by T. S. Mann
“Huh, that's weird,” she said in surprise.
“Something's weird. Of course, it is. So, what's weird, exactly?”
“Well, I found a Lindsay Forrester, but this says she's in Beakman Hall Room 103.”
“So?”
“Well, no one lives in Beakman Hall. It's been closed for years now since they found asbestos in the walls.”
“Hmm, that is weird. Very, very weird. So, out of curiosity, where is Beakman Hall?”
CHAPTER 13:
CALLING THE BEYOND
Fisher College
The Basement of Beakman Hall
Luke closed his eyes and turned his head to one side, not out of horror for a change, but simply to avoid the foul stench of the goat's breath. He wished he could plug his ears as well; the poor beast was less than a foot away from his head and it was practically shrieking at him.
In its defense, it must have been both terrifying and painful for the creature to be hanging upside down from the ceiling suspended by a hook driven through its hindquarters. Then again, Luke himself was splayed out over some diabolical sigil with his limbs stretched nearly out of their sockets, so he was not feeling very sympathetic about the animal's suffering.
Twisting his head, Luke could see from the alarm clock that it was 11:51. Apparently, Lindsay was timing her ritual to coincide with the stroke of midnight because doing so was more “auspicious” or some such thing.
She had been quite talkative earlier, almost eager to explain her ritual. Not that Luke could ask questions; she had wanted no distractions, so she put a spell on him to render him mute.
Apparently, the goat was to serve as the temporary vessel for a beyonder, though a lesser example than the one she had summoned the previous night. Not a demon, as Lindsay was quick to emphasize – demons were merely jumped up spirits with bad attitudes, dangerous to deal with if you got on their bad sides but still fundamentally a part of Reality, if only an abstract part.
The beyonder was, by its nature, something that could not exist, and yet, by her power, would exist. That paradox – existence despite inconceivability – represented the essential nature of the Great Beyond.
After she'd explained that bit of dogma, the rest of the ritual was straightforward. Once the intruder took over the goat's body, it would have twenty-three seconds to find a more viable host before it was destroyed by what Lindsay called “the Infrastructure’s spiritual antibodies.”
As a Stranger, Luke was apparently an ideal host. The intruder would, as Lindsay cheerfully described it, penetrate Luke's brain by simultaneously crawling up his nostrils, burrowing along his ear canals, and digging out his eyes.
Once it had devoured Luke's brain and filled up the empty space in his cranium with its own matter, it could walk around in his corpse for at least a few hours, maybe even until the sun came up, before its stolen and unnatural form self-destructed. But while it endured, it would have incredible reality-warping abilities which it would use to torture, maim, violate, and kill everyone who came near with the ultimate goal of destabilizing the very fabric of Reality across the whole city and then the whole world.
With her explanations complete, Lindsay began walking counterclockwise around Luke and the dangling goat, reciting some ancient incantation in a long-forgotten tongue as she went. Occasionally, she would reach out with the knife she'd bought earlier and make some superficial cut in the goat's flesh, causing it to bleat even more piteously. It also caused the animal's blood to drizzle down onto Luke's bare torso and face. Occasionally, some of the blood would drip into his mouth, causing him to silently cough and spit.
As she spoke, Lindsay's voice rose, though whether her crescendo was a part of the spell or simply necessary to be heard over the tortured bleats of her sacrifice, Luke didn't know. When the ceremony reached its climax, she seized the poor creature's head with one hand, and with a fluid motion, sliced its throat open with her knife.
Blood poured from the open wound, splashing all over Luke's face and chest, and while he could not speak, angry guttural sounds showed his displeasure. The goat shook violently as its heart's blood poured out, and finally, its body grew still. It hung there, swaying gently from its chain.
Luke shook his head to clear the goat's blood from his eyes and his mouth. For a long moment, he dared to hope that the ritual had failed. Then, Lindsay spoke, quietly and in English.
“The vessel is prepared. Enter freely, and of your own will.”
