An Invocation of Monsters (The Void Book 2), page 3
“And… is she here now? I’d like to meet her.”
“No.” Kase cleared his throat. “She’s been… gone for a while.”
I made a mental note to ask Mary and Joseph about her.
“Look, it might be best if we continued this tour tomorrow,” I said, looking up a spiral staircase. “It was a long drive, and I’ve got a lot to think about.”
Kase looked disappointed, but he brought me back to my quarters. I was already starting to get the hang of the first story’s layout, but the next two levels were for another day.
From the moment I’d laid eyes on the rooms my mother had lived in, I’d been itching to start digging around, but…
It was like taking a sledgehammer to my emotional guts.
I locked the double doors behind me after he left, then turned and looked around at the silent sitting room, exhaling and closing my eyes.
There was only one person who could make me feel better about this. All these secrets were piling up, a landslide on top of my grief that was threatening to let loose at any moment.
I practically ripped my hated gloves off, flexed my fingers, and dug my phone out of my pocket.
Elle: I made it to Deepwater Lodge! It’s gorgeous here. But all the people are weird, to put it nicely
Before I sent the text, I stood in front of the picture window, the sunset-limned lake behind me, and took a selfie to send to her as proof of life. My hair was the same bloody color as the sun on the water.
I hit send, then sighed in exasperation. I’d moved my phone at the last moment and blurred the image.
Then I frowned, zooming in a little. The window, the lake… all of it was clear. My face was the only part of the picture that was blurred.
Well, whatever. It was probably just a smudge from my thumb on the camera lens. My hands sweated like hell in those damn gloves.
I had my Nikon camera in my duffel bag for better pictures later. This place was a dream for an amateur urban explorer like myself; I fully intended to take some time out for myself to go exploring and get more photos.
My cousin’s reply was almost instant.
Juno: Exactly where is this place?
Juno: How long are you going to be there?
Juno: I need an address, Elle!
I laughed a little. My older cousin could be a little overprotective; she’d lost her parents at a very young age, so she’d be sensitive to my feelings and the sensation that I’d been cut loose into the world before my time.
Elle: Ok don’t freak out
Elle: I don’t actually know lol
My phone chimed again before I could put it down.
Juno: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DONT KNOW
I sighed and climbed up on the bed, kicking my boots to the floor. This was going to take a while.
Elle: They’re a little secretive about it. But trust me on this, my mom came here every year
Elle: and yes Ive already considered that they might be serial killers
Elle: but the chef is to die for and the lake is amazing. I’m going swimming tomorrow
I leaned back on the pile of down pillows, my thumbs pausing.
I wondered if I should tell her about the archway of antlers and bones, the insane headache that felt like I was dying… the strange way Kase had talked about my mother.
Juno was no stranger to weird shit. She’d been up to her eyeballs in the occult since she left the womb.
But I’d never even told her about my healing hands. Some things just weren’t possible to bring up in normal conversations.
Juno: I’d feel a lot better if I had some idea of where you were
Elle: girl chill. You’ve got a baby to worry about
Juno: she hasn’t popped out yet, I have plenty of time to worry about other shit
I still wondered exactly who the father of Juno’s baby-to-be was. She lived all alone on that island, and was secretive about her life; it wasn’t like it mattered, really, but sometimes I wondered why Juno went to such lengths to hide it.
Which made me feel a little less bad about hiding all of this from her. She loved me, yes, she was as close to me as a sister; but she wasn’t my keeper.
Elle: All I know is that its in the woods past Dunwich. I’m perfectly safe, Juno. Promise. If things get too weird, I’m out
There was a long pause. Little bubbles popped up and disappeared as Juno typed and deleted over and over again.
Finally I texted:
Elle: for gods sake just spit it out
There was another pause. No bubbles. Then:
Juno: Fine, I know you can take care of yourself. But feel free to call if you need ANYTHING
Juno: And watch out for monsters under the bed
The last text was accompanied by a little smiley face with wonky eyes facing different directions and his tongue sticking out.
My cousin really did have the most peculiar sense of humor.
4
Elle
It took me three hours of tossing and turning to accept that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep through my first night in the Lodge.
I sprawled out on my back, staring up at the ceiling. The fattening sliver of the waxing moon wasn’t enough to brighten the dark corners of this unfamiliar room.
It wasn’t quite silent. I heard the soft lapping of the lake, the whisper of wind through the pines.
But there was nothing else to give away human presence in this place. No footsteps echoing down hallways, no distant snores.
I somehow felt even more alone than I had back in my gray house in Innsmouth. I might as well have been lying on the surface of the moon.
After another half hour of laying there wide awake, I curled up on my side, my hand blindly questing to find my phone on the nightstand.
The second my fingers brushed the smooth plastic, a furious shriek ripped out through the night, shattering the silence.
I jerked so hard I knocked the phone to the floor, sending it clattering under my bed, and sat bolt upright.
