by Ira Robinson
Other boxes were there, as well as books lining shelves. Papers and objects, things he had come across that seemed unusual or important, some of which he had intent to pass on to the Syndicate if the need for cash should arise. More than he knew what to do with, but too loathe to give them up to just let them go.
He set Sasha's boxes aside, hesitating only a moment before digging into one of the largest that belonged to him, filled with reams of papers he had found at the home of a particularly nasty human inhabited by an even worse demonic entity. They seemed interesting enough to warrant walking out with, the symbols and writing obviously magical in nature, but he understood little of it.
Now, though, he pored over the pages, hoping he could glean something of what was going on out of it. Why were the demonic attacks increasing like they were? If the people in the Syndicate had noticed it, it was not just against him. He might be the cause of it, in the end, but they were not all focused on him directly. That was disturbing. If demons were growing more overt in their operations, it could mean any number of things.
None of which would be good for humanity.
All he was able to manage getting from the papers was a headache, the words and workings of them more than he knew how to handle.
There had to be something he could do, though, to try and find what was happening. Demonic forces on the move, hordes of them attacking out of nowhere, despite their inherent fear of him... it was confusing at best and the future of such attacks could spell something really major.
Demons were always, aggressors, taking every opportunity they could to wreak havoc, but their main mode was secrecy, behind-the-scenes maneuvering of individuals in subtle ways. If people learned, for instance, the voices in their head pushing them to make a decision towards something evil were not of their own but a creature whispering into their ear, that human would run away screaming before giving in to the temptations. That methodology did not serve demonic interests.
Yet they were coming more frequently? No. Things were not right at all. Though Carver was relatively new to the scene and didn't understand the inner workings of the world as well as he should, he at least knew that.
Another two hours of searching revealed nothing useful, and he finally leaned in his chair with his fingers pressed into his temples, the ache in his head worse than those of the rest of his body.
He was missing something, and it was like it was just within his reach, an obvious clue he should see but was, in some way, blocked from doing so.
He closed his eyes, pressing his thumbs into them gently, soothing the headache a little with the pressure. The difficulties of the past couple of days wore him thin and he was exhausted.
His mind cast back to the night before, the multitudes of demons there in the darkness, their writhing bodies grabbing him, stabbing him, rending bits of him away with each claw they raked into his body. He was lucky to have survived after his encounter with the succubus, and he hoped the man he left behind would have a chance to recover now that he was freed of the influence of that nasty demon.
His stomach stirred, a churning in his guts beginning as the scene played out in his recollection, the way those things cavorted around him, dancing their weaving moves of death as they tried to take him out of this life.
Something else was there, too. Something he hadn't noticed at that time, because of the pressure of survival.
But sitting still, the flow of the memory playing across the screen of his mind, he realized the greater pull of something being there was present in those moments of danger.
Yes, much bigger, a shadow overcast throughout the whole space, hidden, perhaps, behind the wicked energy of the horde of small things that attacked him, but there, nonetheless.
It had been watching, controlling that army, the strings in its hand like a heinous puppeteer.
Carver opened his eyes, the whites gleaming in the light of the lamp on his desk.
The succubus may not have been his target.
That thing could have been, and he had failed to comprehend it at all.
Carver bit his lip, dread cascading through his body with a quiver.
Chapter 11
"Got everything?" Carver asked as he snapped the strap of the pack around his waist.
He threw a glance Lisa's way, across the room with the padding of her small purse just slung over her shoulder. She nodded, bending slightly to rub her palm across the fur on Jessup's snout. She smiled at the dog and beckoned him to come as she strode.
The three walked through the front door, Carver bolting the locks in place with a key and touching the wood for a moment with his eyes closed as he reestablished the hexes.
They then made their path to the poor shed near the edge of the clearing, a wood outbuilding that didn't look as sturdy as it should, and much older than the big house.
Carver thought it had once time been used as a tiny cabin for a hunter or something. Just enough area inside for one person to move about relatively freely, but more than that and things got uncomfortably close.
It served a new purpose now, whatever it had been in the past. The three figures reached the door and stepped in, ducking a few cobwebs that slung across the entry from disuse.
The interior was dim, even with the bright light of the morning sun shining outside; the windows of the outhouse were boarded up to keep anyone who ventured onto the property from seeing what was inside. If someone were to brave a look, they would undoubtedly either immediately call the police, or run away in terror at what the family occupying the area had up their sleeves.
Jessup wandered in first, braving the myriad of webs and dust, sniffing around. He sneezed once as Carver and Lisa followed him in. Carver pressed a button beside the door and the overhead light snapped on, then frazzled a few times before remaining lit.