The animal made no response, but Luke felt the floor beneath him shake, softly at first but soon violently, as though a freight train were running underneath. The air was filled with a discordant hum that grew and grew in intensity until Luke squeezed his eyes shut in pain at the sound.
Then, all at once, everything simply … stopped. The shaking floor. The terrible hum. Everything. The silence was so sudden and complete that Luke was startled by the loudness of his heart beating in his ears. He opened his eyes and looked up the dead goat, its eyes closed, blood still oozing from its many wounds. Luke lay still, not even daring to breathe.
Then, a crack of thunder shook the whole room, and goat's body jerked violently in response. From each of its many wounds, blood shot out and instantly hardened into a network of crimson tentacles, all blood red and glistening.
And its head! The goat's eyes jerked open, but they were not the same pale blue as before. Indeed, they weren't even eyes at all, anymore; they had neither pupils nor irises. Rather, they were portals to some other place, and in them, Luke could see impossible shapes, geometries that made no sense, angles that were impossible to measure, and colors with no names.
The goat-thing opened its mouth wide and screamed at Luke. Not the pitiful bleating from before. This was claws on a blackboard. It was kittens being drowned. It was a mother weeping at the sight of her dead child. The scream was all these things together and multiplied by ten-thousand.
And as it screamed, Luke could see into the goat-thing's mouth. The whole inside of it was full of bony spines that vibrated back and forth like a nightmarish electric shredder, and as Luke watched even more spines burst through the back of the dead animal's throat to fill it further.
Yet through all this, Luke didn't scream. He was past screaming, completely overcome with fear to the point of paralysis. He could only watch, transfixed, as the goat-thing's mouth spread wider and wider until finally, with a terrible crack, the thing's head and torso split and unfurled like a grotesque flower blossoming open. Every surface of these unnatural “petals” was covered with the same vibrating bony spines as were in the mouth.
Finally, from deep within the creature's gut, Luke could see its intestines, still slick with blood, unfurl and slither towards him. The organs had separated themselves into several tentacle-like limbs, and at the end of each was another bony protrusion. Not a thin spine, but a hard, conical bone spur resembling a nautilus shell.
At the sight of them, Luke screamed silently in his terror. The tentacles slid down and positioned themselves all around his head. With a sudden and horrible sound like a skill saw cranking up, each of the bone spurs began to spin around faster and faster. At that, Luke realized what those protrusions were meant to be: drill bits. And then, Luke finally screamed … right before the world exploded.
Blinding white light filled the room, and instinctively, Luke squeezed his eyes shut again. The goat-thing screamed once more, this time in agony, and its cries were joined by Lindsay, who was struck from behind and flung to the ground. The light died down, and Luke dared to open his eyes.
The goat-thing had been blasted from its chain to land in a far corner. Its tentacle-drills were limp and inactive, and its eyes were just empty sockets instead of portals to a nightmare realm. Nearby, Lindsay climbed to her feet, shaken but unbowed, and she prepared to defend herself against whatever magic was coming next.
Unfortunately for her, it was not magic coming her way, but a 200-pound running back looking to make a devastating tackle. Matt slamm
ed into the petite chaos-magician, who was startled to realize that all her shields had just been neutralized.
The boy slammed her into a nearby shelving unit before letting her fall to the ground. Then, following the advice of his last teacher, he looked around for a brick with which to hit her. There weren't any bricks, but there was a handy two-by-four. Matt snatched it up with both hands and hefted it like a baseball bat. As Lindsay tried to sit up, he brought his weapon down as hard as he could across her forehead, and she dropped to the floor again.
“YOU WILL NEVER HURT MY BROTHER AGAIN! DO YOU HEAR ME?!?”
Then, he struck the nephilim again, screaming in rage as he did.
“YOU! WILL! NEVER! HURT! MY! BROTHER! AGAIN!!!”
He punctuated each word with another blow to the stricken woman’s body, and he kept on hitting her in a mindless rage until finally, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He whirled around, ready to fight some new enemy.
