by Indi Martin
“What…?” asked Kyrri, looking around in surprise at their suddenly fallen enemies, and the companions turned to see the newcomer on the dais. Agni snarled and leaped at Crowell, but he danced out of reach and laughed, morphing into a faun and stamping his hooves on the wood with glee. Morgan brandished his dagger in front of him and stood between them, shielding Gina.
“The cult had to die to open the tear in our world,” she reminded him, turning to face the rip. “And he just killed an army.” Crowell, or Pan, as she figured this was the form Morgan was familiar with, just grinned at her in response, placing his index finger on the tip of his nose.
The howl sounded again, inhuman and wrong, and she saw the party fall to their knees, clamping their hands over their ears. She understood the reaction, but fought it, and raised her hands again, for what she hoped was the last time. Close the tear, she thought to herself, trying to eliminate all other thoughts from her frantic mind. Close the tear.
“And how will you do that?” asked Pan, hopping in front of her.
Kurenas built a castle, cities, forests, mountains. He pushed you all back to the very edges of the world. I just need to sew up a ripped seam, she thought, gritting her teeth and trying to focus.
“Kurenas had millenia,” he argued, drawing the last word out for emphasis. “You have, what, a few minutes? Good luck with that.”
There was a tearing, a ripping, not quite a sound but a vibration that shook her to her core, and the hole began to bleed, a thick, black ooze that dripped to the sand and hissed when it hit. Smaller shapes began to pour from the hole, ghoulish white worms with cavernous mouths exposing rows of sharp black teeth, winged bat creatures, shambling humanoids covered in fatty tumors, and the party members circled Gina, their weapons at the ready as the abominations slithered toward them.
“Too late,” shrugged Pan, slumping into a massive stone throne that hadn’t been there a moment earlier and puffing tunelessly on a set of panpipes. “Now for the show,” he sang with a chuckle.
76
A wet, slick tearing sound echoed through the field and Charlie closed her eyes for a moment to steel herself. She’d heard it once before, and though much of that night was a fiery blur in her mind, her body tensed up so hard from the visceral memory that she retched, bending over and emptying her stomach before standing back up. Oh, that’s great, she thought, grimacing at herself. Way to inspire the troops. The whitecoats looked either up at the bleeding, oozing rip or at her, terrified, and she put two fingers in her mouth to whistle loudly, their heads snapping to her in unison. Chaz hissed softly through his teeth, his face white with fear.
“Okay,” she started, concentrating on keeping any tremor out of her voice. She had her back to the aberration pushing against the rip, because it was the only way she could maintain the commanding tone she wanted. “Listen to me now. Following my orders may keep you alive.” She took a momentary pause to meet each of them in the eyes; she had their undivided attention, but the howl that erupted behind her told her she needed to make her speech quickly. “Do NOT, under ANY circumstances look at the big thing, the shadow, don’t do it. I’ll…” she felt her right eye twitch. “I’ll handle that.” And how are you going to do that? she asked herself, finding no answer. “Keep your eyes low, look under the tear. Focus on anything else in that general direction. Watch for movement, and if you see anything else come out of there, you take it down. Don’t waste your ammo, wait until they get in range, but take it out. Got it? And don’t hit us, or I will kill you.” The one closest to her, the familiar one, nodded, but the others remained frozen, watching her with wide-eyes. “Do. You. Understand. Me?” she asked, her tone as ice-cold as she could make it. This shocked them into a response, and they set to nodding vehemently. At least it’s something, she sighed. “You’ll be fine,” she cooed, though the softer tone didn’t exactly come naturally to her, and still had a touch of sarcasm to it. None of us will be fine. Hanagawa, where are you? “Chaz, with me.”
Charlie didn’t wait to see if Chaz jumped to, turning on her heel and walking directly toward the abomination in the sky. Her head was down, and her mind was racing, trying desperately to talk her out of her intended course of action. She heard the young man’s hurried steps next to her, and his frantic, out-of-rhythm breathing. “What are you doing?” he hissed, his voice at the edge of hysteria.
