Page 86 of Insidious Monsters
He’d recited our address.
The Holy knew where we lived.
* * *
AUGUST
The man stood by the cemetery gates. The same man the guild had rescued from Margie’s house, except the surviving mystics were dead. Killed when the van transporting them to the asylum crashed. Yet here he was, staring at me with his watery blue eyes and scratching his tatty dark beard.
This was all wrong. He was all wrong. “What are you?”
He sighed and raised his hands, running them over his head and down his face. His form rippled and expanded until he was taller and broader. Long golden hair fell to his shoulders and his eyes were no longer watery blue but a stunning sapphire.
“My name is Hawlee, your people call me Holy. It was not the name I chose and yet it was given to me. I need your help.”
“Help? You killed seven mystics, goodness knows how many human cultists,andyou tried to kill my best friend.”
“A necessary evil, August. I need power for my mission. The journey into this realm weakened me. I had to feed.”
The journey into this realm? The puzzle pieces clicked into place. “You’re from the eldritch realm.” The man Luphin was looking for. “How did you avoid detection? You left no residue.”
He sighed. “Only the inhabits of Fer’bidn leave a residue. I passed through the rift alongside a sorrowling.”
Sorrowling…that had to be the armadillo-sloth creature that had made me step off the tower ledge.
“I need power,” he continued, “and I need it now. You have enough to heal me.”
I took a step back. “Heal you?”
“I was wounded before I passed through the rift. I needed to heal. Your mystics had the power to heal me.”
“So you killed them.”
“A necessary sacrifice.”
“And you killed your human minions.”
His jaw ticked. “I did what I had to. The end will justify the means.” He cried out and doubled over, holding his abdomen. “I need your help. I need power.”
“Yeah, right. That isn’t happening. There is no way I’m letting you get your hands on Nandi.”
He shook his head and locked bright eyes with me. “When you touched me at the house, I knew…I knew I’d been looking in all the wrong places.” He straightened, shoulders heaving. “I don’t need Nandi, not when you have exactly the kind of power I need.”
He rushed through the gate and ran straight at me. The air fizzed and popped as if resisting him entering hallowed ground.
Whatever the reason, he couldn’t cross the boundary to the cemetery.
He made a sound of exasperation and closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were ringed in amber. “Your sacrifice won’t be in vain.” He held out his hands to me. “Come to me. Give me your power.”
I staggered forward a few steps before I could check myself. “What the fuck?”
He smiled almost indulgently. “You can’t resist me, August. My mind is stronger than yours.” His words echoed in my head. “I didn’t want to use this ability on you. It’s draining when used on the strong-willed. On a human mind, my voice becomes theirs.”
Is that how he’d recruited the nomads? “Stop it.” I gritted my teeth, resisting his command to walk forward, but ended up taking a step anyway.
I had no doubt that if he managed to get me past the barrier, I was lost. I didn’t have a weapon to fight with.
Telarion.
