by H. Duke
The edge of the rot where she’d touched it turned to powder, but more ink rot replaced it, moving up her arm and latching on. She could feel it fight back, ten times stronger than any she’d ever dealt with.
She concentrated, trying to picture the rot turning to powder along with the rest of the monster… but she wasn’t strong enough.
“Thaddeus!” she cried. She stepped backwards, trying to pull her hand free from the rot even though she knew it was useless. The rot pulled out into rubber band-taughtness, but didn’t let go.
Then she felt that sucking sensation and watched the tendrils contract and pull. It was stealing her life force. Exhaustion washed over her, and her knees threatened to buckle.
Then Thaddeus was next to her. He dropped Sara’s straw-filled coat to the ground.
“Wait,” he said. “I’ll pull you free…”
April tried to tell him to run for the gate with Sara while he still could, but her mouth couldn’t form the words.
Thaddeus reached out and grabbed her hand. As his skin touched hers, a jolt passed through them, then through her body and out into the strands of ink rot.
A shriek blasted inside her head. Not a physical noise, but a mental one. From the way Thaddeus winced, he heard it too.
The tendrils of rot leading from her hand to the monster dried out and then blew away. The monster’s body followed suit. An enraged yell echoed in her head before falling silent.
“That was weir—”, she started, but then the ground beneath their feet shuddered. The ink rot on the nearest building burst into powder and fell away. All around them it was the same, including in the sky above their heads.
They watched as every visible trace of ink rot floated away into the atmosphere.
“All the ink rot’s gone,” April said.
She and Thaddeus exchanged a look, but nearby movement caught their eye. People were walking out into the street towards them, their eyes empty.
“Looks like the UNCs got a second wind,” April said. “Grab Sara and let’s go!”
Sara, who’d stepped out of her hiding spot as soon as the ink monster disappeared, allowed Thaddeus to scoop her up into his arms. They ran for the gate.
As soon as they stepped into the library April collided with Randall. He held a board from a broken bookshelf in his hands. Dorian stood behind him holding an ornamental poker from the no-longer-in-use fireplace.
“Ow,” Dorian said, running a hand over his forehead. He’d collided with Randall’s back when Randall stopped.
“Are you okay?” Randall said. “When Rex came back alone, we thought…” he trailed off, glancing at Thaddeus quizzically.
“Everything’s fine,” April said. “Thaddeus kept his word.”
Thaddeus set Sara down. She waved to Dorian. “Hi, Mr. Dorian.” He waved back.
They explained what had happened with William/Officer Powers, the ink monster, and finally the ink rot itself.
“Something about Thaddeus and I working together erased all of it,” she said.
“Do you think it was all the ink rot in the book?”
“I don’t have any proof, but… yeah. I do.”
“Do you think you could do it again?”
April and Thaddeus glanced at each other, sharing a nod so imperceptible that none of the others saw it. The look on his face confirmed that he knew what she knew: they could do this again. The gate wanted them to do this again. Maybe this was the reason it had separated them in the first place.
Out loud, she said, “We’ll try with another book. But first we need to get Sara home.”
April looked at Thaddeus, and he nodded, a sad look on his face. He turned to Sara. “Sara, about my promise…” he said, but before he could say anything else, the girl interrupted him.
“I want to go back,” she said.
“You do?” April asked.
Sara nodded, a resolute look on her face. “Officer Powers was frightening… but it will help all those people, won’t it? All my neighbors on my street?”
Thaddeus nodded. “It will, but—”
“Miss April said that I won’t be badly hurt. Is that true?”
April nodded. “It is.”
Thaddeus still looked skeptical.
“Trust me,” April said to him.
“Ahem,” Dorian said. “Trust isn’t even really a factor. Look.”
He opened The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to one of the first pages. The gate hissed open, the familiar pressurization happening, forcing their ears to pop.
“There.” He pointed to one spot of text triumphantly. “Read that paragraph.”
Thaddeus did, then knelt down in front of Sara. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked the girl.
“Yes,” she said, and then a flicker of doubt flashed across her face. “Will it hurt?”
“Maybe a little,” Thaddeus said. “Do you have brothers?”
“Yes. Two.”
“Have they ever pushed you down when you were playing?”
She nodded. “Sometimes when we’re not playing, too.”
“It might be kind of like that.”
She looked more frightened, but then she nodded. “If it will help everyone else. And if I get to go home.” Her face screwed up. “I miss mummy and father and my brothers.”
Thaddeus wrapped her in a hug. “Brave girl,” he said gruffly. “I should have never taken you from them.”
He stood and turned to April. “Will you go with us?”
She shook her head. “I would if I could. But the gate doesn’t seem to want to let me go to that scene.”
Thaddeus nodded and turned towards the gate. He took Sara’s hand, and then they stepped through.
Five minutes later, he came back alone.
“Is everything okay?” April asked. “How is Sara?”
“She’s fine,” Thaddeus said. “She was brave.”
“She’s back where she belongs,” Randall added gently. Thaddeus nodded.
April turned to another page. “I just want to make sure that everything was set right.”
She waited for the gate to open fully, then stepped through. On the other side the city bustled as though nothing had happened. There were no broken barrels or carts in the streets, and the sky seemed lighter. There wasn’t a trace of ink rot anywhere.
