"Didn't you read that blasted email? The end of the damn world, that's what," Hack spoke slowly, "Things that have been asleep are starting to get restless, and they're pushing their influence out into the world. The Sleeper's trying to wake up, and its agents are working to bring it over."
I had no idea what that meant, and it did nothing to put me at ease. It did shed a bit of light on the Libro Nihil's supposed appearance in town, though. A book reputed for containing the secrets of breaching the membrane between worlds would have every cult in the tri-county area on the hunt.
"What the hell is the Sleeper?"
"An Entropic, the worst possible kind of trouble. An avatar of one of the prime universal forces, it's the embodiment of chaos and death." Hack's deadpan delivery really did it for me. "The thing's been asleep for centuries. I don't know what got it stirring, but I felt it shift in its sleep all the way up in Washington. If it wakes up, that's it. Game over. Its followers will pull it into this world, and it won't stop 'til it's snuffed out every light in creation."
"Okay, stop. Seriously, you could've just said the world's going to end if we don't stop the colossal evil monster thing." I finished cleaning up the coffee disaster and dropped down into one of the chairs. "And I would have accepted that, because that's the kind of day I'm having."
"I had to come back, Tommy. The Sleeper's forces are gathering here, they're looking for something they think will help them wake it. We can't let that happen."
That settled it.
I had to find the Libro before this Sleeper's minions did.
It was time to go do something monumentally stupid, and if I botched it, it would end up with me dying a horrific, tragic death and the untimely demise of the entire universe.
"Time to go find us a book, then."
Chapter Seven
"Well, I need to speak with Devlin. Grey, Thomas Grey. Yes, damn it he knows who I am. Fine, but tell him it's important," I said and hung up my cellphone.
Devlin had to give up his source if I was going to stand a chance at locating the Libro Nihil before the Sleeper's agents did. Swift had returned with a sack of hamburgers. I don't care what he is, he's a goodly sort. We all sat down in the kitchen to eat and figure out the next move.
"Any luck?" Swift asked.
"Devlin's simpering minion said he's busy. If he doesn't call back soon, I'm going down to the Red House."
The Red House was Devlin's sanctuary, his castle, the seat of power from which he ruled over his tiny kingdom.
"And you think he knows where the book is?" Hack asked around a mouthful of burger.
"No, but someone tipped him off to it being here in town and I want to know who that is. What do you know about the Libro, Hack?"
"About as much as the next mage. When your great-granddad and I went after Abel Grannok, the crazy son of a bitch was trying to recreate one of the formulae from it to punch a hole to the Other Side," Hack said.
"Where would Grannok have gotten the formula?" Swift asked.
A damn fine question.
"Because he supposedly had the book. That's the whole reason Henry left the old country, he was chasing after the book. He followed leads for years, but died before he could ever find it," Hack said.
"Say what?" I almost did a spit-take.
That was news to me. I had read through every single one of my great-grandfather's journals and notebooks, they were required reading during Hack's tenure as my mentor. Not a single one of them ever so much as mentioned the Libro Nihil.
"Henry knew the book was somewhere around here. He'd heard Grannok had it, but after he was taken care of we tore his whole farm apart looking for it and came up with nothing," Hack said.
"Then we have to go back to Grannok's farm. We have to try looking again, for anything that might give us a clue," I said. I stood up from the table and shouldered my bag. I finally felt like I was moving in the right direction, that I had a solid lead on something.
"You really think there's anything there?" Swift asked as he stood.
"It's the only thing I have to go on right now. I've worked with less," I said.
"What about the cleaning lady?" Swift asked.
"Damn it."
I swerved down the hall to the living room. There was Rosa, still just this side of comatose, on the couch. She was quickly becoming a thorn in my side. I couldn't just leave her there all day in a supernatural slumber.
I mean, I could, but it wouldn't be right.
Technically.
"I'm assuming just disappearing her is still off the table?"
The only answer that got was a stern look from Swift and a curiously raised brow from Hack. I walked around the couch, moving warily, remembering the thrashing I received the last time Rosa was conscious. There really was no good way to go about this; time to man up. This could only end in tears. I moved over to stand in front of the fireplace, putting a buffer zone of running room between Rosa and I should she awaken feeling punchy again.
"All right, do it. Wake her up, but both of you be ready just in case. She's stronger than she looks."
Swift nodded gravely. Hack watched the whole thing with an amused smile on his face. I flinched when Swift reached over from behind the couch to poke Rosa on the cheek. She twitched, her eyes fluttered, and she sat up and looked around. Swift had retreated to the other side of the room up against the china cabinets with Hack.
The cowards.
She saw the two of them, and gasped when she noticed Hack's eyes. She stood up, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and continued looking around the room until she landed on me.
"You," Rosa said. It came out sounding like a curse.
"Hola Rosa."
"Who are you? What do you want? How do you know my name?"
"You're wearing a nametag. Sorry about all the confusion. My name's Thomas." I was trying to speak slowly and calmly, I didn't want to set her off.
"Are you going to molest me?"
