Rubble was strewn over dark marble, black tarry blood over once-fine furnishings.
The monster lay slumped against one wall, hissing as she tried to rise, reaching out one claw towards the cold creature of pure ice and fury that stood before her.
"M…mercy," she managed. The cold creature looked unmoved.
"Why?" it asked. Its weapon, a gun that spat pure, terrible iron, was levelled.
"Didn't want … you're here for … souls in cabinet to your left. Please … I had to feed…I wasn't cruel…"
"There was a kid you left in your front parlour," said the cold creature. "Left them there, like a piece of garbage. What was their name?"
"They … they were …"
"Earn your mercy." The bloodlust behind the creature's demeanour, like lava constrained by brittle ice, was terrible to behold. "Earn it!"
"Please!"
The shotgun fired once. And then again. And again and again until the trigger clicked empty.
Friday opened with a spell of wet weather, a stormfront that had gathered momentum across the Midwest and hit the East Coast like a hammer blow, dispelling the few scraps of sunshine that had fluttered around the capital city. Rivers ran through gutters. Roofs sagged with the weight of dripping water. Iron-grey, dark-threaded skies pulsed with thunder.
There was no lightning, however, which disappointed Wybie. If you were advancing science, then you deserved to have bolts of lightning as a backing chorus.
He was sitting in a chair at one of his workstations, with a brick-like binder, stuffed with papers and plastic pockets and printouts, resting across his legs. His brow was furrowed as he pored over tables of recovered Sur-real fragments, and checked them off with a pencil.
"Seelie wings, buttons, wall fragments," he muttered as he scanned the list. "Tried this, tried that, did nothing, was worse than useless, blew a hole through the skylight. Damn it!"
"What was that?" came Sayid's crackling tone from the intercom in the wall.
"It was a swear word, which you shouldn't repeat, being young and impressionable. And why is that thing turned on?"
"Something's broken at the reception end," said Sayid. "I can't turn it off."
Coraline hadn't yet returned from Delaware, and Maria was at some event for her church. It had fallen to the intern to man the front desk. "Have you tried bashing the button really hard?" asked Wybie, drawing upon his wealth of technical knowledge.
"Several times. And I've tried asking it nicely as well."
"Huh. I wondered where that incorporeal pleading for me to work was coming from." Wybie turned back to the folder. "Do what you can, alright? I've got some work to get through."
"Sure thing." The intercom went quiet. Wybie started again, at the top of the list.
It took five minutes for the eager light to leave his eyes. It took ten minutes after that for him to come to hate the chart, and the half-dozen like it he had checked off, to no result.
And at forty minutes and counting, the last dregs of Wybie's will to live had been drained away, and his homicidal thoughts regarding the binder were interrupted by the quiet sounds of conversation from the intercom. He focused on it, trying to make out the familiar sounds of Coraline or Maria's voices.
Instead, what came was a crackling question from Sayid. "I've been asked to ask you if you have any sort of formal system for making appointments."
"I don't know, since no one's ever made one before. Why? Who wants one?" said Wybie, trying to keep the aggravation he was feeling out of his voice. Judging by the delay before Sayid's next, considerably more cautious words, he didn't succeed.
"Er, it's the Secretary of Homeland Security. Or at least, he says he's the Secretary of Homeland Security, and he's got an ID card which agrees with him. Do you want to meet him?"
Wybie stretched in his chair, staring straight up at the rivulets running down the skylight. A visit from a cabinet secretary was the last thing he had expected. Why was he here? What did he want? Wybie knew he should find out.
If nothing else, he wasn't likely to get much else done in his current frame of mind. Perhaps a distraction like this could amend that.
"Fine. Send him through." Wybie then considered the Thaddeus Complex's layout, and the ramifications of a member of the cabinet vanishing under mysterious circumstances. "Actually, no. Lead him here."
Sayid crackled assent, and Wybie leaned back in his chair.