“I need you to protect me,” she said, waving her hand for him to keep his gaze low. “I’m going to try to cauterize it.” She cast a side-eye at him. “Pull me out if I go down. If you can.”
“Will that work?” he asked in a shaky, but slightly more hopeful, voice.
“I have no fucking clue,” she snorted. “Didn’t really work so well last time, but fire is the best thing I have to throw at it.” Charlie put out an arm to stop Chaz. They were about fifty feet from the spectacle, and she didn’t want to get any closer than she had to. “We’re just buying time until Hanagawa gets here. That seal’s not completely open yet, otherwise we wouldn’t be having a conversation. If I can hold that thing back for even a few minutes…” she winced, unable to think of a positive ending to the sentence. “Well, maybe it’ll have been worth it.”
Chaz let out a low whine, but nodded and turned his attention to the small stretch of field in front of the hole. There was a black puddle of something that dripped to the dried crops, making them sizzle and steam, and Charlie contemplated the puddle for a moment, trying to draw strength to look into the rip. She withdrew her zippo from a pocket, flicking it deftly, and looking at the tiny flame that sprung to life in her hand. The light was warm and bright, and for a moment, she allowed herself the luxury of thinking that maybe she could do this after all. She concentrated on the spark and sent a tongue of flame out from it, licking up the ripped belly of shadow. She flipped the zippo closed and raised her hands, spreading the flames until they were dancing along the surface of the wall, mostly obscuring the shadow behind it. It was better, but it was draining, and she frowned trying to keep the fire burning. Chaz fidgeted uneasily next to her, but she couldn’t focus on anything but the flames.
The howl sounded again, a multi-toned, inhuman screech that split the night air, and it was joined by a chorus of other, lesser howls and deep gutteral snarling sounds. Chaz shifted next to her and brought his shotgun up to his shoulder. The flames were splitting down the seam. She rushed to pull them back together, but whatever was ripping through was stronger than her fire, much stronger. Charlie aborted her original idea and the flames evaporated with a snap. It’s just you and me, she thought nonsensically as she caught a glimpse of a great black eye in the clear diamond-shaped tear. Fear shot through her like ice and she redoubled her efforts, trying to pull the sides toward each other with her mind. It was too difficult to focus on both sides of the tear at once, and she resorted to just pushing with all of her might against the massive thing straining to slither through the rip.
The sharp blast of the shotgun sounded next to her, but she didn’t flinch, she barely noticed. The eye seemed to grow in her mind, a glassy obsidian globe of stars, more than stars, galaxies, eternal and everywhere. Get back! she screamed at the darkness in her mind, but it was too late and she knew it. Instead of pushing the thing away, she could feel it using her to pull itself forward, triangulate its location, using her like a tiny dot on the map. That was all she was to the thing. She could feel its slimy indifference; she was a fly, a grain of sand, a plaything at best. But not an opponent. Charlie Parker, you should put your hands down, she thought, but the thought was wrong somehow, and she examined the voice as it spoke. This fight is too big for you. Run, and take the survivors with you while you can. Another gunshot cracked beside her, sounding even less loud than before amidst the grunts and cries of the figures pouring out of the tear, and Charlie narrowed her eyes as rage bubbled inside her. “How dare you try to convince me to be a coward,” she snarled under her breath, raising her hands and pushing with all of her mental might at the shadow. Vis
ions popped in at the edges of her mind, awful bloody false memories of Matthew’s death, Morgan’s, but her sheer fury held them at bay, burning them from her consciousness the moment they were etched by the unseen hand.
“Charlie!”
She was dimly aware of Chaz screaming her name repeatedly, but she blocked it out and stepped forward, straining against an unseen force. Another gunshot fired, and something near her landed on the ground with a heavy, wet thump. She felt a tickle on her upper lip and tasted the familiar metal of blood. “I…” she gritted her teeth, bracing against the forward pressure. “Will...NOT... RUN!”
“Charlie!”
