An Invocation of Monsters (The Void Book 2), page 18
“We will tell you all we know, of which there is little.” His voice was bitter as he admitted to it. “But we must bring Kiraxis to the lake. It is a terrible idea to stay here in a place reeking of blood.”
My blood ran cold. Of course it was a terrible idea. Even now the creature could be stalking us, lured by the scent.
I got to my feet, taking Kiraxis’s arm. “Come on, big guy.”
With the precariousness of a landslide, the massive Mlul’dra got to his feet. He swayed a little, all of his eyes blinking out of order.
“I am drunk,” he announced.
“We can see that,” Toth muttered, looking like he regretted pouring a full handle of Johnnie Walker down Kiraxis’s throat.
“There are two Elles,” Kiraxis continued, squinting at me. “Alas, I have but one cock.”
“Next time, maybe we should just try aspirin?” I suggested, draping the Mlul’dra’s top arm over my shoulders.
Kiraxis took a step, staggered, and nearly took both of us down. It was only Toth’s quick movements that saved me from being crushed to death.
“This way, love.” I managed a few steps forward, dragging the monster with me. “The lake is over here.”
For a mere distance of fifty yards, it was truly a fraught and perilous journey.
We all eventually collapsed on the lake’s shore, panting for breath in my case, groaning about the world spinning from Kiraxis, and mumbles of ‘never again’ and ‘clearly I was not thinking’ from Toth.
When I caught my breath, I began pushing Kiraxis towards the water. “Budge up,” I groaned, both of my hands braced against his back as I pushed.
Kiraxis made an unidentifiable noise, rolling sideways instead of forward.
“Do you want to be eaten?” I demanded. “The thing in the woods is gonna turn you into ground beef if she catches a whiff of this.”
The blood had dried his fur into clumps. He was absolutely splattered with it from head to toe.
“I’m less concerned about the anomaly than I am about… others,” Toth said. His wings flicked with anxiety as he gazed down at the drunk Mlul’dra.
“Other… anomalies?”
His gaze moved to me briefly, then slid up to the forest. “Other monsters.”
Oh.
Somehow I had never stopped to ask if there were more sentient monsters out there, and if they were as friendly as mine.
But Toth cocked his head, still watching Kiraxis.
“With all this blood around, surely a V’uthli is coming to investigate,” he said loudly. “Possibly another Mlul’dra. Are your senses not superior?”
“Superiorrrrr,” Kiraxis breathed, groping at the pebbles on the beach.
“Then you’ll certainly hear, see, and smell it when one of them steals Elle away to be his mate.” He sniffed delicately at the air. “That might be a V’uthli I smell now.”
I glanced over my shoulder nervously, but there was no one else in sight. I still wasn’t sure I wanted to know what a V’uthli was.
“No!” Kiraxis said, aghast.
“Oh, yes,” Toth said sadly. “Here he comes. And he has a very large temple for Elle to worship him in. She might never come back.”
To my surprise, Kiraxis flipped onto his stomach and did an astonishingly rapid crawl into the lake, all four arms dragging him forward.
He bobbed in the water, flailing around and loosening the dried blood, and I looked at Toth sidelong. “There’s no V’uthli coming, is there?”
“No,” Toth said smugly, his eyes glinting with satisfaction.
“You bad, bad monster, you,” I said fondly, then patted his arm and headed down to the water.
It was not easy bathing a drunk Mlul’dra.
Toth had the wherewithal to visit Kiraxis’s cave and acquire a bar of soap for me after I’d been swamped for the tenth time, and when I finally just sat on top the monster and started scrubbing his chest free of blood, he finally gave up on fighting and purred.
“That feels very nice, Elle,” he said, beaming up at me.
“Good. Now hold still and if you roll over again, we’re gonna do this the hard way.” I had no idea what the ‘hard way’ was, considering he had several hundred pounds on me, but I was hoping his own imagination would fill in the blanks.
He did try to roll over again. Fortunately, the taste of blood and soap had called Drazan from the depths, and the Mlul’dra growled when he realized multiple tentacles were holding him in place.
I patted the tentacle curled around my ankle. “Thank you, Drazan.”
Any time you desire, Elle, the Klee said into my mind, sounding amused. It is like holding a cat underwater.
Now that he mentioned it, Kiraxis did have some rather cat-like qualities about him. I would have said his facial features were more vulpine than feline, but he seemed to avoid the water in general.
I was completely spent when the Mlul’dra and I dragged ourselves from the lake. I pretty much just collapsed face-down on the pebbles, feeling their tiny interior suns warm me.
A massive presence settled at my side, and I knew Drazan had left the lake. Toth knelt down at my head, brushing my soaked hair out of my face, and Kiraxis… well, he snuggled up next to me, his fur now clean, and began snoring.
I couldn’t help but crack a smile.
He was going to need that sleep. My healing had already worked, but his body still needed to recover from the physical trauma.
I finally managed to sit upright, practically falling onto Drazan. The Klee took my into his lap, tentacles curling around me.
“So, are we going to talk about the Hunter now?” I asked Toth. There was no point in keeping my voice down. Kiraxis’s snores could’ve started an avalanche.
