Page 4 of An Invocation of Monsters

“The Mother of the Open Door.”

Kase was no longer even looking at the road, staring at me with a wide, exalted gaze. I braced myself for us to crash into a tree at any moment.

“She opened the way and passed beyond the doors. She spoke with the Things Beyond,” he whispered, cords standing out in his throat. “They touched her and gave her their magic. She was our most sacred vessel for their power.”

I was filled with a sudden horror and relief as I understood.

Relief that his fervor wasn’t sexual.

Horror that my mother had secretly spent her life trying to unlock the keys to magical power with a group of her old college friends, like they were in The Craft or something.

All I could imagine was a group of washed-up, aging Wiccans, making blood sacrifices of pet bunnies in the woods so they could create more accurate horoscopes.

The thing was, I already had that kind of power.

And it hadn’t been able to save her.

2

Elle

Before I could ask exactly what he meant by his rambling, Kase gripped the wheel with both hands.

“Alright, hold on!”

I looked up in time to see a massive ivory arch in the middle of the forest—it stretched over the road, an incongruous creation built of horns and bones—and then we were passing under it. My ears popped.

Immediately I felt like I’d taken a sledgehammer to the head. I might even have screamed out loud, but the burst of pain in my skull drowned out my awareness of everything else. It fizzed through my nerves, my limbs on fire—

And just as abruptly, it was gone.

I was gasping, digging my fingers into my thighs so hard I felt my own nails through my gloves. A bubble of nausea rose in me, and Kase pulled the truck to a rumbling halt.

“I’m sorry to be a dick about this, but if you’re going to throw up, could you do it outside the truck?” he asked. He looked a little pale, but none the worse for wear.

“What the fuck was that?” I gasped, then wrenched the door open and practically fell out of the truck.

I didn’t throw up. It took some pacing back and forth, breathing deeply and massaging my temples, but eventually I managed to swallow down the acrid taste in the back of my throat.

I peered back at the arch while I paced. It was twelve feet high, the ivory of the hundreds of bones gleaming in the dappled sun.

When I climbed back into the truck, Kase had regained some of his color.

“That’s why we don’t let newcomers drive in,” he said, flinching a little under my glare. “You get used to it eventually, but for your first time, you definitely don’t want to be driving when it hits. I’m so sorry, it’s usually not that bad. You got hit pretty hard.”

“Exactly what was it, though?” My hands were shaking. I knotted them in my lap, taking another deep breath and swallowing hard to settle my stomach.

Kase’s mouth twisted in a frown. “That’s another thing that’s hard to explain. Mary and Joseph will be able to tell you about it.”

“Just tell me right now—are there going to be any more surprises that feel like getting hit by a train?”

“No.” The truck started rolling forward again, Kase’s eyes fixed on the forest outside. I had the odd feeling he was deliberately avoiding my gaze. “That was it.”

It wasn’t too late to turn back.

But when I opened my mouth to tell Kase to turn the damn truck around, no words came out.

None of this made sense, but I had to know what my mother had done. What secrets she’d been hiding my entire life.

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