Lilith--Blood Ink

by Dana Fredsti

Then something caught its attention. Something new. Something pricking at the edges of its consciousness. A light, perhaps, shining toxic rays through the endless blackness. A song, cut short, the ululating discordant wailing calling it into the first gateway. A scent, a stench of rot, of flesh falling from the bone.

  Sweet perfume.

  A thrumming rhythm, a steady blood-drenched pulse that called to it, leaving a trace of millions of heartbeats along the way.

  It had felt similar calls before. Had started to follow them, but the signals had abruptly stopped, the gates had slammed shut and the way lost.

  But now… the gates were opening again. And the beacons were strong and clear, guiding the way.

  * * *

  “O Adjurix,” LeRoy intoned grandly, “thou glittering censer in the cold void! Let thy fragrant incense of the sacrifice go out into the black gulf of the heavens! Bring forth they that dwell in the darkness beyond all sight and thought…”

  “Rrrth-naa’bthnk, okhyoi oth-mhhg’-gthaa sll’-ha,” croaked the cultists in unison.

  The foul reek of the Adjurix rose into the air.

  * * *

  Oh, the lovely smell of putrescence. Death and decay, an odor that stirred its appetite for the first time in many decades. It let itself follow the enticing aroma and its promise of a delectable feast, drifting up through the waters until it passed through the first Gate.

  * * *

  “O Haruspex,” LeRoy said, “Diviner of the Flesh, Sanguinary Summoner! Decrypt the secret messages of the pulsating blood-tide! Read the hidden glyphs inscribed in the carnal codex and draw forth their wisdom…”

  “Har-ne’nhhhngr, ikhuyah g’r’l-uh yll’oktmyoi!” The cultists raised their voices like a chorus of lunatic frogs.

  The Haruspex pulsed, the sound like a heartbeat in a hollow drum.

  * * *

  The dimension beyond the first Gate was sterile, devoid of life and sustenance, but the smell had now combined with a throbbing pulse, something vaguely remembered as a heartbeat. A life force. Which meant food.

  It went through the second Gate.

  * * *

  “Burn for us, O Lucifer, Beacon of Discord and Madness!” LeRoy cried. “Dance in the language of the cold starry host and show us the path!”

  “Thar-a-na-k nafln’ghft, g’nafln’ghft m’ai oktmyoi k’-yar-na-k!”

  The radioactive glow that emanated from the Lucifer lit up the entire clearing, its reflection turning LeRoy’s face a ghastly green.

  * * *

  Light. An unholy, sickly glow that shone like a welcoming beacon, combining with the pulsing heartbeat and the sweet odor of death, pulling it onward through yet another Gate, closer and closer to a dimension rich with food and… and something else. Something remembered on the edges of its consciousness. Something from long ago.

  * * *

  “O Augury, Sign of That to Come, Portent and Foretoken of the Unfolding, Signal the Opening of the Way…”

  “Ka-dish-tugn-h’gua, gelac’voh’ma!” came the answering chorus.

  The Augury moved its wings in answer to LeRoy’s invocation, creating subtle vibrations that nonetheless reached over time and space.

  * * *

  It felt something… ripples in a pond after a rock is cast into the water.

  Subtle, but inescapable.

  It went through the fourth Gate.

  * * *

  “Lift up thy voice, O Cantrix!” LeRoy practically sang the words. “Intone the jubilant song of pain throughout the gates between the worlds! Call forth that which waits upon our voice!”

  “Ulnph-leg-eth, ftoku-gthaa gl’tkhabah’om vulgt-lagln!”

  A weird burr sounded in the Cantrix’s throat, building into an ear-splitting wail that pierced dimensions.

  * * *

  It had almost reached that point of frustration when something pierced through the veils of time and space, through the dimensional walls. A sound. A… singing, a voice raised in such pure agony that it pierced the very folds of time and space. Beautiful, it thought, and slowly drifted up as the sound pulled it up and through the fifth Gate.

  It was almost home.

  * * *

  “By thy craft and might, O Thaumaturge!” LeRoy shrieked. “Shape the miracle! Work the passage and invoke the Final Gate and draw forth That Which Must Emerge”

  “Wgah-’nthkhu, m’aig’thkhu ch’ng-luiu-gthaageb n’-thy-leii!

