Page 128 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
‘Miss Woodrow, what are your thoughts on such a—’ Canthorp asked as he spotted me amongst his audience, but I didn’t give him the chance to finish.
‘Run.’ The word barely escaped my lips, fear too potent as they watched me in confusion. It didn’t matter, it was too late. The icy pain ran down my back. Something was here, waiting. Watching.
There was a horrific moment of calm before darkness surged from the coin with a deafening scream. The intensity of the blast sent me off my feet, hitting the floor. The furniture was thrown towards the walls, people screaming as they took cover.
Canthorp tumbled over himself as he came to a stop next to me. A horrid sulphurous stench filled the space, as a demonic wind howled with enough force to almost steal my breath. Just like the Insidious creature in the Fifth Library. The portraits on the wall clattered to the floor. The windows shattered letting the night storm in.
I stumbled to my feet, grabbing Canthorp by the scruff of the neck, flinging him carelessly towards the grand doorway with my Kysillian strength, the same direction as all the other guests were running. Not caring if he was trampled as a horrid screaming filled the space.
‘Bloody Nora !’ William cried, horridly pale as he stood amongst the chaos, Alma next to him with wide eyes.
‘Get them out, William !’ Emrys barked the command, his body tense and ready for battle as he cut through the guests with little effort. I watched for a moment as William and Alma scrambled to drag and push the guests from the hall.
‘Thean !’ Emrys tore off his jacket, gaze locked on the creature manifesting in the centre of the room with feral intent.
‘This isIshvariansuede,’ Thean’s tone was clipped with irritation as they ran a hand down their flawless dinner jacket. ‘And that is a fucking verbius entity.’
Verbius. Darkness without form that could conceal itself in any object. As ancient and dangerous as the caymor. Just as impossible. The dark smoke leaching from the coin began to form shapes, flashes of claws and teeth, a storm of its own making as the coin that housed it continued to bounce wildly.
The turbulent storm of cursed magic pulled my hair free as it suffocated the room with its intensity. The old house almost whining under the force of it.
Without thinking I summoned my fire, fingers glowing as I twisted it into a lethal blow. Unleashing the ferocious heat. It hit the dark thing at its centre, making it twist and scream against the flames but still - the darkness didn’t stop.
I gasped with the effort of it, only for the wind to pick up, mirroring my spell. The creature undulated, now tangled with lavender and indigo flames, before it forced the fireball right back at me.
There wasn’t a moment to throw up a shield. The impact of Emrys hitting my side took me down to the floor as that fire roared over us. Hitting the wall behind, igniting the drapes and peeling wallpaper.
‘Thean !’ Emrys snapped over me, glaring at the voyav through the wreckage.
‘Try yelling at the one who taught it fire !’ Thean bit back, glaring spitefully at me where I lay prone on the ground, seeing then the flames had charred the voyav’s precious jacket.
I didn’t have time to apologise before Thean summoned shadows into their palms that turned into lethal blades thatcaught that darkness’s attention as it shifted into a perfect copy of the voyav, shrouded in smoke.
It wasn’t just a verbius entity, it was a mimyk. A changeling of the dark. An Insidious being.
‘Come on then, you handsome bastard,’ Thean taunted, flipping those shadow blades in their hands. The creature’s head tilted before it made its hands into sharp blades to copy, ready to fight.
I rolled, grasping onto Emrys shoulders as he started to pull us up.
‘It’s an Insidious—’
A screech filled the room, cutting me off as the wrywing form of Alma smashed through what remained of the large windows, almost taking out the wall. Rubble and glass slid across the hardwood floor, along with the wrywings deadly claws. Making deep gouges in the wood.
She roared, swishing her rain-drenched tail before she slammed into the dark form of Thean, taking it down with such ferocity the floor cracked and splintered. Her sharp teeth went right for its smoky throat, to devour the darkness whole.
Emrys barely moved his hands, but a summoning I didn’t understand made a barrier around us. A wall of darkness surrounding the room, cutting off the exits and shrouding us from the prying eyes of any guests that remained.
I didn’t know of any summoning that powerful or spell that dark. Reminding me of that blinding white energy he’d also summoned, the same that was concealed in the wishing stone around my neck, fluttering wildly against my chest. It matched that strange crystalline shade of his eyes now.
‘Will you all stop interrupting !’ Thean seethed, clearly willing to go toe to toe with a wrywing as well as the demon.
Then the voyav froze, the same moment I heard it. Even making the beastly form of Alma pause where she had the mimyk pinned beneath her claws.
A demented screeching laugh pealed from its darkness. The rumbling of gold coins as they began to spill out of the endless darkness of the ancient fiend, hitting the wood and twisting and splitting into another and another. They multiplied as they rolled across the room. Hundreds of them. They leapt and turned to a dark mass, sprouting sharp yellow teeth and jagged claws, scuttling across the ground.
‘Emrys.’ The only word I could say, the only word that would comfort me as the stone around my neck began to burn with blinding white light where it had slipped free of my corset. A warning for what lurked here. Too late. Too many cursed things.
Then another blast of demonic energy tore through the room. Alma was thrown backwards, the beastly form of her taking out the far wall. The force spread the wild flames I’d created up the walls as they crumbled. I curled into myself against the blast, feeling the weight of Emrys at my back, pressing me against the floor as the room fell apart and the storm rains poured down upon us.
