Sigil
The trees at the edge of the woods loomed black against the molten gold of sunset. The last of the day clung stubbornly to the horizon, staining the sky like dying embers, while the shadows beneath the branches were already deepening into something inkier and hungrier. The air smelled of wet earth and old leaves as the group gazed into a forest that had nearly swallowed them whole just days before.
A few of their friends were still in there.
Harry killed the car’s engine, and the sudden silence felt enormous. Ruth’s gloved hands twisted in her lap as she sat beside Edward in the rumble seat, staring into the forest with trepidation.
Inside the vehicle, Clara sat very still beside Harry, her notebook balanced in her lap. She’d spent the entire drive tracing her fingers over the sigil beneath her bandage, feeling its pulse growing quicker with every mile they covered.
When the engine finally cooled and went quiet, she exhaled, opened the door, and stepped out.
They stood together at the forest’s edge – four small figures before the great dark wall of trees. The air was cooler here, alive with the smell of petrichor, like a storm had just passed or was about to.
Harry adjusted his lantern, its orange glow casting long shadows across his face. “Once we’re inside, we stick close. No heroics. No splitting up. If this thing comes for us, we shoot, keep it down as long as possible. Ruth, you throw a salt circle around us. With any luck, we’ll make it through.”
Ruth nodded faintly, hugging her coat tighter. Edward just muttered, “understood,” and took a long drag of his cigarette before flicking it into the grass.
Clara glanced at Harry. “If this goes right, there won’t be any running away,” she said softly. “We’ll have to stand our ground and see this through.”
He looked at her for a long moment – that same searching, disbelieving look he’d given her ever since they left Eloise’s parlor – then gave a tight nod. “Let’s hope you’re right, Claire.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds, and the weight of things unsaid hung in the air between them. They each knew the other’s face was etched with worry and fear, but neither was quite willing to be vulnerable in this moment. With a deep exhale, Clara turned away, taking with her the chance to manifest those things unsaid.
With that, they started into the woods.
Feet scraped across dirt and fallen leaves, and high above the rustle of footfall, birds and insects sang in the twilight. While the first trip into the forest had felt instantly foreboding, this one started off peaceful.
That changed, of course, as they moved deeper into the forest. The closer they came to the First Gate, the more distant that birdsong felt. Then, it was silent, unnatural and heavy. The trees were tall and close-packed, closing in on the group like judgmental witnesses. Like they could sense the half-baked plot the ragtag group was hoping to see through. Eventually, as the silence crept closer, the faint crunch of leaves beneath their shoes began to sound painfully loud.
Clara led the way, lantern in one hand, notebook in the other. Belladonna tincture in her handbag. Every so often, she would pause, tilting her head slightly as though listening to something distant – something none of the others could hear.
At first, she thought it was her imagination. Then, as the First Gate came into view again, the whispers grew clear.
They were faint as breath – women’s voices, overlapping and indistinct, a dozen at once, then none. She recognized one: Tabitha’s clear tone threading through the rest.
Here, Clara.
You need to be beyond the First Gate.
She stopped, staring at the Gate with a tight jaw.
“Lari?” Edward whispered. “You see something?”
“No,” she said. “But I hear them.”
Ruth shuddered. Harry’s grip on the lantern tightened, along with the tension of disapproval in his jaw.
The whispering grew louder as they moved through the Gate – first in fragments of words, then phrases, then full sentences that rose and fell like wind through tall grass. Clara paused, listening to the voices, then spotted an old game trail carving through the underbrush. Without a moment of hesitation, she followed it. The voices hummed with approval. Then, the trees thinned, revealing a clearing scattered with blackened stones.
The remnants of the old asylum.
Clara’s pulse quickened. “Here. This is where we’ll do it.”
***
The group formed a circle in the clearing while the last orange threads of daylight illuminated rust-hued treetops. The ruins were skeletal, just fragments of walls clawing up from the earth, surrounded by architectural remnants like rusted pipes and old ceiling tile pieces.
Clara knelt in the center, setting her notebook on the mossy ground. Her hand shook as she opened to the page where the symbols from the séance were scrawled. The paper was stiff with her own dried blood.
