“Oh? Not soft-hearted Helena Campbell? You’d let thousands die to save your own life?”
I swallowed. “It’s not about my life. You can’t be allowed to get at Abernathy’s. Not even at that cost.”
“Hmm. I suppose there was never any chance that appeal would work.” Its tentacles caressed the glass window, leaving smeary streaks of blue ichor. “But we had to give you the chance.”
“You…what?”
It ignored me and walked away. I pressed against the glass to watch it as it went to the nearest lamppost and uprooted it as easily as plucking a daisy. Mystified, I took a step back. The invader dragged the lamppost behind it, sending up the scraping, shrill noise of metal on concrete, until it once more stood in front of the window. “Stand back,” it said.
I realized what it had in mind just as it grabbed the lamppost with two sharp limbs and slammed it into the glass like a battering ram. I ducked behind the counter in time to avoid the shower of glass that sprayed the store’s front with a tinkling crash. Shaking my head and shoulders to rid myself of the sharp splinters, I stood and glared at the invader. “That won’t be enough,” I said. “You can’t get past the wards.”
The sounds of screaming had grown distant. The invader turned its head as if it were listening to the cries of agony. “I’m sure they believed that,” it said. “How unfortunate for you it’s not true.”
“You’re trying to frighten me into doing something stupid. It won’t work.”
The invader shook its head, another human gesture that made me feel sick. It held up one of its forelimbs and waved it slowly, moving as if the glass were still there and it was wiping it with a cloth. A red glow pulsed wherever its “hand” moved, like someone turning up an adjustable bulb. At first, it was nothing but a haze, like fog lit from within, but as the creature’s forelimb continued to move, strands like fine wires, almost too thin to be seen, became visible. The wires stretched randomly in all directions as if they extended far beyond what I could see, weaving in and out of each other to form a heavy red mesh. Soon, the invader was hidden behind the wires of what must be the powerful wards Campbell Security had installed. It made me even more afraid, not being able to see the thing.
I became aware of a faint, thin whine at the limits of my hearing, like a distant wasp’s nest or a power saw running far away. Right at the center of the mesh, a bright speck glowed, sickly green by contrast to the warm red light of the wires. I stepped closer, mesmerized. The glowing speck expanded until it was the size of a penny, then a quarter, and then the size of my fist.
The wires surrounding the horrible green light shifted as if something were trying to fit between their close weave. Something hard and black and pointed poked out of the circle of green light, shifting the wires further. Another tip of the invader’s wickedly sharp forelimbs emerged right next to the first. They wiggled around for a few seconds, and then they separated, slowly, dragging the wires apart and leaving a gap in the middle. The gap grew as the green light did, until I could see the invader’s horrible face through the hole.
I realized what it was doing at the same moment it said, “Not what you expected, yes?”
I turned and fled.
In fifteen seconds I was in the office and flinging open the door that led to the back hall and the stairs leading to the upstairs apartment. I hesitated at the exit. There were almost certainly invaders outside. But they couldn’t drain my magic, and all I had to do was run to my car. I could get away and be safe.
I reached for the doorknob, and stopped with my hand inches from it. If I left, the invaders would destroy Abernathy’s, and whatever catastrophe happened when there were no more guardians would occur. I shook my head violently to dispel those thoughts and gripped the knob tightly enough to hurt my skin. If I stayed, the invaders would kill me, and they’d still destroy Abernathy’s. My death wouldn’t make a difference.
It would need a custodian to be useful. The thought flickered across my mind. I’d said it in regards to the Well needing a custodian, but now I wondered—didn’t it make a difference to the Neutrality that it had a custodian? I was the oracle’s hands, after all, and it communicated through me. And I couldn’t abandon it even if it meant my death. My end.
I released the knob and ran for the stacks. If I could get inside the oracle, maybe together we could fight the invader and whatever slavering hordes it brought with it.
The whining drone was louder now, and it had an edge to it that made my skin crawl. I slipped through the aisle and headed deeper into the stacks, hoping I wasn’t too late. Then the oracle’s presence rose up around me, reassuring me. I staggered to a halt in the heart of the oracle and inhaled deeply, trying to calm my racing heart. “What do we do?” I asked.
The guardians fall. Seal the cracks. I will end. Helena will end.
It was mostly what I’d expected, but it still sent fear coursing through me. I wasn’t prepared to die even after almost five months of warnings. “How do we seal the cracks? What will that do?”
A wave of intense frustration swept over me, so intense I didn’t at first realize it was not my own emotion. “There’s something I’m not getting,” I said. “I’m sorry I don’t understand.”
The frustration retreated a little. Speak, the oracle said. You and I are one.
“You want me to become you?” I would do anything to save us both.
The oracle’s attention pressed down on me, but this time I felt its curiosity, like a dog sniffing a scent trail. It reminded me of the times I’d meditated to connect with the oracle. “All right, let’s try it,” I said. I closed my eyes and rested my left hand on the nearest bookshelf. The grainy wood pressed against my new skin. I let myself open to feeling it completely, relaxing even as I gave the sensation my full attention. A breeze brushed my cheeks, bringing with it the scent of fresh cherries, and I inhaled it and let it sink into my lungs and spread throughout my body.
An image came into focus behind my eyelids. It was of a plastic sieve, an ordinary purple plastic sieve. Water flowed through it, a steady stream pouring from an unseen source that turned into rainfall as the water found the many holes perforating the sieve. I watched, confused as to what the oracle meant.
The water stopped flowing. The sieve shivered, and some of its holes disappeared as if they’d been filled in with melted wax. The water flowed again, and this time the “rainfall” was heavier, the remaining holes wider somehow. Again the water dried away, and more holes vanished. Three more times the image repeated itself until the sieve had one hole the size of my fist, and the water flowed through that hole unimpeded.
Seal the cracks, the oracle said. The guardians fall. Many, few, one. Power flows stronger as the guardians fall.
My whole world rearranged itself so fast I felt I might fall down. My connection to the oracle shivered. “Seal the cracks,” I said. “Not us. Them. They destroy the guardians, and that seals the cracks until—”
“You didn’t understand that before?” a horrible voice said. “I thought you were smarter than that.”
I couldn’t see the invader through the bookcases and had no idea how I was able to hear it. I’d only rarely caught glimpses of the ordinary world while I was inside the oracle. “If you’re stooping to taunting me, you’re more pathetic than I thought,” I shot back, certain it could hear me.