by Tobias Wade
The imp bowed sheepishly, his tiny claws interlocking behind his back. He garbled something in his own language.
“He’d also like Walter to know that he’s glad he started wearing the stone he gave him. He says he was scared going undercover with the rest of the school imps, but Walter made him feel welcomed.”
The imp covered its face with its claws and ran around behind the table to hide.
“I’ve been suspicious ever since the gargoyle attack, and Ca’akan has been helping me to understand,” George Hampton continued, tapping his nose. “I nose all sorts of things, and my gut guesses many more. I found it interesting that the gargoyle went after Samantha rather than you, although it makes sense when you consider that she was the one looking at it while Noah purposefully averted his gaze. That makes me think that the gargoyles are hunting psychics and Chainers and only got Samantha by mistake.”
“Is the gargoyle still looking for them?” Noah asked.
“Your daughter was smart enough not to stare at spirits, and the gargoyle never figured out that she was a Chainer. I haven’t seen it in some time so I presume it has continued its search elsewhere. Did you ever tell Salice when or how you died though?”
“No, I don’t think so…” Noah said.
“Good,” George continued rapidly, his fingers dancing a silent but erratic rhythm on the table. “In that case he only knows that someone was thinking about you somewhere around here. That’s plenty of obscurity to shield them. Enough dawdling, you must be off.”
George stood and vanished straight through the wall. The imp followed at his heels, running face-first into the kitchen cabinets. George leapt back through the wall and turned for the door instead.
“Enough to shield them?” Noah asked. “Do you mean—”
“Quite so,” George replied, vanishing through the door. Samantha opened it and they all chased him back onto the lawn. “If he is the one sending the gargoyles, then the reasonable thing for him to do is kill your daughter and her son. Well, maybe not the reasonable thing, but certainly the likely thing.”
“But why?” Noah demanded. “What does he need Chainers for?”
George stopped suddenly to consider this, and the imp following him rammed against his legs. “An excellent question. Rest assured I will be investigating. Oh, and one more thing…”
George’s hands were rhythmically weaving through the air as he spoke, leaving soft trails of light wherever they went. Noah recognized his white ring which radiated the light, now understanding it to be the bone of George’s physical remains.
“My imp told me about the affinity,” George said quietly out of the corner of his mouth. “I’d keep that a secret if I were you.”
“That was your imp too!” Noah exclaimed. “So, Professor Salice doesn’t know.”
“He might,” George conceded. “Professor Humstrum may have told The Matriarch, and she might have discussed the matter with him. But it’s more important that the other students don’t know. I daresay you already have enough trouble fitting in being a Chainer.”
“And a murderer,” Walter added.
“I knew it!” Samantha declared happily. “Well I didn’t know know, but that’s pretty cool all the same.”
“You think so?” Noah asked.
“As long it’s a people murderer,” Samantha said. “I wouldn’t even mind being friends when you come back to life. Of course, you’ll be a baby though, but I can be your teacher or something. Won’t that be fun?”
“How come you can hear us?” Walter asked, looking as confused and flustered as the rest of them. “If it was just your eye—”
“You notice all kinds of things when you start paying attention,” Samantha cut him off. “Do you want to know how spirits smell?”
“Now, if you please,” George Hampton said. The light from his hands blew outward into a nova to suspend an erratic circle in the air. The space surrounding the circle seemed to shimmer and melt, while the area within had darkened to black. Walter walked around the floating circle suspiciously, peering at it from every side.
“Follow the imp back to the school,” George said, “and make sure it’s the same imp, mind you. Ca’akan is missing one of the ridges on his back just below his head. Follow the wrong imp and you could very well end up all sorts of nasty places. Oh! and one more thing,” he added, blocking the hole with his arm as Ca’akan tried to crawl inside. “Try not to touch anything in the netherworld. Even if it touches you first.”
George removed his arm to open the way. The imp chittered something which sounded like it would have been mortally insulting if Noah could have understood, The imp crawled inside and continued crawling as though it had entered a tunnel, not emerging on the other side of the hole.
“What do you mean ‘even if it touches you first’?” Walter grumbled, although no-one paid him much mind.
“Can I come too?” Samantha asked.
“The netherworld is dangerous enough for spirits, but a living body would be killed almost immediately,” George Hampton dismissed.
Samantha shrugged. “That’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“Well, your parents would,” George said.
“They’d get over it,” she quipped.
Noah put his hand through the hole and recoiled immediately. It felt like he’d just stuck his hand into a pool of cold jello, and his fingers still tingled after he’d removed them.
“Well, come and visit again soon then,” Samantha said. “George and I will keep an eye on your daughter for you, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Thanks,” Noah said. “Tell Claire that Mrs. Robinson is back with us. We left her sleeping on her pillow.”
“Do we really have to leave Mrs. Robinson here?” Jamie asked. “Claire won’t even be able to pet her!”
“You don’t really have to do anything, because it’s not really your choice,” Samantha replied. “Mrs. Robinson has made her own decision.”
