It’s not often that I feel tiny. I like to think of myself as a fairly spirited person (my unemployment-related downer period aside). The few times in life during which I’ve considered myself inferior or, better yet, already defeated, are few and far between. Somehow, that made my situation a thousand times worse.
There I was, severely injured and unable to move. I could tell I had already entered an early healing stage—a faint tingle was running up and down my arms and legs, hopefully some precursor of feeling returning to my numb limbs. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t happening fast enough. Jewel on the other hand was still strong enough to make several phone calls, and their torn flesh appeared to be growing back together rapidly. They had dressed up again, drying blood caking their shirt and shorts. We stayed seated for a while, side by side, silence hanging heavily above our heads.
I noticed it was getting easier to breathe, and after a few more minutes and several coughs, I managed to speak up again. “What now?” I wheezed, laboriously turning my head to regard the cultist through blurry eyes.
“You’ll see,” they muttered. “The others are gonna be here soon. Guess I oughta hurry up if you’re healing already.” They rose to their feet, tucking away their cell phone and wrapping their arms around my limp upper body. Their strength returned, they lifted me off the ground, tossing me over their shoulder like a wet sack of sand. I choked out a gasp as the swift motion knocked the air out of my body. A torrent of dull pain pulsed through my body. I tried to hold onto any last, fleeting threads of consciousness, but to no avail. Within mere moments, I blacked out again.
A sharp slap to my cheek crudely pulled me back into wakefulness. The sting that bloomed on the side of my face caused me to blink and whimper slightly, the world swimming back into focus before me. Jewel was crouching in front of me, the familiar plain black mask covering their face once more. “Hey you,” they greeted me, their affected familiarity jarring as ever. “Sorry about that,” they added, pointing at the mask. “I know we’re above this shit but the humans just love it.”
They were still in their dirty set of clothing, holding a large, polished machete in one hand; the unwieldy weapon hovering mere inches above the floor. The second thing I noticed was that I could feel my arms and legs again. My relief over this however was short-lived, fading quickly when I registered the rough lengths of rope scraping my skin. I was sitting upright, kneeling with my ankles and wrists tied together behind my back. Even my tentacles had been bunched up and bound. We had left the corridors and were now in a spacious, high-walled room not unlike the one Elijah Carter and I had discovered. We also weren’t alone anymore.
Gathered around us were about a dozen people, all dressed in unshapely purple robes and uniformly masked. They had formed a loose circle with Jewel and me in the center. The excitement radiating from them was close to overwhelming. Some were talking in hushed murmurs, low voices rippling through the assembly like the curling surface of a lake. Jewel stood upright, spreading their arms as they addressed their public. “Here we are again. Catching this one was not particularly easy, so I want you on your best behavior today. Let’s show our guest how much we… appreciate her sacrifice.”
I winced when they dragged the flat side of the blade over my lower arm, its cool caress feeling like an open threat; no, rather a promise at that point. I swallowed thickly, trying not to show my fear—be it for the sake of dignity alone. Not that it was manageable. The simple sound of my heartbeat was likely loud enough for the assembled crowd to hear. Jewel circled me, coming to a halt behind me and angling the machete to press against my throat. “I have to say, your cult comes off as an even bigger bunch of idiots than you made them out to be,” I said loudly.
Jewel huffed, lowering the weapon as agitated grumbles rang out from the crowd. “What was that about?” — “Boss, is she for real?”
“Of course not, you dumbasses, she just wants to rile you up,” Jewel bristled. “Hush and watch me lop her head off.”
“What is it with you and heads, anyways?” I inquired. My fingers slowly started working on restraints on my wrists. “The agency never found them.”
“Yah—’cause they’re not down here,” the cult leader replied. “Like I’d keep them somewhere this accessible. What do you think I’ve been paying you and that big guy to guard?”
My eyes grew wide enough to plop out of my head. “Those containers…”
“Yup.” They placed the blade back against my neck.
“I don’t get it.”
“And you don’t need to. Any last words? Actually, no, please stop talking.”
“I’m not done yet. Jewel, you’re delusional. I think you’re trying really, really hard to remove yourself from reality when actually, deep, deep down, you know you’re full of shit.”
“Shut up.” The edge of the knife pressed harder into my skin, nipping, but not yet biting. They were holding back.
“You’ve been killing your own kind. How many more corpses are down here? The last remaining links to the life you allegedly miss so much you’ve beheaded and left here to rot. I’ll admit I’m not quite clear on why you’ve murdered them in the first place, but there’s no way it was worth it. Raek-Vi’ir is gone, as is my home, as was theirs; and you know it.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up…” Teardrops fell to the floor beside me, clinking as they solidified into glittering stones split seconds before the impact. The blade was drawing blood now—I felt it trickle down my neck, warm and sticky. Despite the cold dread pooling in the pit of my stomach, I steeled myself. My gaze traveled the room in a frenzy, looking for something… And I found it. A flash of blue peeking out and disappearing behind a corner within the blink of an eye. My heart leapt into my throat, pounding harder and faster than ever.
