Of The Dark and The Deep_The Cryptid Council Series Book 1

by Rink Wester

  They couldn’t have been more wrong.

  He would teach them how to be wronger.

  59

  Çåthÿ Liin flew to her private parlor away from the prying eyes of their Viscount and her sisters. There she withdrew from her desk a rose tinted chalice of glowing ethereal might. If you aren’t power, you’re property, she thought, casting her mind into that grail awakening it’s light and placing it over her jeweled chest plate. She opened her eyes wide, piercing the veil, the Bælrøg in her yawning and stretching beyond The Vœrtëx as she summoned Khæ’dîm Çåril. Her little vassal of servitude. The Łöå could appear to the world of the living but elven mågÿcks crashed against the borders of their realm and did not survive The Vœrtëx. In the still world of the living the Bôkör were impotent. All except Queen Çåthÿ.

  She materialized as always in a hazy disconnect, the divorce of physical body from spiritual form always unnerved her. She stared around the spacious chamber of torturous delights, he liked to call his boudoir, that Khæ’dîm always managed to keep quiet and spotless despite the enormous numbers of servants running to and fro. He stood torso naked with his back turned to her as if deep in contemplation. The rustic beauty of the room belied her purpose and the deadly hackle of her little vassal. Very few knew that he had crossed over in a powerful pact with the Tel'Mithrim, The Grey Knights of KAAOS, and become one of the demon scions of the elven realm. He was now of the Väläråücø and hers to command. How fortunate indeed Çåthÿ had felt to add the brother of the High Viscount himself to her band of sycophants. Not even Chÿnåriön knew. He was neither void wielder nor that close to his insubordinate little brother. That suited her just fine.

  Khæ’dîm, turn and face me. When we yet lived you cowered behind your older brother Chÿnåriön. Ever the bootlick of Mênègröth. Now I shall test the manor of your elven metal. To see what sturdy and girthy stuff fills those trousers. Go to the dragons, little vassal. Follow their filth and kin and they will lead you to the children of perdition. The offspring of the Sky Father. In their blood is our key and our lock. Meet with Pale Loki and make clear that this plan of Chÿnåriön is more than fruited drivel. Ensure the dragons’ complicity in its greater scheme or hammer them hard should they show any...reluctance.

  Report to me what is said. Every lip purse of every word. You are of the Väläråücø, little vassal, and your will is mine. In the light and dark of your day to day I see all. I know all.

  I turn away only while you fuck that vile Øgdöåd filth. Åpsät Õsòòsi. Husband of nought! Mërëth ên dråugrim...Feast of wolves! Not because you enjoy the flesh of men. We Minåthrians enjoy all flesh at all times. Male or female. But you give the perfection of elven intimacy to a spawn of the Øgdöåd. The foes of The Grey Company! Revolting! If I could spit on you I would.

  What a bitch, Khæ’dîm thought silently, all the while smiling and bowing deferentially, his expression betraying none of the disgust he felt.

  In the absence of physical spit her power tended to serve just as nicely. She reached through the void of The Vœrtëx and snatched Khæ’dîm up in a tornado of shadow and red tempest made physical. Her mågÿcks ripped through that room and tossed Khæ’dîm to the carpet, turning his own dark elven gifts against him. His body seized and roiled in agony as his own spectral lightning nerve raced through his entire being, severing synapses and putrefying tissue and bone. Now, where once a beautiful hale elf knight stood, lay writhing the desiccated hull of a creature that looked more like a rotted russet potato. Çåthÿ smiled and released him, calming the winds of her mågÿck, resetting the room and restoring her little horn to his previous vim and elven vigor.

  Bitch? There’s no need for such an old fashioned sensational word, young elfling. Call me by my full name. Queen Çåthÿ Liin. Empress of Minåthrorn. Dark Horn of the Väläråücø. Bearer of the Chalice of Thrall and of the High Throne of Ëzrå Mãiz. I am terrible power! The hostile nock in the bow! Now go do as this Bitch has instructed and do not fail me.

  Khæ’dîm genuflected and kissed the spot of floor directly under her moments before she disappeared returning to the scaly bleakness of Ëvèr.

  He sent out a psychic alarm call to action and five of his Väläråücø brothers stood before him, cloaked and ready to do the will of their Dark Horn Empress. Their elven Tärddîäd crystals set in their foreheads and glowing like violet beacons from the midnight of their hoods.