After a few minutes, there was a rap at the door, and Sayid said "Express delivery of one Secretary."
"In you come." The door opened, and Sayid entered, trailing Malinois.
"Mr Malinois," said Wybie, standing up from the chair and extending a hand. "This is … a bit surprising. Why have you dropped in?"
"Likewise, Mr … Lovat, is it?" Malinois looked around the workroom, his eyes wide. "I've heard a lot about your department. I had a half-hour to kill, and I thought I'd invite myself over. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"
"Nothing important." Wybie craned his head to look at Sayid. "You know how you're such an obedient and dutiful intern, with such a well-developed moral character?"
"Two coffees?" asked Sayid with all due resignation.
"Milk and sugar in mine," said Wybie.
"I'll just take mine plain," said Malinois.
Sayid nodded and left. Malinois looked around at Wybie, noticing his patchwork labcoat, and smiled gently.
"I take it your department doesn't put much stock in formality?"
"When there's only four people in the same building, there's hardly much point in formality." Wybie swept an arm around, indicating the stacked workstations. "Not that it stops hateful amounts of work being done."
"I can tell," said Malinois. Curiosity was still naked on his expression, and for good reason. The workstations were in an even greater state of chaos than usual. Piles of papers and electronics sprouted across them and cascaded from the sides, with small glass jars nestled amidst them like jewels. No. Eighteen was sprackled amidst some of those piles, the cords trailing on the floor, the main body propped atop a bulging binder.
Wybie's own attention was on Malinois. The man was almost a foot shorter than Wybie, with askew hair, bright, curious eyes, and an air of wonder utterly at odds with the sober suit he wore.
"You know, you still haven't really answered my question," said Wybie, almost thoughtfully. "I asked you what drew you here. I don't think you're just here to gawp at the freakshow."
"Oh?" Malinois's smile became slightly mischievous. "I'm originally from the CIA. Gawping at freakshows was what I did for a living."
"Perhaps. But you're still not telling me everything, I think."
"I'm on the level," Malinois assured. "Honestly, I am quite curious about your department. I mean, you know that the Department of the Supernatural's not exactly…"
"Held in high esteem by anyone with a functioning brainstem?" Wybie said sardonically. Malinois paused.
"…I would have put it more diplomatically. But I'll admit that I want to see what all the fuss is about. And I want to see what exactly you've been doing here."
"Secretary, are you really here in good faith?" asked Wybie. "Because I am doing work here, and if all you want is to gawp at the freakshow, then have the courtesy to do it in your time."
"I'm not here to mock. I just want to look at what you're doing with a sceptical eye, and judge what I can based on the evidence."
"A man after my own heart," said Wybie, settling. "Alright, I'll play along. Let's start with what you know about us." He gestured for Malinois to begin.
"Right, okay," said Malinois, tilting his head slightly back in recollection. "Let's see. You were established four years ago by President Durant. You've not been particularly well-regarded, you've not really been touched much by Kuciyela, apart from getting hammered in your budget, and that's pretty much it. Oh, and I imagine you get no end of mail from people wearing tinfoil hats."
"Some nights when I'm bored, I read through some of the best letters," said Wybie. "Bless them. They're so invested."
There was a knock from the door, and Sayid entered briefly to deliver two coffees. Malinois took his silently, and Wybie took his and enthusiastically knocked back a gulp of the scalding liquid.
"Right," he said, his mouth and throat only slightly seared, "So you don't know much beyond what's obvious to everyone. I can fix that, if you're ready to listen." Malinois nodded, and Wybie turned to the whiteboards at the back.
"First things first," said Wybie as he walked over and took up a cloth to wipe on of them clean. "I've been working on this with help for about four years. Bit more if you include unofficial observations I did beforehand. But I think I'm only person to made an actual study of all this. This isn't complete. This is nowhere near complete. Half of it is speculation, and the other half could be totally wrong for all I know. But for what it's worth, I don't think any of what I've compiled so far is wrong. At least, it hasn't been proven wrong." Malinois nodded politely, his expression asking Wybie to get on with it. Wybie cleared his throat, and took the top off a pen.
