by R. R. Virdi
My jaw worked furiously as I stood there for a ten count. I needed answers and the best option I had was to follow a maniac trickster spirit to the other side.
Desperate measures, Graves.
“Damnit.” I leapt after Lyshae.
Chapter Ten
I don’t know if such a thing as perfect darkness exists, but if it does, it would definitely apply to where I was. Forget seeing ahead of me—I couldn’t see my frickin’ self. No amount of time would allow my eyes to adjust to the abysmal darkness. That’s saying something, considering what hung around me.
Fist-sized balls of light floated through the dark expanse, pulsating. There were more of them than I’d ever be able to count. They hung in every color imaginable and beyond, with a vibrancy that’d leave master painters stunned. I’d never seen something so simple and yet so beautifully entrancing. The terrifying part...all that light and none of it did a damned thing to illuminate the darkness.
I was in a part of the Neravene, the world beside our own. A world where almost everything out of mythology existed. A place I tried to avoid at all costs. Dark things, eldritch creatures, Gods, Faeries, Elves and more—anything not born of our world—resided here. Everything wonderful and equally horrifying called this place home.
The Neravene was part of our world in a way. It overlapped and stood beside it, but was an infinitely different place. There’s no possible way to describe its size. It’s not bound by things like time, size or distance. The Neravene is exponentially larger than our world on a scale that no person could possibly imagine. It’s a place of magic, and now I was in it, left in the dark—alone.
Fantastic.
The colored orbs continued their throbbing dance. They bobbed through empty space, giving the illusion of light but doing nothing to aid my vision. I kept the nearest of the lights in sight and stepped toward it. Rock crumbled beneath my feet in protest. I stumbled, losing my balance. The familiar sensation of falling overwhelmed me.
Well, I didn’t last that long.
“Argh!” My left shoulder erupted into fire. It had wrenched. Something enveloped my wrist, its vice-like grip worlds different from the softness of its touch.
“Careful, Vincent,” Lyshae teased as she hauled me back to my feet. She was right in front of me and I couldn’t see an inch of her. She smelled of something sweet—cherries. “Word of advice, Vincent: don’t follow the lights.” And she was gone.
“Thanks, Smeagol,” I grumbled. “Way to ditch Master.”
Sliding a foot forward, I found solid ground, inching just a finger’s breadth to the right. Something crumbled. Holy shit, was the ground narrow! It must’ve been no wider than a yard. If I didn’t walk perfectly inline, I’d take another tumble. I had the feeling that Lyshae wouldn’t save me a second time. It would be a great technicality if the person to whom she was indebted killed themselves. If I was too incompetent to navigate the Ways and died of my own accord, it wasn’t her fault.
“Tricky, sneaky, uppity, conniving, mrffle, urffles,” I grumbled as I crept forward. Each step felt like walking barefoot on a live wire. Shocks and jolts shot up my legs as I proceeded. Stone groaned, crack, and my heart moved to dubstep.
Crack, crack, crack, crumble. I inhaled so sharply it sounded like a panicked wheeze. Please don’t break, please don’t break, holy crap, please do not break, I pleaded silently.
It didn’t. I wasn’t worried. Intrepid investigator of all things spooky and magical I am.
A chorus of laughs reverberated across the place. I couldn’t pinpoint their source. It was eerie in surround sound. Awesome. They rang out again and something occurred to me.
“Lyshae?” I called.
Another chorus of laughs.
“Yes, Vincent?” Her voice came from all directions at different times. Echoes. Great. Now I’d really have a fun time finding her...and the way out.
Grayish-white streaks caught my eye. I turned and backpedaled. Not smart. Stone crumbled, but I didn’t fall. It looked like a person—if it were made out of streams of fog. Slender, emaciated almost. Its features were gaunt and hollowed. A trail of smoke wafted behind, like it was bleeding mist. And I suddenly knew which one of the Ways I was in.
“Holy…shit!”
Lyshae’s laugh filled my ears once again.
“This is your idea of answers? Taking me through the Dead-Straits?” My roar went out in all directions, filling the endless chasm of darkness.