  Wgah-’nthkhu, m’aig’thkhu ch’ng-luiu-gthaageb n’-thy-leii!”

  The froggy chorus rose in volume, the last unintelligible words hitting my ears like bullets, while the Thaumaturge wavered octopus-like in the center of the circle, constantly stretching forth and retracting slug-like appendages in a hypnotic, swirling dance like a demonic carnival carousel. It responded to LeRoy’s sorcerous commands, its movements somehow coordinating the ritual like an orchestra conductor.

  That’s when the shit really hit the fan.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It started as a speck hovering in the air above the crusty, scaled blob in the water, vibrating like a fly trapped in an invisible web. The vibrations increased, and the speck began expanding while at the same time going around and around in an ever-growing spiral, turning the air a dark and swirling cloud tinged with toxic greens and noxious grays. Wind whipped through the clearing, strong enough to catch and lift my braid. The end smacked Micah across the face with the thick ponytail holder. Despite everything, I smiled when he yelped in surprised pain.

  The wind continued to rise, the sound blending with the Cantrix’s song.

  “Bring the woman here!”

  Micah and one of the male cultists dragged me over to the platform where LeRoy stood, his voice rising above the unearthly wail coming from what used to be Tia and the answering shriek from the slowly expanding storm above the water. It looked as if a tornado had tipped over on its side, affording one a view of the inside as it spun. I half expected to see cows or the Wicked Witch of the West appear, but instead the thing just kept expanding, sucking the light out of the sky.

  As it grew larger and the wind and the Cantrix shrieked ever louder, a truly foul smell emerged on the back of the warm, moist wind. Trash left out in the hot, humid sun. Rotting corpses, decayed flesh crawling with maggots. Mildew and mold. All these things and yet none of them—the putrid smell was not of this world. I would never complain about Langdon’s breath again—if I lived to complain about anything.

  The chanting increased in volume. The spiral deepened into a funnel, widening until it blocked out everything else. Suddenly the funnel ripped, and something began to emerge.

  The Gate had opened.

  The hands clutching my arms loosened as the cultist holding me went limp with terror. Guess seeing their precious Elder God wasn’t all it was hyped up to be. He Who Eats Worlds wasn’t pretty. Even the small glimpse we were getting as it worked its way through the Gate made that obvious.

  It was the same noxious gray-and-green coloration as the plant life on this side of the Veil and the storm clouds, dripping with thick, gelatinous goo. Its skin had the texture of an adipocere corpse, as if it were rotting on the bone. Tentacles and random protrusions undulated in a jarring rhythm. Multiple eyes bulged on top of wriggling stalks above a wide chasm ringed with sharp, surprisingly small teeth that seemed to ripple inward in steady waves.

  One Lovecraftian Elder God made to order.

  “Oh, He Who Eats Worlds, whom I have summoned from across dimensions, through time and space, I offer you this woman as the first meal of many in your new home. Accept my humble offering and grant me a place at your side as you make this planet, this dimension, your kingdom.”

  Nothing about LeRoy’s little welcoming speech was humble. He reeked of arrogance, his very tone and demeanor dripping with a sense of his own superiority. If I’d been He Who Eats Worlds, I’d have gobbled him up then and there.

  Instead, the creature’s eyestalks all turned, sending its multiple gaze in my
direction. I gagged on the charnel-house stench that blasted out as the thing exhaled. Tentacles ribboned, unfurling like flags in a gale-force wind. Its mouth opened wide, impossibly so. Two of the tentacles undulated toward me. I was so screwed.

  One tentacle slapped against the ground in front of me with a wet smack that shook the earth. The other waved and rippled like an enthusiastic pole dancer—

  —and plucked the man on my right off his feet and into its mouth. I watched in horrified fascination as the teeth pierced the screaming man and then slowly, inexorably, fed him further down its gullet on the rippling escalator of the multiple rows of teeth. He vanished as his body hit the cutoff of the Gate. Thankfully, so did his screams.