From her purse, she drew a small tin vial – the belladonna tincture she’d secured that morning, its contents black and faintly oily.
Harry noticed it first. “What’s that?”
She met his eyes steadily. “Assurance.”
He moved toward her immediately and swiped at it. He scowled when she pulled it out of reach. “No. Absolutely not. You’re not drinking poison.”
“It’s the only way to cross over,” she said firmly. “Eloise said I’d have to borrow death. I’d love to just go the easy route and shoot myself or something, but that sounds a bit more physically permanent than I’d like.”
Ruth’s hands flew to her mouth, dropping the salt she was spreading around them in a massive circle. Edward swore under his breath.
Harry crouched beside her, his voice harsh. “I told you, Claire, I’m getting you out of these woods if it’s the last thing I do. And I didn’t mean dead or alive. I very much meant alive.”
“I’ll slow myself down,” she told him. “That’s all. My pulse, my breathing. It’ll look like death, but it won’t hold. When I go catatonic, I’ll step into the other side. I’ll find the mediums who built the Gates and unleashed that monster. They’ll tell me how to anchor it again. Then, they’ll help me come back.”
“But you don’t know any of that for sure.”
She smiled faintly, though her eyes were glassy in the waning light. “No, I suppose I don’t. But I believe. I trust. Wonder guides, not fear, remember?”
Something in her tone silenced him. After a long moment, Harry sat back on his heels, jaw clenched. “Then I won’t leave your side.”
“Good,” she said, reaching out to cup his face. “I don’t want you to.”
The pair, silent and wide-eyed, leaned close to exchange a kiss. It was brief, but just long enough for Edward to gag and drop a colorful, “Oh, for cryin’ out loud!”
Clara grinned over her shoulder at her brother, then smiled at Harry for a heartwrenching moment. With that, she drew her pocketknife from her purse and, very carefully, reopened the edge of the scabbed sigil on her arm. Blood welled fresh and bright. Using her fingertip, she smeared it across the page, tracing the sacred geometry Dr. Hensley had used her hand to draw – the seven looping circles, the eye-like symbol at the center.
As the last line met the first, the earth trembled faintly beneath them. Ruth steadied herself against the remains of a wall, yelping helplessly as her heels threatened to throw off her balance.
Edward stumbled back when the ground stabilized. “What the hell was that?”
“The ritual is working, Eddy,” Clara said. “The magic is doing what it should. It just needs a sacrifice, but we need the creature here before that can happen.”
Her eyes lifted to the sky as the last hints of daylight continued to fade. She didn’t have to say that the creature would be able to travel soon.
As if the magic was reacting to her thought, the lanterns flickered, then steadied. Before Clara could comment, her arm burned, and she winced as she looked down at it.
The sigil carved into her flesh was glowing again. As she gazed at it, the light expanded, so bright that it illuminated the clearing in a pale red.
Ruth gasped. “I can see it this time.”
Harry’s face was taut with awe and fear. “Me, too.”
Clara lifted her gaze skyward again. The air had changed – thicker, electric. The smell of sulfur rolled through the clearing, prickling her skin.
Then the forest went utterly still.
The wind died, causing the treetops to freeze. Even their own breathing seemed muffled beneath the weight of the silence. Somewhere in the distance, a shriek ripped through the night – inhuman, furious, echoing across the valley.
Ruth flinched and clutched Edward’s arm. “Oh, God –”
Clara straightened slowly, her pulse thrumming. “It senses us. Now, we wait.”
***
Harry readied his revolver with shaking hands, the sound of the chamber clicking sharp in the stillness. Edward followed suit with Clara’s smaller pistol, knuckles white against the grip.
It was finally dark, but again, something in the atmosphere felt different. Clara couldn’t explain it, but she could tell the creature was drawing near.
She uncorked the vial. The scent of belladonna was faintly sweet, almost floral – deceptively harmless.
She looked up at Harry one last time.
“When I stop breathing,” she whispered, “Count to one hundred before you do anything. I’ll be back. I promise.”
Harry worked his throat. “Claire…”
“Please,” she said. “Trust me.”
