Elliot found himself led away to the back of an ambulance where an older woman with a long brown ponytail tended to him. At first, she and her partner thought Elliot was more severely injured. Then they realized the gore covering him wasn’t his own.
“What the hell happened here?” the medic asked as she cleaned out the wound on Elliot’s arm.
“Some crazy woman, all fucked up looking. We were just standing outside smoking when she attacked all of us. And then, then she blew up!”
The EMT handed Elliot a packet of ibuprofen that he swallowed down with some bottled water. She explained that she didn’t want to give him anything stronger until he sobered up. Her partner waved over one of the deputies who wore a deep frown. Elliot was asked to tell his story again to the deputy who listened, his eyes narrowing.
“That’s pretty much the same account we’re getting from everyone, even from the patrons who were far enough away not to get splattered. Unfortunately, all of our witnesses were drunk, so we’re having a little trouble getting a reliable account of what this woman looked like.”
“I’m telling you, she was missing half her face!” tried Elliot.
“Uh-huh. Or she had a Halloween mask on.”
It continued on like that for most of the night. The sheriff himself finally arrived and wasn’t much more understanding. As far as the authorities were concerned, some lunatic in a mask had shown up and attacked a bunch of people before blowing herself up with what they assumed had been a suicide vest. There was no evidence of a suicide vest, but that was the theory they were sticking to. The victims of the attack were treated as probable co-conspirators and kept separated, forbidden to clean themselves up until dawn arrived. They were only released when the owner of the resort showed up and had some stern words with the sheriff behind his car.
Elliot shuffled over to Audrey, his head throbbing. He had picked most of the larger bits off, but there was still a film of blood coating him. She stood beside the potted plant where he had been forced to leave her, chain smoking. The sheriff walked up to them, his face set in a scowl.
“You’re free to go for now, but I don’t want you going far,” the sheriff said.
Elliot opened his mouth to agree when Audrey interrupted. “Bullshit. Either arrest us now or we are free to go. Period. We’re from California and we’re not saying here.”
“The resort has agreed to put you up for free,” growled the sheriff.
“I don’t care,” said Audrey. “My brother and I were just attacked, blown up on, and then treated like criminals for over six hours. If you don’t want us to leave, arrest us.”
The sheriff sneered and stormed away. Cursing under her breath, her hand shaking, Audrey took another puff of her cigarette. Elliot had never seen that side of her and didn’t know what to say. However, he did know what she wanted.
“We can leave for California in a few hours, after some sleep.”
“I don’t care where we go, Elliot, I just refuse to stay here.”
“The sheriff isn’t…”
“Fuck the sheriff, I don’t care about some god ‘ol boy,” she said. “I don’t know what the hell happened here tonight, but it scared me. Badly. And I want as far away from here as possible.”
He reached over and slipped the pack of cigarettes from her hand, pulling one out for himself. Lighting it, he tried not to examine her too obviously. While the events of the night had definitely frightened him, they seemed to have affected Audrey much more deeply. Her eyes kept darting around the parking lot as if seeking out another would be monster to come creeping. He didn’t know how she could still be so tense after so many hours. Her right index finger tapped manically away at the cigarette pack after he handed it back.
“We’ll go anywhere you want,” he said. “Just let me get cleaned up and grab a few hours of sleep.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding a little too aggressively.
Since the first time he had met her, Elliot knew his sister had battled her own demons. Everyone did, but hers always seemed so much sadder, sharper. He knew he was a goofy, upbeat guy and part of him wanted to bring some of that light into Audrey’s life. She deserved it, after the life she had lived. Long-lost younger sibling or not, he wanted to take care of her.
He wouldn’t tell her of his suspicions, his fears. He wouldn’t tell Audrey that when he thought back to those moments in the parking lot, when that woman was attacking them, that it seemed to be coming for her. She didn’t need to hear that, especially when he kept telling himself that it was probably just his drunken imagination.
