Page 67 of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World
“And we do not know why the celestial appeared?” That was Ms.Obiakaeze, the director of Transportation, whose colorful printed dress and bright red gele wrapped around her hair made the rest of us look drab by comparison. Behind her, Tamsin shot me a faint smirk and then deliberately raised her hand.
“We do not,” Ms.Crenshaw replied. “It appeared to be battling something, however, before it died.” If she noticed Tamsin, she gave no sign of it.
Ms.Obiakaeze shook her head slowly. “If Heaven is involving itself, things will get messy. The city could be destroyed if an entire legion appears.”
Now Sunil raised his hand as well, looking eagerly from one board member to another as he prepared to sell me out. My heart rate accelerated so fiercely that black spots swam in front of my eyes.
A skinny old man in a tweed jacket cleared his throat and leaned forward. “A number of artifacts in the Repository have started to respond to whatever is happening,” Mr.Venables informed us all in his quavery voice. “One of my junior curators now has a gauntlet of unknown provenance grafted to her arm and has been shouting in ancient Aramaic while throwing bolts of lightning. Fascinating, though also quite hazardous.” Behind him, his assistant, Jianguo, rolled his eyes and went back to scrolling through his phone.
I closed my mouth, slowly, and hoped that Lex was okay.
“Let’s relocate the more powerful items to another plane of existence while we assess the situation,” Ms.Crenshaw instructed, towhich Mr.Venables nodded in acquiescence. The overhead lights flickered, and she glanced upward as she continued speaking. “Over the past three days, we have seen an exponential rise in the rate of disappearances throughout the city. I presume you all noticed the measures we have taken to increase our protections here in the building, but even that will only buy us a little time against whatever is out there.” She paused before turning her attention to Sunil and Tamsin, both of whom still had their hands up. “You have something to add?” she inquired coolly.
Sunil’s mouth opened, a triumphant gaze locked on me.
Abruptly, the lights flickered again and then failed altogether. For the space of several heartbeats, the only light in the room was the crepuscular, bloody glow of the infernal skies on the other side of the glass wall. When the lights blinked back to life with a low hum, their pallid illumination revealed a familiar figure seated at the far end of the table in the only remaining chair, spidery fingers steepled in front of its red suit, inky darkness coiling and pulsing above the starched collar of its pristine shirt.
My heart stopped beating as I stared down the length of the table at the Abomination. The end of the world had arrived, and it was going to devour us all.
Twenty-Three
Reactions varied as people becameaware of the new arrival: quiet gasps from some of the executive assistants, a tightening of Mr.Mancini’s jaw, a soft click as Ms.Yamada laid her pen on the table. Sunil’s mouth closed, and Tamsin slowly lowered her hand.
“Who might you be?” Ms.Crenshaw asked, her tone polite but cool.
You may address me as The-One-Who-Hungers.The words reverberated in the still air as if floating out of a deep, dank cave.My apologies for not introducing myself sooner.A thread of dark amusement touched the sepulchral voice.I’ve made quite a fuss, haven’t I?
“And why are you here now?” Mr.Samuels demanded.
I wanted to thank you.I knew it was looking at me when it said that, because I could feel its attention skitter over my skin like a swarm of insects. My entire body twitched.Your quaint little company has been good to me. I’m even willing to overlookyour presumption in sending the angel after me. It was so wonderfully filling.It lifted one hand and mimed a grotesque imitation of a chef’s kiss in front of the roiling darkness that was its face.
“No one here did that,” Ms.Crenshaw said quietly.
Are you sure about that?
An uncomfortable silence fell. Nobody moved, assistants gripping their chairs or notepads as they stared at the Abomination, the executives cautiously watchful. “I think you should go,” Ms.Yamada said at last. I had to admire her courage. “Before we are forced to take drastic measures.”
I’d never heard an Abomination laugh before. Very likely, no human had in thousands of years. It was the worst thing I’d ever experienced. The sound went on for far too long, and when it ended, several assistants and all of the interns were weeping in terror. The executives were made of sterner stuff, naturally, though Mr.Venables looked pale and Mr.Rodriguez actually seemed to be paying attention at last.
No, I don’t think I’ll leave quite yet.Planting its white hands on the table’s polished surface, the Abomination rose slowly to its feet and then took a moment to adjust its shirt cuffs.I find I’ve worked up quite an appetite breaking through your defenses.The moment stretched as we all stared at it.Oh, and I’ve invited some friends to join me. I hope you don’t mind.
