Chương 214: 202. Lost city

I looked over the body as we waited for the FBI entourage to arrive. The flesh beneath the sacs was almost all gone, having slowly turned to mush. The green cloud, interestingly enough, dissipated, not spreading into the surroundings but slowly ceasing to exist as the magic supporting the disease ran out, meaning it was a form of spell. I tried to look closer at the skull, but Sally's snout entered my vision as she tried to sniff the corpse.

I pushed her head away, trying and failing to command her to stop interrupting. It took me a while to finish the inspection, thanks to my familiar, but once I was done, my eyes drifted toward the van where Josh sat. He looked out the door on the other side so as not to see the decomposing flesh, his eyes most likely still unfocused, gazing into the darkness around us. After taking one last look, I got up, stretched, and, after giving a loud sigh, approached the kid.

Sally also changed into a dog-like form, forgetting about the set of horns on her head.

"You good?" I asked, not bothering to correct my familiar. He turned his head to me, a rather strange expression on his face, as if the question had been asked in a different language, before his eyes focused on the creature by my side.

"What is that?" he asked, tilting away from us.

"A dog," I answered.

"Riiight," he said, confused about the situation. He sat there for a good few seconds, trying to figure out what to say next, before finally getting to the important questions.

"And what was the thing that attacked just now?" he asked. I shrugged.

"Not sure, honestly. A mutant of sorts."

"You say it like it's normal. Are they that common? Should I expect another visit?"

"No, not really. First… second time I've seen one. But the first time I've seen this type. The previous one was more of a soul kind…"

"Soul kind?" Josh asked, looking ahead again, slowly shaking his head from side to side.

"So soul mutants, flesh mutants, mages, parasites. I'm honestly not sure I see that will in myself you talked about."

"Give yourself some time. The FBI should handle things for now. Go home, rest, talk to someone. Use your mind powers to annoy someone you don't like. You know, wind down." Josh looked back at me, clearly not sure if I was joking, as my advice was given with deadly seriousness.

"I can't tell if you're serious," he finally said after not being able to read anything from my face.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I asked.

"Have you ever seen someone who pisses you off fall down the stairs? It's hilarious." Josh opened his mouth, then closed it, staring at me until I chuckled.

"That one was a joke," I lied.

"But seriously, get used to using your powers. Use them to get a discount, use them to get out of a fine—I don't know. But do try to relax. The will is like a muscle. Right now, it's sore and hard to use. It needs rest. If you have to will yourself to get up every morning, to do anything, then, much like a muscle, you'll finally injure it from overuse. So take a day off," I recommended.

"The FBI won't collapse. Speaking of which." I raised my eyes to the street as sirens became audible in the distance. The blue and red hues visible over the trees decorating the parking lot prompted me to have Sally retreat as she trotted off behind the van and returned as black tar, silently sinking into my shadow.

"How do I even get a break? It's hard to turn off my gift."

"That's why I'm telling you to use it for fun, so that its presence is no longer a burden. And before you protest that it's impossible, trust me, you can get used to a lot. I'm pretty sure Terry over there," I pointed behind myself where the body lay on the other side of the car, "didn't view his additions as burdens." Josh gave me a sour look.

"I'm pretty sure he was mad." I leaned toward him, giving him a wide smile.

"Aren't we all?" I asked, finally earning a smile from the kid. An FBI cruiser parked right next to us, and Marvin and Filip almost jumped out before it came to a stop. A few more agents also got out of the other two cars, though I did not recognize them. But what I did recognize were runes etched into their modified guns.

I couldn't decipher exactly what they were, because, due to the guns' moving parts, the enchantment wasn't fully visible, but the overall sensation was of fire, a sort of elemental addition of magic to any projectile fired. Interesting.

"Where can I get one of those?" I asked Marvin, pointing at the gun as the man approached us, looking around warily. His eyes were focused, gun in hand, while his more heavily armored colleagues checked the perimeter.

"Are you all right?" Marvin asked, coming closer, ignoring my question.

"All good here," Josh said. Only then did Marvin's eyes drift toward the body lying on the ground, now visible as we approached the FBI vans.

