An Invocation of Monsters (The Void Book 2), page 24
I’d woken up to a crazy world, and I wanted out.
“But then I thought…” She smiled slowly, showing all her teeth. “It wouldn’t be as fun if you didn’t know. I want you to know everything. You’ll feel better if you know, too.”
“Know what?” I wondered if I’d done something wrong when I brought her back.
Maybe she’d been too far gone. This Willow was so unlike the one I’d first met…
She nodded to the book on the bed. “Read it and find out, Ellerasha.”
Maybe I was still dreaming. What the hell kind of a name was that? Was it Willow’s weird version of a nickname?
But she didn’t clarify. She just walked past me, her arms held stiffly at her sides.
I waited until the door clicked shut behind her, then I pounced on it, slamming the lock closed.
It was starting to feel like a moot point to make sense of any of this. All of these people were mad.
But the journal on my bed… it seemed to beckon me.
I really shouldn’t. Nothing good could come of this insanity.
Willow was clearly not in her right mind.
There was every chance I’d screwed up when I healed her. It wasn’t like I was used to using this power on other people; maybe I’d reconfigured her brain somehow while piecing its mush back together.
But the journal.
I took a few steps towards it, then shook my head. No. She wasn’t here for a friendly visit.
Whatever was in there, it was going to bother me. Deeply.
I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth again, scrubbing hard. Then I forced myself to dig out my flat iron and straighten my hair.
I came out and saw the journal, sitting there, waiting.
Instead, I busied myself tidying up all the torn papers. I didn’t think Deepwater would be making a comeback. It would take a lot more than all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to turn this confetti into anything resembling a book again.
Kind of like Willow’s mind.
I went into my room, checked my phone for messages and found none, and scraped some mud off my boots.
Finally I could no longer stand it. I sat on the bed, picking up the journal like it was a hot coal.
It was well-worn, the binding heavily creased. I flicked the faded blue ribbon aside and cracked the cover, holding my breath as I scanned the first page.
I recognized his writing from the letters to my mother, each line perfectly spaced as I flipped the pages, reading through the journal he’d started in college.
Joseph spared no detail, filling in the gaps for my ravenous curiosity.
He’d attended Miskatonic University with an eye for a major in Occult Studies. He loved the school grounds, he hated the food, he thought Kerry in his third and fourth hour classes was a bitch.
But then I saw the name Gillian.
He was enchanted with her, this girl who sat next to him in the American History of Witchcraft course.
She had hair like a summer cloud. Eyes like autumn rain.
She was mysterious and smelled like patchouli, a scent that haunted him.
I settled into my pillows, unable to resist rolling my eyes at the endless paragraphs of purple prose about my mother.
But I could read between the lines: while Joseph meandered on and on like a lovestruck calf about every time Gillian talked to him, I could just imagine my mother smiling and nodding, humoring this guy.
Mary and Tasha made their appearances, becoming his new best friends over the course of that year, but for my mother, he’d reserved the largest chunks of text.
I found myself growing bored with Joseph as I continued.
The four of them had formed a bond, instituting their own areas of study outside of class time, digging into forbidden texts that were only to be found in the Miskatonic University.
My mother had apparently engineered an entire elaborate project that was devised for the sole purpose of accessing a single page of the Book of Eibon, which I’d never heard of, but according to Joseph, that one page had been exceedingly dangerous.
My god. My mother had been stealing texts and digging into areas of the occult no one else had ever heard of, and all Joseph managed to do was wax eloquent about how pretty her hair was while she did it.
What a small-minded little man.
Even though I found him lacking, his journal drew me in with tales of my mother.
She’d gotten her page from the Book of Eibon, all right.
And she was ravenous for more.
Apparently my mother had been excellent at charming her teachers; she soon gained their trust enough to be allowed access to the Asenath Archives far below the Miskatonic, where she obsessively read books like De Vermis Mysteriis and The King in Yellow.
But it wasn’t until the next year, when she’d found a book called the Necronomicon, that the journal began to change.
Joseph read that book as well, and soon his journal entries grew angrier, his pen slashing across the page; his neat lines were now disordered and sometimes moved up and down the page instead of left to right.
He had changed, though his obsession with Gillian hadn’t.
Mary suggested they spend a summer in Deepwater Lodge, her family home. Everyone jumped at the chance, but Joseph wrote about how happy he was that he’d get to see Gillian outside of school.
He documented all of it.
The rituals, the animal sacrifices, the long nights spent chanting on the clifftops.
He wrote about how Desirée was strangely compliant to Mary’s will; he considered Mary in abstract terms, wondering if she was worth stringing along. Gillian, he said, was too headstrong sometimes.
She plunged too deep, too fast, without waiting for anyone else.
I lost track of time as I consumed Joseph’s words. The sun skidded by, illuminating the pages, all the faster for me to devour them.
And then, he wrote, Gillian finally opened the first door.