The shriek was gone as quickly as it’d come. I held my breath, pulse pounding in my ears.
Nothing. No one got up, no one called for help.
I scowled up at the ceiling overhead, wondering what games these people were playing. Surely Kase would’ve warned me if the wildlife screamed like that with any regularity.
It’d sounded like someone being murdered.
With a resigned sigh, I slipped out of bed, a shiver going through me when my toes touched the cold floor. I got down on my knees, sticking my arm under the bed and sweeping around to search for my phone.
There wasn’t so much as a dust bunny under my fingertips. I growled low in my throat, straining further.
There. I felt the edge of the glass screen and shoved my whole shoulder under—
The phone was suddenly in my palm.
I froze, my heart skipping a beat or three… because it certainly felt like something had helpfully shoved it into my hand.
Something warm, that had just barely brushed against my fingertips.
Juno’s text jumped back into my brain, but I shook it off.
Monsters weren’t real. I’d gotten over that nonsense at age seven, when I’d left a pentagram made of chocolate chip cookies under my bed and the Cookie Monster had failed to appear at his summoning.
And anyway, my entire arm and half my shoulder were under the bed. If something wanted to eat me, I was already halfway into its maw.
I tapped the screen, lighting it up, and pushed my comforter out of the way so I could see.
Nothing but polished floorboards. No monsters.
Snorting at my own jumpiness, I got to my feet, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and jammed my feet in my boots.
I left Gillian’s quarters—my quarters now, which felt strange to say—and stepped into the dark hallway lined with windows.
It seemed the shriek hadn’t woken anyone else. The Lodge was still silent, all signs of human habitation hidden.
Feeling a little awkward, I used my phone flashlight to navigate the corridor, glancing out at the lake every so often. The waves shimmered gently under the moon, reflecting bright specks of pale green and blue.
Odd. Maybe it was some sort of phosphorescent algae.
It was easy enough to follow the hall to the dining room, where Kase had showed me the exit to the lake and forest trails. Two massive French doors opened on a stone patio, and I left one cracked for my return.
It took me a moment to steel myself to leave the relative safety of the patio. The shriek had been… furious. Raging. Not necessarily a sound like pain.
But if someone was hurt, I needed to find them.
I took a deep breath and took the stone steps that led downward to the yard.
I felt the cold of the dew even through my boots. To my left was the dock, and to the right was a hard-packed path that led deep into the forest.
This was nuts. I had no idea where it led. But another scream echoed, from deep in the woods, raising goosebumps all over my body.
This time there was pain in the sound.
Without thinking twice, I took the forest path.
The Lodge disappeared as I stepped cautiously into the trees, every sense hyper-alert for the sound of… someone. It had to be a person who had made that sound.
I hoped it wasn’t Kase; he might be weird, but I already felt oddly fond of the kid despite our inauspicious start. He gave me the creeps far less than anyone else here.
My phone flashlight was not equal to the depths of the night. It could only illuminate the path about five feet ahead of me, which wasn’t much comfort.
Ten minutes later, the sound of a cracking branch made me halt in my tracks, my ears literally twitching from how hard I was listening, but when silence reigned again, I continued.
Until the shriek came again, vibrating with rage.
From just up ahead.
I licked my lips, which felt parched, and cleared my throat. “Hello? Is anyone out here? Are you hurt?”
No one answered, which sent a chill down my spine. If it wasn’t a person shrieking, then what the hell was it?
God, if it was a mountain lion, I was probably toast.
But now the silence had a different quality. Like it was aware… and listening for me.
I was fully aware that at this point in a horror movie, any heroine worth her salt would immediately turn around and go home.
Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars, do not get murdered by the serial killer.
For about five seconds, I considered doing just that—the smart, reasonable thing.
But unfortunately, smart, reasonable things often led to boring, unexciting lives. I hadn’t come all this way to hide in my dead mother’s room and go home none the wiser.
I had come to see what was behind the mask of reality.
I had come to see what these people were hiding, and what might be shrieking out there—because deep in my gut, I knew it wasn’t a mountain lion.
Ignoring the nervous flip-flop of my stomach, I pushed forward, holding my flashlight higher in a vain attempt to illuminate further ahead.
The woods were wilder here, and when I first caught sight of the ruins, I jumped back. When I realized I wasn’t looking at a creature rising from a thicket, I stepped forward cautiously, illuminating the warped and shattered boards of an old wall.
It was a house, torn down nearly to the foundation, overgrown with a mass of brambles. I frowned at it, then saw the ground underfoot was no longer packed dirt. It was cobblestone, worn smooth by hundreds of feet.
Before long, it became clear that I’d come across a ghost town. There were the remains of other houses, all ruined, some worse than others. Shattered glass still gleamed in the dirt around a larger building that was nothing but rotten floorboards now.
My breath seemed caught in my throat as I walked. This was literally an entire town, in the middle of the woods, abandoned and left to rot.