For a long moment, no one spoke. Then he nodded once. Edward stepped forward and dropped to his knees beside his sister, drawing her into a tight embrace.
“I love you, Lari. We’ll hold our ground until you’re back.”
“I love you, too, Eddy.”
When he stepped back, Clara tilted her head. The creature was in the forest now, she was sure. She lifted the vial to her lips and swallowed. The taste was bitter, numbing her tongue.
The world tilted slightly.
Her heartbeat slowed, each pulse stretching longer than the last.
She laid down hard on the cold earth, notebook open before her, hands trembling as she reached out to touch the bloody sigil. The voices were louder now – not just whispers, but a chorus, urgent and familiar.
We are here, Clara. You lifted the veil. Now step through.
She inhaled once. Twice. Her vision swam.
The forest wavered. The lamps blurred into streaks of orange light. Harry’s voice reached her as if from underwater. “Clara? Claire, look at me –”
Behind him, massive wings stretched above the clearing. He spun, lifting his gun with a guttural yell. Edward pushed Ruth behind him, lifting his sister’s pistol as an explosion of bright orange burst from it in slow motion.
Then everything stopped. Clara’s last breath escaped her lips in a soft sigh, and she went utterly still.
The lanterns dimmed. The sigil on her arm flared like a dying star.
***
Clara’s body fell away like a dress slipping from its hanger. She couldn’t explain it, exactly, but she was suddenly weightless and severed from her physicality.
For a moment, there was nothing – no breath, no pain, no weight. Then the world reassembled itself in pieces. First, there was fog. Thick. Heavy, in a way that still felt weightless. Then came the trees, gray and endless, stripped of color and motion. The forest looked the same but wrong – faded, ghostly, as if drawn in graphite and left unfinished.
Clara blinked, realizing she was laying against the ground. The sensation was odd, though. There was a distinct lack of feeling. The ground wasn’t hard. It wasn’t cold. Hell, there was no sensation at all.
She sat up, propping herself against the ground, though she couldn’t feel its solidness beneath her outstretched palms. Slowly and carefully, she rose to her feet. When she moved, her footsteps made no sound. Every breath she took came back cold, though she couldn’t feel it, each exhale turning the air to frost.
She looked down at herself. Her hands glowed faintly, and the sigil on her arm burned brighter than ever, its light pulsing and highlighting the mist around her with red, the only color in the dim space. Simultaneously, it threw shadows across trees that bent in the wrong direction.
Then, graciously breaking the still silence, came the whispers.
They slithered between branches and roots, neither near nor far, words bleeding through the mist in a potent hiss.
Clara turned slowly, scanning the graphite forest curiously. Then, there was movement.
At first, they appeared as silhouettes – seven of them, all in varying states of transparency. When they drew nearer, she recognized their hospital gowns, the faint glint of the asylum’s brass identification tags still clinging to their wrists. Their eyes were hollowed silver pools. Their faces were blurred, like portraits half-erased by time.
Tabitha was among them, appearing clearer than the rest. Her dark hair floated as though caught in water.
“You’ve come far, Clara,” she said. Her voice echoed in layers, one tone human, one not. “But you must hurry. The binds are not quite complete yet.”
“How can I make that happen?” Clara asked, clutching her arm as the glowing sigil began to bleed. “That monster has already killed people, taken livestock. We need to bind it.”
Tabitha reached forward, her hand hovering just shy of Clara’s cheek. “The lattice still stands on this side. You must trace the sigils here as your body completes the circle there. The Gates must echo between worlds.”
As she spoke, the others began to murmur – low, sibilant words in a language older than anything Clara had ever heard. Lines of glowing light began forming around her feet, carving themselves into the dirt in perfect geometry. Circles, intersecting triangles, runes burning with dim red light that glowed in the same shade as her sigil.
Clara blinked as her notebook – the one smeared with her blood – appeared in her hand. When she opened it, the ink bled across the pages, symbols rearranging themselves in real time. Acting on instinct, she dropped to her knees and began copying the shapes into the soil, dragging her fingertips through gray dirt within the glowing lines that now encircled her. Her hand moved as though pulled by an unseen force, fast and sure.
