I had sent the newsreader a short message telling her that Frankie and I were coming, and somehow, that short time frame had been enough for her to prepare. Her efficiency never ceases to astound me. When we arrived at the nondescript gray building, she was waiting for us at the door with the guard. She was smiling, looking almost giddy as she invited us into her office. There were two other people waiting inside, one of which I recognized as Zion Boyd. Fran let out a deep groan at the sight of his brother.
Zion’s tall body was reclining in one of the chairs in front of Mary’s desk, his long hair open and falling past his shoulders in soft waves. The woman beside him was smaller, petite with a pencil-thin waist and wide hips. Her wheat-colored ponytail reached all the way down to her bare stomach, the navel left uncovered by her pink velour tracksuit. Lying at her feet were two small white canines, rat-like in appearance, wearing tiny sweater vests.
Frankie bent down to draw the animals’ attention. “Hi, babies,” he cooed.
“Yeah, um… hi?” the woman spoke up. “I’m here, too. You haven’t seen me in how long?”
“Yeah, um… hi to you, too,” Frankie replied, mimicking her stunningly well. “I know. I just like your dogs better.”
“Miss Shirley, this is Bunny Martell,” Mary Markov chimed in.
Frankie’s sister gave me a once-over, her expression somehow bored and probing at the same time. She gave me a limp handshake as we sat down together, Mary settling on her side of the table. Her bright green eyes roamed the small congregation with interest. “What an assembly,” she muttered. “I had hoped we could go about reawakening Qirin more tentatively, but what’s done is done. He obviously hasn’t gone on a murderous rampage either, so I assume that allows for cautious optimism.” She leaned forward slightly. “Qirin—Mr Preston, will you help us terminate the Collective?”
“Duh.”
“Wonderful. I’ve disclosed the finer details of your situation to your siblings already; I hope you don’t mind.”
“They don’t look shocked,” I remarked.
“I don’t believe any acquaintance of Mr Preston’s would be awfully surprised.” Mary reached for a stack of papers on her desk. “I’ve done some research. The figurine I gave to Miss Shirley was an heirloom, formerly in the possession of a family which I will refrain from naming. It was the last remaining idol of Qirin.
“The family just happened to be that of a former assistant to Philomena Wallis. There was talk of ongoing workplace bullying. Philomena was a horrible superior, as it turns out. Her assistant ultimately decided to quit, but not before taking revenge.”
“Oh damn. She summoned the old asshole, didn’t she?” Zion Boyd asked.
“Yes. She took the idol to the lab with her after hours and called upon the beast Qirin, summoning him into the artificial body Philomena had created. Being relatively versed in the occult, it wasn’t difficult for her to curse Wallis’s pet project. She told me when we spoke on the phone. I’ve harbored this suspicion for a long time. These are the results of a lot of digging,” the agent clarified, not without pride. “Surprisingly, she doesn’t regret rousing a bloodthirsty deity from slumber and releasing it onto the world.”
A loud pop rang out from Frankie’s gum bubble. “This piece of shit mortal bitch put me through nearly two decades of… of Phil mutilating me, her clients touching me, all because she got screwed over?”
“That is why I’ve refrained from mentioning her name,” Mary Markov answered. “I understand your anger, but—”
“You don’t understand shit,” Frankie hissed. “I’m not a deity anymore. I was asleep, I’d made peace with my time being up, only to get torn away and reborn into… into this! I’m not dangerous, I’m utterly defenseless! You don’t have a clue what that’s like.” His voice rose in volume, shaking with red hot fury. I quickly grabbed his hand. It was trembling. “I used to assume I was alive because when jizz and silicone ferment, they make a brain!”
“Mr Preston,” Mary insisted in a low, strained tone.
“What? Is my misery inconvenient for you?” He was squeezing my hand so hard I was worried he’d break one of my fragile human fingerbones.
“Was there anything else you wanted to discuss?” I asked, eager to change the topic.
“There is,” she answered gratefully, shuffling her notes. “After you left the tunnels with Mr Carter, we finally sent down our staff to recover the human remains—to the extent possible. We were able to draw some conclusions from them nevertheless. We are also still in possession of the beheaded male; the one Jewel was about to bury when you and Mr Preston interrupted them.” Here, she narrowed her eyes, sternly meeting my gaze. “Not a single one of the victims was human by nature.”