Toth shook his head a little, antennae curling, but not in negation.
“There is only so much to tell you, Elle,” he said. “We simply do not know. The Hunter is yet another anomaly, one I have never seen in any other lands of the Void.”
I have never seen the Hunter, Drazan said. I felt his mental smile as he added, I am not entirely sure it knows I exist.
“I doubt it does.” Toth gave the Klee a considering look. “The Hunter moves by land, not by air nor water. The forest is its hunting grounds.”
“Have you ever spoken to it?” I asked, stroking one of Drazan’s tentacles.
Toth hesitated. “Not… not as we speak. Things have changed since your arrival in the Void, Elle. This—” He gestured at Kiraxis. “This is unusual.”
“Unusual in what way?” I asked, frowning.
“It has never tried to murder us outright before. Until now, the Hunter has always sought to capture us alive.”
My frown deepened. “It’s never hurt any of you before? But when I first met you, you were bleeding. In the circle.”
Although Toth didn’t have eyebrows, he somehow managed to raise them all the same.
“I was trapped in the circle and bleeding,” he said patiently. “I was still quite alive.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing emerged. He was right.
He was still very much alive when I first found him. His wings were tattered, to ensure he couldn’t fly. He bled because the circle was meant to weaken him.
But of course those injuries didn’t compare to the spears of bone that had pierced through Kiraxis.
“So the Hunter has wanted you alive,” I said, feeling a little dim. “Until… now.”
Toth merely nodded.
“Because of me?” I asked, my voice rising. “Why would talking to me be a problem?”
But my monsters just shook their heads.
“We do not yet know.” Toth studied the knotted scar on Kiraxis’s side. “But consider this. Perhaps… the Hunter considers our mate bonds to be an impurity. If a hunter of animals caught a sick deer, would he eat it? Or would he throw it away, knowing the meat to be tainted?”
I was breathless, struggling with the concept. My monsters were not impure. They were not tainted.
Having sex with me didn’t make them sick.
“You said the Hunter lives in the Lodge,” I finally said, latching onto something more concrete that I could work with. “There are only six human beings living there. That narrows down the pool quite a bit.”
“The problem lies in the fact that we avoid the Hunter. When we see it coming, we flee.” Just talking about his mysterious nemesis seemed to make Toth nervous. He was constantly scanning the woods as he spoke. “Unlike the anomaly, the Hunter understands us, and is all the more dangerous for it. I have never spoken to it, nor seen its face. I have smelled it, but it disguises its scent under incense and oils. If I were to come into that house, on this very night, I would not be able to pick the Hunter from the humans on senses alone. It is a clever creature, and it knows how we operate.”
“How have you never seen its face if you’ve seen it coming?”
Toth twitched a little at my question. “It wears a deer skull as a mask. Its face has always been hidden from us.”
I thought of the deer skull in the Deepwater history, disquiet running through me in a discordant thread.
“I’ve only seen six humans,” I said slowly. “What if there’s… another? One they’ve been hiding?”
There was one member of the Wendigo Society who had been involved from the beginning. One who knew about the Void, and the Ones Beyond.
One who had disappeared, and no one seemed interested in telling me exactly what had happened to her.
I wondered if Tasha Vintner was the Hunter… and still living in the Lodge.
Toth lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I believe these humans to be capable of many things. They have spent years breaching the Void, using dark and vicious magics to open new doors, using rituals to tear their way into this world. What is hiding one human compared to that?”
“Not much at all,” I said, feeling grim.
Toth sighed, taking my hand. “I apologize, Elle. There is too much danger and too little information. I wish I could be of more help to you.”
I looked up at him, surprised. “If it weren’t for you, Kiraxis would be dead. You’ve helped far more than I have.”
I squeezed his hand, wishing I could make him feel how I felt. The monsters owed me nothing at all, while I owed my life to them.
“The Hunter makes it impossible to get closer. We have been inside the Lodge, but I do not go looking for humans who do not wish to be found,” Toth said. “There are many more traps within the house.”
“Then you shouldn’t go,” I said reasonably. “I should. The traps won’t work on me, and I’ve already got an idea of where to start.”
It should be simple enough to break into Tasha’s quarters. I could sleep a little, wait until the weirdos were busy planning their next ceremony, and bring a lockpick to her room.
“You must promise me one thing,” Toth said, gripping my hands and staring into my eyes. “You must be careful, Elle.”
I met his eyes easily. “I promise.”
It would be easy. In and out.
And if Tasha was in there, hiding in plain sight, there’d be a hell of a reckoning after what she’d done to Kiraxis.
I kissed Drazan’s cheek, embracing my Klee tightly before he went back to the water. Toth and I both gripped Kiraxis under his arms, and dragged him up the hill to the mouth of his cave.
Well, to be fair, Toth did most of the work, being of a similar weight. I mostly cleared rocks out of the path, and together we eventually managed to drag Kiraxis onto his bed.
I pulled a thick blanket over him, tucking him in and kissing the Mlul’dra’s forehead.
Then Toth held me, stroking his claws over my hair. “If the Hunter is there, you must leave, Elle,” he said.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my cheek on his chest, listening to the thudding of his heart.
