by JM Guillen
“Got it!” Baxter’s words held a mixture of exultant terror and horrified ecstasy. “Oh God, I got it!”
I had seen the beast out of the corner of my eye, shredded to pulpy black ooze by the shotgun. “Good work, Bax!” I called. Another galloped behind the first on those alien, insectine limbs. Its canine maw stretched wide as it ran toward us, wider than any creation of nature should be able to. “How about we go two for two?”
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than terrible dread, something so imminent and large it felt like a physical wall, struck me in the face. Universal revulsion boiled through me, as if my mind swam in raw sewage.
“Aah!” Baxter almost stumbled from the sensation and it distracted him from the creature prowling up on the side. “Liz?”
“Eight o’clock!” Rehl roared, pushed past Baxter, and fired three shots with his pistol. It seemed as if he missed the first time, but the second and third tore into the oozing horror.
“We’re beyond the Aegis—the ward!”
“What?” Rehl shook his head. “Obviously, Liz. But what’s—?” He blanched and looked like he might gag.
I grit my teeth. It wasn’t truly the ward I had been worried about. The true concern was the unreal emanations that poured from the creatures like body heat.
I hadn’t told them to expect this—I hadn’t thought it through. They’d been up here while I experienced the onslaught down in the store. Alicia had only been in the know due to Abriel. It had been all too easy to assume Bax and Rehl would realize what would happen as soon as we stepped away from the Aegis.
Not much of a party leader, are you? I grimaced.
Now Alicia stumbled beneath the psychic weight. Baxter put one hand to his head, as if he could somehow will the worst migraine in the world to go away.
As a group, we slowed, beaten down by the nearly overwhelming terror. It slammed into us with the force of a runaway truck.
“Oh, God!” I hadn’t expected the sensation to be quite this malevolent. When I had faced off against one or maybe two of the hounds, the emotional turmoil had been horrific enough.
But now that we faced somewhere around three dozen, I knew it must be a cumulative effect. Hell, maybe even a multiplicative effect.
“Here!” I grabbed Baxter by the scruff of his already torn up Star Wars shirt, and dragged him closer to me.
Rehl fired. He stood a good three or four steps away, disoriented by the existential dread, but still watched the shadows.
At my call, he moved closer, and pulled Alicia with him.
“Abriel…” she whispered beneath her breath. The word was a soprano litany, like a crystal bell rung at dawn. That sound echoed to the far corners of existence, carrying beauty and hidden truths.
Simon always got identical results whenever called in the Empyrean tongue. The beings he beckoned were of light, beauty, and power. However they weren’t exactly real, not in the physical sense.
“Tarahiel isn’t exactly like you or me,” he half-explained, being specifically obtuse. “All you need to know is that we can count on her, just like we can count on the other entities I call.”
“Angels.” I gave him a sideways glance. “They’re angels. From the apocryphal book of Enoch. I did some research.”
“Well, yes. Kind of.” He chuckled as he shook his head. “Sassafras, a great many things are exactly what they seem to be. At the same time, they are completely made up. Not much more than stories.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t need to make sense. Some things don’t need to be real in order to be true.” He shook his head. “Sometimes, the least real things are the most powerful.”
Angels or not, it seemed as if my father and Simon had certainly prepared something special for me. In the moment, I didn’t even care that Alicia got to commune with the spirit from the outer planes instead of me.
Although the experience did seem to make my friend a bit… odd.
Abriel burst into the room, a pinpoint of furious light above Alicia’s head. It shone with brilliant, unfurling fire. That radiance glowed with infinitely white, burning purity that threw back the shadows of the room.
But I saw something more. Something like an otter or a cat that could swim lazily through the air. When I touched the Wind, I saw the scarcest outline of it, as it drifted around my friend.
As that radiance shone, we felt the presence of the creature, the scarcest whisper in our minds. She felt like a shadow of secrets, like hidden echoes of things that mankind had either never known or forgotten long ago.