For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then Mr.Venables looked down at the table. “What’s that?” he asked of no one in particular, leaning forward to peer at the black stone in front of him.
A pair of bony, liver-spotted hands pierced the table’s reflective surface and seized either side of his head, smearing black, tarlike ooze onto his snowy hair. He had time to let out a strangled shoutbefore those hands—his own hands, I realized with horror—pulled him out of his chair and into the stone as if it were water. The last we saw of him were his brogues disappearing into the table as the haunt dragged him into the World Behind the Mirrors.
Everyone surged to their feet, most of the board backpedaling from the table with exclamations and shouts of their own as distorted reflections of their faces darted hungrily within the stone. In front of me, Ms.Crenshaw rose from her chair and flung out both hands, shouting a word that made the entire room shudder. The chair behind The-One-Who-Hungers exploded into splinters, but the being itself was unaffected. As it brushed fragments of wood from its suit with an air of weary patience, Mr.Samuels gestured and chains of green fire uncoiled from the air, sizzling and spitting as they wrapped around the Abomination’s slender form. Farther down the table, Mr.Mancini barked a series of syllables and pulled his hand out of the inner pocket of his suit jacket, flinging a handful of silvery powder that exploded into a wash of shimmering, incandescent light.
I was on my feet, squinting into the glare as my heart tried to beat its way out of my chest, but the light lasted only moments before failing in a surging wave of shadow. People were screaming now, assistants and interns running for the door, hammering on its gleaming surface when it refused to open. The wispy-mustached intern had sagged to the floor behind the Abomination, mouth agape in a wordless howl. The-One-Who-Hungers turned gracefully and the sizzling chains wrapped around its body shattered as it reached out its long arms and seized the man by the shoulder pads of his cheap blazer. His scream turned to one of despair as the Thing lifted him off the ground and slowly fed him into the pulsing cloud of darkness that was its head.
At that, true pandemonium erupted. People pushed and clawed desperately at one another as they struggled to escape. Ms.Obiakaeze flicked a hand and the door fell apart in a shower of dust, sending a panicked crush of employees careening out into the hallway. Sunil and Tamsin both barreled for the exit, Sunil knocking his new boss facedown onto the table as he went by. Groggily, the director of Human Resources stared down at the stone beneath him and then yelled as a reflection of his own hands burst from the polished surface and dragged him across to the other side. Sunil rounded the far end of the table and darted past the Abomination as it gobbled down the last of the intern, Tamsin on his heels. Then a pale hand wrapped around her arm and yanked her off her feet, pulling her backward so swiftly that her long hair fluttered like a pennant. Her final shriek was brutally silenced as The-One-Who-Hungers stuffed her headfirst into its shadowy maw. The last I saw of her was a single outstretched hand, reaching for safety that no longer existed.
“Get away from the window!” Ms.Crenshaw shouted. Next to her, Mr.Samuels and Ms.Yamada chanted in unison, ritual knives clutched in their hands and blood running freely from self-inflicted wounds as they stared at the Abomination. Mr.Rodriguez and the Chief of Security were helping people out of the room, but rather than fleeing, Deborah pulled a smoking blade from the air and ran toward The-One-Who-Hungers, slashing at the pale flesh of its hands as it reached for her.
With a muffledwhump, the wall of glass exploded outward in a million glittering shards, allowing a cold, dry wind stinking of sulfur and shit to howl into the boardroom. The massive table heaved and then spun on the carpeted floor as if twirled by an enormous hand, one end smashing into the Abomination and driving it back toward the empty air. Mr.Samuels and Ms.Yamada gestured as oneand the table flew forward, striking The-One-Who-Hungers with a loud crunch and then hurtling out into Hell, carrying the Abomination along with it. We all watched as it fell out of sight without a sound.
No one moved. Everything had happened so quickly, so brutally. Choking on the foul air whipping through the broken wall, I tried desperately not to vomit as Ms.Yamada spoke calmly, lifting her voice over the howling wind. “We need to evacuate the building.”
Mr.Samuels was breathing hard and the monocle had fallen from his eye to dangle over his paunch by a thin golden chain, but he, too, looked unruffled as he nodded. “The haunts will be everywhere by now. Margaret?”
