. You told me before that you think he’s in love with you, and that changes everything.” He touched my arm, pulling me away from the steering wheel until I sat back against the seat. “Don’t you see? He won’t hurt you, but it doesn’t mean he won’t lie. Maybe to protect you. Maybe to protect himself. But that is his nature. You can’t just treat this like any other love affair. It’s vastly different. Your life still depends on him and his help. And yes, I understand how important it is to know why he killed Andras. And I’ve been thinking about that, too. If Andras was sent back, he’d be free to roam the Netherworld. Maybe get into the clutches of the Powers That Be. And then they’d know what’s been going on here, and they may not like what they hear. And there’s something else. If he was summoned
once, he could be summoned again, and until we find out who did it the first time, we can’t prevent it from happening again.”

  “Ruth Russell,” I said with vehemence.

  “We’re still not sure of that. But there’s one more thing to think about. Mr. Dark’s actions could simply be as you said—that he didn’t want you learning more about the book, which bears some thinking. But in any case, try not to be too hard on him. He’s struggling as much as you are, fighting emotions he’s never felt before. And he doesn’t know how to reconcile how he feels with what he has to do. Remember, his entire creation was designed to kill and devour the Chosen Host. And now he can’t. Imagine the turmoil inside him.”

  I let Doc’s words wash over me, give me new strength. Erasmus was as much a victim of his circumstances, maybe even more, than I was. It was tragic. And tragedies never ended well.

  I cleared my throat. “I can see where you’re coming from.”

  “I hope you do. This is new for all of us.”

  “I know. I appreciate you helping me unpack it all.”

  “I can’t tell you what to do, Kylie. You must follow your own instincts. All I can do is offer my perspective.”

  “And it’s awfully helpful.” I finally put the car in gear and rambled down the dirt road. When I got to the highway, I saw that the Interceptor had been waiting for me. I guess we’d been up there a while. I flashed my headlights to signal we were okay and followed them up the road.

  I took Doc home. Nick hadn’t returned yet with his car, but Doc let himself in, turning on the lights in his living room to wait for Nick.

  I drove home by myself, brooding like a certain demon I knew. I parked in front of the darkened shop and got out of the car.

  The bell above the door sounded hollow as I entered into the near-darkness. I’d left a nightlight on, and wandered over to the stairs, glancing at the glass apothecary jars lined up like soldiers along the old buffet. My tea, both ordinary and exotic varieties, were nestled in those jars. My herbs were tucked into a myriad of little wooden drawers, each type labeled in careful pen on cards in brass frames over brass drawer pulls.