The Bloody Moon #3
I believe it created a fragile balance between my own power and the dying god’s essence I had stolen. Because since then, mastering it has become… manageable.
Pollock may be struggling with the same thing.
Eridessa’s cries shift from sharp sobs to full screams.
On the next one, Pollock’s body visibly locks up.
A shiver rolls through him. His eyes squeeze shut, and when they open again, they look eerily similar to how Eridessa’s had been before I left her—wide, unfocused, and flooded with something far deeper than pain. They are focused on the house, not me.
“Orán…” Distress bleeds through his voice.
“Her cries—they…” He drags a hand through his hair. “I can’t explain it. I feel them on a level I shouldn’t. I can’t even begin to describe what this is except that something—some force—is compelling me to go to her. Do you feel it too?”
I do.
Maybe not to the same extent, but it’s compelling all the same. Every inch of distance between us feels wrong.
I despise it.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “But I can’t, not yet.”
Exhaling, I tell him the rest. “She nearly died in my arms. I did what I could to save her, but it’s causing her tremendous pain. She’s unconscious… burning with fever.” My jaw tightens. “And, gods, Pollock, I need to find out what’s wrong with her. To do that, I need to go through her research.”
I glance toward the window. “It wasn’t just the power I gave her. She’s done something to herself. Giving her that much power was a catalyst for something else. I need to find out what.”
Another scream splits the air.
Pollock flinches, his shoulders locking as the sound hits. His head snaps toward the house, and without thinking, he takes a step in that direction.
“No.” I move quickly, intercepting him. Grabbing his arm, I tug him toward the cellar.
“Come with me. This way.”
He hesitates for half a second, then complies.
Moments later, I open one of the heavy doors, revealing the narrow staircase that drops into darkness. I don’t wait. I descend quickly, trusting him to follow.
“What is this place?” he asks, voice low as he comes down behind me.
“Her workspace. Her lab.”
Once I’m at the bottom, I take a look around at the mess and hastily grab Eridessa’s books from the floor and begin to search through them. It’s dark, but there’s enough light to complete our task.
“What are we looking for?”
“A book with pages crossed out. Specifically with a Red X.”
Pollock moves through the space.
I keep scanning, flipping pages. I come across many notes and symbols, but not what I’m looking for.
“What kind of book?”
“Something with sigils or ancient markings. Probably some kind of religious text.”
Pollock cocks his head, then he bends and retrieves a book that has fallen under the destroyed workbench.
He taps it against his thigh, and his head turns this way and that.
He looks up and eyes the massive spider on the ceiling, then the fluffy hamster curled up in the corner of the room.
“Is there a reason all the creatures in this space are albino?”
“They’re not. They're like her. Like us.”
A weighty pause follows. “Her doing?”
I nod and answer, “Yes. But we can speak on that later. It’s a long story.”
Pollock opens the book and begins to look through the pages. A moment later, he holds it up for me to see. There on the page is a black X covering the entire page.
“Yes, like that, but red.”
I keep searching and discarding books with no answers.
Pollock finds it. He nudges my shoulder and presents the page to me. My eyes scan it quickly, skimming over the contents, but then something catches. I slow, focus, and read with intent, working to understand.
Afterward, I shift to the notes written along the margins.
Horror grips me.
I turn to Pollock and find my expression mirrored in his, but his holds something more. A knowing.
“You said a wolf guided you here.”
He nods solemnly.
“And the god who fell. Who was it?”
“If it was the same entity who woke me and dragged me for days on end and guided me here, and I had to guess. Then I’d say it was Fenrir.”
“And you said you followed her scent.”
He stills for a moment and scratches at his jaw. “Yes. Not a power I was capable of before, but it drew me to this place. And my chest is tight and warm, it’s… I don’t feel like myself.”
It’s another sign.
“This.” I lay my hand flat on the page, on the red X.
“Eridessa claims here in her notes that she used animal blood. A female wolf’s.
She was directed to do so from another book, but the sigil altered her more than she anticipated, gave her feverish dreams, and sent her into the state.
The state I left her in before coming to see who approached the house. ”
“Is it possible?”
I study the words on the page again. “It appears so. She believes it to be so.”
Pollock's eyes narrow as if in deep thought. “The beginning and the end. The alpha and the omega.”
I drop the book on the workbench. “What is he playing at? This was never part of the plan.”
“Ordained or not, it is what it is, or what appears to be his answer to what’s unfolded.”
I shake my head, not ready to believe it. “This is madness.”
Pollock paces away from me and runs his hand through his hair. He stands motionless for a long moment and says, “I told you before that I didn’t remember the day we died.”
Turning, I give him my full attention.
“That’s no longer true. When I woke after the stars fell, I saw what had previously been hidden from me. Those visions…memories have haunted me since.”
His hands fall to his sides, his shoulders dropping with the weight of his next breath.
“I arrived too late to save them. And that thought… more than anything else, causes me great grief. Hell’s gates, I still see it every time I close my eyes.
Their blood is coating the floor. Father is lying there.
Mother is a few feet away from him, her arm extended as if reaching out for him.
While I took my last breaths, I wished only to reach her, to feel her hand in mine one last time, and to warn you that he was coming for you as well. ”
His expression hardens, something heavier settling in. “I don’t know what you faced, but I know in part you blame me for not coming to your aid, or maybe it’s for not believing you when you spoke up about the true evil growing inside our uncle.”
I say nothing as the past in my mind collides with his version of events.
“You died beside Mother and Father?”