The monstrous, p.11
The Monstrous, page 11
“We are coming,” he heard himself say. “All of us. Meaning you may have miscalculated, somewhat…what a sad state of affairs indeed, when the prospective welfare of your entire species depends on you not doing so.”
That same interior ripple ran ’round the well’s perimeter as ’Lij pulled the knife past “his” sigil’s final slashing loop and yanked it free, splattering the frieze in front of him; in response, the very stones seemed to arch hungrily, that composite mouth gaping, eager for blood. Above, even through the heavy-pressing rubble mound which must be all that was left of the temple proper, Goss could hear Journee-Zemyel swooping and cawing in the updraft, swirled on endless waves of storm; from his eye’s corner he saw Hynde-whoever (Arralu-Allatu, the Terrible Ashreel, Eshphoriel supplied, helpfully) open one similarly particoloured eye and lever himself up, clumsy-clambering to his feet. Katz’s head fell back, spine suddenly hooping so heels struck shoulder blades with a wetly awful crack, and began to lift off, levitating gently, turning in the air like some horrible ornament. Meanwhile, Lao continued to grind her fisted knuckles into both eyes at once, bruising lids but hopefully held back from pulping the balls themselves, at least so long as her sockets held fast....
(Ekimmu, the Terrible Coaib, who seeds without regard. Lamyatu, the Terrible Ushephekad, who opens the ground beneath us.)
From the well, dusty mortar popped forth between every suture, and the thing as a whole gave one great shrug, shivering itself apart—began caving in and expanding at the same time, becoming a nothing-column for its parts to revolve around, an incipient reality fabric tear. And in turn, the urge to rotate likewise—just let go of gravity’s pull, throw physical law to the winds, and see where that might lead—cored through Goss ass to cranium, Vlad Tepes–style, a phantom impalement pole spearing every neural pathway. Simultaneously gone limp and stiff, he didn’t have to look down to know his crotch must be darkening, or over to ’Lij to confirm how the same invisible angel-driven marionette hooks were now pulling at his muscles, making his knife-hand grip and flex, sharp enough the handle almost broke free of his sweaty palm entirely—
(Namtaru, the Terrible Yphemaal, who stitches what was rent asunder.)
“And now we are Seven, without a doubt,” Goss heard that voice in his throat note, its disappointment audible. “For all your bravado, perhaps you are not as well-educated as you believe.”
Camberwell shrugged yet one more time, slow but distinct; her possessed eye widened slightly, as though in surprise. And in that instant, it occurred to Goss how much of herself she still retained, even in the Immoel-thing’s grip, which seemed far—slipperier, in her case, than with everybody else. Because maybe coming pre-Inscribed built up a certain pad of scar tissue in the soul, in situations like these; maybe that’s what she’d been gambling on, amongst other things. Having just enough slack on her lead to allow her to do stuff like (for example) reach down into her other boot, the way she was even as they “spoke,” and—
Holy crap, just how many knives does this chick walk around with, exactly?
—bring up the second of a matched pair, trigger already thumbed, blade halfway from its socket. Tucking it beneath her jaw, point tapping at her jugular, and saying, as she did—
“Never claimed to be, but I do know this much: Sam Raimi got it wrong. You guys don’t like wearing nothin’ dead.”
And: That’s your plan? Goss wanted to yell, right in the face of her martyr-stupid, fuck all y’all snarl. Except that that was when the thing inside ’Lij (Yphemaal, its name is Yphemaal) turned him, bodily—two great twitches, a child “walking” a doll. Its purple eyes fell on Camberwell in mid-move, and narrowed; Goss heard something rush up and out in every direction, rustle-ruffling as it went: some massive and indistinct pair of wings, mostly elsewhere, only a few pinions intruding to lash the blade from Camberwell’s throat before the cut could complete itself, leaving a shallow red trail in its wake....
(Another “hunting” trophy, Goss guessed, eventually. Not that she’d probably notice.)
“No,” ’Lij-Yphemaal told the room at large, all its hovering sibling-selves, in a voice colder than orbit-bound satellite skin. “Enough.”
