Nafi's car was a rusty convertible that rattled when accelerating, but it got me out of the city. Gully Road used to be a tourist spot for people to come see the old radio and ranger station, and they tried preserving the ranger vibe by never paving the bloody road. Nafi's car spluttered up the once-mountain, lurching worryingly around tight bends overlooking sheer drop-offs.
I parked just before the last bend. And piled a few rocks behind each wheel. I ducked into the thick trees beside the road to approach the station. Bad news, the dirt parking lot had a dusty black van. Element-exposed stairs circling the tower's body twice, topped by a sun-greyed wood cabin.
I rushed the empty stretches to the base despite the stairs being empty. All with the ledger probably. I swallowed hard and started up. No problems with shooting me this time. Who would hear the gunshots?
I climbed the stairs, pausing with every squeak of the wood. Nothing from above. I dropped to all fours for the final flight, peeking into the cabin. Splinters burst beside my head as a shot punched into the wood. "Who's there?"
I smirked and got to my feet. "Just me."
The speaker was an angry-looking ruffian, his gun trained on my forehead. "Yeah and who are you and why were you crawling about?"
My shoulders lifted in a shrug. "New member. Boss sent me over."
The gun wavered, which I took as a sign to advance. "She wanted me to deliver a message." I could see eight others inside the cabin, lounging on folding chairs. The room was packed with dusty radio equipment. A scarred table in the centre had the remains of a poker game and a black-bound book.
"Hey, what's going on?" A lady thug came out, half her face covered in a nasty tattoo. There was also 'YOU' and 'FUCK' tattooed on her eyelids in that order, so I guessed she didn't think hard enough beforehand. Recognition flashed in her eyes. "What's a cop doing here?"
I snorted. "I'm a detective, idiot. And I'd like nothing more than to get paid, don't matter who. Came to warn you Barteal betrayed you guys and cops are coming to take the ledger. She needs you guys to torch the tower. I'll keep watch up here."
She squinted down at me. "You for real?"
"Would someone be stupid enough to come here and not be?"
That evidently confused her, but I didn't have to explain 'cuz a guy with binoculars called out. "Uhm, guys? The chick who just arrived, is she a fish? It's coming!"
A ruffian with a floppy toque shot to her feet. "Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit."
"Everyone get to the van," the one with the gun barked. He gestured at the nearest person (me) with the gun, demonstrating a frightening lack of muzzle control. "You. Grab the ledger."
"Not a chance." Ladythug blocked the exit. "We shoot her, that demon goes away."
"No one's being shot. Hemming don't like her pet detectives getting killed, or do you want to be thrown in the mulcher like Ricky?"
Ladythug conceded that point. "Well she sure as hell ain't riding with us."
"I have a car," I said, surprised at how well this was going.
Muzzle Control frowned at me. "Know what? Just torch the ledger before you leave." He looked like he doubted I'd get out. "Cthulhu will get summoned anyway. We just need to go." He swept the gun over his buddies. "GO!"
They swiftly vacated the ranger cabin, Ladythug and Binoculars giving me dirty looks on their way out. And I was left standing alone with the ledger. I blinked. "Holy shit that was perfect." I could hear the thugs tromping down the stairs, and something splitting trees in the distance. Hopefully I wouldn't have to worry about the latter.
The ledger was a normal enough notebook except it hummed with power and gave off faint red smoke that smelled like blood. Puckered up from the cover were the titles of the eldritch gods it could summon. "Can't leave it blank," I muttered, reading the six options. "Fuck."
The Monster, the Messenger, the Dreamer, the Decay, the Tide, and the Tempest. The last three were sunken in, which I guessed meant they were already summoned. Didn't really leave my options open. The Monster or the Messenger. Which did I want to fight? The Monster sounded straightforward but promised to be fucked up, while the Messenger called to some dark part of my mind. I gouged out the letters for the Dreamer and the Monster and tossed them out the window. Now the ledger would defer to the only god left: the Messenger.
I came out with the ledger in time to see the black van pull away towards the road. It almost escaped. Trees parted like grass beside the road and a force slammed into the van. Windows smashed and the van was hurled off the cliff. What looked like shimmering steam leapt after it, and an explosion ripped through the air.