  Woe to them if they failed. Woe. Indeed.

  60

  Ëllîë Måê Łæhm and her daughter Ödëd marshaled the waiters and servers and prepared the front house for another night of exceptional dining service. Ëllîë Måê was proprietress of the only fully cryptid owned and operated triple Michelin star rated Haute Globale restaurant on the entire planet. The Stone’s Henge. Göds, demigöds, beasts, wizards, witches, humans and other various humanoid species all flocked to her restaurant from around the world for renowned Aêthøn Eagle göddess and chef de cuisine Påndöræ Tan-Pareit’s, unparalleled slate of culinary delights. From tormenting Prometheus and dining on his liver for centuries, Påndöræ had come to run a 40 person kitchen staff and serve dishes like her liver confit to wizard Senators and wereWölf accountants. Ëllîë Måê’s restaurant received and represented all types. She was the Haemåtitê Matriarch of the transplanted Charlotte clan of Avalonian Gargoyles. Her skin, down to the very pupils of her intelligent eyes, was completely composed of smooth amorphous stone. Dipped, it seemed, in skin sheets of gray paint constantly applying itself in rich feminine guile. Her hair flowed in rivulets of latex and cement locks and she and her daughter both looked like Amazonian statues come to life. Ödëd was her only goyle-spræwn and like all Gargoyle mothers she was ferocious in her doting and protection. Female gargoyles become fertile only on the autumnal equinox every twentieth year, and will lay a single egg on the following spring equinox. All of their eggs are mågÿckally runed by the clan and stored together in the clan's rookery, and the communal hatching occurs ten years later. Ödëd was now in her 40th cycle and was herself heavy with egg. An additional life for Ëllîë Måê, in her ceaseless stony pride and vigilance, to honor and protect from the evils of their patronage. So when the shifty eyed Yuhuang Dadi walked in with what looked like a 3 person Asian goth band followed minutes later by the bad boy of the elven realm, Khæ’dîm and his muscled demon entourage, and they all sat at the same corner table, she merely nodded a secret code of heightened warning to the room’s gargoyle security, shrugged her shoulders and sent over free appetizers. Keep them happy and they’ll keep you paid.

  Xiao Yu and the Bödhisåttvå shook uneasy hands with Khæ’dîm Çåril. The treachery of the elves was legendary. Even among treacherous beings such as the trickster göd himself and his mafia progeny, the elves were a peril unto themselves. Xiao Yu watched as Khæ’dîm‘s five Väläråücø henchmen and personal guard flanked him, surveying the room hungrily for anything out of place. The Väläråücø were known to all cryptids. They enjoyed confrontation and collecting all the little edible bits of evil and parsimony left behind. Cryptid mothers and fathers warned naughty children that should they fail to do homework or chores or cast fell mågÿcks or disrespect their parents in anyway they would open up the night and whisper their children’s name. There the digesting dark would hear and come. In constant ambush, there they waited. The Väläråücø.

  Hello dear brother-in-law. How’s tricks? Xiao Yu snorted, finger tracing the rim of his brandy snifter, his derision punctuated by the slow laughter of his Bödhisåttvå grandchildren.

  Smug. I see it comes standard on all assholes this year.

  Well now that we’ve observed the pleasantries, let us to the business of our business, little elf. Where is my brother and what has he done with the human witch? I assumed he would be here. As attached at the hip as you two seem to be.

  My beloved does not answer to you pale göd and I am only here at the behest of one who will not be swayed to succor your aid in our
mission to unseat the Sky Father.

  Whoa. Whoa, sweet britches. We shall get to my bastard brother in due course. First things being first I am here to repair a wrong and you will aid me. The human whore that my brother seeks and we captured has killed another of my Bödhisåttvå. A filthy human!

  You mean to tell me the great and powerful wizard behind the curtain jacking off doesn’t know? Haven’t you heard? That human “whore” is your niece. And she’s not so human after all. She is the spawn of the Sky Father. She’s Gærüt’s daughter. I don’t know the metaphysics of it all but there it is. So say the unsleeping eye of The Loa at least.

  That explains much, Kuan Yin chimed in, feeling far more ignored than she was comfortable when the painful subject of yet another brother being massacred was broached. We’ve run all over hells half acre looking for this human to no avail. Now we know how she was able to do what she did to our P’u-hsein.