  Micah’s slack fingers let go of my other arm completely as he took one stumbling step backward, and then another as the other tentacle lifted from the ground. I froze as it grazed one of my legs, the tip of the tentacle pausing and then almost caressing my calf. Then it coiled up like a fern before unfurling with blinding speed, wrapping itself around the production assistant’s waist and pulling him off his feet. He screamed, his hands reaching out toward me as He Who Eats waved him in the air back and forth, as though it couldn’t quite make up its mind what to do with him.

  “Lee!” he wailed, all of his hate and hubris leached away by fear.

  Acting on pure reflex, I reached for him, for the person I thought he was before he betrayed me—and the rest of the planet. For the kid who’d uncomplainingly driven us back and forth, put up with all of our requests and demands—even some of Leandra’s more unreasonable ones—on set. Micah, who I’d thought was my friend. I strained to reach him, my fingertips grazing his.

  Then the tentacle retracted, carrying Micah straight into the mouth before I could do more than scream his name. I shuddered as he followed his Castro kinsman down the throat and into another dimension on the other side of the Gate.

  There was no one holding me now, nothing to keep me where I was. And yet I didn’t move, standing still as I stared up at He Who Eats Worlds, breathing through clenched teeth as the hell-stench wafted out of the Elder God’s mouth.

  I could have run, I suppose, but I don’t know where I would have gone. The Veil was sealed, LeRoy had said so. Even though two of their own had just died horribly, the rest of the Castro clan showed no sign of running. If anything, the look of dumb worship on their slack-jawed faces had increased. No, they wouldn’t let me get very far.

  I stayed where I was and waited.

  And then the back of my neck started itching as He Who Eats Worlds turned its full attention on me.

  Mother…?

  The thought penetrated my skull like a baseball bat hitting from the inside out, so loud I thought my ears would bleed. I cried out, put my hands over my ears and fell to my knees.

  I could still hear LeRoy laugh.

  Mother…

  It was softer this time. As if the creature knew it had hurt me the first time.

  Slowly, I took my hands away from my ears. Shut my eyes so as to not see the hideous form in front of me, so I could see who truly spoke to me.

  Tell me who you are, I silently beseeched it.

  Mother, it said again, and then it showed me. A golden-sand beach. Water the color of lapis lazuli. Beautiful children playing under a golden sun, frolicking in the gentle waves. A little girl with long, dark curls reaching up to a woman who—

  Who looked just like me.

  This was not He Who Eats Worlds, an Elder God who had existed before my ancestress.

  This hideous creature was one of Lilith’s children.

  Home now, it cooed, voice piercing my skull like iron spikes. I tried to ignore the mind-numbing pain and spoke to it again, silently.

  You are home. What do you want?

  Mother. Love. It gave a long quavering sigh. The smell was horrific.

  Yes, I replied. Love. What… What happened to He Who Eats Worlds?

  My mate? Nothing left to eat. He ate our children. I ate my mate.

  Talk about a Dr. Seuss rhyme gone wrong. Why did you answer the summons?

  I want Home. I want Mother. I want Love.

  What else do you want?

  Food. So hungry.

  And there was the rub.

  This monstrosity had been one of Lilith’s original children by Ashmedai. Had been turned into this abomination by Yahweh’s curse and had somehow ended up as an Elder God’s live-in girlfriend in another dimension. Now all it wanted was home and its mother.

  And to eat everything and everyone on the planet.

  Well, hell.

  You can’t stay here. I didn’t know if the sorrow I felt for the creature carried in my thoughts. I hoped so. I thought so, since its longing for its mother and home had pierced my heart.

  Why? This is home. You are my mother.

  I didn’t argue the last. Trying to explain who I really was wouldn’t help resolve this. Because this world is not meant to be food for you.

  This is my home.

  You’ve changed since you left, I said silently. If you were to live here now, you would devour all life on this planet. I… I can’t let you do that.

  But you are my mother. You feed me. You love me.

  My heart cracked a little bit for this poor lost child. And my heart hardened even more against Yahweh, asshole god who’d condemn innocent children to such horrible fates simply because they were the offspring of someone who’d disobeyed him. What the hell, Yahweh?