Her vision was suddenly tinted red, and there was a great deal of blood on her tongue. “No!” she cried desperately. She opened her mouth and felt herself screaming at the now crimson eye behind the scarlet fields. That’s a vitreous hemorrhage, said a rational voice in her otherwise chaotic mind. The blood vessels in the back of your eyes are bleeding. Your brain is bleeding. You are going to die unless you stop right now.
“Well, maybe it’ll have been worth it,” she whispered, and took another step forward.
77
“You realize, of course, that this won’t end well for you,” commented Crowell, tapping his hooves against the stone. Gina wouldn’t normally have been able to hear him with the bloody battle going on around her, and another in her mind, but his slick voice rang in her ears as though he were speaking directly into her ear instead of sitting on his out-of-place throne on the other side of the platform. If anyone else heard him, they gave no reaction.
Shut up, she thought, every muscle in her body taut as she pushed against the air in front of her.
“Look, you’re going to die if you keep this up. You’ve been very entertaining, and that would be a shame.” His voice dripped with melodramatic grief, and she snarled in response, unable to block his voice from her mind.
Yeah? Well, you’re welcome to help anytime, she thought in response, straining with the effort of keeping the shadow at bay. It was working, though. The rip looked smaller, and she could see the edges nearing one another. Gina brightened slightly - it gave strength to the thought that she could do this.
“No, no you really can’t,” Crowell laughed. Morgan slashed at a disturbingly fleshy worm that had launched itself at the massive islander fighting beside him, and it fell to join the growing pile of bleeding bodies on the ground. “These are the cockroaches running from the fire, the rats from the sinking ship. This isn’t the army,” scoffed Crowell, and she could see his hateful grin in her mind. “These are the ones running from the army.”
She felt her concentration falter as she processed his words, and the tear in the wall split further. The cracks spiderwebbing through the liquid barrier reminded her of runs appearing in pantyhose, and she barked a short laugh before she could catch herself. None of that now, she berated herself, forcing down the hysterical giggle that formed a lump in her chest.
“Careful,” he warned. “That way lies madness.”
Gina felt a tickle on her upper lip and blood dripped past her lips.
“Seriously,” Crowell resumed, and he was standing in front of her now, just under the wall, pacing back and forth through the unspeakable things that leapt out of the rip. They jumped out of his way and ran around him, most of them escaping into the desert or behind the wall into the mountains, but not all. All four of her companions were fighting wildly against horrid things, slashing against the onslaught. “Why continue to fight a battle you cannot win? And you can’t, you can’t win this, Ms. Harwood.” He pointed up at the shadow and pulled a face, his eyes wide with mock fear. “Do you even see it? Do you see what you’re fighting? That’s not your run-of-the-mill aberration, sister. That’s an Old One.”
You said he was your brother, she thought. Her mind was wide open, any walls she’d built and maintained long fallen to rubble, and she pointed all of it in a single, focused beam toward the wall. Crowell was a distraction, and she knew it.
“He is.” Crowell grinned at her, and his grin extended well past the edges of his face, and he didn’t bother to hide the yellow innerlids as he blinked at her. “And you know, I’m in a giving sort of mood. I’ll make you a deal.”
No deal, she blasted, irritated. She’d had enough of him, and wished he would go away. If she were going to die, she’d prefer to do it in peace. A fresh wave of creatures collided with her protectors, and she saw Kyrri leap into the crowd with a yowl. Gina bit her lip, but kept her focus front; the spiderweb cracks were a reminder of what happened when she let her attention slip. Kyrri could take care of himself. I hope.
“No deal?” he replied, gasping dramatically in wounded shock. “But your world is crumbling! This one won’t be far behind. All of the realms are in danger, and you throw needles at him! They do nothing but make him angry.”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” she hissed aloud.
“Your friends are dying. In the real world,” he mentioned in an offhand way. “Wanna see? I can show you.”
They’ll find a way, she answered, but it was mostly directed toward reassuring herself. Crowell had successfully unearthed the seed of doubt in her mind, and was cultivating it with the expertise of a bonsai crafter; this realization however did little to settle her growing sense of doom. And we’ll protect this place.
