The Second Gate
The Second Gate looked exactly like the First. Same arch of moss-encrusted metal. Same curling ivy gripping the pillars like desperate hands. Same ominous aura that watched them pass beneath.
“This can’t be the same one,” Edward muttered, kicking at the wet leaves as they ventured deeper into the woods. “We went in a straight line. Didn’t we?”
Harry pressed a finger to his lips, scanning the trees. The forest had gone silent again. Every breath came with the taste of iron and rain, though no rain had fallen. The pines seemed to crowd closer, their trunks like ribs in a vast, breathing chest.
Suddenly, the forest wasn’t silent. It breathed, almost, and all at once. The sound of insects, the rustle of small creatures under brush, and the hum of the night had faded into a single low exhale, like something vast was sleeping beneath the soil.
Then, there was a flutter. Too heavy for a bird.
Harry lifted his gun. “Did your ghost friend mention that demon being winged, by chance?”
“She did,” Clara said quietly.
“Do guns work on ’em?” Harry asked, scanning the canopy.
“I don’t know,” she admitted as Edward drew close, lifting his lantern higher as he scanned the mess of branches and leaves. Behind them, Walter skittered frantically, turning about as he looked for any sign of the creature stalking them.
Another flutter. Closer now. The lantern in Edward’s hand flickered violently, a brief flare of gold before it plunged them into black. Fortunately, Walter still illuminated the space behind them, but the trio was immersed in near-darkness.
“Shit,” Edward muttered, smacking the glass. “Hang on… Almost got it…”
When the light came back, it was just in time to see movement between the trees. Something tall, wrong in shape. A glint of eyes, amber and notable in the lanternlight.
Edward released a scream, shrill and uneasy, as the creature darted out of sight. Before he could collect his wits, fog rolled in, and his hand slipped off his sister’s arm.
The fog came fast. Too fast, pouring between the trunks like a living tide. Edward shouted for his sister, but the sound warped, as though muffled underwater. The air bent light strangely; shadows stretched and snapped. In the confusion, the group lost sight of each other.
***
“Harry?” Edward’s voice rang out, but it came back to him twice, bouncing off thickets of trees in two different directions. “Lari? Where are you?“
He turned in a slow circle, swaying the lantern in his hand. Every direction looked identical, and each was equally silent and still. It was so quiet, in fact, that his own breathing sounded wrong in his ears. Too shallow. Too loud. Threatened to be drowned out by his own quickening pulse.
He stumbled over a root and swore. “Okay, okay, think, Eddy. Think.”
A whisper answered.
He froze.
“Who’s there? Clara?”
No answer. But then, there was another whisper, this time right behind him. He spun around, but no one stood there. There was only fog, curling in lazy tendrils. A chill crept down his spine as he ripped his eyes from tree to tree, searching for the source of the sound.
The whisper came again, closer now – his name, drawn out and wet, like breath through blood. “Edward.“
He ran.
Branches whipped his face and tore at his coat. He kept shouting, but his own voice only mocked him, bouncing off unseen walls until he wasn’t sure what direction was forward. He tripped, fell into the muck, and the lantern shattered and went out.
Darkness. Absolute darkness.
And beneath it, the steady crunch of something large walking nearby. Not running. Walking.
Hunting.
Heart pounding, he started crawling along the ground, abandoning his broken lantern as he inched onward.
***
Harry and Clara crouched low, back to back, guns drawn. The fog made halos around their breath, but they could barely see them in the wan moonlight.
“You still think this was a good idea?” Harry murmured.
“I never said it was a good idea,” Clara whispered. “Just necessary.”
Despite the tense situation, Harry found himself grinning. She was made of steel, he thought, strong but able to bend as needed. There was nobody else in their group he’d feel truly safe with.
A branch snapped somewhere to their left. Then another.
Clara’s eyes went wide. “Hear that?”
“Stay quiet,” Harry said as he lifted his gun so he could fire quickly if needed. She must have been scared, because her back pressed against his, a flood of warmth against the cool night air.
For a few moments, they stood frozen, the woods creaking around them. Then, from deeper in the mist, came a sound like tearing canvas and the low, guttural scrape of something exhaling. It was slow and visceral, a sound that shook the pair to their core.
Clara’s stomach lurched as a smell permeated the air. It was metallic, fetid, almost like how she’d expect a slaughterhouse to smell.
She could feel it now. Something was watching, and it was patient.
“Harry…” she whispered.
He tightened his grip on the gun. “I know, Claire. I know. Don’t you dare turn your back to the woods. Stay with me.”
Suddenly, a shape loomed before Harry, and he gasped. It was too broad, too tall, the color of night itself. Its skin caught a shimmer of moonlight for a moment, glimmering purple-black like oil on water. Scowling, Harry fired his revolver. One, two, three.
Then it was gone.
Harry cursed under his breath. “We need to move. I didn’t see it go down.”
“Not yet,” Clara said, staring into the dark. “It’s testing us.”
“What?”
“It’s circling, Harry. Don’t you hear it?”
His breath caught as he scanned the woods. Then he spotted two pinpoints of faint, orangeish light hovering in the fog. Eyes. Watching.
Then, as suddenly as it came, the presence receded, leaving only silence and the distant crackle of thunder.