He didn’t imagine the man in the suit, though. He had been standing there right before the woman had exploded, and Elliot would swear that he was there after, too. Except he wasn’t covered in her remains, he was still clean and calm. He knew he saw the man from the bar, but it had all happened so fast.
It didn’t matter. Audrey wanted to leave and they would. They’d go east toward the coast and up toward New York. Whatever it took to keep her happy, make her feel safe.
CHAPTER 11
Robert Tyler often thought his job as principal at Eldridge High School would be much more preferable if there weren’t any students to deal with. They were unruly, immature, and hormonal. Tyler demanded control in all aspects of his life and that definitely applied to his role at the school. He had openly laughed at the idea of “students’ rights,” appalled by the notion. As far as he was concerned, school was there not only to educate, but to break children of willful disobedience so that they could be productive members of the system. If you knew your place and played your role, the system always worked.
Tyler had believed in that whole-heartedly until he found himself chained naked to what looked like a piece of scaffolding in the old Wiltshire Hotel.
He didn’t know how he had gotten there, but he knew what was happening now. Information was leaking into him, filling his head. He was learning, being prepared. Either of two fates awaited him after his repurposing – fodder or existence as one of the Invocated.
The air was thick and oily, filled with a haze. Below, he could still make out moving things, creatures that were far from human. Something that looked like an eyeball the size of beach ball slithered past on a mass of tentacles. It left a trail of slime in its wake. A tri-pedal beast with a gaping maw lumbered up and removed a whimpering man from the metal structure Tyler was shackled to, carrying him over to a table that looked to be made of meat. He was glad he couldn’t see far enough to tell what was happening when the thing with dozens of spider legs lowered itself over the man. He could still hear the screams, though.
Bio-engineering, terraforming, invasion. Tyler knew these creatures had come from elsewhere, somewhere lower. They had always been aware of Earth, watching it, waiting. Something had finally changed, and they were taking the opportunity to strike. He knew it because he also knew that something throbbed floors above him, something barely yet materialized. It wanted Robert Tyler to know that he was nothing, just animated meat.
The Ovessa thrust and bucked against the barrier that still held it out. The serpentine star of illuminated flesh, it would rule over Earth as it did its own realm. A place where organic matter wasn’t confined, wasn’t distinct. It’s why the Ovessa found Earth so fascinating, the idea of individual life. Everything was bound to it there, part of it. Most of the monstrosities that inhabited the Wiltshire had been formed for the first time when coming here.
At least, in their present forms. Two creatures masquerading in human form strolled into the room, clad in black cloaks. Tyler knew they were the Ovessa’s emissaries. the Spittle and the Sigh. Their titles were simply approximations of what their divine being saw as the creative process. Having lurked at the edge of the world’s consciousness for eons, biding their time and eager for the opportunity, they enjoyed both the chance at having names and the chance to do such holy work.
“The Invocated we sent after the Crimsonata was defeated,” said the Sigh. “Obliterated.�
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“It would seem we underestimated her,” said the Spittle.
“Perhaps. I was not aware that a human entity possessed such offensive capabilities.”
“The Ovessa sees less as it prepares for the breaking of the barriers. We may not know what happened, but it’s of little concern. Are we able to send any of our other kin yet?”
The Sigh’s liquid black hair trickled over her shoulders. “No, not yet. However, I believe we will attack the Crimsonata in another fashion until we gain the strength for a more direct assault.”
Tyler heard these words, but they meant nothing to him. Very little did now. Everything in which he had believed turned out to be empty. All of his notions of control had been illusions, just something he had told himself to sleep better at night. But the Ovessa was control, complete order. Free of chaotic humanity, he would be nothing more than an extension of will, an automaton of flesh. Tyler welcomed it. It didn’t occur to him that his thoughts on the matter were the thoughts of the Ovessa.