It took a moment for her words to sink in. I already knew the answer, but I posed the question nonetheless, merely to put it out in the open. “What were they?”
“Interdimensional beings. Like the cultist. Like yourself. I won’t bore you with the anatomical nitty-gritty of things—we can talk about it at length some other time. The one we could identify was actually registered with us.”
“So Jewel is locating and killing other dimension hoppers?”
“Correct. They’re clearly operating alongside the Collective, among which they must hold a position of power. That aside, we know Jewel is able to produce gemstones and crystallize certain surfaces. They have apparently been using the cadavers to grow these minerals down in the catacombs, but neither my staff nor I have been able to come up with a good reason for that behavior. What’s more conclusive is the writing we found on the walls and floor, specifically the recurrently mentioned Raek-Vi’ir. That is the name of a recorded formerly inhabitable dimension that, according to our sources, was destroyed eighteen years ago.”
The only noise I could produce in response was a small, stricken moan.
Mary Markov nodded silently, not adding to the barrage of news flooding my mind at the moment.
“Fuck,” I muttered, and suddenly, it was Frankie who held my hand.
The agent turned to face my waiter. “There is one more thing. The doll you awakened during your visit to the FunFlair factory… she’s in our care. We named her Phoenix. She’s sentient and aware, but behaving erratically. We don’t know if that will change if you were to talk to her, but it’s worth a try. If indeed you’re willing to see her.”
Frankie merely threw me a pleading glance.
“He’ll think about it,” I assured her in his stead. We said our goodbyes and made our way back out, accompanied by Zion, Bunny and her two yipping dogs. Frankie and I were clinging to each other, holding one another up as we stepped into the sunlight.
“Wow,” Bunny groaned. “That had to be the most boring way I could have possibly spent this morning.” She pointed her chin into the direction of Mary’s office. “She needs to get laid or something.”
Fran let out a humorless laugh. “My little sister, ladies and gentlemen. I can create life, but not intelligence.”
“Oh come on, that was totally a drag,” Zion Boyd replied, prodding my waiter’s side. “I need a pick-me-up now. Wanna take a walk with the pups together?”
Frankie relented with a drop of his shoulders. “Why not.”
We drove over to the seaside in our respective vehicles, the salty air greeting us with a fierce breeze when we got out and made our way down to shore. The dogs were happily jumping around at our feet. I didn’t know whether to feel endeared or annoyed by them. I was a bit nervous with them strolling so close to the water—they could no doubt be swept away by a single tidal wave.
“You’re Frankie’s girlfriend, then?” Bunny asked me, chattering on before I could respond. “I thought he didn’t let anyone near him. No clue why anyone would want to be, either.” She tossed her ponytail. “I don’t need to be stressing about those kinds of things anymore. Thank God.”
“How so?” Zion Boyd raised a brow at her.
“Ain’t you noticed this shiner yet?” She waved her hand, drawing our attention to an intricate ring—the kind of accessory that’s meant to signify when two people are preparing to enter marriage, which is another human mating custom.
“So your sugar daddy is finally stuck with you,” Frankie said. “Pity the fool.”
“Mock me all you want; I got it made now.”
“From this exchange I gather you’re engaged to someone wealthy?” I inquired.
“You bet. He’s the mayor of the town over. Old money, baby.”
“A mayor?”
“Yup. Work keeps him super busy. That leaves me alone with his credit card, his cars… and his hot kid. Okay, that came out wrong. They’re, like, in their twenties. We did it a couple times. Nothing beyond that, though. They’re kinda weird and moody.” Bunny shrugged.
Fran and I exchanged uncertain glances. “Hey, uh… that kid doesn’t happen to be a motorcyclist?”
“Actually, yes. Why?”
“Do you have a picture of them?” I urged her.
“Um… yeah, sure. Let me just…” Bunny pulled up a photo on her phone for us.
My heart lurched when I saw Jewel staring back at me from the screen. The same milky pale eyes, artfully ruffled platinum locks and bronze skin. Instinctively, I reached for Frankie’s hand. His gaze was locked on the image in steely calculation.
I’ve got you now.
