Page 70 of An Invocation of Monsters

I dared to take a step back. The glittering sand muffled my footsteps, and I took several more as the creature pulled itself from the crack in the wall at the end of the ravine, moving on several of its spider-like arms.

I kept the spire between us, never stopping. If I stopped, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to start again.

Hope began to rise, until my foot landed on something hollow, crunching right through.

The crackling sound filled the cavern like a gunshot. I looked down frantically, and saw I had stepped right on top of a half-buried skull. The fragmented bone slashed at my exposed ankles, but I didn’t feel any pain.

I only saw the welling blood. I heard the creature make a liquid, hungry sound.

Then I turned and ran, my brain utterly blank except for those images, and the sight of the creature latching onto a spire, jaws dropping open to reveal the maw lined with teeth all the way down its throat.

Panic filled me when I didn’t see the switchbacks cut into the ravine wall. I was running blind, ducking around spires, bones crunching underfoot, but there was no turning back with that thing behind me.

Its breathing was stertorous, painful, its shrieks bouncing off the walls in a never ending stream of echoes.

I just kept running blindly, tasting blood, searing pain stitching itself into my side. The ravine had to end. It had to end somewhere.

More than once I just felt the tips of fingers brush at me. There was a sharp pain in my scalp when the creature yanked several strands free, shrieking in outrage when the rest of me ran free.

And when I heard it, I thought it was my lungs failing. They were crumpled balls of agony in my chest, forcing every last gasp.

Water.

I pushed myself harder, my thighs and calves numb, and finally found the other end of the ravine.

It ended on a cliff overlooking the lake.

I didn’t think twice as the creature screamed again. I just ran with everything left in me, leaping out into open, empty space.

The lake glittered as I plunged downwards, the blue and green glow of the surface swirling, endlessly, into a nest of writhing tentacles far below.

22

Drazan

I sensed her aura, an emanation spilling waves of terror and rage across the Void, coming closer. Faster.

Too fast.

I spoke, and the water responded.

It rose above me in a roaring tidal wave, a glittering column that reached up, up, up towards the woman that launched herself from the rift above.

She plunged into it, the column of water halting her fall. Elle sank into it slowly, bubbles rising from her mouth, her eyes wide and shocked.

I called the water down, reaching for her. As the column dissipated back into the surface of the lake, ripples flattening, I reached for Elle.

She latched onto me, nails digging into my shoulders, craning her head to look at the cliff overhead.

The creature stared back at her, and vanished back into the crack in the cliff with a low hiss.

Elle, I began, and stopped myself. She heard the anger in my tone, but instead of shrinking in on herself, her eyes flashed.

“Let me guess,” she said, her voice quivering as she struggled to keep it even. “I should have a monster chaperone at all times in the Void.”

I was about to agree firmly with her, but before I could, her shoulders slumped. She closed her eyes, resting her forehead on my shoulder.

“I know, Drazan. I know there’s dangerous things here. It’s not like I’m parading around trying to get myself killed, but… I can’t sit back and wait for someone to hold my hand, either.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I’m used to looking out for myself. It’s a hard habit to break.”

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