The Tri-pedal creature lumbered over to him. It occurred to Tyler that the thing resembled some bastard offspring of a bear and a trout. Removing him from the shackles, it didn’t even occur to him to struggle. Carried to the meat table, the spider-like attendant shuddered and two more of its kind appeared to the sides. One held a cluster of what appeared to be mushrooms.
He felt them remove sections of his body, entire chunks of muscle and whole sheets of skin. The pain was there, intense, and yet he took it gladly. It was all in honor of the Ovessa. The fungus was packed into these wounds and smoothed out, the rest of it mushed into a paste and painted over his body. He felt his genitals sliced off and the fungus sealing him into a eunuch. His hair was ripped out and his lips, nose, eyelids, and ears were carved off. A thin layer of the paste coated his whole head. Two balls of gelatinous material were placed onto the table and his fingers inserted. The tips began to swell and lengthen, their growth facilitated by the properties of the gel. After a few moments, his hands were withdrawn, and the balls were removed, the fingers each now three inches longer. Flesh was carved away down to the bone and those bone tips sharpened like the razor-like talons of the spider-things. Finally, the thing that had been Robert Tyler was adorned in white wrappings and rags, cloth spun and woven by the spider-things themselves.
Everything that had been Robert Tyler was gone. Personality, individuality, sanity – all of it had been shorn away in the process of becoming an Invocated. Now he was just another of many, many that now numbered in the hundreds in Eldridge.
All in the honor of the Ovessa.
CHAPTER 12
It was still raining. Timothy Faure had been driving all night and that the storm followed him he took to be an ill omen. He turned up the Tchaikovsky in his car, not only to stay awake, but to drive off his superstitions. It wasn’t much farther now.
Faure, much like Binici, had been sucked into a hidden fringe world thanks to his academic research. He had been fascinated with what he called “micro-cults,” small pockets of four to ten people that seemed to band together around any number of belief systems for short periods of time. Other scholars had done some study on the topic, but he believed there was something more to the phenomena, something that thematically linked most, if not all, of the groups together. He had talked to many members of various cults over his decades, received numerous answers, but it had been a young woman outside of Tampa who had set him on a different track.
Her name was Sally and she was another of the many disenfranchised youth that Faure often met with. Someone seeking answers that they hadn’t found in traditional forms of organized religion. Sally’s little cult was different from most, however, and she was its lone survivor.
Pale and thin, with stringy brown hair, she had been a nobody. Ignored, forgotten. She fiddled with a sugar packet as she told Faure how her cult, the Radiant Eye, had acquired a very peculiar talisman through dubious means in Shreveport. All the members of the cult had become addicted to the power it gave them, abilities like telepathy and telekinesis. They grew bolder as they grew in strength, lashing out at those they perceived had wronged them. The only reason she had survived the massacre was because she had to work late at the grocery store one night.
Faure had found her tale too fantastic for belief. Magical powers granted by some artifact? Where was this talisman now? Taken by the people who had murdered her friends, people who called themselves the Promethean Wall. They said they were protecting humanity from supernatural forces, from people like her. They only left her alive out of spite as far as Sally was concerned.
The Promethean Wall. A cursory glance showed nothing, a blank on the name. But something had stuck with Faure, a nagging sensation that more information might be found. He hadn’t believed Sally’s story about magic powers, but it was a recorded fact that her friends were found dead in the cabin. While it had been chalked up to ritualistic suicide, he wondered if perhaps murder might have been at play. Talented at tracking down information from the barest of leads, it didn’t take long for the vast conspiracy of the Wall to come tumbling out into the light.
That had been almost a decade ago.
Faure eyed the large house as he pulled up into the driveway. He’d only been to this particular safe house once, years ago. It was a three-story red brick affair, with peeling white shutters, the whole place appearing ready to fall apart. Vines clung to the side of the house, creeping up the brick and across a porch roof that badly needed re-shingled. A window in the upper floor was broken out and had been hastily repaired with cardboard and tape, the window next to it was cracked. The driveway was filled with ruts and what little yard there was had been left mostly unattended and overgrown.