Summoning all my courage, I tipped my head back to meet Jewel’s pale gaze. “Hey. I get you. These people don’t. Stop trying to put on a show for them and cut me loose. Unless you want to kill another one of the exceedingly rare people that could provide you with sincere understanding instead of sheepish, misinformed enthusiasm.”
Jewel had frozen up, standing so still that they may as well have been a statue built around me.
“I miss my home, too,” I told them, searching their milky eyes. “I dream of it, often. I get nightmares, and I wake up screaming. Sometimes I piss myself. But I also have a life here now. It took a lot of help from some amazing, generous people, which is how I know they exist. If you walk around on earth looking for flawed humans, you’ll find them. But we both know there’s more to this place. Don’t do unto them the same thing that’s happened to us.”
Silence.
“Please,” I breathed. “You know I’m right. Just stop it.”
The blade was drawn back from my throat. I sucked in a sharp breath, letting the stale, cool air flood my lungs. The sound of metal slicing through rope was followed by the liberating sensation of the restraints falling away from my limbs. The machete hit the ground with a clang. I slowly rose to my feet, careful not to alarm them; only daring to turn around to Jewel when I heard more and more gemstone tears fall. I reached out, my hands moving towards their head one inch at a time. After some fumbling, I removed their mask, revealing puffy, reddened features.
I let the offending object drop to rest beside the discarded weapon. Closing the distance between us, I wrapped my arms around their muscle-bound, trembling shoulders. Breathing out a sigh, the taller person collapsed against me, sinking into the embrace as their sobs grew louder and louder.
As the side of their neck brushed up against my chin, I turned my head, bared my fangs and plunged them into the exposed flesh. I bit down deep and hard, twisting my teeth into their smooth skin before yanking them back, ripping out a sizable chunk of flesh. Blood sprayed from the open wound, raining onto me as I spat out the wet, warm scrap and scrambled to grab the machete. Jewel staggered back, one hand instantly flying to their mangled throat, eyes trained on me in shock.
The other cultists, who for a moment had been standing stock-still, broke free from their rigor and started flocking towards me in one giant, chaotic tangle of limbs. The hall filled with echoing shouts and screams. I hacked aimlessly, keeping them at arm’s length with the blade, but I didn’t have to hold them off for long. Several familiar figures came storming into the hall. Elijah Carter grabbed the cultist standing closest to me as the other masked people dove aside, cries of shock breaking out among them. Eli dragged the man backwards with considerable force, bringing him to the ground before knocking him out with one more blow. Meanwhile, my savior human had positioned herself between the small mob and myself, leveling the gun she was holding at their heads.
“Please stand back, or I will have to shoot you,” she exclaimed, tone shrill with excitement.
“Not too intimidating there, Net,” Elijah called out, a chuckle swinging along in his audibly strained voice.
“Well, there’s no reason to be impolite,” she replied, letting the muzzle of her weapon twitch slightly into the direction of a cultist who had just taken a tenth of a step towards her. The person immediately froze, snapping their hands off.
“Eva, are you alright?” Kit Sutton made her way through the crowd to stand beside Nettie and me. I gave her a slow nod. I wasn’t exactly alright, but something approaching it. My head was spinning and my stomach was still tossing and turning like a nightmare-plagued canine, but I could stand, I could breathe and the blinding pain in my limbs was subsiding. My roommate wrapped her arm around my shoulders nevertheless, supporting my weight as I turned around.
Jewel was lying flat on their back, glazed eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling. Their body shook with faint spasms, the movements dying down bit by bit. They were emitting soft gurgling noises, wet raspy coughs interrupted by arduous gasps for air. Blood sputtered from their mouth, thick droplets flying into the air and crimson streams running down their chin. I could see the flesh of their torn throat beginning to knit together, slowly forming strings and meaty bridges.
“Woah,” Kit muttered, following my gaze. “This is… gnarly. You got them bad, though. I don’t think they’re actually gonna make it.”
“Let’s hope they do,” Mary Markov’s voice rang out from behind us. Turning my head, I found her weaving her way through the gaggle of cultists, prompting them to keep their distance with a shiny, sleek gun of her own. “There’s a lot they need to answer for.”
“I don’t know if they’re willing,” I commented.
