by Dorian Dawes
He opened his eyes, mouth set into a tight line. "Then there is hope. A sealing ritual to command even the powers of gods, if it works."
Ariel continued laughing. "May I?"
Bartleby clenched his fist. "Proceed my dear, delicate Ariel."
* * *
Helena and Veronika sat in the back seat of an old dusty station wagon, a soft glow emanating from their fingers providing the only working light. Each kept her hands on either side of Kara's head while Dayabir and Justin attempted to keep her body stable. Veronika and Kara were whispering rapid incantations under their breath. It was all they could do to stabilize her, keep her out of pain. They were failing.
Gloria drove, not thinking that every pothole she rammed into at full speed or bump against the rickety station wagon might be further contributing to Kara's discomfort. The old woman didn't give two shits about comfort. She'd rather the girl be alive and in pain than dead.
Dayabir had insisted on driving. On any other night, Gloria might've let him. She knew she was getting old and her eyesight was failing her, but Dayabir wasn't used to driving these routes. She knew every byway and back-alley and shortcut in Wakefield. She would need them all to save Kara's life.
So much was at stake on this night. Gloria could not lose another child to the horrors of Harbinger Island. Casualty after casualty of a nebulous war with a creeping darkness had left her bitter and weary, and another would probably kill her. She needed a victory. It was selfish, and the knowledge of her selfishness stung, but she'd long ago decided that guilt was unproductive.
The station wagon careened around a corner. Helena thought for a panicked moment the whole thing was going to turn on its side. She could've sworn the wheels had lifted off the ground. "Gloria, I don't want to criticize your driving -" she called up to the front.
"Then don't!" came the raspy reply.
"Are you trying to get us killed?" Helena shouted back. "I can't keep up the healing incantations if you insist on taking us airborne!"
Gloria kept silent. She responded by slamming her foot harder against the gas pedal, accelerating. She hadn't taken the time to explain anything to the terrified college students being jostled around in the back-seat. They didn't know what a geas was. Helena was still insisting they rush Kara to a hospital, as if that would do anything besides kill her faster.
Naive. Stupid. Innocent. She wished she could keep them that way. Don't think like that. Regrets are useless. Keep driving. Keep fucking driving.
Gloria wanted to close her eyes. She was so tired. So damn … fucking … tired.
Weathered fingers tightened harder about the steering wheel. The silo was close ahead, she could see it through the trees. She finally allowed herself a, "Thank fucking Christ!"
She drove into the clearing, then abruptly slowed to a stop. Her mouth hung open. Her passengers all stared out the window, transfixed by the sky.
The moon looked impossibly massive, a foul blood-red thing leering down at them from the heavens. Heaven had never looked so near, or so mean.
Motherfucker.
"Stop gawking and get this kid out of my car." Her voice was hoarse, breathy.
The four of them gathered around Kara, attempting to gently heft her comatose body from the back of the car. Veronika stayed by her head, brushing her hair out of her face. They hurried to the open door of the decrepit silo where Bartleby appeared to be waiting for them. He ushered them inside where a long wooden table had already been prepared, as well as several sheets.
"What is this?" Helena demanded. "Did you set this up? What's happening to her?"
Bartleby didn't even look in her direction. He appeared to be staring at the ceiling, counting out invisible numbers. "You didn't tell them."
"There was no time," Gloria snapped. "I wanted the girl to live."
"Right." Bartleby nodded, then threw a sheet over the table. "Hurry, please. Let her lay here now. Gently. Gently."
While they laid Kara down on the table, Helena shot Bartleby a furious look. "Where the fuck have you been?"
"All in due time, my student. I promise." Bartleby gave her shoulder a gentle rub.
She recoiled at his touch. Her father had touched her that way. "I am not your student," she spat.
Bartleby turned on her, brows furrowed. His mouth hung open.
She'd hurt him; she could see that. She knew she'd feel guilty for it later, but for now all she felt was vindication.
Bartleby turned to Gloria. The statement had wounded him, but did nothing to sway his actions. "Did you bring your candles?"