More smoke-like beings walked over the air beside me. They drifted by in a grim procession. Their heads hung low, moving aimlessly—sad. They were something between a soul and a ghost. A bastardization of a once-living essence. Souls lost in this place—human souls.
Humans can pass into the Neravene. It doesn’t take magical ability to cross over. It’s just that those with magical ability find it easier: wizards, witches, druids and so many other magical humans. Though this is not the place to cross over to.
If you fall off the Dead-Straits, you die. It’s not a normal death. Your soul’s trapped here, but its essence—its identity—slowly strips away. These things were souls once. Now they were worn into dejected memories of their former selves.
If I fell, that would be my fate.
Chilled water ran through my veins. “Fuck that.” I shuddered and resolved to walk with more caution. I slinked forward. I didn’t want to stay in this place any longer than I had to. I counted as I walked, something to keep my mind off the terrible things around me.
“Two thousand and forty-six,” I panted, and everything changed. A hot lance seared my eyes. Having struggled to adapt to the dark, the dim light of evening was blinding. My hands rushed to cover the thin layer of skin around my eyes.
“Such a child,” murmured Lyshae’s amused voice.
“Such a bitch,” I murmured back.
She laughed. “We’ve still a ways to go.”
I ignored her, giving my eyes the time they needed to adjust. They fluttered open. A hint of moisture welled in the corners from the earlier pain. Soft, rich browns of earth snaked before me into a long, wide path. Thick, old-world trees towered on either side. Dense forest lined the path. It was beautiful, something reserved for stories. Tolkien-esque.
I shot Lyshae a glare. “All that to come here?”
“Here, yes. There, no. Remember: we haven’t reached the end yet; there’s more to go, Vincent Graves.”
I stuck my tongue out at her.
Her lips spread, revealing teeth, and she took off. No, that was the wrong word for it. She fucking flew off! She didn’t have wings but what she was doing didn’t qualify as running, at least not by any definition I’ve ever heard. Her petite feet were visible beneath her shift as she moved, blurring away. The instant a foot touched the ground, it was back in the air as she bounded forward. She covered distances no mortal could hope to match. It was awing. Lyshae moved with an inherent grace that the world’s best dancers, gymnasts, and ballerinas could never hope to achieve.
And suddenly I was alone, again. This time in an unknown forest.
Worst. Guide. Ever.
I snarled and took off after Lyshae. My legs fired like pistons, hammering into the ground as I tried to keep her in sight. I didn’t do a great job of that, but the path was straight, or so I hoped. I’d either run into her eventually...or trouble.
As I ran, I remembered something from my earlier trips into the Neravene.I frowned as I examined my forearm. There was always a minor tingle surrounding the tissue of my tattoo. It may have been insignificant, but it was always there. A reminder of its magical power. I didn’t feel that at the moment.
Time moved differently in the Neravene and, even then, it never moved at a fixed rate. It depended on what part of the Neravene you were in as well as what kinds of magic were involved. My tattoo wasn’t from this side of the world. It was part of mine, the normal, vanilla world. It was bound to the rules of my world, meaning I’d have no indication of how much time passed or would pass. As long as
I was here, my tattoo would remain in stasis. But time in the normal world would keep moving. The second I returned, my tattoo would decrease in time accordingly…
If I spent too long here, unaware and lost, I could possibly burn through all the time I had. Church wouldn’t like that. Hell, I wouldn’t like that. I’ve never failed a case before. I didn’t plan on making this my first time.
I pushed harder and willed my legs to propel me as fast as they could. I was hoping I’d catch Lyshae. I’d been running for fifteen minutes normal time—in my head at least—before I found her. She stood before a tight wall of trees. Everything seemed denser here. The air felt heavier. Massive streams of silken material decorated the trees, forming intricate nets. Not comforting at all. Worse—the sun had set.
“What now?” I exhaled and worked to catch my breath.
“Now, we go through the woods.” And she did exactly that.