Bunny was very confused when we hassled her into taking us to her fiancé’s house. It was a longer drive, but I sat ramrod straight the entire time. My spine was like taut wire, my teeth gnashing together almost hard enough to crack. Frankie kept reaching over to touch my cheek, trying to stop me from hurting myself.
We got out in front of an impressively large house. In any other situation I might have marveled at the size of the building, the garage and the sprawling gardens surrounding it all, but as it was, I could only focus on the figure reclining on the patio. I swallowed several times in a futile attempt to clear my throat. I pulled Frankie aside. “Call Nettie. Call Mary. They’ll need to know.”
“Sunshine, I’m… You really want to throw down with them? Just like that?” He was alternating between wringing his hands and pulling strings from his chewing gum. His expression wavered between forceful restraint and pure panic.
“I’ll see how it goes. It was always going to be me versus Jewel. None of you could ever help me with that.” I placed a hand on his chest. “I know your stress response is homicidal rage, but I need you to keep a level head right now.”
“Fine, fine, fine. Hold on one second.” He whipped out a sharpie from one of his pockets, and before I could ask whether there was anything he did not have stashed away in there, he had already gone to work on my forehead. I held still, waiting for him to finish. After a succession of quick strokes, he pulled back. “Rhonda showed me how to draw that symbol of hers,” he explained. “This should help. It did before.”
For a beat, I merely stared at him in awe. “You are so… so…”
“Resourceful?”
I smiled. “That doesn’t even begin to cover it.” Bracing myself, I turned to face the building again.
“There’ll be heads rolling if you don’t come back in one piece,” Frankie called after me.
I told myself I would. I always did. I have a one hundred percent track record of getting out of bad situations. When I drew closer to the patio, the figure sat up, then rose to their feet entirely. Jewel met me halfway as I crossed the lawn. They were wearing a sleeveless graphic tee and purposefully tattered shorts. Their naked feet sank into the short grass as they came to a halt in front of me. They looked beautiful, their pale gaze meeting mine from wide, innocent eyes. A placid, unassuming smile creased their features.
“You found me,” they stated.
“I have.”
“Congrats. I thought you never would. I thought I was careful.”
“You were. I discovered your location by pure coincidence.”
“Oh. And here I was believing I’d underestimated you.”
“I’m not that clever,” I conceded. “I just have a lot of connections.”
“So I reckon you’ve come to kill me?” Jewel raised a brow as if considering the principle of the thing.
“To talk to you,” I corrected. “But you’re probably not going to want to give me the information I need, so I guess I’ll have to make you.”
The cultist’s smile widened. “By force?”
“If need be.”
“Let’s take a walk.” They gestured at the line of pine trees that constituted the threshold to the woodland area behind the house. “It’s in everyone’s best interest that we don’t do anything rash out in the open, no? Humans are frightened quite easily…”
I was inclined to agree. Throwing one last glance over my shoulder, I saw Frankie standing by his sister’s car, clearly torn between watching us and furiously talking into his phone. Uttering a sigh as the distance between us increased, I turned to regard the cultist’s profile once more. “No knives this time?” I asked.
“None. I was just playing before. I didn’t mean to kill you.”
“I doubt it considering you killed at least three others of our kind,” I argued.
“If we’re really doing this, we’re going to face each other full on, teeth, tentacles and eyes. I’m not going to insult you by taking a human blade to your guts again.” They paused. “I wish you’d change your mind. I do want to work with you. You’re not like the others.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Jewel gave a hollow laugh. “Believe it or not, if you hadn’t been so stubborn, I would have been glad to have you by my side.”
We stepped past the treeline and I felt the skin of my back being parted by slowly emerging tentacles. I didn’t want to attack just yet, though. “I meant to ask you some things.”
“Shoot.”
With everything I knew they had done, it was hard to pick apart the chaos and form articulate questions from it. “This place… the mayor you claim is your breeder… how?”
“You know I can trick people—it’s handy.” Jewel shrugged. “I picked a house I liked and I invited myself in. Easy as that. He doesn’t have any actual kids and only got engaged just now, so it was just about convincing him. Don’t judge. He’s got money and a nice home. It’s been comfy.”
“And the Collective?”