Noah took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and plunged headfirst into the cool abyss, leaving the two girls glaring at each other behind. There was an initial shock as he slid into the gelatinous space, but almost immediately it became an incredibly comfortable feeling. Every movement felt controlled and deliberate, and the soft pressure around him seemed to mold around his body like a perfectly fitted wet suit. It was completely dark with his eyes closed, and Noah spent several lazy seconds floating through the timeless space before he heard the first sounds.
Chittering, slurping, smacking lips. It was the same type of sound he’d grown accustomed to from the imps, but it was greatly magnified as it traveled through the gelatinous space. The sound reminded Noah of a time he went snorkeling and heard the echo of dolphins communicating through the water, only this was much more powerful and emanated from every direction at once. The next shock was realizing that even though his eyes were closed, he could still see Ca’akan waiting just ahead, as well as Walter and Jamie crawling along behind.
Noah’s first impression of the netherworld was that it wasn’t his first impression at all. His second impression was that it was the most magnificent sight he’d ever not seen.
What at first appeared as empty darkness now resolved itself into an infinitely textured space filled with overlapping layers and shades. He felt like he was on the inside of a giant paper origami that was folded and twisted upon itself into maddening abstraction, yet he also had the sense that if he could only see the place from the right angle it would be clear that it wasn’t abstract at all and that every line and crease was exactly where it needed to be.
“Where’s the light coming from?” Jamie asked, close behind. “One second it feels like it’s pitch black, and the next it’s all lit up, and then it’s black again without anything even changing.”
Jamie’s voice sounded thick and slow and incredibly low pitched here. No wonder the imps chittered, Noah thought, as those sounds seemed to carry more easily.
“There is no light,” Noah r
eplied, unsure of his words until he said them, “but you don’t need light to see here. The part of your brain that processes the seeing is interacting directly with the environment. Try and ‘see’ something behind you and you’ll understand what I mean.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Walter complained, his voice even more thick and syrupy.
“It does to me,” Noah said, effortlessly turning and flipping while the others struggled to swim and catchup. It was difficult to distinguish directions in this vacuous world, but Noah had the distinct feeling that they were going upward.
“I hate it,” Walter moaned. “I feel like a soggy vegetable floating in soup.”
“The soup isn’t so bad,” Jamie said, turning in a slow circle. “It’s the noises that bother me. I can’t tell how close they are or what’s making them.”
Noah concentrated on the sounds, and gradually he became aware of dark shapes slipping through the nether around them. None came close enough to be clearly distinguished from the textured background, and he decided his friends would be happier if he never mentioned them at all. He contented himself to study his surroundings in silence.
Flocks of small shapes that could be imps pulsed in rhythmic motion to an unfelt beat like schools of fish riding the tides. Other serpentine things circled around them, so long that they completely encircled the travelers despite seeming a long way off. There were other solitary creatures that followed them curiously for a while, but most soon lost interest and swam away.
Walking, crawling, and swimming all seemed to have a similar effect in the netherworld. The three students alternated between different forms of movements as they struggled to follow Ca’akan. Progress was slow and the imp often looked back impatiently at them, but at least it provided ample time to get used to the new environment and the altered sense of blind perception.
Most interesting of all were the subtle shifts in the textured background at the edge of awareness, like distant mountains which briefly reared or sighed, changing the landscape with the slightest change of position. Noah tried to imagine something like that in the living world, but it was difficult to guess their true scale in this place where perspective and distance were so hard to judge.
A much closer chittering caused Walter to make a little gurgling yelp, but it was only Ca’akan who had paused to wait for them.
“Hold still,” Noah said automatically.
“Not happening,” Walter said. “I’m not spending a minute longer here than I have to.”
Ca’akan made a short, sharp squeak.
“Don’t talk either,” Noah said softly. “Not until it passes.”
The nether had gone silent. The demons had stopped chittering, the flocks of imps dispersed, the long serpentine shapes breaking their circles to flee. The silence had a force of its own, uninterrupted even by the draw of breath or a beating heart that would accompany any such living encounter. Embedded in that silence was the unmistakable sense that they were not alone.
It was difficult to understand what was approaching because there was nothing to see and nothing to hear. If Noah’s mind really was interacting directly with the environment, then it wouldn’t have been any of his known senses which tracked the being. It was a deeper part of his mind, the activation of an animalistic impulse that he’d forgotten was even there. This feeling was not an interpretation of a sensation, nor a conscious realization of danger, nor even a reaction to an imagined outcome—this was the raw fear of a screaming mind, and here in the netherworld it had a life of its own.
Walter opened his mouth, but Jamie slapped a hand across his face. A moment later something like a shadow passed over the group. Noah could only associate the feeling with swimming with a sea monster slowly rising from the depths.
Noah’s body prickled with a thousand freezing needles. It felt like his brain was replaced by a block of ice, and his thoughts felt rigid and immovable. He had the most unnerving instinct that if he tried to force himself to think in that moment then his entire mind would shatter into a thousand pieces and trickle out through his ears.
Noah was vaguely aware that Walter and Jamie were shivering uncontrollably behind him. He had to reassure them that everything was going to be okay, but he couldn’t make sense of the words in his head, let alone work his locked and rigid mouth.
