by R. W. Holmes
“Cypress is right” said Angelica. “We have to get away from Gael. He's too dangerous.”
Kennedy clicked the receiver of his phone back on.
“Hey, Gael?” he said awkwardly. “We're, uh...”
Gael, still leaning against Emily's rented sedan, frowned as he sensed hesitation in Kennedy's voice.
“We're done” said Kennedy. “I'm sorry.”
The line went dead, and Gael was left standing in bewilderment.
“What does that mean?” asked Zinerva.
“What happened?” Emily called from within the car.
“They're done” replied Gael. “That's all they said. I don't know how far they're taking that, but I know that means they're not going to help.”
Emily nodded within the sedan solemnly, before saying, “Your ticket to Mars is waiting for you at the starport.”
“Come on, Emily” Gael said as he turned to face the car. “We need to pick one objective and go after it. Argyle is obviously more important, and the R'lyehans want us to-,”
The sedan screeched against gravel and concrete as Emily slammed on the gas and sped off, leaving Gael to stand helplessly by the side of the road, two miles from the starport, in complete silence and with nothing but Zinerva for company.
“Okay” said Zinerva. “I know this seems bad, but... Emily's tough, you know? She'll be okay. And Kennedy and Angelica, that wasn't ever really going to last, you know?”
Gael sighed and shrugged. “It's fine” he said shrilly. “At least I don't have abandonment issues, or anything that would make this really bad.”
Zinerva frowned and draped her arms around Gael consolingly from her seat on his shoulders. “We'll have plenty of time to put things back together once we've gotten the scroll back” she said knowingly. “You'll know who you can trust when we see who's come back.”
Back on Mars, Kennedy was hurriedly packing his things, and Angelica was doing the same.
“I've chartered a flight for us!” Kennedy called down to Angelica as he stuffed his suitcase full of the few new things he'd bought since starting his life over. “Europa is really nice this time of year, and my father is there. You said the R'lyehans didn't want to mess with us anymore, right? I think this is our chance to reconnect with family.”
“Oh my gosh, you're right!” Angelica called up excitedly. “We can see our families again!”
Cypress, meanwhile, was busy preparing the truck and calling the rental agency to make sure they had a place at the city's major starport to accept it back.
Finally, there was Artemis, who sat motionless in Angelica's kitchen as all of this went on about him. Despondent and disgusted by his former summoner's course of action, he said nothing to anyone, at least not until the front door of Angelica's apartment opened up and Kiki stepped inside with several bags of freshly purchased hardware tools.
“Whoa” she said in bewilderment. “What's going on?”
“The others are abandoning Mars” replied Artemis. “They are 'moving on' from this chapter in their life. I am part of what is being moved on from.”
“Aren't you someone's demon, though?” Kiki asked as she sauntered over and took a seat at the table.
“Not anymore” said Artemis. “Angelica has moved on. I am, like you, on my last life here in the world, and Eiffel is one of the few places where my appearance can be explained away.”
Kiki frowned, but nodded understandingly.
“What's going to happen with the rent?” she asked nervously.
“Kennedy has agreed to keep paying it for a while longer” replied Artemis. “A pittance to Gael, but I suppose to you as well.”
“You're real torn up, though” said Kiki. “Kind of surprising, really. I figured you were just some Mr. Tough Guy stereotype who didn't give a hoot about anyone but himself.”
“I am wholly without remorse for the things I've done” replied Artemis. “But that is because they are lessons, and I have learned from them all. To be strong is my purpose, and I am st-,”
Artemis stopped speaking, a sudden change in demeanor coming over him with a scowl that existed purely for the words coming out of his own mouth.
“Everything alright?” asked Kiki.
“I am sick of speaking of my strengths as a means to cover up my worry and uncertainty” replied Artemis. “And it is cowardice to hide the truth from others. I will miss them, dearly.”
Kiki nodded and looked about herself momentarily. “Do you know when they're gonna be out of here?”
