The young woman stared through a vast expanse of celestial darkness and light, knowing that something evil was looking right back at her. She wanted to move, to run and scream and hide, but she found herself frozen in place. As immense spirals of space dust towered and arched around her—as stars and comets shot through the never-ending ether, she knew that she was not alone in this sacred space. She stood along the great intersecting webs that tied realities and dimensions together, and knew that she was not alone-and that something malevolent was watching and waiting.
Suddenly, without any rumor of its appearance or approach, the figure stepped out of the spanning universe.
It walked along the webbing of reality itself, moving within the easy grace of a lethal predator. She could tell that it was ravenous, but also patient and utterly unfeeling—a combination that made it deadly. It looked to her like a human man, tall and thin with skin as pale as bone. Dark hair billowed around an angular face: thin, broad lips pressed into a severe line so that no milk of kindness of mercy could escape. And his eyes were dark red, almost black, glowing with the fire of an ember that refused to be snuffed out.
He stopped, fixing her with a stare far too confident in his own power to even bother deigning intimidation. He was far off, yet too close for any peace of mind; despite his distance, his intent burned like searing flame.
He stood on the webbing that connected each and every different plane of existence, balancing like a needle on the edge of a razor sharp blade.
A rent in one of the many pockets between the webbing open, and the thing in the shape of a man grinned and stepped into it. The reality began to bleed and scream at this intrusion, and the pain and suffering catapulted the young observer out of the world of the third eye and into her own reality.
She sat bolt upright, the covers of her small cot in disarray. Her skin was covered in sweat, her long strawberry blonde hair a mass of tangled around her face. Her heart raced against her ribs, and her stomach, filled from that night's hearty dinner, lurched and rolled at the palpable memory of the eldritch beast she'd seen in her vision.
A series of knocks on the door of her small, stone bedroom made her jump.
Hastily she got to her feet, covering her simple nightclothes with an ornate robe made of black and white silk.
"Miss Carpenter?" The voice on the other side of the door was low, resonant as a dragoon's but as warm and intelligent as a master of justice. "Miss Carpenter? What's wrong? I felt you screaming from the other side of the temple."
She opened the door and looked into the intense, concerned gaze of her master and mentor. Just as she made to tell him all that she'd seen and felt, he stopped her with a raised hand. He wanted her to utilize her powers with the techniques she'd learned here.
Nodding, she closed her eyes. She focused on manifesting all her thoughts and memories into a single strand, something that connect her and her teacher.
A pale blue spider web blossomed in the center of her forehead, iridescent and translucent as starlight. Her master narrowed his eyes, focusing his gaze on the web's center.
She felt him watching her vision, feeling what she had felt from the beast that walked between realities.
The master let out a breath, and the sound did little to comfort her.
After a moment, the man's jaw tensed. The connection broke, leaving her standing before him, feeling as if she were suffering a mild pressure headache.
The master ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair, the emerald stone set behind the gold, eye-shaped pendant and chain he wore around his neck swaying to and fro at the motion.
"Do you know if it's coming here, Julia?" He asked.
"Not yet, Doctor Strange." Julia looked passed him to the night sky over Kamar-Taj.
Somewhere out there in a plane of existence loosely tethered to her own, the beast was gorging itself on innocent lives…on very specific innocent lives.
"Do you know what it wants?"
Julia looked back at Doctor Strange. He'd been accepting of her wish to study the mystic arts after she'd made a pilgrimage all the way from England. He'd heard her life story with patience. At first, all the tales of her nightmares and visions and the strange phenomena that occurred all around her hadn't been enough to grant her admittance. He'd suggested a school in Westchester, New York, that helped "gifted" individuals.
It was only when she'd displayed her true power that the good doctor had taken her under his wing. He'd shown her how to do things she'd never thought possible even with all the gifts she possessed. He was indomitable—strong and intelligent, but rarely rattled by the mystical dangers that threatened their world.
And now he looked gravely afraid.
"Julia," Doctor Strange repeated her name, drawing her from her momentary lapse into memory and rumination. "What does it want?"
"To feed," Julia whispered.
"On what?"
Julia made herself look Doctor Strange in the eye as she spoke in a voice barely concealing the dread within her.
"Spiders, Doctor Strange. It's feasting on spiders."
A/N: Yeah, so the next and final story in this series is going to be about Morlun. I don't know when I'll start it, but it'll definitely be in the New Year.