The walls were barren for the most part, not even plastered with drywall or insulation, the exterior easily seen in the stark light. There were a few boxes, mostly filled with nick-knacks and old books, but they were not the centerpiece of the building.
That was reserved for the long array of chains hanging from the ceiling, with another set wrapped around the large central pole that held the roof up. That pylon was as thick as a tree outside, and likely hewn directly from one.
The disturbances in the dust around the chains was more recent than the rest of the place, leftovers from when Carver had to bring someone here. He only had to do it twice, both occasions for a person who fostered demons that simply would not be exorcised by other means. It was a long, arduous time getting those humans free from that set of demons, and Carver had not been sure it would even work.
He didn't think he would need to use them again. Those first times were in his early days as the Hallow, when he was still unaware of the extent of his powers and what he could do with them, but they were a good reminder of where he had come from, and, if need be, they might find employ again.
On the far wall, though, was something much more useful, and why they had entered the building to begin with.
They crossed the hard and splintering wood floor, their feet leaving whorls of movement in the dust remaining behind. Jessup sneezed again and Lisa said, "Ew, don't eat that!" as he lapped a spider into his mouth and began to chew.
Through his chewing he formed a "mmm" sound, as if to explain it tasted fine to him.
Carver smiled and stepped to the wall, tracing the burned lines emblazoned in it for any sign of breakage.
It was a rough and rectangular, a bit taller than himself and twice as wide as the door to the building, the shape of it etched in with a dark color from the hot fire that created it.
It was produced before Carver really understood how the portals Malachi created worked, and he watched the tracings of the man's fingers as one line after another was made, the deep voice chanting strange words Carver could not recognize with every inch. That was two years ago, and Carver used it as little as he could since then, fascinated by it but at the same time a
bit nervous with its workings.
This was a version of the portals Malachi could inherently make, a talent he started to show when he was quite young. But unlike the ones his friend made, being able to go anywhere in the world he thought of, this led to a specific place, and could be used by anyone, regardless of if they could create them or not.
Carver raised his hand and knocked in the center of the formation three times, each louder than the last, though he put no more or less pressure on the strikes.
He made sure Lisa and Jessup were ready behind him, then pushed hard on the same spot he rapped.
The wood faded, melting into itself with a soft dripping sound, and as it disappeared, it was replaced with a growing scintillating light, flowing into dozens of colors spinning around each other. Though the illumination was cast, igniting the whole of the room they were in with brilliant sparks of power, they were not blinded by it, being able to watch the colors change for a moment while the portal made itself ready for them.
The shifting slowed down, the eddies fading into a single white light and, once it was stable, Carver took Lisa's hand in his own and stepped ahead.
Each trip was just as strange as the last. A whooshing sound accompanied their step, sucking them forward into a blaze of white light, and he held his breath as turmoil jumbled every aspect of himself, twisting and bending the atoms of his body, scrambling them into something new. That sensation was momentary though it seemed to go on for hours. Then the shifting slowed to a standstill as the whooshing simmered down and heavy incense suffused his nose.
Everything was silence and blindness, the silvery glow being all he could see, but he still felt Lisa's hand in his own and knew she remained with him. He squeezed her fingers, pressing the flesh he wasn't sure existed quite yet. She returned the grasp.
Then the white faded and normal light began to reboot while the sounds of activity around him struck him in earnest.
The light was everywhere, creeping along the edges of the small buildings beyond the alleyway they had portaled into, a soft yellow-white akin to a twilight time around their home, but it appeared from nowhere in particular. The scent of meat cooking with vegetables, the people's voices calling out to each other as beings passed the end of the alley, the sensation of so much life despite there being a stone ceiling above was disconcerting to Carver, but that was how the Trading Circle was each occasion he entered.
Finally adjusted to the new environment, the three made their way through the alley into the main street beyond.
Trading Circle was perhaps as old as people were, set up by either a group or a civilization that had been lost to the ages, but the Syndicate, and others, used it, a hidden place, as Malachi explained the phenomena, between worlds and times. It had always been and, perhaps, always would, hovering in the stability that stood in the center of heaven, hell, and the physical world.
There were, of course, humans, traversing the streets between shops and other buildings, meeting places for things overt and covert, but the humans were not alone in the mix. Other things, as well, called this place theirs, existing in a tenuous harmony.
Though Carver knew the space was radically neutral, a balance being in check and kept that way by the massive creatures called golems that guarded it all, he still had a wary watch on all the surrounding beings. Such a mass of individuals, including demons braving sight without the guise of human skin, showing their true forms with pride, made him nervous, but he was at least grateful that, for some reason, in Trading Circle the familiar pull in his guts when an evil entity was around did not happen.
