by Briana Snow
“Then I suggest you travel all together, and hope to get to the far side before the Flayer gets to you.” Simeon wished them all good luck, before nodding at Verity and Penelope. It was Verity who understood just what their plan was going to be.
“I don’t like it, but I can see the sense in it,” Verity said. “While the Flayer is distracted, we get to the portal.”
“No,” Penelope gasped. “We can’t use live people as bait!”
“But they are not alive, Penelope,” Verity said sadly. “They are going onwards, hoping to look into their old life the way someone might wear an old pair of shoes or an outdated coat again. To feel something comfortable in all of this. We are alive. They are damned.”
Penelope was still refusing and objecting that they should do this when the three damned glimpsers stepped out onto the ripples of the black glass, and started pacing quickly across the cavern floor, snaking their way between the pillars.
“You will have to be quick when it happens,” Simeon whispered, keeping his eyes fixed on the figures of the damned, gradually receding into darkness. For a strange moment, Penelope thought that this is what it must be like to watch true ghosts as they lost their definition and all individual details, and became dark silhouettes against the distant glow.
“And when we get to the Pool? What then—just jump in?” Verity asked. Penelope could see the look of worry plain on her face.
Simeon hesitated. “Well, the damned have to push their way through. They step into the Pool and try to wade through, as the veils of the world try to reject them.”
“We can use the Luminaire,” Penelope said, not looking at her companions but instead at the obsidian-floored cavern beyond, and the shapes of the people almost halfway across it.
“Penelope! That will call every foul creature, Archon, and devil straight to us.” Verity looked alarmed.
“But it’s quick. And what was that you said, Simeon? That Hell was amassing for war anyway? All we have to do is to get to the third volume, and…” Penelope said, as something changed in the air of the cavern beyond them. All three of them felt it, like a sudden change in barometric pressure, invisible but unmissable.
“It’s coming,” Simeon said, a look of terror on his face.
“Make it, please make it.” Penelope didn’t realize that she was mumbling as she looked at the three figures hurrying first one way and then another towards the distant glow. They had clearly felt the arrival of the creature as well.
“We have to go.” Verity stood up in a crouch.
“Not yet! Not yet…” Simeon’s eyes stared hard at the souls who had so recently been his charges, and Penelope wondered if he was wishing the same thing as her or merely wishing for his own preservation.
A patch of darkness detached itself from the shadows far to their left, and Penelope saw the darkness flicker past the pale columns of rock, as fast as thought.
“Oh no.” The horror of the thing hit her, as she saw glimpses of a ball of tentacles, the light of the Pool of Remembering catching sharpened talons, claws…
“Go!” Simeon hissed, and the Special Collection’s Librarian found herself being hauled to her feet by both the candlemaker and the Book Hunter, and pushed across the obsidian, her feet sliding as she dodged the first hour-glass column of rock and then the next, and the next.
There was a terrible scream from ahead of them as the Flayer fell amongst the three damned glimpsers. Penelope dodged another column, being pulled and pushed by Verity on a course that would skirt the murderous scene.
We’re not going to make it. That thing is too fast! Penelope felt her heart race, trying not to look at what it was doing to the three glimpsers ahead of them.
One of them was still screaming as a tentacle hoisted it into the air, rolling and wrapping it within the pale tendrils like it was tucking the person under its arm for later, as other appendages attacked the others.
“Argh!” One of the glimpsers fell to the floor, managed to roll, but was then dragged backwards, towards some sort of clacking, beak-like maw in the heart of the monster. The third glimpser ducked a thrown tentacle like a coil of knotted cord, and managed to roll to one side of one of the columns, and then around another.
“Go on! You can make it!” Penelope was hissing towards the desperate glimpser.
“No time for them!” Verity said, pulling her arm almost from her socket as they crossed fifty feet from the beast.
Something quivered in the body of the Flayer, as it rolled its heaving mass of tentacles and teeth forward, squeezing through the forest of columns disgustingly, like some sort of mollusk or sea creature.
“It’s coming!” Simeon was shouting, as the Flayer changed tactic, moving into the space between the last remaining fleeing glimpser and themselves. Penelope heard Verity swear. The two other damned souls who were being held by the Flayer against its body continued to scream. It had clearly decided that three escaping morsels of flesh were better prey than one escaping glimpser.
Penelope and Verity ran, dodging the rock columns, their feet skidding on the obsidian below as a shape erupted into the air beside them.
“Ugh!” Simeon swung his lantern in an arc that would have caved in the skull of any mortal man, but instead smashed and cleaved the attacking tentacle in two, in a burst of fire and the smell of waxy oil.
The thing jabbered in pain.
In terrible stop-motion quickness, Penelope saw the still twitching tentacle land on the floor, writhing and rolling in on itself like a cut snake. Where the ‘head’ of the snake should be, was instead a group of three curving blade-like claws, that almost appeared as if they were made from metal.
The edge of the column-field and the glowing Pool beyond was still thirty or more feet away, and the Flayer was upon them. Penelope heard a scream as Simeon their guide suddenly hunched over, as something (disgustingly) punched through the back of his robes, and lifted him up into the air.