“Oh, they’re just this group I’ve been using. It’s not that difficult to gather humans around you. Most of them are so bored with their lives that even a mildly interesting cause is enough to ignite that fiery passion of theirs.” They twinkled at me, their smirk bright and their eyes brighter. “I’m their leader, but I try to integrate myself. They think I’m one of them. Humans are more willing to obey when treated with friendliness. I told them about Raek-Vi’ir, but I made it out like it was this utopia we can all live in if they follow me there.” They gave me an amused look. “I found your puke in my tunnels, so I suppose you know about Raek-Vi’ir. It’s where I’m from.” They stopped in front of a circular hole in the ground, pointing it out to me. “The catacombs are great. Granted, I have no idea why they exist, but you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
I took a deep breath. The words that followed didn’t come easy to me. “You have been trying to summon the Devourer Of Worlds.”
“Devourer Of Worlds. How poetic. That thing is nothing but a sentient black hole. I don’t know if you’ve ever done any research on them, but there are human intellectuals who have. Things that get sucked into these holes stay as they are. The hole is like a pocket dimension. By that logic, all the worlds it swallows are still accessible. Dimensions within another dimension. You just have to enter the hole first.” They lowered their head. “When I told my Collective we could get back to Raek-Vi’ir, I meant it. Just not them, but me. When the black hole swallows Earth, I’ll hop dimensions again. And since we’ll be inside the hole, nothing will stop me from returning home. Sure, it might take me more than one attempt with the jumping, but I can make it. The humans will, too. Probably. I don’t know, I don’t really care.”
For a moment, I couldn’t respond. I was flabbergasted; my jaw hung slack and my eyes were wide as saucers. “No,” I finally managed to press out. “No, no, that can’t be right. That’s never going to work.”
“Yes, it will!” Jewel hissed, their voice having suddenly gone lethal.
“And if it won’t?” I probed. “You’ll be responsible for the entirety of the human species dying out! You’ll die, too!”
“So what if I do? I’d rather croak than spend eternity here. This world is shit! Humans are shit! Who gives a fuck if they don’t survive? They’re out here killing themselves anyway! I’m just speeding up the process. Their own planet is rotting away under their asses, and someone’s always waging a war somewhere. I give them another decade, tops!”
“That’s not all humans!”
“Okay, let me put it this way: You got a glass half full of orange juice, and the other half’s watery shit. Would you drink it?”
“That’s not a helpful comparison.”
Jewel crossed their arms. “You’re just saying that because you don’t know how to respond.”
“You’re absolutely insane.”
“You’ve just let this fucked up world morph you into something you’re not! This whole simping for humanity you’ve got going on is not gonna save you! This place is not your home. No matter how hard you try to make yourself believe you’re happy here, you are always going to be miserable.”
“Agree to disagree?”
Jewel’s nostrils flared. Crystal tears were tumbling from their cheeks. “Agree to rip your stupid fucking head off.”
With that, they lunged forward, yanking me to their chest in a crushing, violent embrace. Before I could fully fathom what they were doing, they shifted their weight and dropped back-first into the manhole, pulling me along. I let out a sharp yell, falling silent as the darkness engulfed us. The sudden absence of light had something muting to it, like it was trying to smother me. The fall was a short one. Jewel had somehow twisted to come away beneath me, so I landed unhindered on the hard, clammy concrete. My tentacles had ripped through my shirt and had, along with my hands, managed to cushion the blow to some extent. Still, I instantly knew my knees had suffered for it when a throbbing pain shot through my bones and warm, wet blood seeped through my leggings from the inside. I staggered to my feet as fast as I could, frantically glancing around in search of Jewel.
They were nowhere to be seen.
My heart beating like a drum, I looked up and down the tunnel I was standing in. There were no nooks or crannies, no intersections they might have disappeared into, only a long corridor straight ahead. My hand wandered up to brush against my forehead. The symbol had to be there, I knew I was protected—Jewel couldn’t be messing with my perception right then. Where the fuck had they gone?
Suddenly, my stomach turned. Trying to slow my racing pulse, I dug my teeth into my lower lip. The pain offered a fleeting distraction, just strong enough to steady me. Summoning all my courage, I tipped back my head to look up.