I hesitated, wondering if the tower was safer.
The tower shuddered around me. I threw myself at the stairs, practically falling down them as fast as I could. Wood groaned. The tower leaned dangerously as a monstrous bulk ascended.
I slammed into a corner and nearly pitched over the edge. My stomach left where it was supposed to be, and I realized the tower was falling. Wood shattered overhead, and the ranger cabin sailed into the woods. I leapt off the flight, stumbling and rolling and tumbling down the stairs, bruises springing to life all over my body.
A force punched me in the gut, starting a great pounding in my head that sliced my thoughts to ribbons and flung me from the tower. Horrible weightlessness. I struck the ground and lay winded, body wreathed in pain. The tower crashed around me, and I curled in fetal position in the eye of the storm.
Keener pain in my side brought me back. I sought the source with a shaking hand. A wooden stake was plunged into the ledger and had just nicked me. It shuddered and I managed to toss the ledger away before it became a puddle of blood. I dragged myself into a sitting position against a stray beam. Wood dust burned my lungs and set my skin stinging. "Fu—" I broke off into coughing. My eyes were streaming tears, but I made out a something square growing larger as it—"FUCK!" I dove away as a beam buried itself in the ground where I'd been sitting.
I dropped to my belly, crawling under the rubble as shards traced angry red lines across my back. My loose sleeve caught on stray debris. Where was it? Could it hear me? Smell me? I tried to think. Every dead end made my heart crack a rib. The car. Get to it.
I popped up like a gopher, clambering onto a beam and running across them as best I could without snapping my ankles into more kindling. The sea of shattered tower ended soon, I just needed—An invisible arm flung me into the sky, then struck my back to slam me down into the mess of broken lumber.
I lay gasping.
Dimly, I heard an approaching siren. I twisted my aching neck in time to see a police car barrelling towards me. The tires skipped and caught on a crude wooden ramp, thrusting it airborne. The driver bailed. It crashed into the air above me and was caught there. Fire ripped through the cabin and momentarily enveloped an immense, shifting mass. I gaped at it. Bloodied hands pulled at me. "GET UP, JOANAH!"
His face was a mess through my blurry vision, but I recognized it. "Typhon?"
"Who else?" He pushed me into a run, stumbling and falling across the wooden sea. We dropped onto bare grass. He shoved me towards the forest. "GO!"
"Car," I said eloquently, waving a hand at the road. I couldn't believe he was here, that anyone would come.
"That was yours?" Typhon glanced back at the hovering car waving streamers of flaming gasoline, hand going to his hip. "Gun?"
"Nope."
"CAR!"
The police car hurtled towards us, trailing fire like phoenix wings. We sprinted away, trying to outrun the sun.
Blazing impact behind us.
I screamed as red-hot shrapnel burrowed into my back. Typhon caught me and urged me on, throwing desperate glances behind us. We reached Nafi's car. "Roc—rocks," I gurgled, sagging against one tire to tug the rocks away.
"Goddammit!" Typhon went to the other three tires, keeping up a constant stream of swearing that became a prayer. Too bad there is no God. I blinked and I was lying in the backseat of the car. The engine was shrieking.
"Wiggle the key," I panted.
We lurched in reverse, nearly throwing me off the seat. Typhon spun the wheel and changed gears in one smooth movement, speeding away from what was once the ranger tower.
"Typhon, it hunts my kind."
"I'm not leaving you. Shut up and focus on your healing thing."
It didn't work like that, and besides. "Fucking... shrapnel won't let me." I propped myself against the door to get a look behind us, gasping as the metal shifted in my back. "Typhon."
"I see it."
Ancient trees ripped free of the ground and whipped at us. We swerved around bends, brushing the flimsy wooden barriers. Nafi's car skidded onto the paved road, narrowly missing a head-on with a van going in the opposite direction. I didn't want to watch, but I saw the monstrous blur switch direction to hurtle after the van instead.
Typhon's hands tensed on the wheel and he went to U-turn. I lurched forward and managed to grip his shoulder. "We can't help them!" I choked. "Just fucking drive!"
It was on me. We drove away.
There was a long silence broken only by our rushed breathing. "We're going to the hospital," Typhon said softly.
