Angiolina despairs and starts shouting for Rafaella.
"RAFA! RAFAELLA!" Afraid of calling attention, she lowers her voice. "Come here, my angel, are you okay? Grandma wants to see you!"
"Auntiie Angel? I'm going! Mommy stayed in the car talking to a man and told me to go." 'Angel' was how Angiolina's niece called her. She never managed to pronounce the aunt's name correctly.
Rafaella, who was only five, was still going up the steep steps with difficulty. Angiolina reached for the door, but cowered. She was afraid of the creature. She wanted to save herself.
"I can help you." The Shadow offered again.
Angiolina sat on the couch, shaking, afraid of all possibilities. So she gave Nathan space, who looked through the window to understand the situation. He saw Rafaella and the creature. He shivered as he saw a piece of arm fall from one of the pustules.
Nathan had an interesting power, as a Blade soldier, he could accumulate and return kinetic energy during a combat. He did not think twice before opening the door. He went down the steps running, stepped over the girl and grabbed the suitcase she dragged through the stairs. Before he could use his strength to take a big leap back into the house, something sticky caught his foot.
The creature, lacking a distinct mouth, had reached his body and was bigger. The leg that was caught started to hurt, like it was being corroded. Rafaella started thrashign to escape, she wanted to reach her aunt. In despair, Natahn uses all of his strength to get his leg free. His pants rip apart. Most of his leg is skinless, bleeding.
Even then, Nathan manages to jumpo to the house's door, opening the door and getting Rafaella on the ground. He passes out immediately afterwards.
After a moment of tension and silence, a loud bang echoes from the house's door.
Another one.
And another.
The door breaks down. A huge festering slug crawls through the door. Angiolina hugs her niece strongly, trying to suppress her crying and covering the child's eyes. The little one foes not understand what happened and only cires because of her aunt's reaction. Pure despair and fear of death overcome the Sicilian. She never managed to defeat a creature like these before. Not one from another plane. Worthy of nightmares.
Were it not for her instincts screaming for her to protect Rafaella, she would have run far away. A familiar voice whispers to Angiolina.
"Sovereign, do you still wish for me to star far away?"
Chapter 14
The Sovereign
"Attack, Shadow! Rid us of this creature!" — Angiolina commands, covering her niece's eyes and ears using her body. Nathan is still unconscious.
The Shadow materializes completely. It is a humanoid shade, the shape of something that does not belong to the world of the living. It is pure fluid darkness. Inside the shadows, the outline of an aquiline-faced woman or man with long her can be seen. The creature smiles to Angiolina. A sinister smile.
The entity bows, stills laughing.
"As you wish, Sovereign."
The immaterial body rises from the couch. The shadows that surround its body get bigger and denser as it approaches the Vorta'hu, which barely fit the house's living room. As it projected its shadows, the creature recoiled, slowly leaving the house, instinctively closing its gooey pustules.
Angiolina considered running to a bedroom, but stood there, watching.
A bump follow by a horrible guttural scream is heard. Rafaella cries in panic, looking to the door, terrified. The darkness around the Shadow now take shape, emitting terrible sounds as the creature recoils and screams. It seemed like it was being boiled and consumed by the darkness.
Angiolina is the only one who remains firm. She manages to feel the control she has over her dark servant. No one notices, but she smiles maliciously.
Another terrible scream. A cracking noise, like eggshells being stepped on, can be heard. Rafalla escapes from Angiolina's arms and runs far away. She lays down on the floor, covering her head with both hands. Angiolina stands with a sinister look and screams:
"Rafaella Dulce! Get up and come back here" This is part of what you will be, come watch!" The girl waves her head negatively, still laying down, for the first time in her life scared of her aunt.
Angiolina walks towards Rafaella. Another sequence of primal screalms, bangs and cracking eggshells is heard. The temperature starts undulating, waves of heat and cold emanating through the house. "Come, darling, don't worry. You don't have to be afraid of something that also belong to you, come!"
Rafaella gets up with her aunt's help and, holding her hand, walks back to the front door. The girl tries to move away, but Angiolina holds her hand firmly. "Easy, it's almost over. Look with your other eyes." The Sicilian says, putting a finger on her niece's forehead.
"I don't want to! I don't want to see anything!" — Rafaella screams, trying to get away from her aunt.
"Let her go, ma'am!" Nathan commands, calmly yet firmly. He has just woken up.
Angiolina turns towards Nathan, looking him spitefully. Her disdain is obvious. She has much greater forces inside herself. She lets Rafaella's hand go and the girl runs away, inside the house.
"You are not supposed to keep me from teaching to my own blood. She cannot escape her destiny. Blood is stronger!"