“We are Seven,” Eshphoriel Maskim replied, with Goss’s flayed mouth. “The huntress has the right of it: remove one vessel, break the quorum, before we reassemble. If she wants to sacrifice herself, who are we to interfere?”
“Who were we to, ever, every time we have? But there is another way.”
The sigils flowed each to each, Goss recalled having noticed at this freak show’s outset, albeit only subconsciously—one basic design exponentially added upon, a fresh new (literal) twist summoning Two out of One, Three out of Two, Four out of Three, etcetera. Which left Immoel and Yphemaal separated by both a pair of places and a triad of contortionate squiggle-slashes; far more work to imitate than ’Lij could possibly do under pressure with his semi-blunt knife, his wholly inadequate human hands and brain....
But Yphemaal wasn’t ’Lij. Hell, this very second, ’Lij wasn’t even ’Lij.
The Mender-angel was at least merciful enough to let him scream as it remade its sigil into Immoel’s with three quick cuts, then slipped forth, blowing away up through the well’s centre spoke like a backwards lightning rod. Two niches on, Katz lit back to earth with a cartilaginous creak, while Lao let go just in time to avoid tearing her own corneas; Hynde’s head whipped up, face gone trauma-slack but finally recognizable, abruptly vacated. And Immoel Maskim spurted forth from Camberwell in a gross black cloud from mouth, nose, the corner of the eyes, its passage dimming her yellow-green eye back to brown, then buzzed angrily back and forth between two equally useless prospective vessels until seeming to give up in disgust.
Seemed even angels couldn’t be in two places at once. Who knew?
Not inside time and space, no. And unfortunately—
That’s where we live, Goss realized.
Yes.
Goss saw the bulk of the Immoel-stuff blend into the well room’s wall, sucked away like blotted ink. Then fell to his knees, as though prompted, only to see the well collapse in upon its own shaft, ruined forever—its final cosmic strut removed, solved away like some video game’s culminative challenge.
Beneath, the ground shook, like jelly. Above, a thunderclap whoosh sucked all the dust away, darkness boiling up, peeling itself away like an onion ’til only the sun remained, pale and high and bright. And straight through the hole in the “roof” dropped all that was left of Journee-turned-Zemyel—facedown, from a twenty-plus-foot height, horrible thunk of impact driving her features right back into her skull, leaving nothing behind but a smashed-flat, raw meat mask.
Goss watched those wing-lungs of hers deflate, thinking: She couldn’t’ve survived. And felt Eshphoriel, still lingering clawed to his brain’s pathways even in the face of utter defeat, interiorly agree that: It does seem unlikely. But then, my sister loves to leave no toy unbroken, if only to spit in your—and our—Maker’s absent eye.
Uh-huh, Goss thought back, suddenly far too tired for fear, or even sorrow. So maybe it’s time to get the fuck out too, huh, while the going’s good? “Minish” yourself, like the old chant goes....
Perhaps, yes. For now.
He looked to Camberwell, who stood there shaking slightly, caught off guard for once—amazed to be alive, it was fairly obvious, part-cut throat and all. Asking ’Lij, as she dabbed at the blood: “What did you do, dude?”
To which ’Lij only shook his head, equally freaked. “I…yeah, dunno, really. I don’t—even think that was me.”
“No, ’course not: Yphemaal, right? Who sews crooked seams straight....” She shook her head, cracked her neck back and forth. “Only one of ’em still building stuff, these days, instead of tearing down or undermining, so maybe it’s the only one of ’em who really doesn’t want to go back, ’cause it knows what’ll happen next.”
“Maaaaybe,” ’Lij said, dubious—then grabbed his wound, like something’d just reminded him it was there. “Oh, shit, that hurts!”
“You’ll be fine, ya big baby—magic shit heals fast, like you wouldn’t believe. Makes for a great conversation piece, too.”
“Okay, sure. Hey…I saved your life.”
Camberwell snorted. “Yeah, well—I would’ve saved yours, you hadn’t beat me to it. Which makes us even.”