“One life,” replied Crowell, dancing through the battleground and just out of reach of Agni’s slashing daggers. “One life is all I ask, and I’ll put a leash back on my brother.”
Then take mine and stop all this, she felt the thought rise to the top unbidden, but Gina was comfortable with it when it came. If that was his deal, she was for it. Her life was her own to give.
“No, no, no, no,” he crooned and laughed, but his eyes were angry. “That’s no fun at all. Just give me one of your companions. I won’t even make you choose.”
No deal. Your deals all end in blood and ashes, she thought, echoing Agni’s words. If that’s my only solution, then what happens next time? And the next? Her heartbeat pumped in her ears, impossibly loud, and she saw a golden glow around her fingertips that reminded her of the one she saw around Kurenas. Buoyed, she threw herself forward and felt the presence beyond her shift.
Crowell narrowed his eyes at her and gnashed his fangs together. “Do what you want, then,” he snarled. “Remember as you die that I offered you a way out.”
78
“What is happening out there?” Chris took his eyes off of his unconscious friend and peered through the darkly tinted windows. He opened the door and stood briefly, surveying the scene. That thing, that indescribable glob of darkness hanging in the air was on fire, but just it, and he could see the blonde-haired lady illuminated in its light, some distance away. The men from the barn stood near the SUV, shifting their guns nervously and conspicuously looking in every direction except the gap in the sky.
“Be careful,” warned Mama, fanning herself with one hand and glancing nervously between him and Nate, whose head lolled against the headrest.
Chris glanced back at Nate, who looked unchanged, at nodded at the considerable woman. She’d been nothing but kind to them, and he felt an almost motherly concern from her that he hadn’t felt in a long time. It was exactly what he had needed when he had needed it most, and he knew that if he survived this insanity, he would be grateful to her for the rest of his life. The unmistakable sound of a shotgun cracked through the twilight air, and his neck cracked from the speed of his head turning to follow the sound. The wrongness in the air was no longer covered in flames, and he could hear shouts, cries, howls echoing across the field. There were shadows moving, many of them, but there was little illumination to see detail. The suits next to him brought their guns up to their shoulder and the one closest to him let out a high whine of fear through his nose that sent shivers down Chris’ spine. He ducked back in and closed the door. “Something’s coming,” he said, and a loud knock sounded on the window, causing him to jump so hard
that his head collided against the ceiling. The door slid open, and Chris backpedaled against the unconscious Nathan and the protesting Mama LaVey, kicking against whatever might come through the door.
A diminutive asian man stood, lit by the interior light, and Chris relaxed immediately. Whatever this man was, he was not a threat; he felt a relieved smile paint across his face. Nothing so forgettable could be a threat. Still, it was strange the way his eyes slid off the man, struggling to rest on something more interesting.
“Chris Stivek, I presume?” asked the man, and his voice was as generic as the rest of him, but using Chris’ name seemed to allow his attention to focus more squarely on the stranger.
“Y-yes,” he answered hesitantly. Now that he could focus on the man, he found his sameness almost terrifying. Almost, but not quite. His mind still couldn’t grasp that the man could be anything but benign.
“And Locke is inside your friend there?” The man’s voice was friendly and calm, a sharp contrast to the unseen battle being waged behind him. Chris flinched as another gunshot sounded, definitely closer, but the man seemed entirely unaffected.
Chris nodded, glancing at the sleeping Nate. “Yeah,” he said.
“Okay, good,” crooned the small man, his eyes narrowing as he looked over each of them. He withdrew a palm-sized stone disk engraved with a knotwork star. “Take this. If anything dangerous comes close to you, touch them with it. Do NOT lose it.”
Chris blinked at him and reached out for the disk, but Mama slapped his hand away. “What is it?” she snapped. “I ain’t trustin’ nobody who shows up with gunshots going on outside and don’t even flinch when they go off. Don’t give us your name, nothin’. You ain’t right.”