The Last Rite
Page 37
The elevator ride down to the lobby took forever. The building was tall, one of the tallest in the city, and of course the CEO’s office was on the top, but that wasn’t what made the ride to the bottom so long. It was the silent glare of her partner that made time drag. She tried to ignore him, but her eyes bore into the back of her skull.
“How did those creatures break through our sigils?” he finally asked.
“We must have done them wrong,” she said. The use of “we” was being diplomatic since her partner had done them all.
“I did not draw the sigils wrong,” he said.
She didn’t meet his gaze. “Maybe Lightfoot snuck in and erased them beforehand.”
“That’s your theory, is it?” he asked.
She turned and faced him, staring unblinkingly into his eyes. “If you have something to say, say it.”
She glared back at him with every bit the intensity and anger that he was sending her way. She didn’t dare flinch. The two stood there, neither saying a word until the elevator stopped and the doors opened with a light ding. Then business suit man walked out of the elevator first. When she walked out, her partner was already gone.
A taxi-ride later and she was home. She unbuttoned her blouse, but let it hang on her shoulders over her bra. She got up and stepped towards the shower, then stopped. On the floor were her shoes, the soles facing her. She could see the white paint scraped onto them, the white paint that her partner had used to mark sigils around the mill, the white paint that she scrapped off with her foot. She bent down and picked up the shoes. She’d clean them tomorrow, she thought, but after putting them down and heading for the shower, she stopped and picked them back up again. She tossed them in a trashcan, then headed for her bathroom. Tonight, she was having an hour-long shower. Tomorrow, she would get a pedicure and buy new shoes. Then, starting after tomorrow, she would start work on learning everything she could about BEC and the last rite.
The one Lightfoot and Burns had dubbed the business suit man was no longer in his business suit. He stood in front of his sink in his steamed-filled bathroom, a shower being the first task after getting home. With a towel wrapped around his waist, he stood there. His hand hurt where he sliced it to summon the king monster not once but twice, but what really bothered him was the claw marks on his shoulder. The damn dog monster cut across his tattoo, the triangle upright inside the circle, each lined with Sumerian letters. He scratched at it without meaning too.
His head hurt. He hadn’t felt this bad since . . . now that he thought about it, he never felt like this. This wasn’t sick, this wasn’t injured, this was . . . off. That was the only way he could think of it. He was in pain, but for some reason, the pain didn’t bother him. In fact, he kind of liked it.
He wiped the steam away from the mirror and looked at his haggard reflection. His eyes were glowing red, and for a moment the face in the mirror contorted into a blistered-covered monstrosity, much like the abominations. Then the image was gone, and his eyes were back to normal.
The man grinned. “I can work with this.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chad Robert Morgan was born and raised in California. He served in the Navy as a Hospital Corpsman and worked his way through college as a vocational nurse. As well as writing, Chad works in the video game industry. He currently lives in southern California with his wife Carol and his youngest son Alexander.