“Ah,” Baxter sighed and gazed up at the light, his features wan in its brilliance. A peaceful smile teased at the edge of his mouth.
He looks younger. I couldn’t help but smile to myself. Just standing within that radiance soothed us as it washed away the roughness of the horrific shadows that surrounded us. Every place the light shone within the attic, we saw what was true. The sideways realm of the Gaunt Man melted away before it.
“Guys…” Rehl didn’t finish the sentence, yet the warning in his tone was enough. I turned away from the light, and my eyes sought the strangeling forms of the hounds.
“Oh God.” Primal terror clenched at my heart as I gazed on them. There had to be more than three dozen, and they all stared at us with canine eyes that held nothing like sanity, nothing that had ever been good.
They scrabbled in our direction, those gangly, insectine limbs horrific and quick.
“The Watcher keeps their blasphemous power at bay, but nothing more.” Alicia’s tone warned.
“Understood.” I bore down and dug deep for the Wind hidden behind my heart. With my left hand, I grabbed the Aegis on my bracelet and willed it to answer my call.
Wind exploded around me and cast papers and small bits of detritus about. Like a torrent of fierce joy and elemental fury, the Wind wrapped around me. It gathered around me like a cloak, and my hair danced upon it.
I focused, and the Seal of A’grimm thundered into existence, all sapphire fury and singing wrath. The symbols circled me and pulsed with the force of the Wind.
“I roll to hit,” I muttered.
Baxter heard me, and quirked his mouth up in a grin.
“Hit, Hit.” The closest canine lunged toward me and croaked my words back to me.
I gestured sharply at it, as if delivering a Kung fu strike. The wind struck the thing squarely and twirled it backward as if it had been shot from a cannon. It plowed into two of the other hounds and they went down in a heap.
Before they hit the floor, another two approached from the side.
I gestured at the one about to leap.
Right on time, it lifted off, hurling itself at me with too many powerful legs.
A burst of wind of approximately the same strength I used to hurl my knives struck it squarely in the midsection. That small hurricane punched the spider-hound in the chest and sent it tumbling wildly away. It crashed somewhere in the shadows.
“I’d say you hit,” Baxter mumbled.
Gunfire came from behind me. First the rapid bark of Rehl’s pistol, followed by Baxter’s shotgun. I heard one of them curse, then several rapid shots off to my left.
I couldn’t possibly see everything at once; they had closed in all around us. In front, seven of them gamboled toward me, hissing and scrabbling across the floor. One of them leapt, careened through the air, and landed on top of one of the bookshelves. It wobbled from the impact, and then collapsed.
But not before the misbegotten beast had leapt clear.
“S–stay back!” Baxter stammered as he turned toward that group and pumped round after round at them. The spread of the shotgun was wide enough, and the hounds were close enough together that nearly all of the shots had some effect.
Two fell. The remainder skittered away into the darkness.
“Elizabeth!” The Houndsman called from what sounded like impossibly far away. “This can end. It can end right now.”
Before I could call back, I heard Rehl grunt, followed by a meaty impact as he hit the ground.
“Rehl!” Baxter fired twice more and turned to where our friend had fallen.
Three of the creatures snapped at Rehl’s prone form where he had curled into a fetal ball, one hand over his neck. The other shoved at the black, drippy beasts. His pistol had vanished.
“Dammit,” I spat as I turned, the Wind still in hand. Before I fully had the melee in view, I called Empyrean Seals to mind. On my wrist, the Aegis sang with power as fierce Wind coursed through the Seal of A’grimm.
Around me, the sigils unfurled into a ring of radiant, sapphire flame.
“Back,” I hissed as I gestured, and furious currents blasted the two closest to me. I pummeled the miscreant with blunt torrents of wind.
They tumbled backward and sailed several yards away. One of them slammed into another that crept from the darkness.
“Not enough,” I muttered to the air in front of me. I heard Baxter fire again and I reached for one of my sheaths and pulled out a knife.