"Whoa. No. Not at all. That's totally not what's happening here. Do I look like…Never mind. Listen, do you remember anything from earlier?" This was not going the way I planned.
"Yeah I do, and I remember you and some...some other shit. You ain't natural. There's something wrong with you, and them. What the hell's wrong with that guy's eyes?" Rosa had turned back to look at Hack as she spoke.
"He has a condition. We're looking into it. Rosa, we're not going to hurt you. But you can't tell anybody about what you saw today. It could cause a lot of trouble for you," I said.
"Tell? Who the hell do you think I'd tell? Anyone in their right mind would think I'm crazy. I think I'm crazy. I just want to get out of here." Rosa turned back to look at me, she took a step forward and I did my level best not to flinch back.
"Really? I mean, that's great. That's totally awesome. We can give you a ride or call you a cab or -"
"Hell with that, I'll walk. Just show me the damn door," Rosa spat. "You're all a bunch of weird, evil putas,"
I'm a lot of things, but I'm not evil; weird most definitely, there's no denying that. And I'm not completely clear on that other thing, but it didn't sound good. I huffed and wrung my hands, shrugging and gesturing towards the hall.
"Works for me lady," I said. "We were just on our way out."
I walked out and the group fell in behind me. Once I had the door open and was outside Rosa brushed by without a word and stormed off, she got to the end of the drive, turned towards town and just kept moving. I looked at Swift and Hack and shrugged, then went to get in the car.
"There's no way that's going to come back and bite you in the ass, boy." Hack said once we'd pulled away from the house.
"Hush, you'll jinx it."
I was doing a quick check through my bag, making sure I had enough chalk and baggies and vials, notepads and pencils, an odd assortment of other things that could come in handy. I checked my cellphone probably a half dozen times just in case Devlin had called back. He hadn't. I hoped whatever busi
ness he was up to was more important than the destruction of Earth at the hands of an abstract cosmic entity.
What remained of Abel Grannok's farm was at the furthest reaches of what made up the outskirts of Hanford, nearby to the King's River. Swift followed Hack's directions, taking us past dairies and corn, acre after acre of orchard, and we took a cut-off from the freeway that abruptly turned into a dirt track. Swift slowed down on the bumpy road as it led into an acreage that had gone feral, what looked like gnarly old walnut trees overtaken by valley oak and man-sized weeds. Off the road, under the trees, everything was shadows and watery light filtering through the leaves and Swift had to flip on the headlights so we didn't lose the path.
"Close now, just a bit up the way," Hack said.
"Might as well pull over and get out," I said.
Swift complied, pulling the car off the dirt track and killing the engine. We got out and stood for a minute taking stock of the surroundings; nothing moved and the only sound was the freeway whispering in the distance.
"This is nice; it's like something out of a slasher flick," Swift said.
"That's why I've got you and old laser eyes with me. Who would be stupid enough to try something with two titans like you around?" I said and shouldered my bag, heading down the path. I hadn't gone too far when I passed between a pair of rotted wooden gateposts driven into either side of the road.
"Place still feels wrong. That night…if your great-grandfather and I had shown up any later…" Hack said as we walked.
"Yeah but you didn't. Now quit yammering about it, you're setting an ominous tone," I said.
We had moved into something of a clearing, a space where the trees and brush created a rough ring through which the sky was again revealed and light entered. In its center sat the ruin of what used to be a farm house and barn, now little more than broken up slabs of concrete foundations and time-eaten timber. Debris was everywhere, trash and litter and detritus accumulated over decades.
"You see anything, Hack? I ask because I figure with your eyes, maybe, you know…" I said.
"You're hilarious, boy. I'll go root around by the barn, that's where Grannok was doing the ritual," Hack said and went off.
Swift was standing back and scanning the tree line, clenching and unclenching his hands, looking like he was itching for a fight.
I shifted spectrums and scanned around the clearing. Looking at Swift's true form still put my teeth on edge so I kept him on my peripheral, and passing over Hack was...different. All around his head hung a crackling blue aura, like an angry storm cloud. When things settled down I was going to have to ask Hack about that piece of business. Looking around at the Other Side I could see a low mist creeping along the ground and the shadows were longer and deeper, like patches of empty void on the ground. Hanging in the air over where the barn used to stand was a rippling haze of light, like heat rising up off the street in summer. The scar left over from Abel Grannok tearing a hole in reality.
Looking around the old farm house itself I could see shadows scuttling about in the mist. The likelihood of finding anything after all this time that would help my search for the book was slim to none, but thankfully I could do something to help with that. Swift might be walking death and Hack a bona fide spell-slinger, but me, I found stuff. It's what I did. Secrets and lost things were my bread and butter, and finding them is how I paid the bills.
"Keep an eye out guys; I'm going to look upstream."
I got to a nice wide spot of what used to be the farm house floor and kicked some things out of the way, clearing a space to work in. I fished around in my bag and came up with a few things: the stump of a black candle, a book of matches, and a couple sticks of chalk. Altering and bending reality is all about visualization and willpower, visualizing the effect you want and having the willpower to influence the forces you're working with.