He was furious; Gillian had promised to bring them with her, but she pushed ahead.
He was in a frothing rage when my mother returned. She tried to explain that she hadn’t been able to bring him through, that the things on the other side had no interest in him.
Joseph contemplated killing her.
He lamented it, giving flowery words to his feelings, but all the same… he’d wanted to kill her.
But he decided he would be gracious and allow her another chance.
It wasn’t until Gillian started returning from this place she called the Void with flushed cheeks and mussed hair that he grew suspicious again.
He regretfully informed me, the dear reader, that she broke down one night and confessed all after he broke her wrist: she had met a monster.
And not just any monster.
A creature of smoke and darkness, a slice of the night sky given flesh and form.
He was of the Other Side, a creature called V’uthli, a storm of claws and fangs… and she wanted him.
She was going to bear his child, become the vessel for his power.
My heart was in my throat, filling my mouth with the taste of blood as I read Joseph’s harsh words: the V’uthli had told her that their child would be a female, and her name was to be Ellerasha.
There were a number of blank pages after that.
And finally, a page full of sickening glee: Gillian had been shut out from the Void. She had served her purpose.
She would be permitted to cross over one last time, but the monster did not like her greed, her endless desire to conquer the lands and force them to give up their secrets.
Joseph laughed about it, then flipped back to fury as Gillian rejected him again, marrying the man named Benjamin Gray.
Benjamin had no idea his new wife had crossed into another world.
He had no idea ‘their’ baby was the spawn of a monster.
Joseph wrote about how much he despised Benjamin, an average man with no concept of what the Society had done.
He despised his ordinariness. He despised that he’d lost Gillian to him.
He wrote about her one last time: Gillian returned to the Lodge, and entered the Void.
She returned several days later, naked and covered in blood, an infant girl in her arms.
Gillian called her ‘Elle’, put her in Mary’s arms, and collapsed on the couch with her face in her hands.
Joseph’s outpouring of joy over that was like drinking poison, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the page.
He was glad Gillian had been broken.
All she had left of the monster she’d desired was a baby, one that would one day cross into the Void, taking everything her greedy mother had taken for granted.
Me. I was Ellerasha, daughter of a V’uthli, offspring of the human and inhuman.
For the first time, I considered my mother’s lack of affection in a new light. My birth had stolen this new world from her…
Or had it? I read between the lines, considering Joseph’s words.
Even at the beginning, in the throes of his lovesickness, Gillian came across as selfish and manipulative.
She had put not only her friends, but her teachers in danger; she’d taken artifacts from the Miskatonic that existed only to harm. If I’d understood Joseph’s hints correctly, she might even have been responsible for a death.
She’d admitted to wanting the V’uthli for his power, not because she loved him.
Then she’d married an average man because she feared what would happen to her, a woman cut off from the Void with nothing but a monstrous child to show for it.
I flipped the page, but it was empty.
All the rest of the book was blank.
But it didn’t matter. The meat of it had already been laid out in black and white.
My father was not Benjamin Gray; I was the child of a loveless union.
My touch healed because I was not entirely human.
The journal slid off my lap, hitting the floor with a heavy thud. I felt sick now that I had picked apart some of the tangled threads that bound all these people together.
These four students had been the perfect storm to breach another world, a mix of greed, obsession, and ruthlessness colliding into a terrible singularity.
None of this had been done for good. Not even for curiosity.
They’d just wanted to enter another world and take everything they could from it.
I stared down at the journal on the floor, and had a quick, clear realization that pierced my muddled thoughts.
Willow really hadn’t wanted me to feel better at all.
35
Kiraxis
My nest was in disarray. My horde would be ashamed if they saw what I brought my mate home to.
I shook out the blankets and refolded them, carefully tucking and pulling until the nest looked perfect.
Then I stacked pillows around it in a ring.
I sat back on my haunches and examined it.
It needed to be prettier.
I picked up one of the wildflowers I’d picked for my Elle, and put it on one of the pillows. I kept going until the circle of pillows was covered in fresh flowers.
There. She would like that.
I sat back again, rolling my shoulders. I did not like the sensation in the Void. There was a pressure in the air that had been building, and now it felt like it had reached a popping point, like a bubble ready to burst.
Something was coming, but I didn’t know what it was.
I would speak to the guardian and the Klee. They would know if a battle was coming. I would have to be prepared to defend my Elle.
I turned to slouch towards the cavern entrance, and had barely taken five steps when I heard a soft whump from behind me.
I spun around, and saw a cloud of petals slowly drifting to the floor. My carefully-arranged nest was in disarray.
And Elle was in the middle of it, her face drawn and paler than usual. She fought free of the blanket and stood up, gripping the hem of her shirt and twisting it in her hands.
“Kiraxis,” she said, taking an uncertain step towards me.
“My Elle?” I was confused by her strange demeanor. “Are you hurt? What has happened?”
She shook her head, releasing the shirt to brush a hand through her hair. There was something like shock in her eyes. “I’m not hurt, but… I need everyone.”