The feeling continued to grow more intense for the next few seconds, until Noah was so numb that he couldn’t tell whether he was awake or asleep. The pressure of a suppressed scream was building in his chest, but he couldn’t let it out even if he wanted to. The pressure became so great that he felt he would be ripped apart if he had to hold it any longer, but a moment later it began to subside once more.
The shadow was lifting, slowly swimming away from them. Already Noah’s mind was beginning to sluggishly stir back to life. Jamie had calmed considerably—she might even be unconscious as she floated peacefully with her eyes closed. Walter did not share the same tranquility, and even though the chill was fading he was trembling worse than ever. Walter’s head was flopping back and forth as though his neck had no bones in it at all, and his fingers were convulsing as though his life depended on clutching onto something that wasn’t there.
“It’s almost over. It won’t hurt you,” Noah said quietly as soon as he was able. At least, that’s what his mind had instructed his mouth to say. Somehow the message was scrambled in transit though, and what he actually said was a burst of short, harsh, grating syllables that sounded like metal saw blades clashing against one another.
Jamie jolted suddenly as though just waking. “You can speak demon?” she asked.
“Of course not, it’s gibberish,” Noah tried to say. The sound that came out was comparable to a brick in a clothes dryer. He clamped his mouth shut and covered it with his hands.
Jamie wasn’t the only one to notice either. The shadow which had almost completely passed was now stopped, and the icy needles were beginning to intensify once more. It was aware of them for the first time.
Ca’akan squealed in the universal language of terror and hurled itself through the nether. Jamie needed no translation. Walter had gone completely limp however, except for his head which continued to thrash from side to side. Noah surged back through the nether to grab a dangling arm, and Jamie snatched the other to drag him along.
“Wait for us, Ca’akan!” Jamie gurgled with as much strength as she could muster. The imp was barely more than a silhouette scrambling away from them as fast as it could.
The nether parted smoothly before Noah as he bent his entire body into pursuing the imp. Jamie was struggling mightily to match his pace, and it didn’t take long before Noah had to drag both her and Walter behind him. All the while the icy feeling was growing once more, threatening to sap what remained of his strength, his will, and the very instinct which begged him haste.
“Where’s he gone?” Jamie slurred, her pace slackening once more.
“This way,” Noah said. “Ca’akan is just ahead, don’t stop now.”
The truth was that Noah couldn’t sense Ca’akan either though. The imp had completely vanished, and it was all he could do to follow where it had been and not allow Jamie to give in to despair. If they stopped for even a moment, that would be enough to realize they were lost in an alien world with no way of finding their way out again. Just a moment, and the shadow would pass over them and freeze their bodies and minds into surrender. Already these thoughts were beginning to slow as Noah’s brain stiffened with cold, when—
A short squeal, just on the other side of a great gray wall which loomed ahead. Noah shot forward dragging Walter and Jamie behind, prepared to slam straight into the barricade if there was no other way to escape their silent pursuer. The distant chirping and chittering from the demons rose in a feverish pitch as Noah sped forward, each sound closer with more intent than the last. Straight into the gray mass, and then through as if it were no more than a soap bubble.
Noah tumbled straight onto a stone floor and sp
rawled out on the raised dais inside the Whispering Room. One of his hands was still firmly clutched around Walter’s limp wrist, and he had to laboriously drag his friend up through the stone floor with Jamie scrambling after him. The circle below their feet was blazing with light, its interior a dark tunnel like the one they’d entered from the living world.
Ca’akan shrieked like mad, flinging itself around the empty room like a child having a tantrum. The hole in the ground was constricting rapidly after they had all exited, but Noah couldn’t resist dropping to his hands and knees to peer back inside one last time. That was the first time he got a good look at the shadow.
He was surprised to see that it was not much larger than himself, since its presence had seemed like a looming leviathan beside them in the nether. It bore a generally humanoid shape, although the gray rubbery skin looked like it would be more at home on a seal than a person. The most striking feature was its face though, which was long and sharply angled. There were no eyes or nose, only a single fleshy toothless mouth which the chill seemed to be emanating from.
Noah braced, half-expecting it to make a final lunge and drag its way into this world before the hole had closed. The creature drew itself all the way up the ground, but it never went any farther. The mouth made a few wet smacks, then gave Noah a wide and sloppy grin. Next Noah knew, he was staring into the hard stone floor and the light from the circle had faded.
“Shut up, you little monster,” Walter growled at Ca’akan who was still throwing itself around the room. “You tried to leave us behind!”
Jamie began to scold him, insisting that he be grateful to the imp who had, in her opinion, saved their lives.
Noah shivered involuntarily and pulled himself off the floor.
“Are you okay, Noah?” Jamie asked, eyeing him critically.
“Yeah,” he said, relieved to hear human words coming from his mouth once more. “Just rattled, that’s all.”
“Did it say anything to you?” Walter asked. “Right before the hole closed up, it sounded like it was talking.”
Noah furrowed his brow, unable to get the wet smacking out of his head even if he wanted to. “Yes,” he said at last, forming the word deliberately with his mouth.