I started by setting the candle and matches in the center of the space I had cleared, and began working out from there using the chalk to draw an ever widening spiral on the concrete, going counter-clockwise. Time is a river, flowing ever forward, branching off into little inlets where events left their mark on the stream. As I drew the spiral, I focused my will into it, concentrated on what events might have left their mark on time, in this space. It's not an exact science, it never is, and I could end up getting a glimpse of Grannok sitting down to a rump roast instead of anything useful. I just had to hope that something of sufficient impact occurred in this spot.
I finished drawing the spiral, holding my focus tightly, like a ball of pulsing light in my brain, and went to light the candle. When the wick flickered to life, I let go my hold on the magic, and the tiny flame glowed the bright clear orange of a flame much larger. The spiral flared up, the mist and shadows began to dissolve. Wherever the light went, the shadows and mist fled, and ghostly shapes began to appear. The memory of the farm house that lingered in the stream began to take form. I always felt disconnected when I did this, it was like being in a movie where no one could see you.
It looked like I was standing in a partially developed photograph, everything was blurry and grainy, slightly transparent and I could hear some kind of static in the distance. There were shapes beginning to resolve themselves, and voices that began as tinny echoes grew clearer as I listened. They were having an argument, the emotion made the words clearer, more distinct.
"You can't do it Abel, that book is evil. It's been nothing but a curse since you got it," one voice said, a woman.
That was promising.
"It's shown me things, Judith. The things I could do with it, I could finally make that creature Devlin Desmond pay for what he did," the other voice, Abel, said.
Devlin? Devlin knew Abel Grannok?
The two figures came into view, a man and a woman. The man, Abel, was rough and angry, his shape distorted and sharpened by a pall of dark energy. Judith was a faded picture, washed out greys and whites, shrinking before Abel. She looked terrified of him. The whole scene rippled, shook, and Abel turned away from Judith to look directly at me. Not in my general direction, but right at my face. That shouldn't be possible, I was just an observer in a memory, but he was doing it.
And he walked right up to me.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Abel Grannok said.?
Chapter Eight
I was officially somewhere beyond freaked out.
There was simply no way that Grannok should be able to see me. I wasn't even there. He wasn't even there. I was just a temporary temporal observer, a passive onlooker at a moment in time. I was getting ready to sever all connection to the working and pull out when I was overtaken by one of the most peculiar sensations I've experienced in my entire life. I was made of smoke, a great hazy cloud of it dispersing into the ether and disappearing.
And just as it began, it stopped.
I stuttered and choked, my eyes watered, and I was staring directly at the back of a...at the back of a...a tragically deformed head.
"The time is here, it must be now. The stars scream between spaces at the God-Spear's approach," it said in a voice somewhere between a rattle and a croak.
I froze.
Grannok hadn't seen me after all; he'd seen the pasty morlock. That he wasn't on the verge of gibbering, like I was, spoke volumes for his character. The thing was all wrong, deformed from head to toe, like a careless child had tried to mold a man from putty and left it out to melt in the sun. It had the baked white eyes of a dead fish and was entirely naked except for a badly tanned loincloth.
"You said that wouldn't be a problem, you told me you'd take care of it," Grannok said.
He fairly towered over the misshapen newcomer, but the thing took a step forward with a growl. Poor Judith was pressed up against the kitchen wall looking like she was trying to sink into it.
Sensible lady.
"The God-Spear wields old power, and has allies. The ritual must be tonight," it said.
"I need more time, more bodies. The Libro N
ihil says the deaths are the conduit," Grannok said.
"You have one more body, right there. I cannot delay the God-Spear any longer," it said, and had raised a hand to point a finger at the shrinking form of Judith Grannok.
The last thing I saw was Abel turning to Judith, before the whole scene evaporated and I was standing in ruins again. Something had broken the spiral, shattered the magic, but I had seen enough.
And that's when I got plowed into by some kind of gigantic feral pig.
It was one of the worst things I'd ever smelled, and weighed probably half a ton; it crushed all the air out of me and I heard Swift cry out my name as I went down.
I did not want to die today. I'd survived a beating by a bug-man, and an angry Hispanic warrior-woman, and I was not about to go out like this. The impact itself raised hell on my already abused ribs, and I caught one of the pig's hooves square in the hip - I'm not afraid to admit I might have screamed. I did the only sensible thing I could think of and I bit the damned thing. The taste immediately made me gag, almost retch, but I must have hit a soft spot because the thing squealed tremendously and flew off me.
I scrabbled to my feet and almost collapsed when I put weight on my newly damaged hip, taking a quick stock of the situation. There were six of the big stinking pigs all together, all of them sickly shades of purple and green like putrid meat, with chunks of flesh missing to expose guts and bone.
Zombie pigs, for crying out loud.
Three of them were circling around Hack and his eyes were flashing dangerously, there was actual lightning crackling around his hands. Swift rushed straight at one of the pigs when it charged him, he caught it, lifted the whole thing up over his head and slammed it straight back down. It exploded. Chunks and pieces of rotten meat littered the ground around the fair sized crater the impact created.
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