Chapter Eight The Nova #2
Some days they felt like a compass, telling me when I was near the unknowable. Tonight, I could only hope they would burn bright.
The candles were set, the space was clear of any tattered carpets, and the lamps were covered by my nice set of dining napkins, just in case there was another combustion.
The beads of the sheer robe glistened in the dim light, the trim teasing just off the shoulder.
My hair was down, free, with an iris pinned by my ear.
The scent stung my nostrils, the pollen, mixed with the lingering perfume oil, making me feel like I could have been in a garden rather than my dusty library.
Tonight, I would do what I had to. There would be no yielding until I got what I wanted.
I whistled for my Peculiars. They came with very little haste, a sluggishness to their movements. Even as they gathered over the vandalized flooring, they avoided colliding.
I held the grimoire to my chest, clutching it as if to force my hopes on it straight from my heart, and into this fickle collection of sentient paper.
“I will toss you in the river if you don’t help, do you hear me?” I whispered to it, useless threats to make myself feel better.
“Absinthe,” I called to one, “Tonic,” the other. I pointed to the floor before me and took a few paces backward. With preacher’s hands, I opened the book flat in my palms, letting the pages languidly flop open.
“What am I doing wrong?” I mumbled to it. “What is stopping me?”
At the bottom of a page, two black dots bled through . . .
One full of static, one smooth.
My eyes tracked over the edge of the book and to my Peculiars, both pacing around the ominous word in the floor.
Suddenly, it became clear who—or rather, what—had interrupted my last ritual.
“You!” I seethed.
Absinthe rowed back and forth, tracing over the O permanently etched in the wood.
My own companions.
“How dare you!” I raised my voice, Tonic fleeing in my wake. “Do you know what you both have done? The damage you’ve caused?” My breath caught, the anger making my limbs cold, my voice shake.
I could feel it building within me, the tension. The wild power of my emotions. At this point, they couldn’t refuse. The grimoire in my hand was growing as hot as my temper. The air filled my lungs fully, and I held it steadily before releasing. Clear your mind, I repeated in my head. Clear it now.
“Florescentia.” I said the word with not only my lips, but with my heart, forcing my tongue to be direct, stern.
My companion shadows reluctantly came back, hesitating around the mark of their disobedience. Dogs with tails tucked.
Never had they refused me like that, never mind closed an entire ritual themselves. Their sentience possibly ran deeper than I knew or they’d let on. It was something to deal with later, but right now I was called to this moment, to the power pulling at me from within.
My Peculiars circled, forming their door to the Otherside just like we’d done many times before. I didn’t know if their hesitance gave me pause because of the difference in attitude or the fact it might mean they were capable of being scared. What could untouchable shadows possibly fear?
They flattened, the black edge of the viscous substance creeping across the floor, stopping at my feet. As it neared, the white spots between my toes and up my shin were alight. The book in my palms became warm, pulsing.
It’s working, something is working.
A hiss was building in the perimeter. At first I thought it might be the water lamps, but they didn’t look like they’d moved much. Then I thought the pipes, but it was stranger than that.
Finally, I realized, it was the Peculiars. Their normally mirror-still surface was simmering, bubbling.
The cosmic demand was so pure, so potent, that it was a struggle fighting the lightheadedness. I choked on my intentions, screwing my eyes shut as I clutched the book.
Please, anything, come.
I peeked from one eye, then the other. The black surface was still again. No combustion, no dramatics, just nothing.
A screech tore from my throat, and I slapped the book shut.
“Useless! Useless again—” I threw the book at the floor.
A loud, boisterous bang and a sudden jolt, like the entire house had lifted and settled back onto its foundation. Astraea wasn’t known for earthquakes. The sound was so loud it rang in my ears, dull like a stick of dynamite.
It threw me, and I hit the back of my head against the wall paneling. One water lamp crashed beside me, though I barely heard anything but a dull, distant pop.
One gasp, then two, only able to exhale. My lungs knocked together, and I couldn’t breathe in. My vision was bleary for minutes. I could only see stars with the heaviness of my skull, throbbing from one too many blows this week. The entire back side of my body burned from hitting the wall.
It was not my imagination. I wouldn’t do myself the disservice of telling a lie.
The shelves were completely empty, all the books now piled in a mountainous lump on the floor.
The workbench had been tossed, as had the chair.
Another biolamp or two had fallen from their wall holders, the floor glittering with glass dust.
I wished so dearly that the shock of the noise was the worst part of my evening . . . then something moved.
In the back, a shriek ringing in my traumatized eardrums. It wasn’t like anything I had ever heard. It wasn’t screaming, not a yelp or a wail, but something that pierced the bones. The type of sound that rang in your ears, the feeling of an acute and pointed headache.
Something from the floor.
It was my Peculiars. Something was coming from the depths, seemingly struggling to fit through the opening Absinthe and Tonic had made together.
A massive black form rose, climbing from the void.
I wasn’t sure when it would end. The entire thing collected at the back of the room, like a giant metaphysical slug, adjusting as it neared the ceiling and curling to face the length of the room.
I covered my mouth.
Don’t move. Don’t breathe.
The shrieking stopped. My Peculiars scattered so fast, like mice, in multiple fractured pieces.
There was a deep groan. It vibrated in my ears, my bones. I couldn’t even discern my heartbeat. The closest comparison might have been the deep-sea wax cylinder recordings of the last humpback whale before the species went extinct as a whole.
The thing settled, like many things moving under a tarp. The mass moved, shifted.
As much as my body screamed for self-preservation, I could not fear it. I could not worry about being swallowed whole; the alternative would be to let my own disappointments do that for me. I had nothing to lose except myself.
My legs were still shaky from impact as I balanced to a standing position, the pain from my head and a skinned knee just a reminder that this was no dream, and it was my will that was making it happen.
Against every logical bone in my body, I braved the center of the floor, yet I held back any call to it more than I already had.
The thing made that noise again, this time clearer. The overtone was something monstrous, but smaller notes below resembled nonsensical whispers, an alluring conversation just out of earshot. The small tingles of sound stung as my eardrums attempted to adjust.
What is it saying?
“Beast,” I said.
My own voice sounded muffled, to me, at least. I touched my ear. Hot blood stuck to my fingers.
It shifted lower to the floor and spread out. It was almost insulting in gesture, like it was wondering what a puny thing was doing speaking to it.
I took a step back, then planted both feet in place, still caressing my ear.
A part of it stretched forward, then it kept getting smaller, like it was forming a giant limb.
“Stop!” I shouted, holding my hand out.
It flinched, rising like a cobra above me.
This thing could kill me here. I was sure of it. It wasn’t out of the cards yet.