Page 123 of An Invocation of Monsters

“Yes, I thought that might surprise you. For as much digging as you did, I’m surprised the concept didn’t occur to you sooner. You are aware, of course, that the Void preserves you from the flow of time. Once Sophie brought me through, I knew I was destined to learn more about this new world. She even agreed to create a door that would stay open, so that one day we might visit each other.”

Mary laughed and shook her head. “Silly little bitch. You have no idea how much convincing it took to get her to do even that.”

She came closer, my skin tingling all over as I awaited the sting of the knife. I refused to close my one good eye.

If she was going to kill me, she was going to do it with me watching her and blaming her.

So this was it. She raised it…

And cut the gag.

Mary tore it away, plucking the coarse fabric from my mouth and tossing it aside.

I coughed, dragging in a deep breath. The inside of my mouth was dry and tasted like dust.

“Don’t look so hopeful, Elle,” she said, wiping her hand on her bloodied dress, as though my spit was worse than the blood of innocent lives. “You are still going to be my sacrifice tonight, but as so much of this story involves you, I feel that you deserve to hear it.”

“Oh?” I asked. My voice was thin and weak, but fuck it, I wasn’t going out without saying my piece. “So I get to hear the villain monologue before I die? Lucky me.”

It was impossible to read her expression, hidden as it was behind bone, but Mary didn’t strike me.

“Yes,” she said calmly. “I am not the villain, but I will certainly tell you what you should know. I was born Marie Vaughn in 1841. I grew up here. Everything you see around you…” She held out her arms. “All of this was my playground, until the day I met Sophie.”

That tiny sliver of sun disappeared beneath the horizon. I held back a smile.

Soon, my monsters could come.

“I grew up surrounded by the occult,” Mary told me. “When I met Sophie, I thought I’d found someone who would understand me. She seemed… rather more amenable to it than the other girls in our boarding school. I extended an invitation to my home. And when she got here, I begged for a month before she would open a door for me.

“And that’s when I realized that my ‘friend’ was in fact no friend at all. Sophie believed she was better than me because of this power. Even though I grew up knowing far more than she ever would…” Mary’s voice grew thick with bitterness, and she stopped talking for a moment, clutching the knife so tightly her knuckles were white.

“She thought she was better because she was bred from a monster,” Mary hissed. “My mother spent years amassing her knowledge and collections, passing it on to me, but what did this matter to Sophie? By dint of birth, she had the ability to open these doors, but she didn’t want to share the knowledge or power.”

I coughed again, my throat tight with pain. “Maybe because she knew you would abuse it? Who can really say?”

Honestly, if I’d been in Sophie’s shoes, I wouldn’t have wanted to open a door for this bitch, either.

Mary smiled coldly at me from under the skull. “I can say, as I was there, Elle. I was there in 1853 when she opened the door for the first time. But she did not want to leave it open, no, not at all. She wanted to keep the power of the Void and the Ones Beyond all to herself.

“I never spoke to her again after that summer. I never saw her. But I did keep tabs on her. While Sophie was living in Essex, I was exploring another world. While she matriculated in the Miskatonic University, poring over dry books, I made my first breakthrough. It required my sister’s life, but then, she wasn’t good for much else.”

I stared at her, feeling sick again.

So Tessa Vaughn had never made it to adulthood. Her psychopath sister had killed her.

“After Sophie graduated, she bore her first child. Felicity Marsh,” Mary added, watching me pale. I knew that name. My grandmother had died before I was born. “While she was breeding herself, I was continuing with my life’s work. I dug into the history of this place with the intent of creating a record of what would transpire here.”

Ah. I remembered that the author of Deepwater was Marie Vaughn. I had never dreamed she would still be living.

“Eventually, I had dug up all I could. I watched as Sophie continued on with her life, with her children, and then it occurred to me: perhaps she had entered the Void once more. Perhaps she had gone seeking monsters to sire her children. And I realized I could not let that stand. If she was attempting to breed an heir, then there was a chance that one day, that heir would return to Deepwater with the intent of taking this door.

“I needed my own door. My own monster. I needed my own heir.”

She bared her teeth at me, and the sight of it made my skin prickle again. At any moment, she could stop talking… and then the sacrifice would begin.

I begged my monsters to come.

The stars were out. The sky was dark.

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