  Hush granddaughter. You betray your sex. The Loa have much to say of late it seems. They told me you would be calling to request this meeting and that my brother would be key in lighting this shitshow. It seems our interests align for the moment little elf. We both need to find this “niece” of mine and bring my oldest brother to heel. She figures centrally in this prophecy and our dear Mother’s curse and I would hate to spare my brother what retribution of the elves he no doubt so richly deserves. You will give my regards to my little brother, Åpsät, won’t you? Once you return to your hovel on the hill where you buttplug one another and play sodomy sodo-you all the livelong day. He sang the words “ sodomy sodo-you” in the rhythm of Lionel Richie’s song “Say you, say me” as he grabbed his sides and burst into laughter, clearly an amused audience of one.

  Watch your tongue. You’re beginning to play with fire, Vile Emperor. With that threat lobbed, Khæ’dîm rises, his Väläråücø visibly disappointed that no mayhem ensued.

  As they stalked off Xiao Yu licked his lips, tasting the cosmic tumblers now clicking into place as he called over one of the gargoyle waiters and ordered off the göd menu 4 göd sized plates of the liver confit he had heard so much about. He looked at the door through which the spoiled elf brat and his cronies had just departed, transforming, scales grayed out in honor of the proprietress, and smiled in satisfied whisper,

  Playing with fire, little elf? We’re dragons. That’s what we do best.

  61

  Åpsät peeled back his human skin and extracted the etched force on his bones, excising the mågÿck and pulling it through tissue and sinew to rest in the air and settle in great verbal heaps in the witch of the Pörø’s mouth. He slumped to the floor, his energy sapped and draining down that tether to witch and from witch to human. In a visible string of runes older than the oldest language, the message of his Mother unscrolled and coiled, its mågÿcks humming and annoyed at being disturbed. Looking for a host they hung in the air before Detective Tony Mozee in a hold pattern that felt more like deliberation than introduction to Tony. The siphonic enchanter of the Pörø incanted, pulling off her pressure cracked ritual priestess mask, her spell directing the traffic of the Mother’s message and opening a pathway to it’s human offering. They blazed in roaring font and consumed Detective Mozee, their phonic ill will filling his eye sockets and ears and stretching wide his mouth, jockeying themselves down his throat to the very calcium core of his being. Their overwhelming darkness, longer than the history of rancor itself, suffocated Tony, digesting him from soul to skin. Tony felt his bones burn and ache like someone had dipped him in fryer grease and turned him into a horrible new tempura. His eyes were filled with inky black specks of lightning older than any storm and as he blinked that power roiled and grew stretching his countenance to ungödly proportions and making him sick to the stomach. He vomited, chunks of streudel and apple fritter projectile splattering the floor before him as his entire body underwent a metamorphosis the human genome was never expected to unmask. His body jerked and snapped, slamming him into the ceiling and walls, its new parasitic tenant testing the length and breadth of its host. In apparent approval of what home fate had now provided it, those words hijacked Tony’s cortex and announced itself psychically to Åpsät.

  Åpsät transcribed that message effortlessly on the adjoining wall of that Pörø hall as the words spilled from Detective Mozee’s mind, the message of the Mother stretching long atrophied ambition and villainous schema.

  ලීමටත් සිදු වේ!හිකෝරෝලිම්හිදී අපේ ගීතයේ ස්ත්රී අන්ධකාරය අහස හරහා ගෙන එන්නදැන් අපි මැජික් සහ මිනිසා නැවත වරක්

  And just what is that jumble? What does that mean Åpsät? Read it for us all and bring us all in the know.

  I can and I can’t Grand Dutchess. I know precisely what it says and yet it SAYS nothing at all. It’s a language that no tongue can replicate. Only the psychic mind can translate it. What you perceive as letters are not. There are no letters. Or more aptly put, an infinite combination of letters as thoughts. It is the language of The Dark and The Deep. The communication of the first göds. It has no name and no sound. It’s simply the conversation evil has with malice. Detective Mozee and I hear the mother not with ear and vocal detachment but in the very heart of hearts itself the Mother communicates. The message defies utterance but in the small tongues of men, scarcely able to convey its glory its message is simple but cryptic:

  <...Blood in, blood out, wake the venial sin of Family, that singular noun of plural woe…>

  Detective Mozee settled back in his chair and shook his head as if returning from a daze. He fixed Åpsät with a knowing glance before looking at Grynn and whispering weakly,

  The next time I volunteer to be someone’s human vessel I want you to take off my belt, bend me over your knee and whip my ass good fashion, then looking back at Åpsät, an immediate unearned brotherhood hanging in the air between them, he asked, So…what am I exactly? I feel…different. Larger. Stronger, somehow. My body is changing and I…

  Detective, when you walked in here I insulted your humanity. That will from this day forward, no longer be possible.