’Lij opened his mouth at that, perhaps to object, but was interrupted by Hynde, his voice creaky with disuse. Demanding, of Goss directly—
“Hey, Arthur, what…the hell happened here? Last thing I remember was doing pick-ups, outside, and then—” His eyes fell on Journee, widening. “—then I, oh Christ, is that—who is that?”
Goss sighed, equally hoarse. “Long story.”
By the time he was done, they were all outside—even poor Journee, who ’Lij had badgered Katz and Lao into helping roll up in a tarp, stowing her for transport in the back of the one blessedly still-operative truck Camberwell’d managed to excavate from the missile strike’s wreckage. Better yet, it ensued that ’Lij’s back-up sat-phone was now once again functional; once contacted, the production office informed them that border skirmishes had definitely spilled over into undeclared war, thus necessitating a quick retreat to the airstrip they’d rented near Karima town. Camberwell reckoned they could make it if they started now, though the last mile or so might be mainly on fumes.
“Better saddle up,” she told Goss, briskly, as she brushed past, headed for the truck’s cab. Adding, to a visibly gobsmacked Hynde: “Yo, Professor: you gonna be okay? ’Cause the fact is, we kinda can’t stop to let you process.”
Hynde shook his head, wincing; one hand went to his chest, probably just as raw as Goss’s mouth-roof. “No, I’ll…be okay. Eventually.”
“Mmm. Won’t we all.”
Lao opened the truck’s back door and beckoned, face wan—all cried out, at least for the nonce. Prayed too, probably.
Goss clambered in first, offering his hand. “Did we at least get enough footage to make a show?” Hynde had the insufferable balls to ask him, taking it.
“Just get in the fucking truck, Lyman.”
Weeks after, Goss came awake with a full-body slam, tangled in his sleeping bag and coated with cold sweat, as though having just been ejected from his dreams like a cannonball. They were in the Falklands by then, investigating a weird earthwork discovered in and amongst the 1982 war’s detritus—it wound like a harrow, a potential subterranean grinding room for squishy human corn, but thankfully, nothing they’d discovered inside seemed (thus far) to indicate any sort of connection to the Seven, either directly or metaphorically.
In the interim since the Sudan, Katz had quit, for which Goss could hardly blame him—but Camberwell was still with them, which didn’t make either Goss or Hynde exactly comfortable, though neither felt like calling her on it. When pressed, she’d admitted to ’Lij that her hunting “methods” involved a fair deal of intuition-surfing, moving hither and yon at the call of her own angel voice–tainted subconscious, letting her post-Immoelization hangover do the psychic driving. Which did all seem to imply they were stuck with her, at least until the tides told her to move elsewhere....
She is a woman of fate, your huntress, the still, small voice of Eshphoriel Maskim told him, in the darkness of his tent. Thus, where we go, she follows—and vice versa.
Goss took a breath, tasting his own fear-stink. Are you here for me? he made himself wonder, though the possible answer terrified him even more.
Oh, I am not here at all, meat-sack. I suppose I am…bored, you might say, and find you a welcome distraction. For there is so much misery everywhere here, in this world of yours, and so very little I am allowed to do with it.
Having frankly no idea what to say to that, Goss simply hugged his knees and struggled to keep his breathing regular, his pulse calm and steady. His mouth prickled with gooseflesh, as though something were feeling its way around his tongue: the Whisper-angel, exploring his soul’s ill-kept boundaries with unsympathetic care, from somewhere entirely Other.
I thought you were—done, is all. With me.
Did you? Yet the universe is far too complicated a place for that. And so it is that you are none of you ever so alone as you fear, nor as you hope. A pause. Nonetheless, I am…glad to see you well, I find, or as much as I can be. Her too, for all her inconvenience.
Here, however, Goss felt fear give way to anger, a welcome palate cleanser. Because it seemed like maybe he’d finally developed an allergy to bullshit, at least when it came to the Maskim—or this Maskim, to be exact—and their fucked-up version of what passed for a celestial-to-human pep talk.