Each completed sigil sent a tremor through the ground. The air hummed around her limbs, the only sensation this strange place provided. The mist thickened with the smell of iron and sulfur. In the distance, a shriek cut through the veil – long, piercing, and animal. The mediums turned toward it as one.
“It knows,” Tabitha whispered. “It can tell you’re binding it. It’s infuriated.”
Clara froze, lifting her chin so she could meet the medium’s gaze. “Then how do we stop it? We can’t kill it.”
“Wound it,” one of the mediums rasped, his form flickering like a dying candle. Clara rose as he spoke. “The heart beneath its ribs is not of this world. Lower right, in its abdomen. Strike there when it lunges for you. It will fall back, crawl away to heal.”
Tabitha tilted her head when the sigils Clara had carved into the dirt began to glow. “The seal is complete. The creature is once again bound to the forest.”
The mediums began to fade. Their forms blurred into the surrounding fog, their voices thinning. “It’s bound once again. It shall leave never again. The seal is complete.”
“Wait!” Clara lunged forward, catching only air when she swiped at the nearest figure. “How do I get back? Tell me how to return!”
There was no answer. The silhouettes retreated deeper into the gray.
Panic clawed up her throat. “Please!” she cried, her voice breaking as she dropped to her knees again. “Don’t leave me here! I did what you asked – I bled, I followed the symbols, I did everything –”
Her cries echoed back to her, warped and hollow.
Frustrated and realizing she was alone, she dropped her head into her hands and bawled.
It felt like hours, sitting there choking down tears. Then, from behind, came a soft, more tangible voice. “Clara.”
Her head perked up, her eyes wide. Rising slowly to ensure she remained upright, she spun around.
Through the mist came a woman, her presence warm where the others were cold. She wore a decades-old traveling coat and hat, her hair pinned up the way Clara remembered from childhood photographs. Her mother’s face was younger than she remembered, though – alive with the glow of someone who hadn’t yet known illness or loss.
“Mom,” Clara breathed, stepping forward, disbelief and longing choking her. “Is that really you?”
Emma Waterson smiled sadly, and color suddenly spread across her face. All around, the world ceased to be gray all at once. “It’s me, Lari. You’ve called so many times, but you couldn’t hear me. It’s good to finally speak with you.”
Tears blurred Clara’s vision. “You didn’t answer before, Mom.”
“I did,” Emma said softly. “But you were still listening with the wrong ears.” She took her daughter’s hand, and where their fingers met, the world shimmered. The cold bled away, warmth creeping up Clara’s arm. Her eyes widened as sensation once again returned to her limbs. “There’s so much I want to tell you… but there isn’t much time.”
Clara clutched her hand tightly. “Please, tell me how to go back. I can’t stay here – Eddy is facing a monster alone.”
“He’s not alone.” Emma’s eyes flicked toward the horizon, where the fog began to thin. “You came into this life tethered to another. Your brother is your anchor. His soul has always been bound to yours. Find him through the noise, and you’ll find your way home.”
“Help me find him?”
“Of course, darling. Let’s get you home. It’s not your time.”
As they walked, the mist began to ripple like disturbed water. Through it, Clara could see flashes of the living world – the woods around the Gates, fractured and distorted, like a film reel flickering in reverse.
Edward was there, firing her pistol into the darkness. The gun’s muzzle flash split the scene into jerking fragments: his pale face streaked with blood, his hair plastered to a forehead sparkling with sweat. Beside him, Harry was shouting something – inaudible, as the entire scene was silent. His eyes widened when a shadow fell over him.
The beast was colossal, half-shadow and half-matter. Its tall, spiraling horns gleamed like polished bone, twisting elegantly but still sharp as blades. When it stretched its wings wider, it eclipsed the lantern light, the air warping around it.
It lunged but didn’t cross the salt line. Scowling, Edward fell back to reload. Harry took his place, firing round after round that only staggered it, sending ripples through its muscles as its lips peeled back into a fierce smile.
Then, Clara saw herself – her body, lying limp at the center of the salt circle, blood dripping from her fingertips into the soil in a slow, rhythmic pulse. The sigil glowed bright as a star.