"They are always with me," Gloria grumbled.
A series of candles, each depicting various saints in times of prayer, gradually appeared, hovering around her. She directed them forwards with the motions of her hands so that they all formed a circle about the unconscious girl on the table. There they floated, a protective aura of heavenly fire. She uttered a string of rapid-fire prayers and incantations under her breath.
"Kara …" Bartleby said in a gentle whisper. "I need you to be awake for this. I'm dreadfully sorry."
He reached forwards and touched her on her forehead. A spark of electricity passed from his fingers to her skin and she jolted forwards. A terrible sound clawed its way out of her throat, hoarse yet screaming.
"Stabilize her!" Bartleby commanded.
Veronika was there in an instant. She grabbed the back of Kara's head, infusing her with as much healing magic as she was capable of. She pressed her forehead to Kara's and in between incantations, let out a frail and desperate whisper. "I love you."
Kara's seizures and screaming settled. Blood stained the white sheets beneath her. She was bleeding again.
Bartleby covered her from the waist down with one of the sheets and leaned close to her. "Kara, I need you to listen to me. Something terrible has happened."
She opened her eyes. "I feel like shit."
"Your mother put something inside you, and it will crawl out of you tonight and kill you. The spell your mother put on you will also kill you if that thing does not emerge. Do you understand?"
Everyone but Gloria stared at him, slack-jawed. Kara groaned. She was perspiring heavily, and her expression was equal parts exhausted and incredibly annoyed.
"So what's the plan?" she asked, between heavy breaths.
"I can't undo the geas," Bartleby said. "Not without the presence of the original caster. But we can ensure that you don't die while we remove this thing from your body. It will be painful."
"But I'll live?"
"It's all the hope we've got."
She nodded as best she could. "Get this festering shit-sack out of me."
Bartleby made his best attempt at a grin to put her at ease, but his apprehension was clearly visible. His fingers shook and he opened and closed his mouth several times. His former students stared, their stomachs all turning the same collective knots.
Dayabir stuttered before finally getting out a complete sentence. "You know what you're doing, right?"
Bartleby stared at his shaking fingers. "Of course I do."
The silence lasted only a heart-beat. It was long enough to shake the faith of everyone in the room.
Justin fell to his knees, gripping his left eye in pain. It felt as if someone had shoved a burning needle right through his retina. He was racked by a deluge of grotesque imagery: an endless mound of corpses forming walls and cities and structures with their festering putrescence, and at the end of the macabre city, a slithering creature lurking behind an imperceptible number of masks. Its form was ever-shifting, a writhing mess of slime and teeth and tentacles. Only one feature remained familiar to him, that of a looming golden eye.
Even as Dayabir hurried to his side, Justin stammered out the words. "He's coming."
"Who's coming?" Dayabir gripped his arm, helping him to his feet.
The two boys walked to the entrance of the silo. Justin scanned the darkness, heart racing in his chest.
"Rhamal," he said.
Helena let out a loud and echoing, "Fuck!"
Bartleby ignored her and retrieved his bag, pulling from it a series of surgical instruments and various unrecognizable occult implements. Most unsettling was what appeared to be a shriveled hand clutching a bloodied doll. He laid them out on a smaller table next to him.
"Helena, Veronika," he barked. "I need one of you here with Kara providing your healing magic to keep her stabilized while I perform the procedure. Another more proficient in occult combat must defend this silo, at least until I give the signal - is that understood?"
Veronika looked torn. "I've been at this longer than Helena has. I should go."
Helena gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "Go. We love her as much as you."
"I know," Veronika said, pulling her into a hug. "She's lucky to have you guys."
Justin screamed again. The pain returned, sharp and burning. Dayabir struggled to help him stay on his feet.
"He's almost here!" Justin managed to gasp out.
"Who is this guy?" Veronika said. She stepped out of the silo to stand with him. A gust of wind had kicked up. Her tangled curls batted wildly about the top of her head like a wreath of snakes. Her shawl billowed behind her regally. She looked a queen preparing for war.