Another bang. More cracking eggshells Angiolina is overcome by the sensation of power. The Shadow is a predator. Her predator, who is sating her thrist. Nathan has seen it before. Dealing with Shadows makes the conjurer acquire part of the entity's darkness. The ex-military is no hypocrite and knows that Angiolina has taken the correct decision to protect her niece and her life. Nathan considers how powerful Angioline might become if she keeps summoning souls. And the price she will pay for that.
"I know blood is stonger. But this is no time for it."
Angiolina stops smiling at the same time as the squeaks and sounds outside cease. The Sicilian's countenance changes.
" Are you okay?" Nathan repeats, noticing the change in demeanor. "Are you normal?"
"Yes and I don't know. But the Shadow and the creature are gone. This is what matters." She sighs, relieved. " To control a Shadow, you have to think like it. It's terrible. But we are safe."
Behing Nathan, only she could the Shadow, standing, smiling. The same weird bleached eyes. The moving, fluid, darkness. Angiolina sees the Shadow going away.
"Let's make a barricade with the couch. I don't want to see outisde."
"It's behind me, isn't it?" He asks as he obeys Angiolina.
She just smiles and goes look for her niece.
"Let's rest tonight, you need bandages and Rafaella needs sleep. We'll go to the hotel in a few hours."
"Right." Nathan agrees. "By the way, it would be good if you had some hidden weapons. It would be an extra protection when we leave for the hotel. There are still many crazy people around." But he laughed, it was a joke.
" We are Sicilians, we will always have hidden weapons!"
Both laugh. Angiolina is reaching for a cupboard when her sight goes turvy, but this time she knows what's coming.
Chapter 15
The Nix Dungeon
Angiolina's mind travels through the astral plane. She has control over where she is going, thanks to the Shadow's powers. This time she is inside Melissa's mind.
Melissa wakes up in the dark. It has been a while since she is locked inside this hospiral room. She started calling it a hospital room because, from time to time, someone dressed in white opens the door, bringing her meals.
The doctor remembers the day armed men arrived at Nyx Observatory. She was taken captive along with her work colleagues, Doctor Saul and Roberto Seaman. Guns were pointed to their heads and questions were asked about her reasearch on solar system anomalies.
Apparently, the researchers found something that they shouldn't have. The memory becomes specially sad and painful when her thoughts drift towards Seaman. The aggressors were extremely hard on him.
As expected, the English/Brazilian
citizen did not surrender easily and was severely beaten. His screams of pain gave way to pleas of mercy and then to silence.
She remembers how the invaders laughed each time one of his bones broke. She didn't understand why they were being kept. Nor what was the problem with the discovery they made. But she knew she wouldn't talk. The questions haunt the doctor.
The person responsible for her weekly interrogation was a man called First Apocryphal by his assistants. The man had grey hair and a cold smile, which he showed every time he showed up to interrogate her.
Melissa was tortured weekly until they were sure she didn't know anything. Doctor Saul was locked in a room nearby. But it had been a while since she heard his screams. Just as Seaman, he had probably been murdered.
A familiar noise at the door draws Melissa from her memories. The nurse opens the door and points to her bed. A person is standing behind the burly caretaker. Little by little, the doctor's eyes get used to the light.
She can see the First Apocryphal's smile as he watches her, savoring the moment. She starts crying and thrashing about on the bed. The nurse rushes in to hold her.
He approaches the bed. Melissa looks at the interrogator's hand and notices the scalpel. He runs the blade close to her skin. Melissa cries, but tries to remain silent. She is afraid of the worst. The Aprocyphal's rough and calm voice booms.
"If you tell me what you've seen, there won't be any more cutting. You get away, unharmed, and I leave you alone."
Melissa looks at her torturer and says she doesn't know anything. She sees that cold smile drawing itself open. She wonders about the day when she'll be able to have her revenge. The nurse silently leaves food and water on a corner and takes the small chamberpot with her.
Deep down Melissa feels an insight, sooner or later the tide will turn. But, even then, her head wonders several times: why don't they kill her already?
"I'm only going to ask once, ok?" The First Apocryphal begins.
"Has a man called Victor Carlyle ever contacted you?' He asks, watching attentively.
"No. I don't know who that is." She ansers firmly.
"Are you sure?" He asks one again, pressing the scalpel against her skin.
"I am." Melissa answers, looking directly at her aggressor. She needs to convince him.
"And how am I going to know if you are saying the truth? I think we are going to spend some time together today." He smiles.
Melissa can't handle it and screams in panic.
"Nooooooooooo! Please noooooo! I told the truth!" I told the truth!"
The nurse takes a step back and leaves. Eyes full of fear.
Melissa's legs are cut several times.
Chapter 16
The Waiting
Carlyle is still alone. The wobbly light provided by the generators creates a weird atmosphere. He is in a big room, with colonial furniture. On the walls, pictures of old Portuguese noblemen, men boasting exhuberant beards and hard faces, women in long dresses and peaceful countenances.