He breathed a sigh of relief and moved to reload his revolver. After a few more seconds of silence, he felt safe enough to turn to face Clara. “We’d better go find your brother. I hope he and Walter managed to stay together.”
***
Unbeknownst to Harry and Clara, the others didn’t find each other. Walter was wandering through the woods, his heart pounding. He hadn’t risked shouting to try to find the others. Better to conserve his lanternlight and his sanity. When he realized he’d lost his friends, he stopped and took a long, steadying breath.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Fine. Let them wander off. I’ll save the day myself. Maybe the real treasure will be the glory of recognition. Fame.”
The fog licked at his boots with every step, cold and damp. His lantern light stretched long shadows across the ground, resting tight in his hands as he continued along what might not have even been a real path. His mind was already churning with calculations… Perhaps there was gold and other treasures buried beneath these cursed woods, lost beneath the remains of a long-gone asylum. Perhaps entire salaries were lost in its depths. And beyond that, once Harry found that missing Iron Clad Manufacturing fortune, he’d be sitting pretty.
As he made his way through fallen leaves, Walter found himself smiling. Back when Emma died, he’d weighed what to do about her children. They risked straining the circus’s resources, but both were eager to get to work. Clara had naturally settled into her mother’s old job, and being young and charming, she was an easy moneymaker. Edward… Well, he was a drunk, but he made a damn fine firebreather.
And now that the twins were leading him toward a cushier life, he was especially reassured by his decision to keep them around. They’d paid off.
Something crunched behind him.
He turned, lifting his lantern as he squinted and tried to peer through the fog.
“Hello?” he called, his voice echoing strange and thin.
Another crunch. Then another.
He swung the lantern around, heart pounding violently against his breast. His breathing was frantic as he searched for the source of the sound. Then, he froze.
Before him stood a creature, halfway visible through the fog. Seven feet tall, maybe more. Muscles rippled down its arms, skin slick and dark as plum wine. Leathery wings folded beneath them. The horns curled elegantly from its head like polished bone, and its eyes… Its eyes burned orange, twin lanterns in the mist.
Walter stumbled backward. “Stay… stay back, you hear me? I’ll shoot!”
But he didn’t have a gun. As the creature – the demon – tilted its head, it seemed very much aware of that.
The demon smiled, a wet stretch of flesh that showed rows upon rows of needle-sharp teeth. Its wings unfurled, stretching down and dragging across the ground with a leathery rasp, the bony tips cutting deep grooves into the soil.
It took one lurching step forward.
Walter turned to run.
The creature moved faster. Maybe flew.
A blur of motion – a shriek like metal shearing across a rusted train track – and Walter went down screaming. The lantern fell, light spinning crazily across the trees as claws sank into his chest. He threw his head back and cried out in pain and terror. The creature leaned close, breathing in his fright, savoring it, before tearing him open from shoulder to hip in one graceful motion.
The light flickered on as it leaned into its victim to feed, sending spatters of blood against the leaf-covered ground.
***
A distant scream knifed through the forest, then cut off sharply.
Harry’s jaw tightened. “Did that sound like Walter?”
Clara swallowed hard. After the initial scream, she heard pained cries echoing, but something about them felt… Ethereal. Not earthly. She finally nodded. “He’s gone. I can feel him.”
Harry wanted to argue, to deny it, but he could tell she was right. There was a concerned look in her eyes and a tightness in her shoulders. She curled into him, wrapping her arms around Harry as she sobbed, ever so softly. He hushed her and stroked her hair, scanning the forest for signs of the beast.
Finally, she pulled away, her eyes wide as she whispered, “I know we want to stop them from releasing this thing, but we need to find Eddy. If he was with Walter, he’s out there alone now.”
He nodded, hooking her arm with his as he lifted his gun again. As they walked, the fog began to shift again, curling backward through the trees as though sucked toward something unseen. The air grew hotter. The smell of blood and sulfur slowly filled the forest and their noses, replacing the earthy stench of freshly stirred dirt.
Clara clutched her gun tightly. “It’s here.”
“Run,” he whispered, shooting a concerned look at her heels before they took off. They crashed through the brush, chased by the sound of wings as Harry spun around and fired at random.
On his third shot, he finally wounded the beast, as it cried out in pain and crashed. When it hit the ground, the fog fully subsided.
Harry and Clara didn’t stop running. They ran further until – finally – Clara smashed into her brother. The twins fell against the ground, grumbling as they sat up. When their eyes locked, they lit up and embraced.
Harry knelt beside them. “Edward! You okay?”
“Chipper as can be,” he said, rubbing his head. “Lost my lantern. You guys lost Walter?”
“It got him,” Clara whispered, her jaw tight and eyes wide.
“Oh.” Edward fished out his cigarettes and offered one to his sister. They lit them and puffed for a moment before he asked, “Why were you running?”
Harry nodded his head over his shoulder as he finished reloading his gun. “I downed it, finally shot it. Unfortunately, I’ve got six in the revolver now, but only six left on my belt. Claire, you bring backup ammunition?”
“No,” she said remorsefully. “I didn’t think I’d need it.”
He pursed his lips as he shifted his weight. “Damn. Well, we know this thing is dangerous. I guess we’d better keep looking for James and his friends… We can’t let it get out of the woods.”