It was Luke, who jumped back as Matt turned. The two brothers stared at one another for several seconds, the only sound in the room being Matt's labored breathing. Finally, Luke looked up and down at his brother and spoke.
“I like your coat.”
Matt let the two-by-four slip out of his fingers as he stepped forward and scooped up his brother in a bear hug, which Luke was happy to return. Finally, they separated, and Matt wiped his eyes and looked over his brother, noticing for the first time that he was covered in blood.
“Are … are you okay? Jesus, what the hell did she do to you?”
Luke looked down at himself. “Oh this? This isn't mine. It's from, well … that.”
He pointed towards the still smoldering remains of the mutilated goat.
“And she did a lot of stuff to me, but nothing permanent. How did you find me?”
“Um, magic. I can kinda do magic now.”
“So I've heard.” Luke flicked the medallion with his finger. “Apparently, I can too, but this thing stops me.”
Matt reached over and took the medallion between his fingers. Then, before Luke could stop him, he tugged on it. Immediately, Luke fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Startled, Matt let go and then bent to help his brother up and over to a nearby chair.
“Oh Jesus, Luke, I'm sorry! Are you okay?!?”
Luke coughed. “Yeah, yeah,” he croaked. “That's, like, the third time that's happened. Hurts like a bitch but doesn't do any damage. What's the plan?”
“We get the hell out of Boston, asap. How's that sound?”
“It sounds a bit … extreme, actually. What about Mom?”
Matt looked pensive for a moment, just long enough to leave Luke worried.
“We can't go back to Mom's place, Luke. I'm sorry, but we just can't. I'll explain why as we go, but right now, we've really got to get out of here. There are people coming, and we don't want to be here when they get here.”
“What, people worse than her?”
“No. Well, I don't think so anyway, but bad enough. Basically, there's this huge subculture of magical weirdos called Strangers that you and I are now a part of. And as near as I can tell, they're all assholes, and they all want to use us for something or just kill us outright. So we're getting out, right now. Any other questions you have can wait until we get on the Interstate, got it?”
“Well, can I have my coat, at least? I'm gonna be a little conspicuous streaking across Boston while covered in goat's blood. What did you do to it, anyway? It looks three sizes larger!”
“I dunno. Magic, I guess. Put it on and it'll shrink to fit.”
And to Luke's surprise, as he slipped on his trench coat, it did just that.
“Great. Now, I just look like a flasher.”
“Never mind. Let's just get out of here before something else happens.”
As if on cue, the door violently slammed itself shut. The brothers whirled around almost as one to look behind them. To their mutual horror, Lindsay was up. More than up, in fact – she was floating two feet off the ground. Her face looked like hamburger and her jaw was broken and dislocated, but she was up … and angry.
Lindsay croaked out some unintelligible incantation as she roughly gestured with her hands, and the two brothers were slammed back against the far wall painfully. With a second motion, Matt was flung across the room headfirst. He struck the wall so hard the dust fell from the ceiling, and then he dropped to the ground in a heap.
Luke strained as Lindsay floated over, but he was incapable of movement. As she approached, he could hear her broken bones as they magically reset themselves, her mutilated face slowly but surely repairing the damage Matt had inflicted.
Lindsay levitated up next to him so that their faces were level. She spoke very softly, almost in a whisper, perhaps because one of Matt's blows had crushed her larynx and it was not yet healed.
“You asked me before, Luke, what I hoped to gain from sacrificing you and your friends. Not money. Not power. Something simpler, purer. My masters have promised me that if I do enough damage, if I put enough cigarette burns and urine stains in the fabric of Reality, they will finally let me die. You get it now, sweetie?”
Luke said nothing.
“Good,” she said while patting his cheek. “And now, I have some good news. I don't think I'll be needing your services anymore after all. Body Slam.”
Her last words were punctuated by another gesture, and Luke flew across the room, striking the opposite wall and collapsing to the floor. Then, she turned to face Matt, who was trying unsteadily to pull himself to his feet. A telekinetic force yanked him up and pinned him against the wall. He struggled futilely as Lindsay floated over to face him.