The veteran lounged reading his favorite book, War of the Worlds. He thinks about what happened so far and what might happen next.
"It's still ironic. Tragic, but ironic." He muses at the title.
Looking through the window, Carlyle can see the city's downfall. From above, he saw the insane hordes wander downtown, attacking anything that moved. People with everyman appearances, on normal clothed, taken by madness.
Victor Carlyle has been alive for many years, more than any human should. Born in 1866, heir to one of the richest English families in Europe, Victor had his childhood and adolescence filled with luxury and extravagance. But it was in his adulthood that the hidden truth behind the door revealed itself to him, more precisely at 1890, by the end of the Victorian Age.
In that year he met the Mythos, old forbidden knowledge from ancestral creatures and realities, inhabiting his universe since the dawn of time. Being as old as any planet, who manipulate, distort and prey upon our reality.
Victor Carlyle remember what happened while he waits for Natahn to come back with Angiolina. The only way to keep his mind from worrying about her and fearing that she won't come back safely.
"Cold drizzle is the feast of death's angels." He whispers and bangs his cane's silver dragon head against the wooden windowsill. Right then, a lightning bolt flashes across the night sky. Carlyle gets back to his reading.
Patience has always been of of his great virtues. Despite the concern for his friend eating at his soul, he needs to remain alert. As always, he remembers, reasoning has been the best way to keep himself protected from the claws of insanity and the dark secrets of the world.
Chapter 17
A City Overcome by Plague
Birds, rats, cockroaches and other kinds of crawling creatures are the first to feel great natural disasters. Before powerful earthquakes or tornados it's common to hear about crawlers leaving the sewers, plaguing areas about to be hit by catastrophe.
So, as soon as dawn comes, the city is overrun by swarms of rodents and insects. Drawn by the feast of corpses, blood and guts.
Downtown, where the buildings are clustered together and the streets are narrow, the piled up corpses block many access streets, making Aaron, Yura and Joseph's path ti Hotel Azzura a lot harder.
Aaron's bike is the first to arrive, stopping a few yards away from the underground entrance to the big abandoned hotel after braking abruptly.
Thanks to clogged drains, the alley flooded during the heavy rain and garbage joined the spectacle of crawlers and corpses that plagues the city.
The smell of sewage, death and garbage is rancid. The Blade's agent looks for threats and notices some corpses are still silently moving. The amount of rats and other crawlers is so huge that not even the roaming insane can escape.
Yura and Joseph arrive soon thereafter, stopping their bike close do Aaron's.
"Did you see anything, partner?" The Ukranian asks Aaron in her usual sarcastic tone.
"Afraid of roaches, doc? What about rats?" Yura nudges Joseph.
He is still trying to recover from riding with Yura. He get down from the bike and looks to the parth ahead, astonished.
"My God... I have never seen insects acting like this. Rats I did. I know reports of rat attacks, but none this fierce. They seem possessed by some kind of frenzy."
"Easy there, doc. You don't want to draw their attention, do you?" Says Yura, trying to drag him back to reality.
Joseph takes a few steps behind his new bodyguard, scared
"We need to find a way through. Yura, see if you can fin an alternate path climbing that wall." Aaron commands, pointing to the wall of a government facility neighbor to Azzurra.
It looks like an old warehouse that was taken by homeless and drug users a long time ago. Yura climbs the grattiti-covered wall using cracks on it, like a cat.
"Watch out, Yura! Be careful, please." A concerned Joseph states.
She looks at his friend and smiles. "Don't worry, handsome, I'm already dead." "And completes closing her eyes tenderly. "How cute!"
"Yura, we don't have time! Doctor, hop on the bike, we need to be prepared." Aaron commands, waiting for the Ukranian's action.
Yura walks atop the wall with perfect balance, despite it being narrow. On the other side she can see a small courtyard with no more than ten square yards, which seems deserted.
The warehouse itself is a big shack, with several machines covered by plastic. She can also see that some govenment cars are parked inside, such as polica cars, ambulances and rescue vehicles.
"If there are cars here, there must be an exit on the other side." Yura whispers to herself.
Her delay costs her dearly. The crawler swarm feels her presence and starts shuffling towards her , slowly climbing the wall. She is still trying to find the secondary exit of the governmental motorhouse. The insect wave grows by the second, undetected.
"Yura, watch out! Behind you!" Joseph yells in despair.
The Ukranian loo
ks back and point towards Hotel Azzurra's garage entrance. "Hurry! I'll draw them to the other side of the wall!" And she jumps inside the motorhouse's small courtyard.
"Yura!" Joseph now shouts, seeing the swarm chasing her.
The doctor's shout calls the attention of the rats who didn't manage to climb the wall to attack Yura. Aaron, noticing the incoming the rodent attacks, starts his bike's engine. "Come on, doctor, we need to get out of here!
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