Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Inuyasha or the universe of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Chapter Three
"Easy now. Do you remember me?"
Like last time, Rin Kato comes prepared. With deliberate slowness, the young woman lifts both hands into the air as if signaling a sign of peace to the three black Dobermans that step out of the shadows, hackles raised. Calmly, she inches closer to the door that they guard. The nearest dog, the one she calls Pokey, catches a whiff of the chewy, red morsels hiding on the inside of Rin's coat pocket. Pokey's snarl becomes that of a low whine. The other two edge closer as well, the viciousness waning by the second. Smiling in triumph, Rin pulls out the parcel containing the strips of meat and the canines immediately sit.
The door is already slightly ajar. When she pushes it open the small source of light on the inside illuminates the snacking in animals back in the corridor. Rin steps over the threshold and into the library of Miskatonic University. She waves politely to the elderly man sitting at the front desk. Shelves of books tower above the two of them. The air around them feels like it is vibrating.
Henry Armitage sighs in response.
"So why do we have guard dogs to the library, anyway?" Rin ponders, swinging her satchel from one shoulder to the other. "I mean, maybe the three of them aren't really friendly." She pauses to listen to the sound of happy chopping. "I suppose they would seriously injure someone who doesn't feed them…"
"That's just the first part in my alarm system." Armitage caps his pen and begins to shuffle around the books and papers he is working on to one side of the desk. He quickly extinguishes the lamp when he catches Rin's wandering brown eyes. "With your luck and charisma, I doubt you'll ever see more."
"Is that a map of Essex county?" She points to his disorganized stack, noting the red markings on it.
"What can I do for you this evening, Rin?" For a moment, a glimmer of annoyance fleets across the old man's wrinkled face. He smooths it over. "Did you just want to feed my dogs? Or have you come to read through old diaries again?" The humming intensifies.
Rin bites her bottom lip, thinking about how to come forward. "Actually, I came to return your book." She sheepishly unlatches her bag and pulls out the small black journal within. Its pages are frayed and yellowed. "I… took it with me, without asking, I know."
They share a long look across the desk.
"The Dobermans did not catch that scent, I expect."
"Of course not. I brought… extra meat."
At that, Armitage raises a hand to his temples, deeply vexed. Setting the journal before him, Rin flips open the cover. In an elaborate hand is the name of the author, Randolph Carter, directly in the center page. She clenches her fist looking at it with a furrowed brow. "You knew him," she says and Carter's name hums back. "That is why you kept this, isn't it? To remember your favorite student. You were his favorite, too." Rin's eyes rise to meet the librarian's because if she stares too long at the page, she will not be able to see anything else. "He was an outsider amongst the other students, but you believed him. You believe the monsters he described really do exist. And that someone can travel through dreams and go to another world, even." She speaks quickly now because the old man pulls the journal away from her, snapping the cover closed and the humming lessens by a fraction, but continues to ring in her ears. "It talks!" she proclaims. "It talks to me! What is this?" The dogs outside begin to snarl at the pitch in her voice but she pays them no heed. "You have to know something about this. I feel like I might be going crazy. It's this book, I tell you."
Instead of responding, Armitage opens his coat pockets and stows away the little black book. The humming lowers again. There is no light in the library now. The moon seeps through the shutters on the windows, illuminating both of their grim, ashen faces. The young student flinches, visibly ailed. It does not matter now that Carter's journal is gone. The damage has been done. Armitage curses his carelessness. Rin's small body contains more power than he could have ever realized. He is not angry. In fact, worry settles in his grey eyes. She does not resist him as he takes her fist in his hand.
"I am trying to protect you," he murmurs. Too little, too late. "I told you on your first day in my library… some of these books are different. I told you… some of them cannot leave this place." He gestures to the shelves that surround them. "There are books that are not safe to read, but this very room protects you from the damage that can be afflicted. This is the one and only safe place to read in all of Arkham." As he speaks, Armitage's mouth lengthens. It is longer than his ghostly white beard. It hardens, beak-like and shiny. "When you are in the Miskatonic library, your eyes are actually veiled by my incantations. Otherwise, the book bearer is vulnerable to the knowledge that they might be exposing themselves to. Not every writer has good intentions, I am afraid. The fate that befalls the reader is of little consequence to many of them."
Rin calmly pulls her hand out of Armitage's tentacle grasp. Her flesh burns from the slimy film that is left behind. This again, she thinks, perturbed, watching now as the librarian rips his face apart and stitches itself back together again. His skin bleeds a hot red. I supposed that is the reason for this.
"Randolph Carter never meant to bring ill will to anyone. He was merely invested in dreams. He loved them. And when he discovered the travel ability, Carter thought it was his duty to share such knowledge." Armitage's beak opens now, hissing softly. "It is difficult for our minds to understand and interpret information from another world."
"So is that what you really look like, or am I just in an illusion?" Rin asks, staring at her reflection in his large eye. "Are you perhaps a demon of some form that I have never seen before?"
The librarian's very normal shoulders shrug. "I really can't tell you what you might be looking at. I am human, I can assure you, at least in this dimension that we are currently living in." The tentacles that are crawling out of his open beak wave gently, as if scenting the air. "This must be difficult for you."
Her brow furrows deeply. "Just tell me how to stop it."
"Well, I hope this is at least a lesson on discipline." He slithers to one side and she recognizes that he wants her to follow him towards the back of the library. They pass the open area for study hall and into the section that is full of instruction manuals for what seems like for different types of machinery as far as she can tell. "I am going to have to erase your memory. You were never trained to handle to such information. I need to find that spell…" He traces the spines of several books thoughtfully.