"No time." I tried to get more comfortable, but my slick shirt skidded across the worn leather. I winced and put my head in my hand. "Hemming's got the hellgae. She'll do it at one."
"Nine hours. That's enough to get you bandaged up at least. Then we go to Hemming."
"Not we. Thanks for showing up, but I'm going alone."
"There's no chance in hell I'll allow that."
Without him, I'd be dead right now. I swallowed. But I can't risk him. Not after the theatre. "Too bad, it's better if I go alone." I let my gaze soften. Let down my guard like an idiot. "Thank you, Typhon. Really."
"Joanah." Typhon's shoulders dropped. "I know it was the theatre. Since that hellshow you never want us partnering on investigations. But I was there too, Joanah. I still think about it every night and it burns that I don't regret shooting that child for a moment. It'd be easier for both of us if we stuck together."
"But you weren't there, Typhon, not like I was." I lowered myself onto my stomach on the car seat, sucking in a sharp breath at my screaming back. "You saw the bodies and the maggots and the fucking murder-kid, but I was next."
Typhon's eyes were wide in the rear-view.
"Whatever possessed that kid was jumping to me." I'd felt it in there, curling and twitching and making room and eating away at my sanity and memories. "And when the kid was gone, it was still in here." I jabbed at my head. "It's small and sleeping but it's still there and I can't get it out."
"But I—but I shot it."
"Yeah, you broke the vessel, splitting it between here and R'lyeh. But it's still there." I closed my eyes. "And I'm scared if it comes back, I'm going to kill everyone just like that kid."
"Joanah, I—"
"Forget it. I don't need to play therapist with you."
Typhon resettled his shoulders. "If that's how you want to do it." NO, I DON'T. I frowned, wondering where that came from, why my heart had cracked just a little more. Typhon's tone had forced lightness when he next spoke. "So are you going to tell me what you were actually doing there?"
I matched his tone. "Rummaged around and turns out I had a lead. You remember Barteal, right? Big, used to be kinda hot, now a pile of crispy skin? Well, we talked, and she told me about the summoning ledger being there." I gestured the way we'd come. "Just need to find Hemming and snatch the hellgae before she could summon her new friend to kill us." Not a lot of options. "But at least Cthulhu won't show up." I grinned weakly. "I just saved the fucking world."
"Bravo. And you lied to me."
"Would you call a chat with a dead lady a legit—" A cold lance drove itself through my chest. I clawed at my throat. "Pull... over."
We were nearing the city and Typhon has his gaze pinned on the horizon. "You think I'm going to leave you to bleed to death at the side of the road?"
I panted through gritted teeth. "Pull over and get this shrapnel out or I fucking will."
"Do you think we're...?"
Far enough that the monster won't turn back for us once it's killed the van's passengers? "Yeah."
Typhon slammed on the brakes and veered hard onto the shoulder, projectile-vomiting gravel behind us. Finally, Nafi's car whimpered to a stop. A plume of smoke slipped from under the hood. The detective gave it a worried look and pulled out his phone. "I'm calling an eldritchbulance."
"Couldn't do that sooner?"
Typhon ran a bloody hand over his face, leaving a smudge across his cheek. "I'm not thinking straight. What just happened—God. I was going to drive as fast I could there, but your car's dead."
"It's Nafi's."
Typhon blinked. "You have—"
He cut himself off, but I scowled. "Friends? Not really, but she takes pity on me and my fucking mess of a life."
Typhon kept his face neutral. He made the call and came around to my side of the car. I saw his pained expression as he watched the way we'd come. We always look over our shoulders. "Do you know where they are?" he whispered. I shook my head. "Can your wounds get infected?"
"Get on with it. If we survive the day, I'll gladly take any fucking infection from your dirty little hands." I blinked as my vision flicked into black and white. "Woah, I think I—" I was vaguely aware of the cars zipping past us and going limp where I lay, and very aware of every line of agony streaking my body, the bloody homes of shrapnel fragments painted in spikes of gold. It was kinda beautiful.
"Joanah? Joanah, are you with me? They're out. The ambulance is almost here."
"Fucking brilliant." And I properly passed out for the billionth time that day.