Justin didn't have to look out at the horizon any longer. He could feel him, coming closer and closer. He was barely able to let out more than a whimper. "Have you ever been in love with someone you knew was going to destroy you?" he asked, quivering.
Veronika watched his body language with attentive eyes. She understood. Her fingers stiffened, curling like claws. Her nails lengthened by two inches and her eyes flashed a lurid green.
"I see," she hissed.
The tattoo of her familiar slithered up her arm to coil around her neck. She stretched and twisted, loosening unused joints, feeling every pop and crack. Golden-green scales slowly appeared, starting from the base of her neck and ending on the edges of her cheekbones. She opened her mouth, allowing long serpentine fangs to grow.
Dayabir stared, mouth hanging open. "That's actually kind of cool."
Veronika grinned, trying out her sharp new teeth by gnashing them quickly. "New spell I've been cooking up, 'Form of the Gorgon'."
Justin had little time to admire Veronika's physical transformation. He let out another moan, collapsing into Dayabir's arms. Justin looked into his eyes, almost apologetically. "He's here."
A low rumbling in the air caused each to turn around and back cautiously away from the silo. Silhouetted against the red moon was a twenty-foot tall figure cloaked in ebony and gold, long silken robes floating majestically around them. Atop their head were at least a dozen antlers, each stalk ending in either a toothy mouth or lidless golden eye. Their limbs were indistinguishable beneath the billowing robes, only the chaos of innumerable tentacles and two powerful crooked legs. The figure's face was obscured behind one pale, white mask.
Justin felt like vomiting.
Rhamal looked down upon them, and even through the mask Justin could feel his smug superiority. Justin stared hard right back. He wanted to look away, but somehow he felt that'd be giving up a victory.
"Get back into the silo, boys," Veronika ordered.
"He will kill you!" Justin retorted.
"Yeah, well you're not in a position to help, so stay out the way!" Veronika snapped back.
Dayabir dragged Justin back into the silo at Veronika’s insistence, but Justin refused to go any further than the entrance. He looked back to see the professor hadn't even begun touching his surgical implements. Instead Bartleby was drawing along the floor with chalk and muttering something to himself.
Rhamal flew from atop the silo to land several feet away in front the entrance. Veronika positioned herself with her back to the building, keeping her serpentine eyes fixed on the strange monster hovering before her. She was uttering as many protection spells as she had left in her for the day, drawing on untapped reserves of magical power.
The creature reached with an unnaturally long and distressingly human-looking arm to point at her mockingly. "This is your champion? Things are really looking poor for you, aren't they? None of you have to die. Give me the child the girl will bear and I will be on my way. I'll even deal with the little cult coming behind me. You know, to be nice."
"She's not having your fucking brat," Veronika snarled.
She thrust her palms outward. Mouths opened up in the center of her hand and from out of them came emerald snakes that lashed out to bite the monstrous being before her. They extended at least ten feet from her palms before Rhamal swatted them away with ease.
He laughed. "Such impudence, but such ambition. I like ambition. Reminds me of, well, me."
While the laughter continued, he reached out and plucked the pallid mask from his face. The beast shrank down into a human form, still supernaturally tall but disarmingly beautiful. He was a bald, brown-skinned man clad only from the waist down in ebony skirts. All that remained of the monster were those frighteningly bright golden eyes.
"I will honor your ambition. Ego demands I cast aside my godhood to prove that you are as yet no match for my power. What say you?" He made grand sweeping gestures with his arms, clearly mocking her. "A duel? A duel for the fate of love! Don't you people like that sort of schmaltzy shit?"
"Love? From you? Please!" Veronika said, though she grinned all the same. "I know your type. You use and abuse, and love only yourselves."
Rhamal's eyes flashed. "I will be taking what's mine, whether you accept my terms or not. I'm being more than generous here by at least trying to make it a fair fight."
"What is that thing growing inside Kara?" Veronika yelled. "What the fuck did you do to her?"
