All things considered, there were worse places in the universe to call home.
The phone rang. It was Sharon.
“Greg wants to meet you. Tomorrow night.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Diana and her monsters pulled up to the estate. There was something off about it. It wasn’t only that it was a huge plot of land, bigger than most neighborhoods. The entire place shimmered like a heat mirage. Like her apartment, this place had become disconnected from the rest of reality. It was an island tethered to her world, a waypoint before greater mysteries beyond.
Vom’s fur bristled as he turned a sicklier shade of green. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Oh, God,” said Diana. “Don’t do it in the car.”
Vom stuck his head out the passenger-side window and vomited a gazelle, twenty-two pounds of gravel, and a bar stool. The bewildered gazelle stumbled to its hooves and dashed away.
Spawns jumped off Smorgaz’s back like popcorn. They even made popping noises when they did so.
Zap blasted a hole in her roof before shutting his all-seeing eye.
“Sorry.”
Pogo buried his head under his paws and tucked his tail between his legs.
“What the heck is wrong with you guys?” she asked.
“It’s this place,” said Zap. “It’s throwing everything out of whack. I don’t think we can go in there with you.” Cosmic lightning flashed under his eyelid.
“Are you sure?”
Vom regurgitated half a shark and some slightly chewed office furniture. Smorgaz’s spawn were rapidly filling up the backseat.
“Get out then,” she said. “Especially you, Vom. Before you throw up acid or something.”
The creatures exited the vehicle.
“Maybe you should reconsider this,” said Vom, who then vomited up a misshapen limb that flailed at the air with its claws before he managed to gulp it back down.
“Agreed,” said Smorgaz. “I don’t like the idea of you walking into Fenris’s lair without any backup.”
Diana said, “It’s not a lair. It’s a house. And I don’t need backup. This isn’t a commando mission.”
“Still seems a touch reckless,” said Vom.
“Safety in numbers.
Pogo rolled over on his back and whimpered.
“I don’t like it either,” she said, “but maybe it’s better this way. How would it look if I show up with you guys behind me like some private army of the damned? It’d be too confrontational.”
“But aren’t you being confrontational?” asked Vom.
“I’m not really sure what I’m doing,” she admitted, “but from what I’ve glimpsed Fenris is unstoppable. Even you couldn’t really do anything against him other than maybe annoy him.”
Zap bobbed. “It’s true.”
“Well, if there’s nothing to be done about this, then why bother going at all?” asked Vom.
She’d asked herself the same question. Several times. The only answer she could come up with was that she had to do something. If her only two choices were hiding from the inevitable or facing it head-on, she had decided the latter was preferable, if only because it gave her the illusion of controlling her own destiny.
“I know I’m your lifeline,” she said, “but you don’t have to worry. Everything will be fine, and you won’t get stuck in the closet again.” It surprised her how certain she sounded when she couldn’t be sure of anything.
“Closet? Is that what you think this is about to me?” Vom shook his head. “Do you think I really give a damn if I’m locked away for a few hundred years waiting for the next witless sap to inherit me? I’m ageless. I could wait a million years in that closet. It’d be a little boring, but I’ve been bored before.
“No, we like you, Diana. We don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
Smorgaz and Zap echoed the sentiment. Pogo wagged his spiky, whiplike tail.
She smiled despite herself.
“I like you too. Hell, you guys just might be the best friends I’ve ever had. But this is my reality, my fight.”
They started a new round of protests.
“No arguments,” she said. “I’m in charge here, right? That means we do things my way. If it makes you feel any better, I give Zap permission to keep watch over me via that all-seeing eye of his.”
“I can’t see in there,” said Zap. “There’s interference in the space-time continuum, a fifth-dimensional collapse along the polyfractal axis that’s condensing all possible futures into a single unobservable waveform.”
“What does that mean? You can’t see anything?” asked Diana.
“Oh, I can see.” Zap rose in the air, waved his tentacles. “I can see into realmsyond imagination. I just can’t see much into this one.”
“Does that mean it’s all done? That the future is over?”
“All it really means is that someone has shoved Schrodinger’s cat into a box and nailed it shut until this thing is all over. Whether that means your world is over or not… honestly, I can’t say. But considering the situation, I wouldn’t lay odds on anything positive. When you get down to it, reality is a stack of potentialities, some more potential than others. But when chaos becomes certainty, then that certainty is usually oblivion.”
“Right then,” she said. “I’m going in. Wish me luck.”
They did. Except for Vom who was busy regurgitating a bus.
She pulled away, taking one last glance at the extradimensional refugees in her rearview mirror. She wondered at the wisdom of driving willingly into a place where immortal horrors feared to tread, but she’d come this far.
The unattended manor gates opened for her. She knew they were probably on an automated system or operated by a security guard via a remote switch, but it was mysterious and otherworldly just the same. A wave of heat and cold hit her as she drove onto the property. The gates closed behind her, and there was a twinge above her right eye. The heat vanished. The cold remained.
It’d been noon on the outside, but on this side of the gate twilight was falling. The full moon spread a bright blue light across the sky. Fenris glistened like a moist emerald.
The lush forest surrounding the road was a strange mix of traditional greenery and odd plants she didn’t recognize. Things lurked in the shadows. Instinct told her they were nothing to fear. Just insubstantial shades caught between realities.
Eventually she reached the big house at the center of this. Sharon sat on the front porch, waiting for Diana.
That twinge above Diana’s eye spread to her entire scalp.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I got hung up.”
They shook hands. It was an awkward gesture between them. There was something about this place, something that labeled Diana an outsider at best, an intruder at worst.
Sharon led Diana into the house. They passed through the entryway, down a hall, and into a dining room, where Greg was having something to eat.
“Ah, good to see you again, Diana.” He didn’t sound sincere.
He offered her something. She turned it down. Since she had entered the estate her appetite had faded for the first time in a long while. It might have been a welcome feeling, if not for the weird tingles and pricks across her skin at the moment.
“Thank you for seeing me,” she said.
“Oh, no need to thank me. Sharon has been very important to our cause. She made quite a case for you.”
“Diana has concerns,” said Sharon. “I was hoping you’d be able to help her with those.”
Greg smiled as he spread some pâté on a cracker. “Concerns are only natural. You’re only human, after all, right?”