by H. Duke
The girl’s hair was uncombed and dark smudges covered her face. April felt a pang of sympathy for her. It wasn’t her fault she’d gotten swept up in all this.
“Girlie! You decided to join us!” William the Brutal said.
Perhaps Thaddeus had lost his concentration after the girl’s reappearance, or perhaps he wasn’t expecting William to reach back for the girl, but that’s what he did. His arm slowed for a moment, but he broke through whatever force was holding him.
He curled his hands around the girl’s arm and pulled her towards him in a terrible bear hug.
“No!” Thaddeus said. He still strained, as though he thought he could bring the monster back under his control, but it was too late. “Let her go!”
“Nope.” William the Brutal said through the ink rot covering his mouth. “And I’m not putting her back where she belongs, either. But she’ll wish that I had. She’d prefer a simple trampling.”
He began to lumber away from them.
Thaddeus, no longer needing to stay inside, ran outside the door to stand next to April.
“Why didn’t you inject him?”
“I was looking for a vein.”
“It’s too late for that,” he said. “You have to stab that thing into the first bit of flesh you can, got it?”
She nodded. “You have to cast the spell again,” she said. “There’s no way I can get him while he’s moving.”
Thaddeus looked doubtful, but he nodded. He raised the wand and muttered the words under his breath.
Nothing happened.
“Any moment now,” she said. “He’s getting away!”
William the Brutal shambled along, hampered by his size. He tried to move at a fast pace, making his gait even more awkward. If he got any larger, his body wouldn’t be able to support itself.
Thaddeus’ face screwed into an intense look of concentration as he muttered the incantation. He pointed the wand at the monster, but nothing happened.
After several seconds he lowered his wand with a sharp outtake of breath.
“I can’t,” He held out his hand for the syringe. “Here. I’ll inject him. It’s too dangerous for you.”
“No way. This is my job.”
“You’re the Pagewalker, aren’t you? Don’t a thousand universes depend on your care? No one depends on me. I’m expendable.”
She was the Pagewalker; that much was true. She looked down at the syringe in her hand. If she gave him the syringe he wouldn’t succeed, and the monster would likely hit him with a backward swing of his hand. The only way they’d beat this was to work together—really work together.
“No,” she said. “It’s not true that no one needs you. I need you, right now, to do this spell. You just did it a few minutes ago, remember? What’s the problem now?”
“I’m depleted,” Thaddeus said. “I’m not a self-replenishing font of magic.”
She searched for a way to inspire him. “That sounds like Thaddeus the Collector speaking,” she said. “Witches and wizards can do this kind of magic almost indefinitely, right?”
Thaddeus nodded. “But—”
She didn’t let him speak. There wasn’t time. “Aren’t you the son of a witch? Doesn’t magical blood run through your veins?”
“Yes, but—”
“Well, use it. Or he’ll take Sara. And it’s so much worse than it was before. You can save this one.”
He looked at her for a moment. She thought he was going to protest again, but then his jaw hardened, and he nodded.
He turned back towards the creature with his wand extended. He muttered the words under his breath, but this time he spoke more loudly. She couldn’t discern their meaning, but power radiated from them.
Something in Thaddeus’ face caught her eye. She could have sworn his irises flashed that same glowing blue they had after he’d swallowed the threshold. But it was gone in under a second.
It didn’t matter, because after that something else appeared in his gaze: Triumph.
She turned her head towards William the Brutal. He was frozen in place. A cry of rage escaped from his lips.
A cry that was echoed by Sara.
“He’s squeezing me!” the girl cried, terror obvious in her voice.
“Go,” Thaddeus said through his gritted teeth, but the command faded behind her. She’d already started running.
She ran up to the monster, who was facing away from her. She could see Sara’s frightened face over his shoulder.
“Sara, are you okay? Is he squeezing you?”
The girl’s face was tear-streaked. “Not anymore,” she said, gasping. “But I still can’t…” she trailed off, her mouth opening and closing like that of a fish. April needed to hurry.
April could still see the monster’s thighs. She’d planned on just plunging the needle into his muscle, but if Sara was having a hard time breathing, it might take too long for the serum to be absorbed enough to take effect.
She searched for a moment, then spied a vein on his calf. No time to think—she reached out and carefully but quickly stabbed the needle in, careful not to push too far through…
She pushed down on the plunger.
William the Brutal howled, and April felt a shudder move through his body.
“You’re going to pay for that,” he growled, and April could tell that he meant it.
“I seriously doubt it,” she said, and pushed down on the plunger, emptying the syringe.
A good thing, too, because a moment later William the Brutal reached back and pulled the syringe from his calf. April winced as the needle snapped in half, remaining stuck inside his skin. The sensation of the serum entering his blood stream must have broken Thaddeus’ hold on him.
Without the extra pressure of William the Brutal’s arm on her, Sara began gasping and coughing. She wriggled free.
“Come here,” April said to the girl, opening her arms so that she could run into them. Sara began moving towards her—her legs shook beneath her, but otherwise she looked unhurt.
“I don’t think so!” William he reached down and scooped the girl up again. “Like I said—you’re going to pay for that. Or, more accurately, she will.”