"It was promised me by Eileen Kiernan, my disciple. She wanted power, I wanted a vessel," Rhamal said with a shrug. "Simple as that."
Veronika glowered. "Get used to disappointment, then. You're not the only one that bitch made promises to."
"I'm sure she never intended to make good on that deal, of course, but that matters little; I'm accustomed to getting what I want. I was kind to your lot before, but even my generosity has its limits."
"Kiss my ass, fuckboy." Veronika rushed in, claws raised high.
From the entrance, Justin watched wide-eyed and fearful. They were two elegant and skilled dancers. Veronika was fast, devastatingly so, but her opponent was always a hair out of reach. Rhamal toyed with her, ducking beneath each deadly swipe of her claws, pushing her out of the way, all while goading further attacks.
Veronika managed to land a single blow. Her claws swiped across his chest. Only then did Rhamal retaliate, attempting to backhand her across the jaw. She backed away just in time.
With a stunned expression, Rhamal pressed his fingers to his chest, then held them in front his face to watch the slimy black ichor dripping down his hand. The strange texture of his blood turned into maggots as each drop hit the ground. No one had ever wounded him before, and it showed.
Veronica threw back her head and cackled. "I win. Any second now the poison will kick in. It coagulates the blood, hardening it."
Rhamal looked at her, eyes wide. "You've a sadistic streak in you. I like that."
She didn't have a chance to react before he thrust his arm forwards. The limb transformed into a dozen tentacles longer and wider than her own body, which stretched out and wrapped around her, suffocating her in their deadly grip. Veronika didn't even have the chance to scream as she was lifted high off the ground and hurled back into the earth with devastating force. A scream escaped her, drowned out by the sounds of her own bones cracking. She lay there, bloodied and bruised in a crater of her own making.
Snickering to himself, Rhamal danced over to her unconscious form. "It's not your fault, you know. I mean you're good, you're really good, but see … you're a witch. And I? I'm me."
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." Justin threw Dayabir off him and rushed out into the field.
Bartleby's head darted upwards.
"Justin! Wait!"
Dayabir gave the professor a pleading look. "Do something!"
Bartleby shook his head, completely helpless. "I need more time. I just need more time."
Justin turned around to face them. "How much time?"
"Ten minutes." Gloria whipped her head towards them for a brief moment before returning once more to her incantations.
Bartleby turned to her. "Gloria, the ritual -"
"Whatever you've got going needs to happen in ten minutes," Gloria repeated. "The saints can protect Kara's body, but not for much longer. She needs this thing out of her soon."
He closed his eyes, then took a deep breath. "I'll do it in five."
Justin took Dayabir's hand in his. "I'll keep the asshole ex-boyfriend distracted. Can you get to Veronika and heal her with some of your magic?"
Dayabir shook his head. "I don't even know how I can get it to work, or even why it works. I'm not good at this stuff. I'm a history student! This is way out of my realm."
Justin kissed him on the lips, then pulled away quickly. "I know. Try your best. Okay?"
Dayabir nodded. "I love you."
"I love you more." Justin winked, and went racing into the field.
Rhamal had been walking ever-so-slowly towards them, hands folded behind his back and whistling. He could take his time. He had eternity.
Justin approached, temples sweating. He wasn't like Veronika or Bartleby. He had no power to call upon, no secret maguffins hiding in his pocket that would save the day. Veronika had power, and it was nothing against this insurmountable horror. What hope could he have?
He was used to operating without hope or power. His dad had threatened to kick him out of the house when he caught him binding, then threatened to out him to his family members and community. To this day Justin still didn't understand the man's motivations, not that he'd tried; he'd long ago stopped attempting to view his father as anything other than a roadblock. Dehumanizing the problem might not have been the healthiest solution in the wrong run, but it'd certainly helped him survive.
Justin stared at the towering figure walking smugly toward him. He wondered how at any point anyone could see this figure as anything but an insurmountable obstacle, an alien horror destroying all in its path. Justin then blinked several times, his mouth almost falling open. He would have laughed were he not ready to piss himself in terror.