“Less than an hour” said Artemis. “Things are moving... very fast.”
Kiki nodded again and stood up. “We're gonna go get hot dogs” she said with a smile. “And when we get back, they'll be gone, but at least you won't be friendless.”
“Yes, of course” said Artemis. “Gael and Zinerva.”
“What!? NO!” snapped Kiki. “Me. I'm the one buying you food, uggo.” Kiki paused and looked at Artemis's bare, exposed, and extremely muscular chest. “I mean... mostly uggo.”
Far away on Earth, Gael continued walking whilst Zinerva held a hitchhiking thumb out to the motorists driving by.
“We'll be there in half an hour” said Gael. “There's no point in hitchhiking now.”
“Yeah, but I've never hitchhiked before” replied Zinerva. “I wanna try hitchhiking through space, too.”
“There's a really great series of classical books on that called-,” Gael started.
“The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, yeah” said Zinerva. “I've read them, they were great.”
“Wha... How!? Where do you the find the time?” asked Gael.
“Shay is really boring” replied Zinerva. “You know, kind of like Emily. They like to do weird things, and they'll do them for hours just so long as you're in the room with them. Every free moment I have is me on the computer, reading a book, and watching recommended TV, at the same time.”
“Emily...” mumbled Gael.
“I'm sure she's fine” Zinerva said quickly. “She's Emily. Boring in the sheets, professional enforcer and hitman in the streets.”
Fifteen thousand miles from Earth, Emily's ship coasted up to a small, personal space station that was supposed to be dark. In fact, it still was, the but the lone ship already docked at it was doing nothing to hide its own identity.
Emily and Shay grimaced as they laid eyes on the vessel for what was the first time in person since Enterprise Island. It wasn't at Argyle's station's docking bay, but instead had landed directly on the stations left side, clinging to the wall like a spider. A long, narrow tube extended down to the station and connected to what should have been a solid steel wall.
“They cut their way right in through the walls” Emily lamented drearily.
“Emily, why did we come?” asked Shay. “We can't-,”
“Argyle has a panic room” replied Emily. “He might still be okay, Shay. He might just need a little backup to pincer Allen and the other R'lyehans in.”
“Okay, fine” replied Shay. “Does that mean we're going to leave if it's not the case.”
Emily grimaced. “Yes” she acquiesced. “Someone has to be here. Someone has to have come. Even if we can't do anything, Argyle needs to know he wasn't just abandoned.”
“Okay” Shay said as she pulled her chair up to a terminal and began typing.
Quickly, and with a keyboard prowess one wouldn't expect in a fantastic, woodland creature, Shay accessed the station's log-in and logged herself in as an administrator, before using her new found access to open the station's docking bay.
“There” she said with a sigh. “They won't get any alerts from the computer, but I'm sure one of them is watching. If Allen is as smart as he seems, and he is if he orchestrated all of this, then he'll have brought infrared to deal with my invisibility. What's our breach strategy?”
Emily reached down to her side and grabbed hold of her knife.
“I am.”
Within Argyle's station, calls for action
were going up among the dozen R'lyehans who'd flown up with Allen. A particularly aged and froggish one among them barked orders to the other R'lyehans as they scooped up the small, compact sub-machine guns they'd brought along, before making their way to the docking bay.
The orders stopped for a moment as the eldest and most mutated among them was called to by Allen.
“Gergich!” shouted Allen. “I didn't bring you here to survive, so I hope you've got a plan for dealing with them.”
Gergich glowered back at Allen bitterly and turned to go. “My plan is to shoot her” he said plainly.
Allen shook his head in disappointment and went back down the hallway to where his own elder ancestor, a frog-like fish creature of such advanced mutation that it had long since forgone the need for clothes, sat waiting quietly. The creature was the same one that had been there waiting for Allen after he had finished his business at Enterprise Island, and it was sitting in a sort of waiting room adjacent to the conference room Emily and Gael had met with Argyle in only hours prior. Several cheap pieces of furniture surrounded an equally cheaply made wooden coffee table, a room that in its entirety seemed to exist within a different reality of what was pleasing to the eye.