Clinging to the ceiling above me was a creature unlike anything I’d ever seen before. That’s the thing with interdimensional beings—it’s almost impossible to properly describe their true forms to humans. They resemble nothing the average person has ever seen before, even their colors are different. There can be no comparisons drawn to help them comprehend. The same would likely go for my own body before my fall to earth transformed me into this anthropomorphic creature. Still, I’m not from Raek-Vi’ir, so Jewel looked about as monstrous to me as they would have to anybody.
Their appearance was vaguely serpentine. It’s the only way I can think to illustrate their physicality, but that’s also about where it ends. Their long, winding body curled and coiled like a spring as it stuck to the rounded walls, ending in a head that was spiked and bulbous at the same time. Countless crystalline eyes stared back at me from within that face, three circular mouths opening and closing to reveal pin-like teeth. Their scales were of alternating sizes, each one an iridescent gemstone that caught what little light there was in a different way. When Jewel moved towards me, they produced an eerily melodious clinking sound, like a tune coaxed from an unearthly windchime.
They stopped inches away from my face. One by one, these hundreds of eyes blinked at me, posing a silent question as I stared into varying hues of verdelite, citrine and ruby. My blood was singing in my veins, my mind racing. Was this the last thing the other dimension hoppers had seen before their death? Would it be the last thing I’d see?
One of Jewel’s mouths snapped at me. Their patience was waning.
Through the persistent ringing in my ears that seemed to fill my entire skull, through the lump that sat heavy in my bone-dry throat, I spoke the words I knew could be my death warrant. “Come at me, then.”
And Jewel came.
As their enormous body moved towards me, I felt for the first time like I was not superior in any way. When up against other monsters, I fancied I had some semblance of higher intellect, of combat experience. When faced with human hostility, I had my fangs and extra appendages. This was nothing like those other times. We were two creatures from separate worlds, both of us far from home. Inherently different, and yet, I couldn’t think of a time I’d encountered anybody in a more similar situation to my own.
I bared my teeth and sank them into their glittering body only to recoil in pain—it was like trying to bite glass. With a whip of their tail, Jewel sent me hurtling against the wall, but I bounced right off and threw myself back at them. My (still very much human) fingers found a crevice in-between their gemstone scales, and I ripped into it with a fury, feeling a soft, flesh-like substance beneath.
Jewel let out a high-pitched wail of agony that, funneled by the shape of the catacombs, rang out repeatedly in a ghastly echo. Trying feebly to block out the noise, I dug deeper, wincing when I felt one of my nails break. Jewel was thrashing beneath me, writhing in an attempt to buck me off, but I didn’t let them. Squeezing one of my tentacles into the reluctantly widening gap, I ventured deeper, gagging when a strangely visceral smell hit me from within. Finally, with one last, powerful tug, I tore the chunky, heavy scale from its owner’s body. It was the same length as my lower arm. It popped out as though ripped from a socket, flew across the width of the tunnel and clattered to the floor. From the hollow wound it left, a selenite liquid oozed, running over my shaking fingers and covering my shirt.
Jewel was screaming, the horrid, uncannily musical sound threatening to burst my eardrums. I responded with an outcry of my own, moved by some strange, old instinct. I held on tight, but the beast rolled over, burying me beneath it. I let out a strangled wail as the bulging masses of flesh flattened me to the ground. Some of the sharp rocks protruding from the creature’s body cut into my skin like knives, others milled over me, crushing my limbs with their weight. I felt something crack and I just knew my bones were broken. Then there was another crunch, even more agonizing than the last.
Jewel finally moved off of me, their body twisting, contorting and finally shrinking. They stood before me naked, human once again, clutching their waist. A large, circular wound gaped in their side, red blood seeping freely from the yawning hole. They picked up their discarded shirt, pressing it to the gash as they hobbled towards me. They collected their pants along the way, producing their phone before lowering themself down with some effort to sit beside me. I wanted to turn my head and look at them, but I couldn’t move. There was no pain anymore, in fact, no feeling whatsoever. It was as though my head had been severed from my body and was now sitting loose atop my neck, completely out of control.
“I won,” Jewel rasped. “You got me good, but between you and me… we can agree I won.”
I couldn’t say a single word.
“Yeah,” they muttered, coughing hard. “So how long do you think you’ll need to heal?” They paused, looking at their phone. “I’ll just tell the guys to hurry.”