Sara screamed in fright, and seconds later the sound choked out as William the Brutal began to squeeze. This time it seemed like he fully intended to squeeze the life out of her, like a boa constrictor dispatching its dinner.
“Let her go!” April said. She began striking the monster’s legs with her hand. Why wasn’t the serum working yet? Maybe it wouldn’t work at all… she reached into her pocket and pulled out the hand gun. She raised it to aim.
She was about to pull the trigger when a look of consternation came over William the Brutal’s face. His neck contracted as though he was fighting back vomit. A series of tremors moved through his body, starting from his torso and travelling upwards, then downwards again from the top of his head.
Sara began to slip from his grip. He wasn’t loosening his hold on her; his arms was shrinking. She fell to the ground. April held her arms out to the girl, but she ran instead to Thaddeus, throwing her arms around his neck.
“I’ve got you,” Thaddeus said to her. He seemed just as surprised as April that the girl had chosen to run to him. April walked over and stood next to them and then they turned around to watch Officer Powers. The man shrunk down, his look of anger and frustration transforming into one of frightened helplessness.
But something was wrong.
“Do you see what I see?” Thaddeus said. “Please tell me I’m crazy.”
April nodded. “The ink rot’s not shrinking.”
While the pallid, normal-sized form of Officer Powers now lay on the cobblestone street, the outline of William the Brutal remained standing. A dark, shiny, ink-like form. It was as though Officer Powers had been a mold, and the ink rot had formed a shell around it, and now could stand on its own.
Finally, Officer Powers’ convulsions stopped and he lay still on the street. The ink-monst
er loomed over him. It wasn’t a complete humanoid form; the ink rot hadn’t covered his entire body, after all. The form in front of them included a mouth, part of a nose, and one eye. Both legs were present, but the left arm was missing.
“What’s that?” Sara said, peeking up from Thaddeus’ neck.
“I don’t know,” Thaddeus said. He turned to April and said under his breath, “Has this happened before?”
She shook her head. She didn’t get a chance to say more, because the ink rot began to spread. Not downwards in the direction that gravity should bring it, but out to complete the shape of the other side of the face, and the missing arm. It was as though it were spreading over an invisible form, filling in the empty spaces.
Rex snapped and growled at the form. The dog began backing up, the hair down the center of his back raised in a continuous quivering line.
“That can’t be good,” Thaddeus said.
“Go back to the library, Rex,” April commanded the dog. Whatever was about to happen, she didn’t want Rex here. Randall needed him. “Go back to Randall.”
Rex looked unconvinced, but then a final glance at the ink-form sent him running towards the doorway where the gate had been.
April was glad she sent the dog away, because moments later the ink monster began to turn its head.
“Is it supposed to move like that?” Thaddeus said.
“I’m going to say no,” April said. “But it is!”
The monster turned its head to look at them.
Then, to April’s surprise, it opened its mouth. It gargled as a giant bubble of ink rot ballooned out, hanging taut in the air for several seconds before bursting.
“What’s it doing?” Thaddeus said. He’d turned away from the ink monster, Sara clutched protectively to his chest.
“I think it’s trying to speak.”
The monster turned away from them and down at Officer Powers, who lay on the ground moaning. He’d been unconscious when he first turned back into himself. He opened his eyes, and when he saw the ink monster looming over him, he squealed and scrambled to his feet, swaying back and forth.
Before he managed to get his balance, the ink monster reached out one hand towards him, brushing him gingerly on the cheek. Officer Powers stepped away from the ink monster’s reach—the ink monster didn’t try to pursue him. The reason why became apparent as strings of ink rot remained connected between Officer Powers’ cheek and the monster’s hand.
Officer Powers stared at the strings, a look of revulsion on his face. No matter how far back he stepped, they simply stretched further.
Then the spot on his cheek began to spread. Each round node grew larger, spreading more nodes around it in an infinite spiraling pattern.
Officer Powers began to scream.
The strands started to suck, straw-like, drawing the life force out of Officer Powers.
April remembered what it had felt like the first time she’d touched ink rot. It had been on the face of the boy in A Country Romance. She’d felt like it had been sucking the life out of her, too. This was accelerating much faster than normal ink rot, which could leech off a single character for months.
“I have to help him.” She stepped forward, reaching her arm out. It was her job, after all.
Thaddeus grabbed her wrist, pulling her back. “No,” he said. “This is different—can’t you feel it?”
He was right. The gate whispered it to her in the back of her mind.
They watched, helpless, as Officer Power’s body grew purple. A few sucks of the ink rot later and his skin started to dry out. One more suck, and his eyes closed. April didn’t know if he was dead or only passed out, but she was glad he wasn’t conscious any longer.
The ink monster released its hold on Officer Powers, the tendrils of rot snaking their way back to the monster and rejoining the shiny, homogenous mass that was its body.
Its mouth opened again, “Pagewalker.” The words escaped, almost unintelligible. “This world is mine!”
“What the hell does that mean?” Thaddeus asked, his eyes wide. Sara moved to look at the monster, but he covered her eyes so that she couldn’t see.