“Good. You can come with me. I was going to seek them out.” I approached carefully, and to my relief, she lifted her arms to wrap around my neck when I picked her up.
So it was not something I had done. But my worry refused to abate, gnawing at me.
I carried her out under open skies. Surely she would feel better with the strength of the horde around her.
By the time we made it to the lake’s edge, Toth had drifted down from the sky, a dark shadow. His wings were vibrating with agitation.
So he felt it, too.
It was impossible to ignore the pressure, the way it pushed in on my ears.
“Drazan,” I roared, splashing my feet into the lake. Surely the Klee would be near the surface.
Elle wriggled, and I released her onto the pebbles of the beach. She knelt down and picked one up, turning it in her fingers as she examined its internal luminescence.
“What is it?” Toth asked her, caressing her back.
Elle shook her head.
“I need Drazan here for this.” She looked up at Toth, leaning against him. “It’s just better if you all hear this at once.”
The Klee surface, his tentacles thrashing, sending droplets of water flying at our faces.
I heard you, love, he said softly to Elle as he reached out for her. Speak.
Elle reached out for him, but her hand froze just short. She stood there for a long moment, her mouth open.
Then she buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.
The three of us crowded her so quickly it was a miracle I managed to get a single claw on her before she was stolen away.
Toth cradled her first, wiping her tears away with gentle touches. Then Drazan was there, smoothing her hair and flashing colors meant to soothe her.
I growled low in my throat, and picked Elle up again. I felt her rapid heartbeat against my chest as she wiped her face.
“I don’t usually cry like this, but…” She swiped at her face angrily. “I’m not even human!”
Toth and Drazan exchanged brief glances.
“Oh?” Toth said delicately.
Elle was sniffling. I offered my fur for her to wipe her nose on, but she chose to use the shirt she wore instead.
“Willow gave me Joseph’s journal,” she said. “And it said… a monster was my father. A V’uthli. My mother was only allowed into the Void a few times, and she got pregnant with me, and then it kicked her out after she had me because she just wanted to pillage this whole place, and now I’ve got healing hands and I can’t touch anyone and I ruined her life and it’s all because I’m not human!”
She was shouting by the end, tears flowing silently now.
I wiped them away, cuddling her tightly.
“Elle… you are still human.” Toth’s wings ruffled as he spoke. “You just have a little more to you.”
Drazan shook his head at him. All humans who can enter a door to the Void have a little monster in them, Elle, he said firmly. All of them. You have more than most, it is true. But that is what gives you the ability to venture here, to realms beyond that of mortals.
Her heart rate was calming a little. I kept stroking her back and purring.
At least she was listening to the wisdom of her horde.
“I suspected you may have been fathered by a V’uthli,” Toth said uncomfortably. “Perhaps I should have… shared my suspicions earlier. But I did not think you would believe me.”
Elle stared at him with huge eyes.
“Certain traits are passed to offspring between a human and a monster,” he continued. “Some will heal, some will walk on water. Others will see the souls of the dead—” He gestured to the stars swirling overhead. “And still others will open doors to the Void. Your particular ability was what made me think you may have been the child of the last guardian.”
Elle’s lip quivered, but she didn’t burst into tears again. “Why don’t I have claws, or fangs? Why don’t I look like him?”
The unions between our kinds tend to be between a monstrous father and a human mother, Drazan told her. And the children born of these unions tend to be female, and to take after the mother in appearance. Perhaps this is an evolution designed to continue the interbreeding between species, to strengthen them.
“Likely so,” Toth agreed. “I have been listening. There have been others out there, other women who have found or opened doors to the Void and taken mates of our species. In time, they tend to be stronger and healthier than their human counterparts. They live longer. In some cases, forever. You see, Elle, the more time you spend in the Void, the more it changes you.”
He reached out and stroked her cheek. “Already you glow with health. Your biology is adapting to this environment.”
She reached up and touched the spot where he had touched her. “When you say ‘forever’, you mean…”
“I mean eternity.” Toth cupped her hand. “You will stop aging in your world. If you were to forsake the human realm, time would halt for your body.”
She gazed off into the distance, her jaw set.
“It is a gift,” he said softly, almost pleadingly. “You see, we do not perish of old age as your kind on Earth do. We merely evolve and move on. It would be beyond cruelty to give us a mate, only to have her die. Instead, the Void allows you to remain as you are, with us, for all of time.”
After a thousand years of solitude, I did not take a mate only to have her torn from me within a century, Drazan added.
Finally Elle sighed. She rubbed her face, pressing on her closed eyes.
“It’s really not that bad, is it?” she asked. “Being half a monster. I’m just overwhelmed by it all. And I wish… I wish I knew who my real father was. Have any of you met him?”
We all shook our heads.
I slept through his stewardship of these lands, Drazan said, stroking her with his tentacles. It was not yet my time to rise.