“You are quick to test” it said to Allen.
“Gergich is an idiot” replied Allen. “Let him fail. It's the only way to prove he's not worth our time.”
The creature nodded, before reaching out to the coffee table in the center of the room and awkwardly grasping a tea cup.
“What about you, Argyle?” it asked next, before turning to the young man and the shoggoth that draped itself defensively around his seat. “What would you do in Allen's position?”
“Order everyone to kill themselves” Argyle replied bitterly.
The creature laughed heartily at Argyle's response, before mumbling, “Funny, I think he'd say the same... But for entirely different reasons, of course.”
At the docking bay, the twelve R'lyehans sent to deal with Emily took up defensive positions around where Emily ship had just finished docking. There was nowhere for her to run, nowhere for her to hide, and most importantly, no way for her to hide herself.
“Lights off!” snapped Gergich, the light in the docking bay going dark at his command. “Everyone, infrared on.”
Gergich took the spot directly opposite where Emily's ship's cargo bay opened up, along with his three most trusted soldiers.
“We do not die” Gergich said next.
“Clw'nath” the others finished.
The cargo bay of Emily's ship opened up, and the ramp hidden within its floor descended to the station. With a somewhat soft, grinding clink!, it locked itself in place.
A much harsher series of clinks and clangs followed as a small, metal object bounced down the ramp and rolled to a stop in the center of the room.
Bang!
Gergich cried out as he was blinded, his voice lost to the others as their ears began to ring wildly from the extraordinarily loud noise produced by the flashbang. Gun shots rang out through the station centered on where the R'lyehans thought the entrance to Emily's ship was, but a few were off, and one was gunned down in a flurry of accidental crossfire.
Emily, meanwhile, escaped out through a hatch on the top of her ship and leaped up to a terminal overlooking where her ship was docked. Quick as a cat, she started the ejection sequence for her ship, overrode the warning that said there were people present in the docking bay, and then fled into a nearby corridor and sealed the door behind her.
A cry of horror went up from the remaining R'lyehans as the docking bay's great blast doors opened. All the air in the room rushed out into the vacuum, carrying the R'lyehans with it, and ejecting her ship from where it was docked.
“Wow...” Shay said as she appeared at Emily's side. “That was insane.”
Emily closed her eyes and exhaled slowly to calm her frantically beating heart. “Things are getting crazy” she said levelly. “We need to step up our game if we're going to stay relevant. You need to step up your game if we're going to stay relevant.”
“Oh..” Shay murmured awkwardly. “I'll, uh, get right on that...”
Emily pulled out her phone then and checked her app for Argyle's station. “One Argyle, one shoggoth, two R'lyehans, and us” she said, her tone steeped in cautious optimism. “This is fine. We've got this.”
“Why isn't Argyle's shoggoth doing anything?” asked Shay.
“Because Argyle is probably hiding in a-,” Emily started, before checking her app again. “Okay no, he's sitting in the waiting room with them. Get ready, Shay. This might be a hostage situation.”
“How do I get ready for a hostage situation?” Shay asked as she hopped off of Emily's shoulder and the two started proceeding to the waiting room.
“By acting like a fucking professional” hissed Emily. “Listen, this is a small station. If you need to stop and think about things, then we'll stop.”
Shay grumbled indignantly as she followed Emily along, careful not to kick over any of the trash Argyle still had yet to clean up, and was almost caught off guard when they began descending a cold, steel staircase that would let them out not fifteen feet from the meeting room that awaited them. Wisely, she turned herself invisible and leaped back up atop Emily's shoulder.
Within the meeting room, Allen joked with his amphibian elder as a small display mounted on the wall repeatedly showed Gergich and his men being sucked out the airlock. The two hardly seemed to notice Emily approaching, until Allen, still grinning, turned and looked directly at her approaching.