She stepped back into the library. “Everything’s fine,” she said. “The story reset itself.”
“Did you see any ink rot?” Dorian asked.
“No.” she nodded to the pile of blackened books. “Let’s see if we can do that again.”
Chapter 9
They worked until nearly five a.m. As long as she and Thaddeus held hands, they could erase every bit of ink rot in a world with one touch. They were able to save every blackening book.
When they’d saved the last one, April sank down into a chair. She was exhausted but happy.
Randall came over and stood next to her, smiling. “Looks like you’re going on your trip, after all.”
“Do you think so?” she said, then shook her head. “No. I can’t. What if—”
“Whatever it is, we’ll handle it. Okay? We’ll go through with our regular plan. Dorian says the collection is stable and can stand still for a few days, and if it can’t, there’s no reason to think that whatever boost Thaddeus is giving you won’t work with me, as well.”
Could it work? April wasn’t sure. “I don’t know…”
“Listen, April. You’ll never get another chance to go on this trip with your grandmother. You can’t pass it up.”
“He’s right.” Dorian came and stood in front of her. “Whatever happens, we’ll take care of it.”
Randall nodded. “Thaddeus has promised to behave, as well.”
“Not that his word means much,” Dorian muttered under his breath.
Thaddeus nodded, ignoring Dorian’s jab.
At full volume, Dorian said, “Don’t you think we can handle things in your absence?”
April glanced between them skeptically. “It’s not that. It’s just… do you think you three can really get along without me?”
The three of them exchanged looks, then each of them nodded. She wasn’t convinced, but it was the best she was going to get. And she really wanted to take this trip with Gram… almost as much as she wanted to avoid telling Gram she couldn’t go.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s do the transfer now and then go home and get some sleep. I have a long day of packing tomorrow.”
Chapter 10
“Do you think I’ll need two swimsuits?” Gram asked anxiously. She was in her room standing over her suitcase which lay open on her bed, an impossibly high mound of clothes and toiletries on top of it.
April was in her own room staring at her own mound of packing. She could see Gram through their open bedroom doors. April was exhausted. She’d had only a few hours of sleep before she’d had to get up and start packing that morning. But it was a tiredness she could deal with—she’d sleep on the plane.
“I didn’t realize that swimming was a big thing in Europe in November,” April said.
“The hotels will have swimming pools,” Gram said. “Oh, I’ll take both just in case.” She threw the swimsuits on top of the pile and turned back to her closet. “It would have been much easier to pack in the summer,” Gram fretted. “Shorts and t-shirts take up less room than sweaters and winter wear…”
The dryer beeped from the basement. “The last load of laundry’s dry, Gram,” April said. “I’ll go grab it.”
April walked down the basement steps. Even as she was unsure about leaving the gate, she felt herself feeling excited about the trip. She could go and lead a normal life again… travelling to Europe with her terminally ill grandmother. She sighed. There had to be a silver lining to this situation somewhere.
She was doing this for Gram, she reminded herself. This trip wasn’t for her, it was for the woman who raised her, and damn it, she was going to make it the best one she could.
She gathered all the clothes into a basket and began walking back up the stairs. “Hey Gram,” she called. “What are you most excited about seeing? I can’t wait to see Neuschwanstein.”
No response.
She rounded the corner of the hallway that led to the bedrooms. “Gram?”
She looked into Gram’s room, then dropped the clothes basket fell to the floor with a thud.
Gram lay face down in a pile of clothes on her bed.
~~~
You just finished Inkcaster, book four in the Library Gate series. Thank you so much for reading!
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More Books by H. Duke
Jeremiah Jones Cowboy Sorcerer Series
Season One Episode Zero: The Key Without a Door (reader group exclusive)
Jeremiah Jones Cowboy Sorcerer: The Complete First Season
Season One Episode One
Season One Episode Two
Season One Episode Three
Season One Episode Four
Season One Episode Five
Season One Episode Six
Season One Episode Seven
Season One Episode Eight
A Cowboy Sorcerer Christmas (reader group exclusive)
Taming the Wolf (reader group exclusive)
The Library Gate Series
Pagewalker
Spinebreaker
Wordeater
Inkcaster
The First Adventure of Braddy Evers (reader group exclusive)
More books in the Library Gate Series
Horror Books by H. Duke
Things on the Shelf: Three Tales of Christmas Terror
Things on the Shelf 2: More Tales of Holiday Horror
More books in the Holiday Horrors Series
I release new books monthly, so the above list is likely out-of-date. Find an up-to-date list here.
About the Author
H. Duke has written over fifteen works of fiction, including the weird west serial Jeremiah Jones Cowboy Sorcerer and the Library Gate series.
These days, she can be seen travelling the United States in her travel trailer with her husband Giru and a shiny black dog named Jupiter. To see an up-to-date list of her works and find out where she’ll be writing next, visit http://www.hdukeauthor.com.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Thanks for reading!
Books by H. Duke
Table of Contents
Copyright Information
Copyright Information
Inkcaster
© 2019 by H. Duke
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, places, or events are used fictitiously. Other places, names, characters, and events are creations of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to actual places, events, or people (living or dead) is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any format, without the express written consent of the author. An exception is made for short excerpts used for educational or review purposes.
Cover image © 2019 by H. Duke
ISBN-13: 978-1-947094-23-9
Hdukeauthor.com