Her mother’s hand tightened around hers. “There,” she whispered. “Go to him. Go to your brother. Eddy will call you home.”
Clara’s throat tightened. “Will I see you again, Mom?”
Emma smiled, and the warmth in it felt like the life that teetered at Clara’s fingertips. “Maybe one day. For now, you’ll hear me. You just have to listen closely.”
Then she let go.
The warmth vanished, replaced by an unbearable cold. Clara staggered forward through the mist, reaching toward the faint shimmer of her body. The world rippled again, folding in on itself. She could feel the pull, the weight of the living world drawing her back like gravity.
“Eddy!” she screamed, her voice echoing across both realms. “Eddy, I need you! Please pull me back!”
His form, misty and distant, spun with wide eyes. His mouth formed her name, but she couldn’t hear him as she drew closer.
“Give me your hand, Eddy!”
Though he couldn’t see behind the veil, he thrust his hand forward. Clara reached for it. The weight of gravity pressed upon her shoulders all at once.
The air howled in response. The mist turned into a vortex, twisting around her as she crossed the veil between the worlds and stumbled closer to her body. Somewhere beyond the storm of sound, she thought she heard her brother shouting her name, ragged and terrified but alive and tangible.
She reached out one last time, this time for her body, her glowing arm cutting through the fog. The world split open in a blinding flash of light.
***
Life slammed back into her chest like a blow.
Clara gasped and jerked upright, a raw scream tearing from her throat. Her eyes flew open to a blur of flame and motion – the lantern light, the swirl of salt, the shapes of her friends frozen mid-battle. Then her body convulsed. She fell forward onto her hands, retching up a dark stream of bile and half-dissolved belladonna tincture that steamed in the cold air.
“Clara!”
Edward was there in an instant, sliding across the dirt to catch her shoulders. His hand steadied her as she coughed until her ribs ached, each breath dragging through her like broken glass.
Her eyes finally found him. For a moment, she thought she was still in the spirit world, that he was just another mirage, silver and flickering in the dim light. But his hand was warm, his voice trembling.
“I heard you,” he said hoarsely. “I heard you, Lari, calling for me! I felt you take my hand –”
Her lips parted, her eyes bright with a hundred unspoken words, but the world around them screamed before she could speak.
The demon came into her field of vision, a dark shadow blurring across the sky. It crashed through the trees just beyond the circle of salt, a blur of wings and smoke. Lantern light flickered off its slick purple-black hide as it reared, shrieking so loud the forest itself seemed to quake.
“We’ll talk later,” Clara rasped, reaching to snatch her gun from his hand. “I know how to hurt it.”
Edward blinked in disbelief. He stammered, trying to find the right words to respond to the situation. Clara scowled as she examined her gun.
“Applesauce,” she hissed, flipping open the pistol. Empty. She looked up sharply, reaching out a shaking hand. “Ammo, Eddy. Now.”
He obeyed before he could even think, shoving the cartridges into her palm with trembling fingers. “Here. Take them. God, Clara –”
She snapped the cylinder shut, rising on unsteady legs as Ruth stumbled toward them, sobbing quietly but as equally speechless as Edward. He caught her before she could interrupt Clara, pulling her to his side as his sister lurched forward.
Harry was still firing, his revolver glowing dull in the heat. The rounds sparked harmlessly off the creature’s skin, each shot punctuated by its inhuman roar.
“Harry!” she called out. Her voice cracked, but it carried to him despite the din. He turned just long enough to see her – pale, blood-smeared, eyes alight with life again. “Fall back and reload – I’ll cover you!”
He didn’t hesitate. He braced himself beside her, the two of them standing shoulder to shoulder as the beast drew back its wings. They were massive, featherless, scaled like a serpent’s hide and connected to its arms, looking half-sacred like the Egyptian goddesses that had gripped the nation upon Howard Carter’s discovery just a half decade before. Of course, there was nothing pure about its orange, glowing eyes and sharp, predatory teeth.
From the trees, it lunged, locking its eyes on Clara with particular hunger.