“Right,” I breathed to no one in particular. “Let’s go for a nice walk in the spooky cobwebbed woods…at night.”
At least I was able to keep my eyes on her this time, which wasn’t easy. The amount of webbing intensified the further we went. The moonlight did odd things to the silvery threads. They hung in eerie silence with a ghostly glow. I kept from freaking out. It wasn’t as hard I thought it’d be. All I had to do was stare at Lyshae.
She was the definition of icy calm, and that caused a series of questions to shoot through my head. Those questions were the only thing keeping me from turning around and bolting out the damned forest. How could she be so calm?
Curiosity killed the cat, Graves, I warned myself. Ah, but sating said curiosity was worth it. Was it? The mental badminton helped. Cats have nine lives.
“I don’t,” I growled. All those years, all that body inhabiting and memory borrowing, has left me with some serious multiple personality issues. “I’m not a cat,” I spat.
“No, you most certainly are not.” Lyshae waved to our surroundings. “We’ve arrived.”
Yippee. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that wished the running through the forest part lasted a bit longer. My skin prickled.
I followed Lyshae as she broke through the woods into a clearing, a dirt circle the size of a stadium. A campfire burned in the center, and cobwebbed trees formed a wall around us. The prickling sensation strengthened. It was like I was caught in a heat wave. My skin itched like I’d gone ten rounds with a hornets’ nest. Something watched me from within those trees. I’d been spied on enough to know when something was staring at me.
“Uh, Lyshae?” I fell in step behind her as she progressed toward the campfire.
“Hmmm?”
“Uh, what are we doing here? As in like here-here? You know, with the webs, and the spooky ominous trees of doom, foreboding and evil…ness?” I waggled my fingers to accentuate what I meant.
She smiled.
My blood pressure didn’t like that.
As I walked, I became aware of presences. Not presence—presences. There were more of…whatever was watching me. “I love an audience.”
“Good, they’d love to watch you perform.” Lyshae grinned.
“Uh, I’m the shy sort. Heck, I can’t even take a leak with someone watching, you know?”
She didn’t respond. Lyshae walked at a leisurely pace toward the fire, where I hoped we would sit, make s’mores and tell stories. “Sit.” She gestured to a spot in front of the fire.
I complied. “Now what? We roast hot dogs or something? Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for fun campfire times, but…I sort of need answers.”
“You’ll get them, Vincent. I gave you my word.”
Yeah…because I could trust that ever-so-much.
“Perhaps we should play a game while we wait?” There was a look in her eyes when she said that, a look I didn’t care for.
“Uh, well, you know, it’s all fun and games till someone drops their wiener in the fire.” I let out a weak chuckle.
She stared. Guess she hadn’t heard the joke before.
It grew darker and the fire flickered in disapproval. It struggled to stay alight. My worry grew as it waned. “Lyshae?” I turned back to look at her. I don’t know how she did it. She was sitting right beside me, at the edge of my peripheral vision. Now, she was gone.
Iridescent baseballs hung inside the depths of the darkened forest. There were half a dozen clumped together. That was one set. At rough count there were more than twenty. Twenty sets of gleaming orbs in the forest. All of them motionless, fixed on a single point, and it wasn’t the fire. Nope. They were ever-so-keen on the dimwit backpedaling away from it.
“Lyshae!” I hollered. “Where am I?”
Her voice came back as a distant echo. “Why, in the domain of my mistress, of course.”
Crap. Of course. Lyshae had stopped working for Gnosis, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have picked up a new employer.
A disturbing choir of noises erupted from the surrounding trees. A non-human chorus of chittering. Whatever was hiding in those trees had got to talking. Three guesses who they were talking about. I tried to ignore it.
Not that easy—take my word for it.
“Who do you serve, Lyshae?”
Echoing laughter filled the air.
“Lyshae! Who do you work for?”
The chittering increased in tempo, now sounding like a swarm of flying insects. I wasn’t fazed. Nope, not at all. Stone cold calm and collected I was.
“Lyshae, who the hell do you work for?” I screamed.