“I think it doesn’t want us to save this world,” April said. Did this happen to every blackened book? Or was this because of Dr. Jekyll’s serum?
“What do we do?” Thaddeus said. “We can’t fight that thing.”
“I don’t think we have to. If we get Sara back to her scene, everything resets,” April said. “We need to get back to the library.”
“We’ve got a clear shot to the portal,” Thaddeus said. He nodded towards the doorway. They could see the shimmering veil—Rex must have left the door open when he’d gone back. They should be able to make it, especially if the ink monster was as awkward as William the Brutal had been at that size.
“Let’s go.”
They started running for the portal. April couldn’t hear the thing coming behind them, and she didn’t want to slow down to look. What sound would the thing’s footsteps make, anyway? Could it even walk? It had moved its arms and head, but it seemed a different thing entirely for those legs to move, to support weight…
They were twenty feet away from the gate when April saw black tendrils of rot snaking their way along the ground beside them, then passing them. It began to gather on the street up ahead of them.
“Stop!” April said. If they didn’t, they would run right into it. And she didn’t want what had happened to Officer Powers to happen to Thaddeus or Sara. Or herself.
Thaddeus must have agreed with her, because he skidded to a stop. Sara’s weight in his arms almost caused him to topple over.
They watched in horror as the ink monster began to rebuild itself in front of their eyes. It looked the same as it had before, but now it was standing between them and the gate.
Before it had completely reassembled, the mouth again opened. “Give me the girl! She is mine!”
“What now?” Thaddeus said. He clutched Sara to his chest.
April pulled the gun out of her pocket and aimed it at the creature. She shot her three remaining rounds, her gun clicking as she continued to pull the trigger. She was out of bullets. Not that it mattered—the bullets punched through the ink rot, in one side and out the other, but didn’t affect the beast at all. It didn’t even get pushed back from the impact.
The holes refilled with webbing of rot, the cover thickening until the spot where they’d been was no longer discernable. It didn’t even leave a single mark.
“Try the wand,” she said to Thaddeus.
Thaddeus shifted Sara’s weight to one arm, then extended the wand out in front of him. He whispered a few words, his face contorting in concentration. Then he clenched the back of his jaw, as though imbuing whatever he’d just said with extra grit.
A stream of flames shot out of the wand’s tip. He smiled as they shot through the heart of the monster. This time the monster did step back with the impact. The edges of the hole burned…
But then they went out. Like the ink rot was too wet to burn.
“Damn it!” Thaddeus said.
“Try something else!” April said.
Thaddeus nodded. He spoke more words. This time, what came out of his wand was purplish, with a pinkish tinge around the outsides of it.
This didn’t even pierce a hole in the monster. It seemed to absorb this attack without issue.
“I don’t know anything else,” Thaddeus said. “Nothing stronger than those two spells, anyway.”
“How can you only know two spells?” April said, more out of frustration than anything else.
“The Agency only taught us what magic we needed to know for specific missions.”
The monster twisted at the waist, reaching for a barrel on the side of the road. Grain spilled out of it as the monster raised it in the air. It would have been too heavy for a full-grown man to lift, but the monster was able to hoist it in the air like it was made of Styrofoam.
“April…” Thaddeu
s said.
They scattered to either side of the street, April taking cover in the alley behind one building, Thaddeus and Sara moving to the opposite one. The barrel exploded on the road, sending grain and splintered wood flying into the air.
The monster turned to pick up something else—this time it was a cart.
It hurled it at them, breaking in the middle of the street next to the barrel. Luckily the street was empty; any pedestrians who had been out walking had gone inside.
“Give her to me!” The monster repeated. His voice was more understandable now, as though he was starting to master the mechanics of speech. He reached for another object.
“What now?” Thaddeus called to her.
“There’s only one thing to do,” April called back. “I have to touch it.”
“You have to be joking,” Thaddeus said. “It’s going to do the same thing it did to Officer Powers to you! This isn’t your normal ink rot!”
“We don’t know that for sure,” April said. “I’m the Pagewalker, remember? I could be immune.”
Thaddeus thought for a moment. “Is there really no other option?”
“I don’t think so. Can you distract him while I get close?”
Thaddeus glanced down at Sara. “I have an idea. He’s after her, right?”
“You can’t use her as bait,” April said. Why would Thaddeus do that? He’d been so adamant about protecting her…
“No, of course not,” Thaddeus said. “I mean, kind of. What if I make him think I still have her?”
Two minutes later, with Sara’s coat and bonnet and some straw from a nearby animal trough—and her express promise that she would stay hidden—Thaddeus ran out into the alley. Sara’s bonnet peaking up over his shoulder.
“Can’t catch me!” he yelled and began running in the opposite direction from the gate.
The monster dropped the crate it had been about to throw and began to turn into tendrils starting from his head. These tendrils moved like snakes down its body and then onto the street, heading towards Thaddeus so quickly that there was no way he’d be able to outrun it.
As the snakes of rot began to slither past, she reached out her hand and touched one of them. The ink’s progress along the road stopped as they began to writhe in pain. Only the monster’s legs remained. They took two awkward steps towards her.