Page 43 of Dark Stars
"Music?" His hand dropped in the process oftaking the small, black box Alejo had held out. Ice ran down hisspine. "What kind of music?"
"I— It was really faint, like I said.Thought I was imagining it—"
"What kind!" Bobby said urgently.
"A flute, I think?"
Bobby was going to throw up. "We need togo." He didn't wait for Alejo's reply, simply wrapped arms aroundhim and took them back to his house.
Where he stumbled over to the bed anddropped heavily, sick and cold andterrified.
Alejo sat next to him, still clutching theblack box. "What's wrong? I've never seen you look scared. Granted,I haven't known you long, but my impression is that you primordialtypes don't really know what fear is."
Laughing despite himself, Bobby said,"You're not wrong. It takes a lot to scare me."
"So what has?" Alejo asked quietly.
"The Deep Dark," Bobby said, raking a handthrough his hair. "Be grateful you could barely hear it, that thestrains of a flute were not clearer—and that there were no drums.'The muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thinmonotonous whine of accursed flutes'. The sounds of a place nomind can conceive, where Sleeping Chaos feeds on the dead ends oftime and space." He drew a deep breath and let it out on a shudderysigh. "My quadrice-great grandfather, Azathoth, Primordial Demiurgeand Lord of All."
Alejo was silent a moment before saying,"That sounds ominous."
Bobby gave a cracked laugh. "It's a lot morethan ominous. They shouldn't be involved in any of this. It's likea blue whale playing with a marble. Why would they need the powerthat comes from my worshippers? It makes no sense."
Movement drew his attention, and he lookedup to see Harold and Jones filling the doorway. Jones quirked abrow. "You look like an ordinary human who saw a ghost."
"Is that how it feels? Huh. I don't likeit." Bobby quickly explained all that had transpired, and by theend of it, Harold and Jones looked as miserable as him.
"I need those files you showed me when thiswhole mess began," Bobby said. "The one with the bad rune workespecially."
"Take me to my house, I'll grab'em."
Bobby nodded, kissed Alejo, then rose andtook Harold's arm.
They appeared in front of his house, andBobby greeted the cats while he waited for Harold to grab thefiles.
Back at his home minutes later, he took thefiles and spread them out, frowning as he read them in a new light.It didn't take long, but he felt a million years older as hefinished. "I'm a fool. A careless, arrogant fool. It was right infront of me the wholefuckingtime."
"What?" Alejo asked, holding out a cup ofcoffee that Bobby took gratefully.
He waved a hand at the files. "Mysterious,laughably bad runes; above them sticks dangling; bodies buried inthe middle of the circle. A woman and, more significantly, her catgo missing under strange circumstances. Animals sucked dry, as ifby a thousand tiny mouths."
Jones frowned. "But you'd know if there weredark workings in your territory."
"Not if that dark working was broken up intotiny, innocuous pieces. Like half the runes drawn in the ground,little more than gibberish, the other half drawn in the air, stickshanging from trees, but from the right angle on the right plane,come together to form…" He sketched quickly in the air, runeswritten in yellow-green light, stopping before he finished thecircle. "Part of a casting to siphon power, taken from oneprimordial and given to another. This is only part of the wholecasting, though. You said you got them all, right? There shouldhave been thirteen in total."
"Yeah, we found and destroyed thirteen allright. I bet if I mapped them they'd form a pattern. Never botheredto look at that, didn't matter as we thought the arcana was bogusnonsense. Shit." Harold scrubbed his hands over his face. "We'reall fucking idiots."
"Goddammit," Jones said, sitting downheavily in one of the chairs. "What does the cat have to do withall this? I know they're powerful in their own right, but in all myyears, I never learned the finer points."
"Cats are…residuals. When you build ahouse—nailing, sawing, painting, whatever—there's sawdust, andpaint splatters, bent nails that had to be discarded. Residuals.Most of them get cleaned up and thrown out, no sign remaining. Butthere's always a speck of dust, a tiny drop of paint… that's cats.They're the residuals of the building of the universe. The sawdustof dark stars, the paint splatters of birthed suns. They can seeacross planes when they are so inclined. Some are more powerfulthan others. The very oldest cats are older than me, and theirchildren, while less powerful than those original, always have somemeasure of power. Easily exploitable power, to fuel secretworkings."
"Someone killed a cat to fuel arcana?"
"Probably just drained its primordialessence, leaving it feeling as ordinary as people think it is. Thecat won't care. It can get the power back if it feels like it. Butthat would be significant power to the spell. The drained animalswere for blood to cast the lines to connect the various runecircles. And at their center, the altar I destroyed. Shit, shit,shit."
Alejo stared at them, eyes wide, and shookhis head. "What does all of thismean? Why is he siphoningyour power? What will happen because of the altar being broken? Idon't understand what's going on at all."
Bobby pulled Alejo down to sit on his lapand kissed him softly. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to leave youconfused and all. Just overwhelmed and panicky. Imagine you learnthat your neighbor has been stealing your electricity. Not a bigdeal, you can afford it, but the point is it’s yours and theydidn't ask or anything. So you severed the connection, and now yourneighbor doesn't have the electricity or internet or anything elsehe had because of the theft. Now imagine that neighbor is angry,violent, unpredictable, and thinks you're no more significant thana grain of sand is to a blue whale."