He drew a circle on the whiteboard, and turned to face Malinois and tapped the circle with his pen.
"This here? This is the real world. This is where everything we see happens, where forces interact, people live, atoms do their stuff, everything. This is where you and everyone else does their work. This is real." Moving slightly to the side, he drew another circle overlapping the first, the edges gently zig-zagging. He stepped aside so Malinois could see, and gave it an emphatic tap.
"This is the Sur-real. Apart from reality, but connected to it. An overlapping dimension, with its own creatures, own rules, own order. This is where we do our work."
"The thing about the Sur-real – the thing that's kind of constrained our ability to get info on it – is that there's only certain places where it can get through to the real world. Gateways, doorways, between here and there. Ways from which predators can emerge." Malinois's brows raised at the mention of predators, but he remained silent.
"We've come across hundreds of doorways during our work – literally hundreds – and I've been trying my best to find a common link between them all. The most I can find is that they're all places that have been used by humans for a long time, or that mean something special to people. We've found the best number of them in houses, especially old ones, but we've also found them in museums, churches, hospitals, a couple of old roadside attractions. One time, in a rail station. And before you ask, no, not every building that's old or important has a doorway in it. Why? Give me time, because at the moment I've got no idea."
"I take it that things can cross from these doorways to our world?" asked Malinois.
"Oh, well done. You're skipping ahead. Yes, things can cross over from there to here, and vice versa." Wybie walked over to one of the workstations, and beckoned for Malinois to follow him. Crouching down beside one of the drawers, he tugged it sharply open with a mild explosion of paper. Reaching in, he lugged out a heavy binder, stuffed to the gills with paper. He placed it down on the workstation, and thumbed through it until he came to a specific page, and tilted the binder towards Malinois, who craned his head forward.
The page was titled Beldam – (Esthia Psychas Arachne) – Desire Eater. Below that was set a drawing of a creature with the lower body of a spider and the upper body and head of a gaunt woman with buttons in place of eyes, its limbs splayed like the Vitruvian Man. A handwritten description ran beneath the drawing.
Beldams are denizens of the Sur-real, psychephages who are attuned to strong feelings of desire. Children and adolescents are their preferred targets, although Case File 2021-04 records at least one adult being preyed upon. Among the most common and powerful of psychephages, they are morphologically diverse, and are able to assume different forms that will aid them in snaring a victim. Their true form is a centaur of spider and human female form. More so than other psychephages, they are able to exert will upon and to change areas in the Sur-real. Their token items are buttons, in all cases sewn onto the victim's eyes.
Another note written beneath in a different hand read - Normal ferroshot works fine for taking them on. Be careful about getting into close quarters.
Malinois turned the page, his gaze sceptical but betraying genuine interest. The next entry started Wendigo – (Esthia Psychas Ferverii) – Rage Eater, atop a twisted figure knotted with sinewy muscle on a skeletal frame, its face locked in an atavistic snarl amidst banks of protruding teeth. The written description followed the same format as the beldam's, and the little note in a different hand read Cliff notes version – Vicious, fast bastards who like to jump.
He turned the page again, and again.
Seelie – (Esthia Psychas Cyprium) – Love Eater, above a frail figure done in soft pastel colours, supported by great butterfly-like wings, with eyes like black pits.
Unseelie – (Esthia Psychas Invidia) – Hate Eater, above a figure in dark, violent hues, held aloft by scaled wings and watching the reader through eyes like white pinpricks.
On and on he flipped through the pages. There were dozens of creatures, a catalogue of the bizarre and mythological. Each picture was hand-drawn, in a style that looked as though it had been done with a careful hand from memory.