The chittering ceased and was replaced by something else. A heavy, rapid clacking. Clogs on wood, eagerly snapping away as it grew darker still. Moonlight cast its shine upon those glowing orbs. They brightened further. There was a ravenous gleam in those things. Don’t ask me how I knew. It’s like how a rabbit knows there’s a fox watching it, thinking of dinner. I just knew.
“Why, the Mistress of Webs,” Lyshae answered.
A lead weight fell into my stomach.
“I serve the Mother of Lies and Whispers,” she continued.
The pit of my stomach froze solid. Arctic tendrils worked their way into the rest of my body.
“I serve the Mother of Spiders, Vincent Graves.”
Where was Admiral Ackbar when you needed him? The campfire flickered and waned, dwindling further. It was the only light source. The moonlight was weak, unable to brighten the darkening field. The clacking evolved into an intense drone, like a weighty hail.
“You are in her realm now, Vincent.” I could almost picture Lyshae smiling.
The campfire went out.
Oh shit.
Chapter Eleven
The Mother of Spiders.
This was bad. She was a major player in the paranormal world’s information network. She also happened to be one of the freestanding lords of the Neravene. A creature of immense knowledge and power. Someone with enough muscle and assets to carve out and claim a chunk of the Neravene. Likened to being a queen, she had her own domain. It was vast, expansive, and, in it she ruled absolute. And I was trespassing. Fantastic.
The Mother of Spiders was the most deceitful, wicked, cunning creature I’d ever heard of. Lyshae was a sweet, innocent wallflower next to her. And that tells you all you need to know about the Mother of Spiders. She was cold, cruel and calculating. Merciless. Lyshae may have been a good source for knowledge, but the Mother of Spiders was one of the sources for information. Her webs ran far and wide, and, thus, she was able to build an information network that potentially rivaled Gnosis’.
That sounded like great news. She definitely had the resources to help me. Given her reputation though, she was more likely to kill me—slowly. For the record, I’m not a fan of patience, and certainly not of dying slowly. Or at all if I can help it.
“Come closer,” rasped a voice, jarring me from my thoughts. It was disturbing, something like a wet cough, phlegm-filled and disgusting.
I stayed rooted to the spot.
&n
bsp; “Come closer,” it cooed.
“Said the spider to the fly,” I muttered.
A series of…what I could only describe as laughs, emanated from the trees. It was odd, distorted, like whatever was doing it didn’t have the vocal ability to laugh. Didn’t stop it from trying.
“Fly indeed.” It sounded almost amused.
I kept backpedaling.
“Won’t you stay for dinner?”
“Uh, no, thanks.” I waved my hands. I had no idea if it could see the motion or not. It didn’t hurt to be extra clear though. “I’m full. Cafeteria oatmeal. Good stuff. Hearty, healthy, wholesome—you should try it.”
“Full? But we are not,” it replied.
Gulp.
“Ah well, eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper,” I quoted. “Best to eat next to nothing at all, if possible.”
More laughs. “Amusing.”
“That’s me,” I chirped. Cold sweat formed over my body. “I think I’m going to go now.”
“I think not,” said the voice.
The moon was directly overhead now, finally able to cast its pale light and allow me to see clearly. I wish it hadn’t. A fucking tarantula larger than a minivan bustled out of the trees. Right. Toward. Me.
I inhaled. That was about all I could do. Trust me, I wanted to run. I just had to remember how. “No more GMO’s for you,” I breathed. “You’ve gotten big.” Good ol’ mouth, when my body freezes, you just keep on going. Way to go—toward getting me killed.
“Leaving? So soon? How rude.” The arachnid was grizzled. Scars littered its legs and body. One particular wound stood out. The uppermost left eye was a milky white, unfocused and obviously blind. Wonder who gave ‘em that?
“Well, I’d hate to be rude but I, erm, have a job to do.” I tried laughing in a causal tone. I failed.
“Do stay,” it pleaded. “We’re hungry.”
We...right. A whole mess of these freaks were around me. I didn’t think there’d be enough of me to go around.