“Please don’t shoot me,” Rehl’s tone warned.
“Oh, seriously? I had no idea.” Baxter fired again at another of the spiders that attacked Rehl.
“Liz,” Alicia’s voice sounded distant.
“One second, please.” I turned and hurled the knife at one of the beings on top of Rehl. My friend’s strong hands around the malformed neck of the thing held it at bay, yet those insectine legs grasped and cut at him, leaving dozens of scratches wherever they touched.
I caught and threw the Wind along with my blade. Azure light exploded around me.
Simon had insisted I spend hundreds of hours practicing to throw the knives. They had been a gift to me, small delicate pieces of iron.
“They’ll be heavy.” He smiled when first showing me how to wear the cunning sheaths. “But this kind of iron has some properties you might appreciate someday.”
Then he drilled me for another hundred hours so I could channel the Wind along with them. As a result, every time I threw a knife, the force expended was akin to a gunshot, except the bullet happened to be a six inch, sharpened piece of iron.
The blade tore through the duodeped and splashed black ichor across Rehl and the floor.
“Liz,” Alicia’s voice held in the tiniest trace of impatience.
“One moment!” I pulled my third and final knife, and cursed myself for not having them all of me. I had rarely required more than one or two of them, but it seemed as if my adventures lately had taken a decidedly intense turn.
Maybe I’d leveled up.
Alicia had found Rehl’s pistol, and helped him to his feet. Baxter stepped to my side and reloaded the shotgun with trembling fingers.
The fiends swarmed us again.
They came in a grotesque mass, a tide of filth that skittered and crawled across the floor. In places where they ran through shadow, one could easily see the gray, sideways world the Houndsman had brought with him. In places where they ran through Abriel’s brilliant light, it remained the war room Simon and my father had hidden behind an illusion of detritus.
As we moved forward, the vermin charged us, and the Watcher’s brilliance created a strobe light, kaleidoscope horror-fest. Yet even as I gazed upon the awfulness of it, I relaxed into the focused concentration Simon had spent dozens of hours training me upon.
And, as always happened whenever I was able to drift into that meditative state, I felt the Wind.
Fierce. Furious.
Beautiful.
I brought to mind another of the Empyrean Seals, the Seal of Oeriim.
“Stop.” I half whispered, half hissed as I gestured toward the hounds. I held both hands forward, splayed wide open. The Wind tickled and tousled as it rushed from me, and the twelve or so creatures that had been closing from the front all slammed against a wall of solidified air.
A few of them scrabbled against it, as if trying to climb over.
“Nice,” Rehl commented. “If you can do a few of those, it might make this easier.”
“Hard.” I kept my hands stretched forward, focused on the wall. “Wind doesn’t like to remain in a single shape.”
“This side,” Baxter almost sighed.
“I see them.” Rehl reloaded.
“Liz, there are weapons in this room.” Alicia stepped close to me and brought with her the brilliant spark of truth that hovered above her head.
“Yeah, I saw them.” I gave her a glance, even though I held my hands forward.
“No, you didn’t.” A trace of annoyance crept into her voice. “There are other things, improbably clever things, crafted by Simon.” Her mist-colored eyes shone with mystery.
“Yeah?” My eyes went wide. “Where?”
“There is a cabinet up against the wall over this way.” She pointed. “However, it is not in the direction of the trap door or near the entity that commands these.”
“Side quest huh?” I glanced to Baxter and Rehl, side-by-side, as they fired into an oncoming line of hound-spider horrors. I felt like we’d done well, but I didn’t know how many more of them there were.
Much less the capabilities of the Houndsman.
“Are you familiar with the odd little tokens and knickknacks that Simon carries?” Alicia raised one fiery brow, voice raised as the reports of gunfire cracked, again and again.
Holy crap. Of course I was. Beneath his coat, Simon commonly carried a dozen bits of detritus and curious items. I never knew what miracle any given one might perform.