  I do love you. It wasn’t exactly a lie, even if it wasn’t the truth. But I can’t let you stay here.

  You would hurt me?

  The betrayal in its voice hurt more than I would have thought possible.

  You… You can go back to where you came from, I answered. Live out your life there. I don’t want to hurt you. But if you stay here, I won’t have a choice.

  Mother. Its sorrow reverberated in my head.

  “What are you waiting for? Devour her!”

  LeRoy, still standing on his little platform above the harbingers, glared at me, face red with frustration. I imagined his expression was much like Yahweh’s when Lilith had refused to go back to Adam.

  The harbingers all stirred restlessly. Their part in the ritual was over and now they were probably hungry, just like the monster they’d helped summon. LeRoy ignored them. They’d done their job and now had no place in his attention.

  What is this? Lilith’s daughter asked.

  This is the man who summoned you. He wants you to kill me.

  All of its eyes swiveled toward LeRoy. He froze under the gaze of the creature he’d summoned, and then glared at me with centuries-long hatred.

  “Kill her!” he screamed, spittle flying from his lips.

  A tentacle lashed out. LeRoy threw himself to one side and it missed him by inches.

  “You dare turn on me?” He got to his feet, brushing himself off as if his appearance mattered. “I summoned you. I created these harbingers to open the Gates that would allow you to come into this dimension. I did this. Me!” He pounded his chest for emphasis, like an angry gorilla. Behind him, the harbingers continued to stir uneasily.

  The Cantrix—Tia—turned toward LeRoy, blind eyes somehow unerringly staring straight at him. That weird burr in her throat started again, the vibration building until another shriek burst from her throat. Not as ear-piercing or as ghastly as her last, but horrible and loud enough to make the other harbingers—even the Thaumaturge—turn in her direction… and then follow when she left her makeshift dais and started walking toward LeRoy, her steps horrible and lurching and deliberate.

  At first LeRoy didn’t move, his expression making it clear he couldn’t believe his creations could mean him any harm. Guess the arrogant asshole was unfamiliar with Frankenstein and his monster. It was only when Tia reached him and reached out for him, the other five eagerly grasping for him as well, the Thaumaturge snaking its gelatinous tendrils out of the diseased soup of its home to brush the toes of LeRoy’s pol
ished shoes, that he realized he was in danger. That he’d lost his power over them.

  And by then it was too late.

  All six harbingers had their way with their creator. By the time the Thaumaturge dragged the now weakly screaming, dissolving man into its center mass, he’d experienced all the fear and pain he’d so willingly brought to their hosts. Even so, I don’t think he truly believed his fate was sealed even as he disappeared, one grasping hand reaching toward the sky until it, too, vanished from sight as the Thaumaturge submerged under the thick, sickly gray-green liquid.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  As their leader vanished under the water, the remaining Castro cult members stared in shock. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t part of the script—if sicko doomsday cults even had scripts.

  Before I could even think of what to do next, the creature squeezed yet further out of the Gate and began scooping up cultists and tossing them into its mouth like popcorn. The rest screamed, the sound a froggy chorus of the damned as they scattered, trying to run. They didn’t get far, though, because LeRoy had closed the path into and out of the Veil. They scrabbled at seemingly thin air, trying to find an escape route. But they had nowhere to run.

  Neither did I.

  The creature finished snacking on cultists, withdrawing its tentacles in an almost dainty gesture as if it planned on wiping its mouth with a napkin. More of it had emerged from the Gate, long, undulating waves of gelatinous muscle interspersed with scales, crusted over with centuries of god knows what. If it got all the way out, would it be able to make its way through the Veil into the world beyond?

  I couldn’t take that chance.

  What’s your name? I asked, hoping to distract it.

  It froze in the act of tossing yet another frog-faced cultist down into its mouth.

  My name?

  Yes. Do you remember your name?

  There was an even longer pause. Then, Ashurra. My name was… is Ashurra.

  Ashurra, you can’t stay here. You can either go back where you came from, or… I’ll have to kill you.

  Kill?

  I’m sorry. I don’t want to do that. But you’ve been gone a long time and this is no longer the place you knew. And you’re no longer the little girl you used to be. You don’t belong here anymore.