Goosebumps crept down my back and arms. Every time I shone the light into yet another wooden carcass, I half-expected to see eyes shining back at me.
On the other hand, my fingers twitched for the digital camera I’d left in my room. This was an urban explorer’s wet dream. I was already making vague plans to return by daylight.
Why hadn’t Kase mentioned the existence of a ghost town in the forest? It seemed like a fairly massive oversight in his tour.
I angled my light towards the upper story of a somewhat-intact house when I heard another noise.
A low growl, almost a snarl.
I whipped around, my light just catching something gleaming on the ground.
A claw. A long, dark, curved talon, which vanished behind the still-standing wall of one of the ruins.
My heart was pounding so hard my chest hurt, the taste of copper on my tongue. Did I really see that, or was my overactive imagination just running at warp speed?
There was a brief scuffling sound, and another growl.
I immediately proved myself unworthy of horror movie Final Girl status by creeping forward, holding my phone out like a weapon. Any minute now the killer would jump out and my credits would roll.
I rounded the wall and my flashlight illuminated the scene before me.
My fingers went numb, the phone dropping to the ground. The light went out, plunging everything into pitch darkness.
I was dimly aware that I was gasping for breath, like someone had punched me in the gut. What I’d seen was etched onto the backs of my eyelids; even in darkness, it still stood out clearly.
A whimper escaped me as I dropped to my knees, trembling hands searching for my phone.
The snarl that ripped through the dark made me shudder.
“Please, please, please…” I whispered, feeling my nails scrape across stone. Nothing met my fingertips. My hands were shaking so hard I’d probably knock the phone away again anyway.
Six feet away from me was the creature that had shrieked. My first shocked impression had been of a man—but the gears in my brain had clicked into place and every nerve ending in my body had frozen.
It was not a man. Not with those flaming red eyes, the skin like charcoal, the clawed hands and feet.
It was a monster. There was no other word.
My quaking hand found something smooth and warm—my phone. I snatched it and fell backwards, scrambling across the stones to put distance between myself and the gigantic, crouched form that had been staring at me.
Nothing came after me. No claws tore into my flesh.
I took several gulping, sobbing breaths, and managed to flick the light back on.
A loud snarl immediately filled the air. I turned the light off, cradling the phone to my chest.
“No light, woman.”
Two red lanterns flared in the darkness. They flickered—blinking.
Then focused on me.
“You speak,” I whispered.
The monster’s voice was deep, overlaid with a strange sound like the fluttering of tiny wings.
There was a sound like a derisive snort. “So do you. Should I be surprised?”
My heart rate was finally calming, but the rest of my body hadn’t caught up yet. I sat shivering in a mound of dead leaves, watching the red lanterns of the monster’s eyes flicker.
But he didn’t come any closer.
“I suppose not,” I said faintly. I was vaguely ashamed of myself for acting like a fainting damsel in distress, but the monster, even crouched on the ground, had been almost my height. Standing up, I doubted he would be less than eight feet tall.
There was a scratching sound, and the primitive part of my brain that very much wanted to walk out of here alive recognized it as the sound of talons on stone.
The red eyes blinked and vanished.
“Where are you?” I asked, tucking my phone in my pocket and wrapping my arms around myself. I got to my feet slowly, every sense but sight on red alert.
“Here.” The eyes reappeared, exactly where they’d been before. They shuttered, as though the monster were narrowing them at me. The deep voice suddenly sounded cajoling. “Why don’t you let me out, woman?”
“Let you out of what?” My curiosity was piqued, a fatal flaw.
The monster sighed. “Come closer and look. You may use your light.”
The ember-like glow of his red eyes vanished. I stood stock-still for a moment, then pulled out my phone again.
This time I was a little more prepared for the sight of the monster. I shined the light on him, the pool of luminescence shaking.
He was humanoid, that much was certain. The general shape of his body was male, with heavy musculature under the charcoal skin. There was a velvety sheen to that skin that made me wonder if it would feel like mine.
He’d squeezed his eyes tightly shut against the light. I looked at the planes of his face, flatter and broader than a human’s, with slit nostrils and two feathery, moth-like black appendages growing from his forehead to sweep back over a spill of dark hair.
His thick arms ended in razor-sharp claws, and my hand shook again when I took in the tattered wings folded against his back: massive and shimmering, shades of ink and moss and amber slipping across them like an oil spill…
I jerked my head, realizing I had been staring at those wings for longer than I’d meant to. My head felt oddly fuzzy as I pulled my gaze away and looked down.
A blush rose in my cheeks as I looked past the heavy cock between his thighs, not allowing myself to examine the odd shape of his pubic region too closely, and continued downwards.
His clawed feet rested in a broad circle inscribed on the ground. Someone had drawn on the ground with chalk—a star within the circle, strange runes between the points of the star.
And where the monster’s feet touched the chalk lines, he was bleeding. His blood was not red; it was an indescribable color, much like his wings.