There is one thing I can do, Penelope thought as she ran, holding the heavy books in her arms. The Librarian shrugged her arms in front of her, and allowed the first volume of the Luminaire to open just a fraction.
Chapter XXXVII
“Penelope? No!” Verity was shouting, as all of a sudden, there was a feeling like falling from a great height. A lurch in the stomach, a pressure against the eyes, a feeling of terrible wrongness. The Book Hunter felt like she was moving through treacle, as invisible winds tore at them, and it was emanating from the Luminaire that was held in Penelope’s hands.
The effect on the Flayer was one of apparent shock, excitement, and gibbering fear. It twitched and rolled, its tentacles twitching in spasms as it too appeared stuck in this heavy goo of eldritch forces.
“Come on!” Penelope continued to push ahead towards the Pool of Remembering, her back hunching and her face caught in a grimace as she pushed against the heart of the whirlpool. Verity knew that the small, bookish woman didn’t have the strength to get to the Pool, so she fought against the invisible winds to reach Penelope’s back, and pushed.
The two women moved at a staggering, crawling pace as around them the cavern started to shake, and columns cracked and burst apart. There was a distant rumble from the stones far above them, and Verity wondered if they were going to bring all of Hell down upon them—literally.
But they made it. There, ahead of them were the last few columns, shattering as they approached, and beyond it the strange glowing pool in the dark. They weren’t the only one to reach here, however, as they struggled past the still body of the last glimpser, apparently dead—if the damned can ever die.
“Keep on going!” Verity was shouting against the roar of the rumbling stone. “We don’t know how long that Flayer will be distracted.” Behind them, the Flayer appeared to be in a highly agitated and stunned state, as if taken out of its natural environment and simultaneously offered all of the food it ever wanted, but also with every risk. The open Luminaire was also having a strange effect on the Pool of
Remembering beyond. Wisps of glowing ethereal steam were rising from it as if it were hot (although neither women felt any shade of warmth from it), and the water itself was whipping itself into a fury, bubbling and frothing. In amongst the torment came flashes of light like the sudden refractions of light caught in a crystal.
“The portal is ripping a hole through the walls of Hell itself,” Verity said. “It’ll take us through, but it might leave a highway the size of New York for the devils to pass by…” She was appalled and terrified in equal measure.
“We have to do this. We have to get to the third grimoire.” Penelope struggled against the spectral forces, pushing ahead through the storm.
CRACK! Something struck the last column beside them, and the Librarian screamed, expecting it to be the Flayer finally released.
It wasn’t. It appeared to have been a blackened hole like a bullet mark, cracking the column. But who has a gun down here in Hell? Penelope thought. “Verity…?” she said. They were now only several feet away from the Pool, the surface of which was starting to glow and shine with incandescent power.
CRACK-CRACK! Two more bullet shots hit the obsidian of the floor, shattering whole sheets of the black glass.
“No, it can’t be!” Penelope heard Verity shout as she pushed one foot to the edge of the glowing Pool. The froth of the pool died down immediately where it touched the edge of her trainers, forming a tranquil glowing outline around her toes. She could feel the water pulling at her, welcoming her in and beyond…
“Down!” A hand on the Special Collection Librarian’s back forced her into a crouch as another gun shot was heard. Penelope was almost kneeling in the Pool, and the tranquility spread out from her body like a bubble.
“Verity, Verity, look—it’s the Portal,” the Librarian said in wonder.
“Never mind that, it’s the Archon!” Verity said, and Penelope looked over her shoulder, past the snarling, angered face of the Book Hunter straight behind her, to see a dark shape crossing past the twitching, subservient Flayer. The form of the Archon was familiar as it lurched and marched on unfeeling legs. It was the same one who had been chasing them before. Not the security guard, but the FBI agent. Penelope couldn’t fathom just what he was doing here, but the appearance of the Archon inhabiting him was clear and obvious. The man’s flesh appeared pale and horribly twisted underneath dark glasses, and there was a jerky speed to his movements that wasn’t natural as the devil within him kept on moving forward towards them.
It must have followed us from London, Penelope thought in horror, as the man raised the gun again.
“In!” Verity pushed, and both women fell into the glowing water that did not feel anything like water at all, but instead was as dry and as welcoming as warm air. The light flared and danced around them, and the roar of the Luminaire vanished.
Chapter XXXVIII
The portal that Penelope found herself traveling through did not feel like the last one in the vaults beneath London. That portal had felt like a ragged wound—a tear between the worlds that they had been forcing themselves through. This time, however, Penelope felt like she was swimming through air. The torment of the spectral winds was gone, and the whirlpool of devastating energy was stilled. Instead, Penelope could see bright bluish-white light softly flowing and breathing all around them, like gossamer.
“What is this place?” she asked, but her voice sounded odd and muffled.
Something gripped at her hand, and the Librarian looked down to see that it was being held by another woman, Verity Vorja, and that she was attempting to breaststroke them through the shining air towards a source of particularly strong light. The Book Hunter opened and closed her mouth to say something, but Penelope couldn’t hear any noise hitting her ears. Instead, she heard the voice of her guide in her mind, as clearly as sound.