What exactly all that must entail, Rin will never find out. Armitage pauses suddenly after a few moments and glances back at the main entrance, to the door that is still slightly ajar. In the darkness, he does not see anything unusual. However, he hears the Dobermans low growls, and it causes his heart to seize.
"Rin." The librarian turns his back to her, now squarely facing the door. "Did anyone else follow you here?" Aggressive barks sound down the corridor, along with the heavy thuds of something large. Whatever is out there, it is not a student. An unmistakable snap of a bone pierces sharply through the air. "We need to hide." He urges her down to the floor, keeping a firm, protective grasp on her shoulder. She is pushed onto her hands and knees.
"I don't understand what's going on. I don't know… what's real…" She tries to shake off his hand, but he is unrelenting. He ushers her farther down the row, abandoning his search for the manual. There is another door they can exit, down a set of stairs at the end of the room and into his living quarters. The dogs are howling, but they are not distinguishable, like the noises they have made before. It is one sound and Armitage knows that the second part in his alarm system has been triggered. The dogs will never live again after they have mutated into their final form which is a shame because he really grew to care for the three of them.
"Something bit me," Rin says quietly, cradling her neck. When she withdraws her hand, it is soiled with small black droplets and no visible wound to be seen. But there is a spider that falls to the floor. It is black, tiny, shiny and scurrying away. Rin frowns before she slaps her hand down on it. The commotion in the corridor has passed the library threshold. Armitage's desk is sent flying.
"There's no time to lose," the old man says, shuffling her along. He begins to murmur under his breath. To Rin, the words he says make no sense. She thinks it is a different language he speaks, but the tongue is too ugly for her to bear to listen and she feels herself becoming dizzy and unresponsive to Armitage's urgent pushes. Rin makes note that the floor is very abrasive on her knees and wrists. She does not like how the carpet cuts deeply into her skin, the itchy fibers penetrating her flesh and mixing with her blood. Ignoring the librarian's protests, she stands.
The monster is severely injured. The claw and bite marks left behind on its mass of a body from the canines seem to steam and sizzle with a green unidentifiable substance. The toxin is still eating at its shell. Clearly distressed, the creature crawls forward with renewed vigor. Its eight long hairy legs reach out all around as if grasping the air. The rows of books cannot accommodate the size of the intruder and helplessly tumble over.
Armitage puts himself between Rin and the giant spider. Somehow, the old human man stands tall, wielding a long dagger with a ruby encrusted hilt.
"What in the world…?" The spider hisses and there are bits of sticky substances that must be web enveloping the shelves and other furniture as it comes closer still. Rin blinks once. "I see… a demon."
At that Armitage shakes his head and steps backward, forcing her to move with him. "He's not a demon, Rin. You know what he is. You read about him in Carter's journal." He thinks that she is talking about the spider, but he is wrong.
"Is that Carter?" she asks, deeply confused. Even as she says it, she does not believe it. Randolph Carter was a powerful human. But this silver haired demon with golden eyes… why is he here?
"Who are you?" she wants to ask, but Henry Armitage turns and rests his hand upon her forehead, pressing firmly.
The library falls away into darkness.
When Rin wakes up, somehow, she is at the front yard of her mother's house, lying flat on her back. The very modest two-story building stares back at her grimly when she sits upright. The lights were off. From what she can tell, it is still late at night. Would the door be unlocked? she wonders while climbing to her feet, as if her mother would ever leave her outside. Though, Rin should be at the university, in the dormitories. If her daughter returned home at this hour, Daisy might become worried and so for a moment, Rin stands there in the night warring with herself. For whatever reason, she has no recollection of the library, or Armitage, or the massive, injured spider. Randolph Carter's little black journal hums quietly inside her shoulder bag.
"Something isn't right." Rin pinches the bridge of her nose. Everything is hazy, from the ground beneath her feet to the simplest thoughts in her mind. The strange fog settles upon the world like a blanket.
"You are sleeping," says a deep male voice. The dog demon steps lithely out of the void of the night. She backs away instinctually. His aura is overpowering, its strength freezes her joints. He looks around, slightly puzzled "Why do you call me here?"
"I haven't," she protests, clenching her bag, as if to use it as a weapon of some sort.
"Hn." He looks visibly annoyed now. "You are just a girl. And a weak one at that." His golden eyes close and she can feel him brush against her though his body does not move. It gives her a ticklish sensation in her stomach. "He can see you, though." Rin is still trying to move, unsuccessfully. "Well. This is unexpected." The dog demon opens his eyes again. He reaches out one hand. She sees the red markings on it, matching the ones that line his face. "We really don't have much time before Sesshoumaru wakes up." The tips of his fingers glow. "You need to tell me where you are."
Rin breathes deeply. The air feels much heavier now, the humidity is almost unbearable. "My mother's house."
"No." He is irritated again. "Where are you, really?"
Suddenly he is lunging for her. They hang together for a moment in an endless black abyss. The only light visible is coming from his fingertips. His attempts to reach her are futile.
"I don't know," she confesses, reaching out vainly for his outstretched hand because he is the only thing in this moment that appears solid. "I'm sorry. I don't recognize this place."
The dog demon's light shimmers, growing faint. "I don't even know your name," he says quietly. A bit of relief washes over her. For once, the young woman feels she is not the only one surrounded by a world of uncertainty.
"It's Rin!" she calls. The demon cannot hear her. He is swallowed by the darkness, leaving her utterly alone.