Its skin had begun to steam with heat and its extremities were disappearing. She shook her head. No way. There was no way that creature was sublimating in the middle of her kitchen.
But before she could blink the rest of the tears out of her eyes, the last of the arms and legs vanished. The torso began to steam and shimmer out of existence as well. Within moments, the creature’s knife clattered to the floor when the torso it had been buried in disappeared. A black substance—it must have been blood, though it looked more like tar—coated the wickedly serrated blade.
She scrambled to her feet, shock and terror thick in her throat. This couldn’t be happening. Now she couldn’t even tell herself that the awful beast had been some kind of criminal with weird red tattoos. And how could she explain her own tattoo? She’d think she was going crazy if she didn’t have proof on her wrist. Scratch that. Just because she had proof that something really weird and really wrong was happening didn’t mean that she wasn’t also going crazy. Diana laughed, sounding insane even to herself. She had to get this thing off her.
She leapt to her feet and ran to the foyer to wedge a chair beneath the handle of the front door to make up for the broken lock. Within moments she was scrubbing her hands beneath scalding water in the downstairs bathroom, but the heat didn’t stop the pervasive cold streaking through her veins. She frantically rubbed the lavender soap against the back of her wrist, feeling the thin raised lines underneath the black ink. She had to get it off.
Look at it, a dark part of her whispered.
No. She wouldn’t look at it until she couldn’t feel the raised lines anymore. She scrubbed harder.
Look at it.
Willpower, Diana. But her gaze was drawn down to the tattoo. Still there. Terrifying and beautiful.
Wait a second—she had seen that before. Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh? The famous landmass, an extinct volcano jutting from the center of the Scottish capital, had a well-known profile. One that she was familiar with from the treatise that FedEx had delivered earlier. She’d looked at the first couple of pages before running out to the grocery store. There had been a frontispiece. She’d been drawn to the small illustration, captivated by the delicate curves and jagged lines that told the story of the mountain’s past.
Get it together, Diana. There was no way the tattoo was going to wash off. And she’d actually just killed a monster with some new strength and bravery she couldn’t define. Bravery that was long gone now and she was all alone. Though she normally didn’t mind being alone, her small townhouse now seemed cavernous and dark outside of the bathroom.
She had to get out of here. Diana turned off the water with a trembling hand and grabbed a towel. After scrubbing her hands dry, she ran to the library to grab the book and went out the back door. It took her a few minutes of yanking on the stuck door, but she managed to get it open. It was worth the effort. Anyone could see her if she went out the front. But the back led to a miniscule fenced-in plot protected from prying eyes.
Rain pounded her as she ran across the tiny yard to the little gate she’d added at the side. It swung open easily into an identical tiny and private yard and she ran across and up the back steps of the neighboring townhouse. She cradled the book to her chest, protecting it from the rain, and pounded on Vivienne’s door until it swung open.
“Di, what’s wrong?” Vivienne beckoned her inside.
Diana bolted out of the rain. A small rush of warmth flooded her when she entered her friend’s cheery kitchen, but not enough to banish the cold that had gripped her heart with icicle claws.
Vivienne was the only person she knew who wouldn’t immediately call for a straitjacket, and she was so damned grateful they were neighbors.
Vivienne rubbed Diana’s shaking arms and said, “Come on, let’s go to the living room. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Vi dragged her into the brightly colored room. Such a contrast to her own, and so welcoming that Diana almost wept. They sat on the couch.
“Tell me what’s up.” Her friend’s face was creased with worry.
“Oh my God. I don’t even know. Um, a monster broke into my house.” With a trembling voice that bubbled just under hysteria, she described the attack.
“What?” Vivienne’s voice was incredulous.
“Look.” Diana thrust out her arm. “This appeared.”
“Holy crap.” Vi ran tentative fingers over the black lines.
“Yeah. And it looks like the frontispiece illustration in this treatise. The one that I ordered.” Diana flipped open the book and showed Vivienne. Diana watched her inspect the two, waiting for Vi to speak, her breath caught uncomfortably in her throat.
“Well...huh…” the normally eloquent Vivienne said. Silence.
“I know.”
“This is crazy. I mean, I believe you. But it’s insane.”
“The worst part was...it knew my name, Vi. The monster said that they were waiting.”