She waited until she saw the glint of its abdomen in the light – the slick stretch of dark flesh between ribs as it stood to survey her. Then she fired.
The shot cracked through the night like a thunderclap.
The bullet hit home, digging into the creature’s soft abdomen where its heart beat and pumped black, inky blood through its veins. The creature screamed, a sound as sharp as metal scraping against bone. It staggered backward, clutching at the wound, black blood gushing in streaks down its torso. With claws clasped over the wound, its wings beat once, twice, then folded inward as it dropped to its knees.
“Jesus,” Harry whispered, lowering his gun. “You actually hurt it.”
The demon thrashed, claws digging deep grooves in the soil as it began to drag itself into the cover of the trees. Black blood sizzled where it hit the ground, sending up wisps of smoke that smelled like burnt copper. As it vanished into the dark, it shot one last look at the group, orange eyes blazing in the shadows of the forest.
For a moment, the woods were silent except for the crackle of the dying lanterns and Clara’s ragged breathing.
Then Harry was at her side, his arms around her before she could react. “God, Claire, are you alright?”
She blinked up at him, her skin still cold and clammy. She forced a pained smile. “Yeah, I think so. I just didn’t expect it to hurt so bad coming back.”
He half-laughed, half-sobbed as he pulled her close, pressing his forehead to hers. “You scared the life out of me.”
“Only seems fair,” Clara responded before his lips met hers. For a moment, everything felt okay – the binding was in place, the demon had retreated, and she was alive.
But reality soon set in when, behind them, Ruth let out a shaky cry. When Clara pulled away from Harry and locked her eyes on her, she was staring at the line of black blood that led into the trees. “Did you kill it?”
Clara shook her head. “Unfortunately, it can’t die. But I did hurt it. Badly.”
Edward’s eyes darted between the trees and the salt circle, voice tight. “Great news and all, but… What the hell do we do now?”
Clara exhaled, letting the air slip through her lips with relief. “It can’t cross the salt, from what I saw. And it’s bound here again. I saw it… on the other side.”
Her brother frowned toward the horizon, where the treetops shimmered faintly under the sheen of starlight and a low-in-the-sky moon. “So our options are?”
“Stay here until sunrise,” she said, “Or try to make it to the cars before it circles back. It’s hurt, but it might be mad. Angry enough to attack.”
Edward glanced toward the faint game trail they’d followed earlier. “I mean, that path we took was pretty short. If we follow it, we can be out in fifteen minutes, maybe.”
Ruth’s voice trembled. “What if it comes after us?”
Harry cracked the knuckles on one hand apprehensively. “Well it’s a damn good thing it’s bleeding from the one spot where it’s vulnerable. Gives me an easy target to shoot at.”
A low wind stirred through the trees, rustling the leaves like the whisper of distant voices. In the distance, an unearthly cry tore through the air, pained and heavy with anger.
Harry reached down, checked his revolver, and nodded. “So… Head back then?”
The others exchanged a look before nodding. The four of them gathered what remained of their supplies – the lanterns, the salt container, and Clara’s bloodstained notebook – and stepped beyond the edge of the salt circle.
The forest ahead was thick and still, the air so heavy it felt like stepping into water. Behind them, the circle pulsed faintly with dying light, the remnants of Clara’s sigil-tainted blood against the ground.
***
The night pressed close around them, thick and wet with the smell of rot and gunpowder. Their lanterns swayed in trembling hands, casting weak gold halos that bled into the fog.
They walked single file, shoes sinking into the mossy path. Clara led, the sigil on her arm throbbing faintly beneath her bandage. It felt alive, pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat, then stuttering, as though something else had joined the rhythm beneath her skin. Absentmindedly, she scratched at it, annoyed at the lingering sensation.
“Almost there,” Edward whispered. “I remember that bend up ahead.”
Ruth’s voice was barely audible as she huffed. “You said that same thing about a tree five minutes back.”
“We’re on the right path, damn,” he muttered, forcing a grin when she glared at his tone.
Harry, trailing in the back of the line, rolled his eyes. “Quiet, both of you. Just keep walking.”
The forest ironically, also seemed to obey. There was no sound of crickets. No rustle of nocturnal wings. Only the soft crunch of shoes and the faint hiss of lanterns.