Their angelic counterparts were there, as well, though much fewer in numbers. Their large wings and great swords at their hips sparkled in the shining light, gleaming and clean despite the sooty and dirty stone surrounding them. He frowned as he saw one of them having a conversation with two hideous creatures, demons of a higher order, perhaps, who flashed their teeth at him as they walked by.
Jessup, too, disliked being there, his hackles raised constantly and his body never more than a few inches from Lisa's own. He pushed her away, once in a while, from going in certain directions. Carver could not see what he might be steering her from. He trusted the instincts of the dog, though, and followed in kind.
Still, he had a destination in mind and they made their way there slowly, avoiding the crowds who passed by them. This was a busy port, sometimes containing hundreds of people, and it seemed this was one of those times. They came here to hawk, to share information, to meet in a place adamantly maintaining a sense of order, no matter the business.
Carver had come here to sell the knowledge he gleaned, or an object he had acquired, but did not like it there.
While Lisa adored the place, excited to be among so much strangeness and beings of every size and shape, her face smiling and eyes gleaming the whole way through the streets, Carver knew he was not entirely welcomed there.
He was the unknown, the factor that could not be quantified, and that made those who dealt specifically in that kind of thing more than a little nervous.
But Malachi assured him as long as he obeyed the rules, the main of which was to remain neutral no matter what animosities or quarrels he might have with a being, his presence would not be dismissed.
Despite that, he was grateful to come to a stop in front of a small shop with the sign, "Talia's," nailed to the top. He cast a glance around before opening the door and ushering Lisa and Jessup inside.
A soft tinkling accompanied them into the dark room, the haze of smoke from the three braziers burning incense near the counter in the back thick and heavily scented with jasmine and something else, musky. It reminded Carver of Patchouli, but he'd smelled that often enough when he was growing up and knew it wasn't quite that.
A short figure near the counter moved, the old woman's bent body standing to greet them as they entered. Her eyes, shrouded almost entirely in the wrinkles around her face, were bright and reflected the light from the front window even from the distance.
She bore no smile for him as she came closer. Lisa hovered behind Carver with Jessup at her heels, but the dog was relaxed more in this space than he had been outside and Lisa took notice of it. She smiled at the elder as she approached.
"Hello, Talia." Carver held out his hand.
The woman did not take it, stepping close and staring into his face with a squint, the frailty of her body obvious with the closeness. Her toothless mouth opened into an "o" as she looked him up and down, a haziness much like the surrounding smoke in the pinpoints of her pupils.
She said nothing to him but turned away, finally, and beamed at Lisa. "Hello, my dear," she rasped, her voice as thin as her frame.
Talia had to be among the oldest of humans, if human she really was. Carver was not entirely sure, but her ancestry could have been from somewhere in Asia, and some symbols emblazoned on the walls of her shop looked similar. She was ancient, though, of that there was no doubt in his mind, and still powerful, according to Malachi, highly respected by anyone coming to Trading Circle.
She, like everyone else who came to this alien place, had been touched in some way by the unknown. There were no unbelievers in Trading Circle, and everyone appreciated this woman coming through her shop, eventually.
Here there was no judgment for deeds of the past, and Talia knew them all.
She put her hand in the folds of the heavy robe she wore, stained with unusual markings that could be as old or older than Carver. When she brought it out again, she handed a small object over to Lisa.
"Here, my lovely, have a sweet while your father and I talk about a few things. Hmm?"
Lisa grinned and pried the paper off of the candy, popping it in her mouth. Her lips widened in surprise, her eyes lighting up with the taste of whatever the woman gave her.
Talia jabbed her finger into Carver's stomach. "Come."
Carver, bemused, ran his hand over the spot she poked and followed her through the shop to a narrow door at the back o
f the packed space.
He carefully evaded the stacks of books and papers; it was difficult. Talia had a lot of years of collecting beneath her belt and displayed an abundance of it in her place.
He tossed a look behind him before walking though. Lisa was bent forward, staring into a reflective bauble on a shelf while chewing the sweet thing Talia gave her, and Jessup was only inches away, snuffling around the corner of the shop.
"Have you heard about an increase in demonic activity?" he asked her as soon as the door was closed, not wasting time about why he had come to see her.
He had noticed it even there, the streets seeming darker than they had before, in spite of the illuminating spells that had been laid in place long before humans came. There were many more demons along the paths than he remembered, and he didn't expect that. Though they did remain neutral, most everyone who arrived to trade here ultimately had the best interests of the world in mind. Why the increase?