Mary regarded me with an approving quirk of her lips. “Don’t worry, I consider your attack on them warranted. I’m happy to find you unharmed.” Waving an arm, she motioned for her staff to speed up as they came trickling into the room. Two of them, both carrying medical supply cases, instantly crouched down beside Jewel. The others went about the laborious task of unmasking and handcuffing the other members of the Collective.
“Sorry we’re late,” Kit told me, blue eyes bright and genuine. “It was actually really fucking difficult finding you! You got any idea how big this place is?”
Letting myself drop against my roommate’s solid form, we stood still for a moment until I took note of Nettie approaching. They exchanged some quiet words before I was given over into the open arms of my best friend. My head hit something hard when I pressed up to her. “Are you wearing armor?” I croaked, feebly looking up at her.
“It’s a bullet-proof vest,” she explained, stroking my shoulder.
“You saved me again,” I muttered.
“Aw, come on. You were handling yourself really well,” she replied in much the same tone I’ve heard her use when praising larvae. “We only helped tie it all together.”
I sank deeper into her embrace and she patted my head, brushing strands of hair that had fled from my distressed braid behind my ear. “Let’s get you home. I have some cupcakes you can lick the frosting off,” she said, raising the pitch of her voice enticingly.
“First,” Mary interrupted us, “we’re going to have to discuss the situation at hand. Have you found out anything at all useful?”
I craned my neck to look up at her, frowning as I marshaled my thoughts. It was only now that the literal and proverbial blade had been removed from my throat that my mind was beginning to actually wrap around what had happened. To fight me, Jewel had adopted a wholly alien form. Sure, I could grow teeth and tentacles, but what they’d done was different. I had never been able to completely discard this human body. The image of the mummified corpses overgrown with crystals pushed itself to the forefront of my thoughts, and that’s when a tiny spark of understanding lit up inside that tired, overtaxed brain of mine.
“Did you ever find out how the Collective preserved the dead dimension hoppers?” I asked.
Mary shook her head. “Their state remains confounding. In fact, on our way here, we came across several others.”
“And did they all look like that?”
“They did. Some actually appeared as though they could have been here for several decades. Though that’s not possible, of course.”
There was a throbbing ache raging behind my forehead. I was beginning to grasp at something, the faint outline of an idea forming in my mind. Jewel had brought me to the catacombs on purpose. I had assumed it was to avoid unwanted spectators, but what if it had actually been the proximity to the corpses they’d been seeking? When I’d encountered them out in the open, their inhuman abilities had been far more evenly matched to mine.
“I think they’ve been using the bodies for energy,” I began, struggling to put my train of thought into words. “The crystals they’ve been growing on them are draining them of their essence and somehow feeding it to Jewel.”
“What?” Nettie stared at me with saucer-wide eyes.
“Before you got here, they’d practically mauled me while looking like… looking what I expect they used to look like before they came to Earth. I can’t transform into anything like that. At least not without help.”
Mary Markov let out a low, pensive hum. “Interdimensionals are beings of immense energy,” she affirmed. “If Jewel found a way to exploit that, hunting them down would make sense.”
“What else could that energy be used for?” I paused for emphasis. “Jewel has somehow been sending a signal out to the Devourer Of Worlds calling attention to earth, right? Like a beacon transcending dimensional borders. And they’ve been keeping corpses down here for their own use, but not the heads—the heads they store away somewhere secure, they literally pay to have outsiders guard them…”
Nettie let out a high-pitched squeak, rapidly and repeatedly slapping Kit’s upper arm with the back of her hand. “It’s the heads! It’s in the frigging heads!”
We thus left the catacombs with a new priority. Jewel had been carried out before us, and the members of the Collective were rounded up and herded towards the closest exit. Outside, agency personnel and local law enforcement welcomed them, police vehicles parked all around the mayor’s estate. I definitely didn’t want to be in that man’s proverbial shoes—it would likely fall onto Bunny to sort out the situation.
Frankie Preston was waiting for us by the car. Mary Markov hadn’t allowed him to come inside with them for fear of the bloodshed “exciting him a little too much”. Zion Boyd, who had kept him company out of familial obligation, was almost as happy to see me back as Fran himself. “He’s your problem now,” the tall man mumbled as he trudged past me. A moment later, the waiter was upon me. He hugged me, counted my limbs and then hugged me again. He then grabbed a bottle of coconut water from his glove compartment which he poured into my open mouth himself. When I finally succeeded in getting a word in, I assured him that I was alright. The lot of us ended up forming a convoy back to Nettie’s house where we remained for the time being.
And here we are. The last we heard, Jewel was still in critical condition. I myself am admittedly worse for wear, but there’ll be time to recover later. I’ll only know peace once we’ve found the beacon.