Would’ve been perfectly content to let Camberwell cut her own throat, though, wouldn’t you? he pointed out, shoulders rucking, hair rising like quills. If that—brother-sister-whatever of yours hadn’t made ’Lij interfere...
Indubitably, yes. Did you expect anything else?
Yes! What kind of angels are you, goddamnit?
The God-damned kind, Eshphoriel Maskim replied, without a shred of irony.
You damned yourselves, is what I hear, Goss snapped back—then froze, appalled by his own hubris. But no bolt of lightning fell; the ground stayed firm, the night around him quiet, aside from lapping waves. Outside, someone turned in their sleep, moaning. And beyond it all, the earthwork’s narrow descending groove stood open to the stars, ready to receive whatever might arrive, as Heaven dictated.
...there is that, too, the still, small voice admitted, so low Goss could feel more than hear it, tolling like a dim bone bell.
(But then again—what is free will for, in the end, except to let us make our own mistakes?)
Even quieter still, that last part. So much so that, in the end—no matter how long, or hard, he considered it—Goss eventually realized it was impossible to tell if it had been meant to be the angel’s thought or his own.
Doesn’t matter, he thought, closing his eyes. And went back to sleep.
THIS JOURNAL BELONGS TO :
Hailie
Tacoma, June 15th
I'M WRITING THIS this in the car. Mom cried again this morning when we left the house. Everything was spotless and put away just like we were going on a vacation for a little while, even though we’re not coming back until late fall. She’d been cleaning like crazy since last year, like literally starting on my fourteenth birthday. Dad says she’s nesting, because when we come back home, it’ll be with a new baby brother, and maybe a sister too. Which totally shocked me, because I didn’t even know she was pregnant. There were so many things she wanted to take, but Dad wouldn’t rent one of those big RVs, and everything had to fit in our crappy old VW camper instead. So she just made everything look super neat and nice. I swear, I did more laundry and dishes in the last month than in the last five years! Anyway, so we packed two suitcases and one large backpack each, and got rid of most of the food that might spoil, except for what we’re taking (which is currently sitting in paper bags and boxes next to me on the backseat, and all around my feet), and that’s it. We pulled out of the driveway early this morning, before it was really light, and I turned around and watched my little yellow house disappear. Last night Dad went out into the backyard with Abby, our dog, to the spot in the back where Alex was. That was the only time I cried.
And now we’re on our way down the freeway to Olympia. Dad isn’t taking the longer scenic way around the peninsula, but it’ll still be a couple of days before we get to the town (which has almost NO Internet access, of course), so I brought this journal (even though I’m totally lazy about writing in it) and a couple books. We’re going to Oceanside for a humungous family reunion—I was born there, and so was my mom. My parents moved away when I was born, but we used to go back every summer until five years ago, when my younger brother died and my mom said she couldn’t do it anymore, at least for a while. I remember we stayed at a really cute cottage inland from Oceanside, a kind of suburban area called the Dunes, where my mother’s aunt used to live. She would babysit us while my parents went to the parties—we were always too young to go. I remember it was all shiny wood, and Great Auntie had two huge trunks, one filled with puzzles and one filled with the most beautiful dolls. And if you stood in the road outside her driveway, you could see past the houses and scrubby trees all the way to the ocean, even though it was almost a mile away. That’s how flat it is. That’s why the reunion is held there, Dad says, because of the strong tides and the flat beach. Mom doesn’t like to talk very much about it. I know she’s never liked the reunions, but I’m kind of looking forward to it. I just hope there’ll be some interesting boys in town.
Aberdeen, June 16th
This town is super creepy, but kind of cool in that weird way. Mom says all the geometry of the architecture here is wrong, and it makes everyone depressed. I have no idea what that means. We stayed the night in a motel just off the highway, and I kept waking up to all the traffic sounds. So, after Mom and Dad were asleep for a while, I got dressed and snuck outside. We were the only ones checked in, and all the other windows were dark. I could see the highway from the balcony, all the lights of the trucks and cars. I just stood there in the dark for a while, listening to the sound of all those cars, watching the red lights stream constantly away.