Nuckelavee – (Esthia Psychas Arcaibh) – Disgust Eater. A shrieking, skinless human torso sprouting from the middle of an equally skinless horse, with a single swollen eye set in both heads. Kimatine – (Esthia Psychas Tadaklan) – Courage Eater. A muscled hound with a hide the colour of pitch threaded through with silvery strands of lightning, with eyes like two orbs of golden fire. Coatl - (Esthia Psychas Quetzal ) - Ambition Eater…
Malinois closed the binder gently, and turned to face Wybie.
"These are the things that cross over," said Wybie. "I take it you met Coraline at the cabinet meeting yesterday? She's our trouble shooter. She's the one who goes out with a shotgun and takes these things on where they're hurting people. And Maria, the other member of the department, is the one who finds them."
Malinois looked at the binder again in some wonder. "What … what do you mean when you say they prey on people? That they eat…?"
"Not in a physical sense." Wybie waved his hands briskly and grabbed the binder again, flipping through the pages to the beldam again. "They're psychephages – soul eaters. Or if you don't believe in souls, then they drain minds, eat up your life, whichever. But you end up dead any way.
"Each of these – you see the writing at the top? Each of these is attuned to a different spectrum of the human mind, of human emotion and thought. And they use these emotions as a conduit to the soul or what have you. So if I was in the same building as a wendigo and suddenly felt a great deal of anger towards someone or something, it could use that anger as a way of taking a bite out of my soul. I actually got a bite taken out of my soul by a beldam once."
"So…How did that damage you? Did it damage you?"
"It made it a little hard to think straight for a few days after, but it wasn't permanent. Just do things that are good for the soul. Read a good book, admire a nice view, laugh with friends – it'll heal. Souls are pretty robust things." He tapped the bottom of the paragraph on the page with his pen. "The real danger is if they manage to get a token item on you. If one of those is on you – like buttons on your eyes, for beldams – then that gives the psychephage a constant line to your soul. It can just suck you dry."
"Jesus Christ." Malinois studied the page in silence. Then, "And your department fights these things? On a regular basis?"
"Me and Maria pitch in for some of the tougher creatures or if it's a creature we haven't discovered before. Otherwise, Coraline does most of the actual fighting. She's got the most experience. But it's not too difficult if you know what you're doing, and if you bring iron with you."
"Iron?"
"Oh yeah. Some of the old folklore makes me think a lot of it was based on these creatures. And one thing the old storytellers got right was a weakness to iron. I don't know why – maybe iron's a more inherently real substance, maybe it's just their equivalent of arsenic. I don't know nearly enough about this yet. But there's no reason I should stop trying to know."
Malinois looked at the binder, and around at the room again.
"What do you think?" asked Wybie. "Freakshow or not?"
"I…" Malinois shook his head. "I really don't know. I think the most likely explanations are that you're skilled charlatans or harmlessly insane, but…What concrete evidence do you actually have for all this?"
"Stupidly little," said Wybie resignedly. "Technology fouls around the Sur-real. I've tried taking cameras and the like in when we go on expeditions, but most of them short out, and those that survive just produce blurs. And I've taken back samples, but there's not actually anything that makes them different from normal rock or membrane or wood or whatever. If it's something tangible you want, then you'll have to wait until I've gotten the Eroder working."
"The what?"
"The thing just to your left there. I'm trying to create something that can break the boundary between the real and Sur-real. If I can get it to work, and actually produce a live beldam or horla, then I think that'll give us legitimacy. Even Skirving couldn't argue with a real beldam." Wybie considered the situation. "Well, he probably would, but he wouldn't get very far."
"I'll attest to that." Malinois drained the last of his cup. "Thank you for the coffee and the talk, Mr Lovat. Business calls, I'm afraid. But I'd be happy to talk later, time permitting."
"No trouble," said Wybie, still half-way through his own cup. "It's nice to have a conversation about this that doesn't result in being called a lunatic."
Malinois left, and as he did, Wybie turned back to the Eroder. He regarded it, and tapped it with a pencil, and waited for inspiration to strike.
It didn't.
"Oh, for..."