Today I had come so close to one of my monster’s hearts stopping forever.
I wouldn’t allow it again.
“I have an idea in mind,” I said quietly. “I won’t do anything stupid. But this must be paid for, Toth. We can’t let the Hunter get away with this.”
“I agree. But we will make it pay for this together. I could not stand to see you fight the Hunter alone.”
He lifted me up to the dark mirror in the ceiling, and before I crawled through the door, Toth kissed me, my hair hanging down around his head in a crimson curtain.
“Together,” he said firmly.
“Together,” I promised, with hate for the unknown Hunter burning inside me like a dark flame.
26
Elle
I woke up with a vengeance, feeling like electricity was running through my veins. The anticipation of finding the Hunter made me even more jittery than slamming six iced coffees in a row.
Not that I’d ever done that, of course.
I climbed under the bed, seeking out the doorway with my fingertips, but this time I concentrated on just seeing through it. Kase had mentioned being able to see the Void on the other side, like looking through a mirror.
And if I tilted my head just the right way… there.
I could see through, like peering through a smoky, fogged-up glass.
Kiraxis was still asleep, curled into a ball in his nest. There was no sound, but one of his ears flicked in time with his snores.
That made me smile, even though I could now see the silvery scars, and hatred for the Hunter rose in me again.
I scooted back out from under the bed and took a quick shower, thinking hard as I scrubbed shampoo into my scalp.
There was a strong possibility I would need lockpicks. I kept those hidden at the bottom of my duffel bag, inside a thin little pocket that looked like a seam. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t need them at all.
I forced myself to dry my hair, then braided it and twisted it up. I needed to be calm, not humming with energy. Too much tension would lead to mistakes, and if my hunch was right, I might be coming face to face soon with an extremely dangerous person.
I pulled on jeans and my boots. An artfully ripped shirt, and my gloves, of course. They’d have to come off if the lockpicks were required.
My camera bag looped onto my belt, and I kept my Leatherman and lockpicks in one pocket and my phone in another.
I was prepared as I was ever going to be.
When I emerged from my living quarters, the Lodge was once more silent, but for once I viewed this more with suspicion than with relief.
Exactly where did everyone go during the day?
I checked the dining room, but it was empty. So was the dock, with no sign of anyone swimming.
At the entrance to Mary and Joseph’s quarters I hesitated, then crept several steps down the hall.
There was nothing but silence. Either they were still dead asleep, or they weren’t here at all.
For the first time, it struck me as rather eerie that the place appeared to be empty.
But it suited today’s purpose, so I brushed off that sense of creepiness, and headed towards the front of the Lodge.
Tasha’s quarters were down a long hall that had been swept and polished, but there was still a vague sense of disuse about the place. It was like a magazine photo; perfectly staged, but with the telltale sense that no one lived here.
I brushed that feeling off, too. It was possible that there were other exits.
I glanced at the bronze plaque bearing her name as I passed it. Tasha Vintner, engraved in flowery script.
It was strange how she’d seemed so close to my mother from the pictures in the photo album, and yet no one seemed to have anything to say about her.
The Lodge was still silent around me when I came to her door. I forced myself to hold still for a solid two minutes, ears pricked for the tiniest sound.
All I picked up in that time was the sound of birdsong outside. The time was now or never.
I tried the knob first, which was locked. Unsurprising.
The picks came out next. I knelt down, carefully inserting the tension wrench into the lock, and then applied the pick as I felt my way through the pins. I was in the zone, mostly concentrating on the lock, while keeping one ear cocked for any signs of approach.
The mechanism was dirty. I had to start over a few times, and fifteen minutes later, when the lock clicked open, a fine sheen of sweat had appeared on my forehead.
“Steady,” I whispered to myself, sliding my tools back into my pocket.
I gripped the knob, turning it easily, and pushed.
The door stopped within six inches of the jamb. I swore under my breath, peering in through the crack at darkness. I could make out vague shapes and lumps, but something heavy was blocking the door.
I braced my shoulder against the door and pushed, over and over.
I was sweating for real when I’d cleared a large enough gap to squeeze through, as long as I sucked in my stomach. I popped into Tasha’s quarters like a champagne cork, and the door creaked shut behind me.
Exhaling deeply, my nose twitching from the sheer amount of dust in here, I pulled out my phone and flicked the flashlight on.
And recoiled almost immediately from the eyeless sockets staring at me, a mouth gaping open with fury.
A minute later, with my heart slamming against my ribs, I managed a weak laugh. I’d aimed my flashlight directly at a cat skull on top of a dresser.
But it was far from the only one.
My breath caught in my throat as I turned a full rotation, taking in the entire room.
The door had been blocked by many cardboard boxes shoved up against it. I opened one, revealing stacks of old, moth-eaten clothes. At the top was a pair of bell-bottom jeans, embroidered with yellow and orange flowers.
The far wall was covered with a giant mandala tapestry, the bright colors faded to gray from the thick coating of dust. Several squashy couches lined the walls beneath it, and a coffee table sat in the middle of them.
There was a full spread of Tarot cards still laid out on the table, along with a mug that had the desiccated remains of coffee in it.