Then came a sound – faint, deliberate – like a wet branch snapping somewhere to their left.
They froze.
Clara’s stomach turned cold as she shot a look toward the back of the line. “Harry?”
“I heard it.” He lifted his revolver. “Keep the light steady, I don’t like the way the shadows are bouncing off the trees.”
Another sound tore through the silence – this time, the thwack of a taut branch falling back into place. Closer.
Ruth whimpered. “It’s following us.”
The fog thickened around them, swallowing the light until the trees looked like black pillars in a cathedral of smoke.
And then… nothing. Not a single sound.
The silence was so absolute it screamed.
Clara took one step, then another. “We need to move.”
The group set in motion behind her, creeping forward step by hasty step. Then, the forest exploded with noise.
The creature tore out of the trees, half-crawling, half-flying, its great wings dragging through the dirt. It was slick with its own black blood, steam rising off it like smoke from a forge. Its mouth opened – too wide, disturbingly inhuman – as it shrieked.
Harry fired first. One, two, three shots. The muzzle flashes lit the demon’s body in staccato bursts – the horns, the gleaming, bloodied ribs, the slick stomach sparkling in the lamplight.
“Go!” Harry yelled, shoving Ruth forward.
The creature lunged, temporarily airborne as its wings extended. With a cry, it plummeted, and a clawed hand caught Edward by the shoulder. He screamed as the demon dragged him backward into the fog.
“Eddy!” Clara spun, lifting her gun as her eyes followed the sound of her brother’s shrieks. The sigil on her arm blazed white-hot, and when she looked down at it, she saw that its glow chased the fog away. Not one to question it, she darted after her brother.
The fog parted, and then, there was the creature hunched over him, clawing across his arms as he kicked and punched in a desperate bid at self-defense.
Panicked, Clara locked her eyes on the demon’s torso, lifted her gun, and fired again.
The bullet struck home. The creature bellowed, rearing back, its claws releasing Edward just enough for Harry to dive in and grab him by the collar. They tumbled backward, Harry shouting hoarsely to run.
Ruth rushed to his side to help support Edward’s weight, but Clara scowled, took aim at the beast, and fired again. It screeched, a sound so sharp it physically pained them to hear. As it retreated, Clara took off after the others.
They stumbled through the trees, branches slapping their faces, the world reduced to the sound of breath and blood. Lanterns swung wildly, their light glinting off the black ichor that spattered the leaves and stained Edward’s shirt.
Behind them came the heavy, dragging pursuit – slower now, but close enough that they could feel the air shudder with each of its growls.
“Faster!” Clara gasped.
“I’m fuckin’ trying!” Edward wheezed, his hand pressed to the torn mess of his shoulder.
They finally burst from the path, locking their eyes on the First Gate’s ruins ahead, the thin arch of stone half-buried in moss before a trail that widened toward the road.
Clara turned just long enough to see the creature falter at the boundary, its claws digging into the earth. It hissed, low and furious, but didn’t cross.
The binding held. Against her better judgment, she threw her head back and laughed with relief.
Harry didn’t stop until they reached the car, parked crooked on the edge of the dirt road. He yanked the passenger door open, half-lifting Edward into the seat as Ruth supported his weight with a grunt.
Clara stumbled into the rumble seat, pale as the moon, the sigil still pulsing faintly beneath her sleeve. Ruth jumped in beside her as the engine roared to life.
Inside the vehicle, Harry slammed his foot on the gas. The tires spun in the dirt before catching, flinging mud as they shot down the narrow road.
In the rearview mirrors, the forest was a single dark mass – the shadows shifting, alive, furious. Clara turned her head to stare at it as the wind whipped her long hair all about her.
Ruth, above the din of the wind, shouted, “The nearest hospital is York – twenty minutes at most. Faster with Harry’s driving.”
Clara blinked as she stared toward the dark horizon. The stars had not yet faded, but she could sense that dawn was a few hours off.
It was finally over. Surrounded by the dust particles from the unpaved road and the sound of a rumbling engine, peace came in a cacophony of strange movement and noise.