With a sigh, he climbed out and made his way to the front door. He didn’t even have a chance to knock before the door was opened by a massive man in jeans and a T-shirt. Clean-shaven and square jawed, his thick black hair hung loose to frame a scowling face.
Faure touched the back of his closed fist to his forehead. “I’m here for the Wall.”
The man snorted and walked away from the door, leaving it open. Realizing that it was as good an invitation as he was going to get, Faure followed the man inside. The furnishings were as Spartan as he remembered, nothing on the walls for decoration, only a few threadbare couches and a plain stand for a television. A dining room table held an impressive array of computer equipment, far more than would be needed for a normal gathering of people.
A thin, scruffy looking man in his late forties came in from the kitchen, drying off him hands on a towel, while a young woman with a long dark hair and a caramel complexion came down the stairs. Both of them peered at him warily.
“Who are you?” asked the big man, motioning Faure to sit.
“I’m Dr. Timothy Faure. I thought Dwight operated this cell.”
“Dwight’s dead.”
“Jesus,” mumbled Faure. “I didn’t know. When?”
“About a year ago.”
Faure rubbed his temples. “That, that doesn’t change anything. I run level two intel for the Wall and I have a priority assignment.”
The big man smirked. “Do you now?”
“What’s your name, sir?”
“I’m Hayden. That’s Greer and Roma,” he said, nodding toward the thin man and the woman respectively.
“Mr. Hayden, I’m sure you’re aware of the uptick in activity these last few weeks. It has skyrocketed in the last few days. I know exactly why and how to stop it.”
Hayden didn’t look impressed, but the woman named Roma leaned forward. “What can you tell us?”
“As far as we can tell, for at least seven thousand years, there has been a lineage of women who possess a unique metaphysical ability. Called the Crimsonata, sometimes there were more than one of these women in existence, many in fact, but sometimes only one. Despite their numbers, the Crimsonata always did as she was supposed to do – she flowed. Her very purpose is to act as a sort of lock, holdin
g the barriers between our world and others in place. She does this by offering herself up to the Outer Gods themselves, over and over again. The whole process is very esoteric.
“For the first time in recorded history, there is no Crimsonata. None that are flowing at least. The young woman who holds this title has no idea what she is or what she is supposed to do. If Audrey Lynn Darrow does not flow, the barrier between our world and the others will shatter. The earth will be torn asunder as the multiverse collapses in upon us.”
Hayden sneered. “It all sounds like foul magic work. Why not just kill this Darrow woman?”
“Because then there will absolutely be no lock for the barrier and our world is doomed.”
“What do you expect us to do?” asked Roma. “The Wall isn’t exactly in the habit of helping the supernatural.”
Faure sighed. “Darrow must be found and captured. She must be forced to flow, even if that means against her will. This is for the greater good.”
Roma looked disgusted but said nothing. Greer lit up a cigarette and shrugged. Faure glanced at Hayden, but the large man merely glowered at him.
“Listen, I can give you whatever details you need along with my contact information. And the contact information for Professor Binici. She’s part of the Wall and part of this, too. She knows more about the Crimsonata than anyone else. Once you’ve secured Darrow, she’ll be meeting up with you.”
“The Promethean Wall have contacts across the entire planet, in every branch of the military and law enforcement. We know how to do our fucking jobs.”
“Alec, clam down,” said Roma, looking over at Hayden. “This is a little outside our wheelhouse, and it sounds big. There are just as many brains as there as fists in the Wall.”
Hayden stormed off muttering under his breath, but Faure wasn’t sorry to see him go. The man seemed like a loose cannon, someone who brought his own prejudices into a mission. He hoped Roma could keep him contained. The Darrow woman absolutely couldn’t be harmed – the state of their reality depended on it.
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