“The veil between the planes. We must not get lost here, or else we will forget who we ever were to start with.” Penelope watched as the floating Verity kicked out, bringing her towards the light, as the tide of worry and concern started to fall away from the Librarian.
Why am I so desperate to get back to the world of the living anyway? Penelope thought to herself. Or maybe she spoke it, she couldn’t be sure. Thinking and speaking seemed to be the same thing here, in this place.
A dreadful pall of tranquil apathy, like a tranquilizing drug, fell over the woman, dulling all of her emotions. Every hard-edged panic and fearful memory was starting to soften, as Penelope wondered just why it would be so bad if she were to let go, and float between the planes of existence forever. Why not? How bad could that be, really?
“Penelope! Don’t you give up on me,” the woman who was tugging her hand was saying, and Penelope wondered why the other, tall woman was being so insistent. She looked very worried and very upset, certainly.
But what was there to worry about? Everything was so peaceful here…
“Penelope Harp…!” The woman’s mind was screaming as she pulled with all of her spiritual might through the blue-white membrane between the worlds, the very membrane that kept the worlds safe from each other, and insulated. The light was all around them, growing in intensity now.
Harp… Something tickled in the Librarian’s mind about that word. It was a word that belonged to her. A name.
My name. With that simple act of recognition, there came flooding back to her the memory of all of the people she had seen apparently die on this quest, and the awareness that she was Penelope Harp, a librarian, and the daughter of two murdered parents, murdered by her own brother, Darius Harp, because of the secrets that they held. Just as he was attempting to stop her from holding onto the grimoires in her hand, the very ones that she had been carrying through the worlds.
I can’t let all of the effort of my parents go to waste, and all of the efforts of the people who got me this far. Penelope fought against the tide of sedating apathy, and pushed, with Verity, against the current and into the light.
Chapter XXXIX
The Archon knew hate. The Prince of Hell knew the emotion so well that it could describe, if it wanted to, every shade and intensity of that dark emotion. The Archon could have written books on the most murderous of emotions that humanity had to suffer. The Archon swam in a sea of hate as naturally as a fish swims in the ocean.
But for the first time in its millennia-long existence, the thing also knew shame. Self-disgust. Failure. Wretchedness. All of these sorts of emotions were entirely new to the Archon, but not to the body of the Special Consul Maximus, who was, or had been after all, human.
The Archon stood before the settling Pool of Remembering, watching the frothing light fearlessly and without moving, seeing the lights dull, the ripples return to the movements and eddies of water and not the stuff that was between the realms. It was too late, he could not cross—not unaided, and not alone.
The Archon had failed in its quest to retrieve the Luminaire Minus Clavem, and even more then that—it had failed in its quest to reach the living world.
The Living World, a small part of it thought. It was the part that had been kept alive by the dominating spirit, the part that still exuded base brain chemicals and fired neurons that held things like love, hate, and home.
The devil had never particularly thought of itself as having a home. It was a soulless thing, a functionary of hell which only had once purpose: to locate and protect the grimoires. ‘Home’ was a word of safety and longing, and as such was alien to the creature’s mind. If it had ever thought of having a nest, or a natural territory, then it would be hell, the thing supposed, but now it knew the word by contrast: in its absence.
The part of the Archon that was human, that had been the Special Agent, the Consul Maximus, had wanted to return ‘home’ to the plane of mundane living. The Archon had even managed to feel an echo of that feeling—that it could do such great and terrible things out there in the world, but now the portal was sealed, and it felt shame, regret, and envy.
Luckily for it, howeve
r, the Archon had already conceived of a plan in case the women slipped through the gates of hell before he could get to them (which they had). It had been a stroke of pure genius for the creature to encounter the secret-seller in Pandemonium, and the worst of luck for the two women to consult her on their way to Simeon Lighter, and then to here.
The devil drew forth from one of its ripped and torn pockets the lock of hair that had been Verity Vorja’s, drew it up to his nose and took a deep sniff. But this was no lover’s memento—no, the dark spirit was searching for the sorcerous enchantment that he had placed on this lock of hair back in the city of the damned.
The Archon had passed by some of his old contacts in the city—those that recognized him as a Prince of hell, and they had performed what foul incantations and curses he had ordered them to over the lock of long hair.
The hair that the Archon held in his hands had now become a fetish, a powerful piece of magic that remembered the place, the body, and the soul which it had once belonged to. The hair that had grown on the Book Hunter’s head remembered where it had been, and to what it had been attached. It was bound to the woman’s soul because it was a part of that woman’s soul, now.
The Archon dropped the hair onto the ground, and started to mutter words over it, words that burned and scorched the hair horribly, and the smoked the ground around it.
The water in the Pool of Remembering, the water that the glimpsers would try to peer into and wade through to get to the other side, started to froth with invisible forces, and started to glow and shine once more…
Chapter XL
Penelope didn’t know where they were, but wherever it was, it hurt. She rolled to one side as there was a creaking noise, and the book shelf that she had been somehow lying against fell backwards with a loud crunch, showering both her and the aisle behind her in a solid rain of books.