“And there she is!” Allen said grandly, his words accompanied by the applause of his elder. “Honestly, I wish everyone really did have a price, because for you, I'd pay it.”
Emily looked at Allen's elder and scowled in disgust. “No thanks” she said plainly. “I've seen how your kind lives forever. It's never pretty.”
Allen smirked and gestured to Argyle. “I was just about to ask your friend here if he knew why you were about to die. Maybe you can answer that question...”
“I'm not about to die” replied Emily.
“Semantics” Allen said quickly, before rounding on Argyle and grinning at him.
Argyle tensed up, and his shoggoth wrapped itself a little more closely around him.
“Tell me, Argy, why is Emily going to die?” asked Allen.
“Uh...” muttered Argyle, before swallowing nervously and looking about himself for help.
“Emily.”
Emily's ear twitched as Shay began whispering in it.
“Why isn't the shoggoth doing anything? It could kill Allen in a second, but it's not. Something is wrong. We need to leave!”
The terrified look on Argyle's face drowned out Shay's words, and Emily planted her feet more firmly as she stared Allen down.
“It's fear” said Allen. “She's afraid, but not a coward. Fear is wonderful because of how it makes people make mistakes, even the brave ones. Do you know how, Argyle? Do you know what magical, nightmarish creation spawns from fear?”
Argyle shook his head worriedly.
“Worry” Allen seethed gleefully. “It sounds harmless, right? How sinister that is, especially for something so devastating. Most people will destroy the things they love if they worry about them enough, but the brave... They'll destroy themselves if they worry about something enough.”
Allen turned away then, while his elder stood up and revealed a book it had been keeping carefully concealed beneath its large, webbed hands on its lap.
“Let's get rid of your friend first” it croaked.
Shay gasped as the creature gestured towards it, and cried out when she was sucked back against the wall behind Emily and herself as a familiar, otherworldly force grabbed hold of her. Emily spun just in time to see a rippling, green circle of brilliant energy coalesce around Shay.
“Run” said Shay. “He's sending me-,”
Emily gasped as the circle around Shay suddenly filled in with the imag
e of a pristine meadow, backed by an idyllic little village with houses that bent and swayed in playfully unrealistic ways. All at once, Shay fell back into the image as though it were a window, and was left behind when it sealed shut behind her.
“Now then...” the elder said, its monstrous, scaly hand turned to Emily next.
A sharp, shrill cry rang out through the station from Emily, her scream making Argyle flinch and look away in horror as she was lifted off the ground by some unseen force and suspended helplessly before Allen and his grandparent.
“I hated Gergich and his men” said Allen. “But you know, I always give people a chance to surprise me. I've never outright killed one of my own before, and it's bought a certain degree of loyalty from those who end up taking my orders. I'm going to have to insist you die the way Gergich did, as a reassurance to the person who takes his place.”
“No!” cried Argyle, the meek young man suddenly rising up to his feet. “You-,”
Allen's elder waved a hand at the shoggoth next, its eyes growing dull and unfocused as it very mechanically scooped the wailing Argyle up and swept him, and his complaints, off into some other room on the station.
“Th-That book...” Emily managed. “Is it-”
“Al Azif?” queried Allen. “Oh yes, but not a copy. We've had it for quite some time, now. Stealing it and burning down the owner's home... I still can't believe The Fae and the rest of the world fell for it.”
“Why?” asked Emily. “Why would you bring something like that here? What the Hell is Argyle to you?”
A wry and all too repulsive smile came over the elder's face as it looked down at the ancient, leather-bound tome in its hands. Intricate symbols in a language far from its creator's Arabic origin danced along its spine, while imperfections in the 'leather' suggested potentially ghoulish origins for the book's very making.
“You don't need to know where you're going” it rasped. “Now, celebrate. Everyone you know will be close behind.”
Allen stepped by and lazily grabbed hold of Emily's foot, and then dragged her restrained, hovering body behind him like a balloon as he made his way down a corridor Emily remembered as one she'd take Argyle to when he needed a scolding.