“Many of these he crafted with Abriel’s assistance.” She gave me a sly smile.
“Yeah?” My mind raced. If so, that meant there was a collection of tiny miracles stored somewhere in this room.
“They could be of assistance to you now.”
“No shit.”
“Language.” She frowned.
“Let’s go,” I considered, my mind awhirl. “It’s only a few moments out of our way.”
“And potentially well worth our time.” The certainty in her tone made up my mind for me.
“Boys, we’ve got a side quest!” I called to Baxter and Rehl. “We’re going to move laterally. Charge back this direction until we get to the side of the room.”
“Good move,” Rehl quipped. “If we can keep a wall to our back then it will be easier to track these assholes.”
“How long can you keep your windwall going?” Baxter glanced back at me before he shot another of the spider-hounds.
“Not too long once we start to move.”
“You ever try different shapes? Or to make one that moves with you?”
“No.” I shook my head, a bit irritated. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
No time, Liz.
“ Maybe later. For now, pull back here so we can form up.”
“With pleasure.” Baxter trotted back to us as Rehl fired a couple more shots. “It’s clear this way.” I gazed at the three of them. “If you boys step ahead, maybe we can make certain things stay that way. I’ll hold the wall for another few moments and then I can join—”
The room quaked again, sudden, violent tremors that rumbled through the entire building. At the sensation, my eyes grew wide.
“He’s bringing more.” Alicia’s white gaze seemed distant. “There are currently eighteen of the creatures.”
“That’s what those tremors mean?” Baxter turned from Alicia to me. “There’s an earthquake every time he gates in more wolf-spiders?”
“Yes,” I snapped, though I didn’t mean to. “It doesn’t matter. We’ve got a game changer over against the far wall, we just need to get to it.”
“Understood, Miss Lawson.” Rehl tipped imaginary hat. “Let’s get this done.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. I had never seen Rehl so exuberant, but then I supposed I understood why. Nothing in his life had ever indicated he might have the opportunity to actually be an honest-to-goodness monster slayer.
Moreover, he was great at
it.
If I wasn’t careful, I’d have to give him a raise.
9
I reshaped my wind wall as my friends sprinted off to the far side of the attic. I gave them a good half minute, and held back the scrabbling monstrosities as best I could before I turned and sprinted through the labyrinth of bookshelves and display cases of bizarre collectibles.
I refused to acknowledge the truth; weariness had begun to seep through my bones.
Gunfire barked in the shadows before I caught up with my friends.
“To your left!” Baxter sounded as if he was only a little bit scared to fucking death.
More shots cracked, and then I came around one of the bookshelves and saw my friends. Alicia stood between the guys, the radiant light of Abriel like a starburst over her head. Rehl and Baxter faced to either side of her and fired into the shadows.
As I sprinted toward them, one of the hounds leapt at Baxter. I heard the young man’s soft grunt as he went down, while he frantically tried to wrestle the thing’s maw away from his face.
“No! No, no, no…”
Alicia stepped over to his dropped shotgun, picked it up, and aimed toward them.
“No!” Baxter yelled at her as he struggled with the many legged horror. “Too close! You’ll hit me!”
“I won’t.” Alicia fired. I couldn’t exactly see what she hit, but, as Baxter did not scream, I assumed it was not him.
To be fair, my attention was focused elsewhere.
Behind my friends, another small pack of the coursing spiders bore down on them. The small, separate group slunk in the shadows.
The gang didn’t even see they were there.
“Fuck that noise.” I started to form an Empyrean Seal, but my heart leapt into my throat as I realized the truth.
I had less than a second to act. The creatures were too close, far too fast.
Panic gripped me as I realized I was about to watch people I cared about get devoured by canine/spider monstrosities.
I ran a few steps forward, gestured with one outstretched hand, and screamed a wild, inarticulate screech.
Two leapt at Rehl’s back. He didn’t even see them, as Alicia had been watching that way but had turned all her attention to Baxter.