Chương 13: Hostile

"Maul!" A faint voice called in the distance.

"Maul, snap out of it. Can you hear me?" When Gnal's daze wore off, she found herself back in her office, surrounded by a crowd of nervous bystanders. Her supervisor, Jeht, was there as well, along with the lead body collector and a goblin in blue, loose-fitted scrubs.

"Maul, there you are." Jeht's writhing tendrils lost some of their nervous quiver.

"You had us worried."

"Gnal," the lead body collector corrected with a wet slurp.

"Excuse me?"

"Her name is Gnal, not Maul."

"Pretty sure that's what I said." Jeht, a fellow level-three eldritch abomination, whirled around and shooed the onlookers from the room.

"Go on now, get out. Give Paul space."

"Gnal," the lead body collector gurgled over the shoulder of his crisp white uniform as he lurched for the door. The goblin in the blue scrubs stepped forward. The name tag pinned to his smock identified him as Scalpel, a member of the medical unit. Scalpel stood on the overturned desk and swept a flashlight across Gnal's eyes. It took several passes as the eyes kept moving to avoid being blinded.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like there's a bright light in my eyes," Gnal said, wincing. Scalpel stopped waving the flashlight long enough to record his findings.

"Patient. Is. Irritable." Gnal cautiously eased her eyes open again. As if on cue, the goblin conducted a second vision check with his flashlight.

"What's going on?" Gnal shied further away from him.

"Why are you here? I have lots of paperwork to file." Medics had a unique way of stating the obvious in the most patronizing way possible. Scalpel was no exception.

"You just experienced what we in the field call a summoning." Gnal refrained from asking whether or not he'd bothered to read the name on the door before barging in. She was a night rift manager, for crying out loud! She dealt with summonings five nights of the week! She held the record for overseeing seven summonings in a single shift! Gnal took a breath to keep from screaming, and then, once certain she had control of her temper, said calmly, "I know what a summoning is."

"Ah, good." Scalpel clicked off his flashlight and tucked it into his front pocket. It was a good thing too, as Gnal was mere seconds away from hurtling it across the room.

"It's normal to be confused and irritable afterwards." Irritable wasn't the half of it.

"I feel fine. Go away." Scalpel drew a line through his former findings and amended it.

"Patient is hostile." Jeht came rushing back in with something clutched between his swirling particles. It looked like a hole punch.

"Gall, you were incredible! The whole department is talking about it." Stolen novel; please report. Apparently, she was Gall now. Better than the time he called her Ping Pong Ball, Gnal supposed.

"About what?"

"You!" Jeht said as though it was the most obvious thing ever.

"You, a lowly level-three eldritch abomination summoned to Earth." That sounded insulting, not impressive, but Gnal held all forty-two of her tongues and listened, hoping Jeht's eventual point would end on a good note.

"You kept your cool. You didn't destroy anything. You sealed your own rift!" Jeht drifted closer, whispering, "Word is, there's already talk of promotion amongst the bigwigs upstairs. You'll put in a good word for me, won't you?" Gnal didn't want words with anyone. All she wanted was to curl up in the cardboard box stashed under her desk and be left alone.

"Sure." Gnal's gaze swept across the disheveled room. Papers littered the floor, some of which now sported smudged shoe prints.

"Can I have my office back now? I have an incident report to file."

"I'll handle the report," Jeht said.

"Scalpel's here to take you to medical. Once you're evaluated, they'll have you sign some release forms, and then you can spend the rest of your two-month sabbatical paperwork-free."

"My two-month what?"

"I know! Two months, can you believe it? Some people have all the luck." Scalpel jotted down more insulting things in his notes.

"It's standard protocol after a summoning," he assured her.

"The effects of a man-made rift take a toll on eldritch particles. Your magic needs time to recoup. In the meantime, it's vital you refrain from creating portals. Management will reinstate your interdimensional travel privileges in eight to ten weeks." The goblin gazed expectantly up at Jeht. Jeht gazed blankly back at the goblin. Two and a half seconds lapsed before the latter realized what he was supposed to be doing.

"Oh, right! The travel privileges, I forgot." Jeht waved his hole punch in the air at Gnal.

"I'll need your travel pass, please." It took Gnal a moment to locate it. She kept her credentials on her at all times, it was simply a matter of remembering which phantasmal pocket it was in. Hesitantly, she surrendered her travel pass card to her awaiting supervisor. The harsh snap of the hole punch shot up Gnal's lack of a spine like lightning. She opened and closed several mouths in shock.

"I really can't portal?"

"For two months," Scalpel confirmed.

"But that's…" Gnal's mind raced through a series of quick calculations.

"Sixteen years!" Jeht and the goblin traded equally concerned looks. Scalpel added it to his notes.

"Are you sure you're feeling alright?" Jeht asked.

"I can't be out of commission that long! I need to go back as soon as possible." Sixteen years was too long. While it was possible for humans to live beyond a century, Gemma didn't have that sort of time to spare. Gnal's true concern was for Mop, however. A goblin's life span was the equivalent of twenty human years. She'd already be gone by the time Gnal regained her ability to portal. Scalpel cleared his throat.

"If you'd come with me, please, we'll get your release papers all sorted out." Gnal's incorporeal body felt as if it'd been filled with stones. She sank low to the ground.

"I want to collect some of my things first."

"No, Gnal." Naturally, the one time her supervisor got her name right, it was for a telling-off. Jeht tossed Gnal's travel pass amidst the papers on the floor and said, "Go home and get some rest. You can come back to collect your things tomorrow. I can't have a freshly summoned employee wandering the halls. It's against The Rules." Reluctantly, Gnal followed Scalpel to the medical ward. Her time there passed in a muddled blur. She was evaluated, declared fit for release, and then sent on her way.

She tried to portal home out of habit but nothing happened. No spark of magic, no open doorway of dimensional darkness, just nothing. Empty, heavy nothingness. Gnal declined a ride home, deciding an aimless drift was a better fit for her worsening mood anyway. It was still dark by the time she arrived at her dome-shaped unit, with its polished pike fence, privacy moat, and rows upon rows of carnivorous tulips. Gnal sighed. Thirty-nine days, ten hours, and eight minutes had already passed on Earth.

Mop would know something had gone wrong by now. Tears leaked from several hundred eyes. Gnal drifted inside. She spent the rest of the night counting the minutes as they slowly ticked past, waiting for dawn and her chance to make everything right again.