  Why? Have I somehow earned the respect of the göd world and the witch world, hell…all of y’alls worlds?, Tony cockwalked, secretly patting himself on the back.

  No. Not at all, Åpsät countered, just as Tony’s body and that runic tattoo began to glow. As Mother mågÿck and human melded, his entire body erupted over in lava rock and

  midnight flames, the sound of its blaze drowning out hisස්ව්‍රෙඅම්ස්(screams of joy) as Åpsät smiled a small smile of triumph and finished,

  It’s because, Dear Detective, you are no longer human.

  62

  Gærüt rallied his four Ájøgün as they brought him updates from the ether of Åpsät, Xiao Yu, the Pörø, The Łöå, his children and Nänå. Divåd and Ptøshä Nirrêp, Blähn Båhkû and Q. Åkäniÿh huddled around their liege and helped him order his thoughts. They had all drawn straws to decide who would deliver their slate of bad news and failed missions to their Lord Gærüt. Blähn Båhkû lost.

  Blähn Båhkû was deadly but unassuming to watch. That is if you discounted the gray and red ink covering his upper body and forehead from the days when he was thought to be a Sumerian göd. He sauntered around slowly as if the world needed extra time to drink him in. To look at him you would never know that he was a thousand year old Myrmidon warrior who could become a mandible overlapping ant-lion demigöd and send you scurrying back to the cover of your nightmares. He was all of those things and completing that favorite uncle or doting grandfather routine what he loved more than anything on this planet was southern beings and having conversations with them. It was his hobby. Stopping people and listing to the vitality, wit and charm of southern language. He loved everything about southmouth. No matter where you went; country, land, city or common realm, those from the south always spoke best.

&n
bsp; Bossman, I’mmo come right out wit’it. We messed up. Real good. We tried to get that lass you wanted but that’s a hard dog to keep on the porch, bossman. What with them powers o’ hers and them dag blame dragons. Our intel won’t worth a cuss. That Bôkör didn’t say peep the first ‘bout no dragons and ‘bout no boyfriend ‘neither. Bôkörs already ain’t the brightest. I reckon their intellects ‘bout as lonely as a pine tree in a parking lot. They ain’t never was much for brains. Give ‘em two nickels for a dime and they’ll think they’s rich. And the Pörø ain’t much better. If there’s a difference ‘tween the two its a mighty fine one. Fine as frog’s hair split four ways, I tell you what. They didn’t mention nee’ther that that lil ‘ol boy what done whooped your brothers asses is now all growed up and eating cakes and cookies downtown wit’ her. It’s like they’s purposely tryin’ to set us up, you know? I’m looking at all this like “Well I’ll be ‘limber tickled”. That one dragon gal looked ‘poor as a killdee. Far too skinny to cause any ruckus t’all. But she certainly passed the first lick, I tell ya’ what! And it was a good’un. Knocked down buildings and erry’thang. Here we’s busy saving humans what done fell out the windows and them dragons is sneaking off with the girl. I’m over yonder helping this human who, when I set him down peaceably like he hauled off and farted what stank so bad it’d knock a buzzard off a gut wagon. He was a fat one he was. If he was an inch taller he’d be a circle. And he had, what humans call that, meth mouth? He had them summer teeth. Some are here. Some are there. I tell ya’ what. But Ah’m digressing. Any ‘ol who, them dragons grab her and fly off and then wouldn’t you know it, here he comes all fired up. That boy whose now a man that ain’t nobody told us about. Well, I looks over at Ptøshä and she’s shaking like a dog shittin’ ‘ssimon seeds. He’s staring at all o’ us like he’s pissin’ in tall cotton and then all hell breaks all the way loose. Woo wee nelly, that little rascal started a’fightin’ and a’bitin’ and we ran like a scalded haint, didn’t we Q? Boss I tell ya’, we traveled a minute in thirty seconds.