"I imagine that's the one who went after you," he said, wincing at the body covered in its own now-liquefied flesh, mixing with the original bloodied remains.

"Yep."

"I imagine he didn't tell you who he was or how he got here?" Filip asked from the side, approaching us.

"He introduced himself as Terry. And that's all I got. He then moved to the fighting part rather quickly." Both Josh and I gave our versions of what happened. After a good few hours of taking statements, the FBI team packed up the remains and documented everything around, and I was free to return home, quite tired after the eventful day. I was happy about the fight and coordination with Sally, despite the revelation of more people involved.

But one thing got in the way of my good mood: the way the cult described Lazarus—a miracle. It was the correct term. Lazarus was brought back from the dead, making it a literal miracle, but describing it that way each time… I couldn't tell if I was seeing things or not. The disease and wording did fit, though… I finally sighed and gave up on wondering as my head began to pound with a dull headache. It was the eldritch powers whispering in my ear.

I was driving home from the FBI headquarters, and after using the abyssal spell, the tiredness was blanketing the world more and more, as everything seemed to come to me from an increasing distance. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The magic I used was high-level, but it was the best choice for the fight.

I had considered just hitting the man with Squirming Void, but the spell had a constant presence after manifestation, and I didn't know how Josh would react. So I used one that was a quick attack. The presence of the Young was sudden but also ended as quickly as it appeared. But it was by the time I got out of the car beneath my apartment building that I became sure something was really wrong. I was tired and had overdrawn magic before. I remembered floating off to slumber in the depths under the Vatican.

I still remembered the shapelessness of the dream back then, and the chant, the truths revealed piece by piece until I finally came up with the Rend spell. But this time around, it was different. The pull of the visions was growing on its own like a tumor. This was the first time I had used magic of such caliber with the new staff, and right now I could still feel the presence of the abyssal cube crowning the weapon. Looking at my wrist, I noticed the artifact emitted a faint glow.

I got out of the car and let the staff unravel into my hand as I checked the cube more closely, not caring about the surroundings. Sure enough, there was something inside. I wasn't sure what, but I could feel something akin to pressure coming off of it, as if it threatened to burst out of the item. To make matters worse, I couldn't properly examine it, as looking at the staff's crown had a horrid effect.

The moment my eyes focused on the cube, the world around me changed as the stars began to fall from the sky and the buildings began to melt, covered by the cosmos coming down upon me. I quickly averted my gaze, letting the staff wind itself back around my arm. Looking back up, I winced. The world didn't settle completely back into place just because I put the artifact down. The sky was still strange, decorated by hollow stars, with an outline of a city deep beyond the horizon.

Swearing once again at my curiosity, I dragged myself back into the apartment, letting Sally materialize in case she needed to protect me, unsure whether to go to sleep or fight the sensation and try to figure it out. Dreams were one thing, but it was the first time I felt like I was truly daydreaming. I sat down in meditation, going inside myself, seeing the connection to the staff that the attunement had made. And sure enough, eldritch energy seeped along the thread.

"Fuck's sake," I groaned. The artifact might have allowed me to move the eldritch flow out of my body, but it apparently didn't have the courtesy not to try to corrupt me. I made sure my own contract was dormant, and only then did I focus back on the connection. It felt strange. As if it were threatening to burst, even though I could feel that the cube was dormant, supposedly closed. My mind began racing through solutions and reasons for the strange behavior.

One possibility I could think of was that the artifact simply overproduced power. It was strange, considering I was pretty sure I closed it the moment my spell landed. But for now, that was the best-case scenario, and the simplest solution was to use up the extra energy. I felt Sally's snout poke me in the face. Opening my eyes, I met the four eyes looking at me curiously. Well, she was technically partially made up of eldritch energy. She might be able to take some in, I realized.

Extending the staff to her like one might offer a lick block to a goat, I let some of the energy out. And sure enough, I could feel my familiar absorb part of it. For Sally, all it did was heal and energize the creature. But since she wasn't injured much in the first place, she didn't use up a lot. I realized that I would have to strain my mind once again tonight. And bracing for the sensation, I began casting Squirming Void, adding tentacles to the spell until the energy was used up.