“I'm curious, Matthew. What did you see when you went strange?” she asked, smiling through her bloody beaten face.
“Screw you, bitch!”
“Later, maybe. I’m not done with foreplay yet.”
She ran a finger through his hair, brushing his bangs out of his eyes.
“I was wrong about you. I see that now. After what you did at the church, I thought you were some kind of mystic wunderkind. To have dispelled my beyonder like that was amazing.”
Her hand drifted down and caressed his face. “But a fresh young Stranger might dispel a beyonder. He might even disrupt my personal shields. But no one barely a day after Insight could do both with a single spell. That requires either lots of experience or … something better than experience.”
She leaned in closely to whisper in his ear. “I think you've got something on your mind, sweetie. I'd like you to share it with me.”
Suddenly, she grabbed his head with both hands and squeezed. From nowhere and everywhere, a sound appeared, like terrible machinery buzzing and whining in Matt's ears.
“What did you see in your Insight?”
Matt screamed in pain at the nephilim's assault as a burning whiteness suddenly crowded out his vision. Lindsay repeated her angry insistent question until finally he yelled an answer.
“White light! I just saw a white light!”
“No, Matt. There was something else there! What was it?!?”
Across the room, Luke slowly stirred to the sound of his brother's agony, barely audible over the grinding metallic whine that was generated by Lindsay's new torture. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and felt blood from a gash in his forehead. He started to rise but then hesitated. What was the point? Between Lindsay's magical power and her apparent immortality, what could he do?
Matt cried out again, begging for mercy. “There was just a white light! I didn't see anything else! I swear it!”
“Okay, then, Matt. What did you hear?”
At that question, Matt gasped. He did remember a sound, what he had thought before might have been wings beating in the distance, but he had pushed it out of his mind immediately and he recoiled from it now. Lindsay sensed his sudden hesitation and pressed harder.
“What. Did. You. Hear?!?” she hissed.
Matt tried to resist, but he was unprepared for the pai
n of her assault. Worse, he was unprepared for the memory of his Insight, as the sound of those wings now filled him with an inexplicable terror. He tried to focus his magic, but nothing seemed to work. It was almost as if his power had fled right as he needed it most. Finally, he gasped.
“Angel wings! I heard angel wings!”
“… angel wings? Oh, how adorable! Let's discuss that some more, shall we? Think back to the sound of angel wings. What did they sound like, Matt?”
“N-n-nno!” he gasped in terror.
Lindsay just pressed her hands down harder, and the metallic whine grew even louder and more urgent. In Matt's mind, the sound of wings grew closer, and for the very first time, he could sense a figure moving through the light in his direction. It had the shape of a person but with a mighty set of wings to bear it aloft.
They were not angel wings.
As Luke watched, Matt's whole body began to convulse. Lindsay laughed maniacally and redoubled her assault. Obviously, where she had failed with Luke, she was succeeding with Matt. He was falling to Lindsay's chaos gods.
Luke almost despaired. Almost. Because for once, it was Matt who needed protection, and whatever it took, Luke would provide it. He took two deep cleansing breaths to calm himself. Then, he closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and reached for the medallion around his neck.
In Matt's mind, the winged figure was much closer now. While still indistinct, its form was clearer. It was tall, seven feet or more, and its frame was emaciated, as if the skin of a person – a woman, perhaps, though it was hard to tell – had been stretched to cover the bones of a giant with no muscle or fat to get in the way.
The wings were heavy and black, like those of an enormous bat. They grated as they flapped, and even though they were jet black, they glinted with the reflected light of the Paragon as if they had been fashioned from polished obsidian. The creature's face was still somehow shrouded in darkness despite the abundant light, but Matt could make out two tiny pinpricks of blood-red light where its eyes should be. In the real world, Matt shook and began babbling in a dead language to Lindsay's delight.