Finally, once a six-tentacle spell was ready, I recited the magic using both of my tongues to help me cast, and let the spell manifest for a second before dismissing it. I felt my mind almost break at the strain, but there was good news too. The sensation of casting abyssal spells without using my contract, but rather pre-existing energy, was strange yet almost pleasant. The power from the cube felt different, more chaotic but also less overbearing, eager to be used.

That was a study for later, as I could feel the vision coming. Thankfully, my theory seemed correct, as the cube felt dormant once again, no longer leaking energy. I left Sally materialized as I lay on the floor, not having the energy to drag myself to the bed, pushing the many questions about the sudden change in the artifact's behavior for later.

I drifted off to sleep, feeling Sally lay the underside of her snout squarely on my face, using it as a pillow, as I just gave a tired sigh, not having the energy to correct her. He awoke in an unfamiliar place, the past few hours a complete blur. All the thoughts in his head were a complete mess. He remembered the fever, drifting in and out of sleep until slumber finally came. It had taken him like a wave, carrying away anyone who tried to resist.

And he tried to resist, for a time, knowing in the back of his head that once he closed his eyes, it would be the last time. He shook his head from side to side, looking around. He was on an endless plain, with but a few lonely trees sticking above the rocky terrain. No, not rocky, he realized, coming closer. All the stones there were clearly man-made, smooth, and with small letters carved into them. Coming closer, he finally recognized what they were, and the realization froze him in horror. They were tombstones.

The man recoiled in horror, turning around only to see the field of stone all around. He needed to get out. He wanted to run but didn't know where. So he raised his eyes upward, hoping for any landmark on the horizon. But all he saw was a strange sky, black as if someone spilled ink over the heavens, only dotted with strange, hollow stars. It was nighttime, he realized, but he could see perfectly.

The panic welled up as the increasingly strange sight of the land around him clawed at something primal, something deep inside, telling him to run, to hide, to do anything but look at the land around him. And so he followed his instincts, running to the nearest tree, hoping to hide among its roots, at least until day came. As he ran, he noticed other silhouettes walking among the graves like wraiths, yet washed of all emotion, moving slowly and without purpose, their eyes as empty as the stars above him.

He finally made it to the tree, ready to lie among its roots, only to see a man there. He froze at the sight. The man was completely out of place, looking up with a relaxed smile like someone on holiday. To make it stranger, he was gazing at something in the distance with clear interest. The apparition then turned its eyes to him, noticing the new arrival.

And once again, the man's heart was grasped by a cold hand of terror as he saw that the man's eyes were shattered, the pupils made up of floating shards like pieces of broken stained glass.

"Hello," said the creature.

"H-Hi," the man answered cautiously.

"Do you know where we are?"

"I do. Most likely, at least," the man answered and went quiet. The silence continued until the lost man broke it in a still panicked voice.

"So where is this?"

"You know it too. You should. Everyone here looks for it." The man was about to protest, but a word slipped subconsciously.

"Carcosa." The apparition smiled at that.

"Exactly."

"But how did we get here?" the man asked.

"How do we get out?"

"We both dreamed too deeply, I'm afraid. I was brought here. You slipped through the cracks in the dream. Or so they say. As for escape, well, I'll hopefully wake up soon. You… I don't know. Maybe if you ever find IT, you might find the exit too. But watch out… it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

"What?" the man asked, confused, but the idea of arriving at his destination suddenly popped into his head, a need arising from deep inside, clashing with the fear still lingering.

"So how do I find it? Where is it?"

"Here," the man answered, pointing in front of himself.

"Quite the sight, if you're mad enough, I tell you," he said, looking ahead once again.

"The city's beautiful." The man followed his gaze, only seeing the field of tombstones.

"What? Where?" He could feel terror rising once again.

"No, it can't be. It can't," he began to tremble, gazing around. He had to find it. This couldn't be it. He ignored the apparition lying between the roots and began looking behind the tree and around as he moved into the forest of tombstones, looking for the city.

"I guess you're not mad enough then," he heard the apparition whisper as he walked on.

"It's time to wake up." In his last conscious action, the lost man looked back, only to see no one under the tree. He then felt the fear take over as he wandered into the forest of tombstones, desperately looking for the lost city.