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My brain struggles with the concept that there is life in the Stygian plane. Since it is the place the souls of dead supernaturals go, I sometimes wonder where the other stuff comes from. Now some of it gets created by Leviathan, but not all of it. Imps and shadow people are just some of what we might consider wildlife of the Stygian. There were also ghouls; nijuki, which are similar to our snakes; banshees; sprites; and bonkyu, which are just orbs of light. The few bonkyu that have crossed over have become known as ghost lights, and there was no way to list them all without writing a book, of which there are two.
There were ghouls in the lobby. Ghouls are smallish creatures that don’t really look human, but kind of do at the same time. They are rail-thin if they haven’t fed in a while, but as soon as they eat, they become bloated and develop strange round bellies that look like they ate beach balls. They have to hold their bellies while they walk or they throw up. They only eat meat, and while they prefer it dead, it isn’t a requirement. Most of the ghouls were thin and snarled and growled at us. But four sat with their backs against a wall, their round bellies sticking out more than a foot from the rest of their bodies.
“I think we have to figure out what they ate before we can send them across,” I told Raphael. He nodded. I had hoped he would volunteer for this job, but he didn’t walk toward any of the napping ghouls.
Ghouls don’t chew. They just opened their mouths and swallowed. They could eat things that were nearly 20 times their size, which meant it was possible one of them might have eaten a person. It was unlikely, since they easily gave up if their food fought back, but I’d seen it happen. Of course, the last thing on the planet I wanted to do was make a ghoul vomit to ensure they hadn’t eaten a person. However, most city buildings had guards posted at metal detectors, and there were metal detectors, but no guards. The guards could have just run away when ghouls ran into the room, which is what most people would do, but we did need to be sure. If I forced a ghoul across the divide and it had eaten a person or supernatural, they would be vomited up, either in the millisecond it took to cross the Divide or once the ghoul reached the other side. If it was perfectly improperly timed and the ghoul vomited into the Divide, it was instant death regardless of whether the being was immortal or not. Also, once in the Stygian it was really hard to cross back for most supernaturals and impossible for a human unless they found their way to a portal, which could take years. Time in the Stygian didn’t work like time on this plane. By the time someone found a portal, they could be driven mad by it. Living things needed time to move at a constant steady pace and they didn’t get that in the Stygian. Hoo-fucking-ray! We’d be making ghouls vomit, how fun.
My father reached down and grabbed one of the ghouls that was running around by the top of the head as if it were a basketball. His fingers dug slightly into the strange egg-shaped head. The ghoul kicked, hissed, and bared its teeth as its feet were moved further and further away from the floor. After a second it exploded, sending ghoul gore everywhere.
“You’re fired,” I told him. “We don’t blow up ghouls. Get those four to vomit. If you pick them up and shake them, it should do the trick.” He had a look of shock and horror on his face.
“Dad?” I asked.
“I didn’t mean for it to explode,” he said after a moment.
“Have you ever dealt with ghouls that weren’t in a host?” I asked him. He shook his head. “Oh, they are really fragile in their true forms. My guess is too much magic. I can send them across as a group as long as we make sure whatever those things ate weren’t people.” I pointed to the four satiated and semi-comatose ghouls.
The elevator bell dinged, and I looked toward it. There were three shadow people in it. They didn’t move and the door shut again. The elevator dinged again, and the door slid back open. They had changed positions in those five or six seconds, but they were once again statue still as I stared into the elevator. The elevator dinged, the door closed, and it happened again. The ding, the door opened, and the shadow people were in new positions. They remained motionless as I watched, then there was a ding, and it closed. This time it started to go up and I watched to see what floor it would stop at.
Raphael was now standing next to one of the overly stuffed ghouls. He picked it up like he did the one that exploded and gave it a couple of shakes. It moved like a dangling decoration, with the arms and legs jiggling as if they were boneless and had no support structure in them. It spluttered and a bunch of rats were expelled. I didn’t know if it was exceptionally gross because they were still alive, because they were rats, or if there was another reason, but I was fighting revulsion. Whatever it was, I managed not to scream and climb the furniture as they swarmed past the ghouls, who watched in horrid fascination for a moment and then began jumping at the medium-sized scurrying creatures. I almost felt bad for the rats. Dad dropped the ghoul that released the rats and grabbed the next one. He shook it and more rats tumbled out. The third one coughed up a small woman in a brown uniform. She also immediately threw up upon her release. I could understand that. I’d never been eaten by a ghoul, but I imagined it was really unpleasant.
“Where’s Bobby?” The woman asked. I shrugged. “Who are you?”
“I’m Soleil Burns, I was called to deal with the demon box and whatever came out of it. You should definitely go to the hospital and get checked out. I think I would suggest a few days of paid leave as compensation from your boss.” She gave me a smile.
“Did one of those little things really attack me?” she asked and felt her face. “It got black all the sudden, and I felt hot and warm.”
“Yes, it ate you,” my father told her. “Let’s make sure Bobby didn’t face the same fate in this last one.” Dad picked up the final ghoul, and Bobby was ejected. The man and woman shouted each other’s names and hugged. I had a feeling there was an office romance in bloom. I repeated to him what I said to the woman, that he should go to the hospital and ask for paid leave as compensation for being eaten by a ghoul, and he dug out his cell phone. “There’s an officer outside that will sit with you while you wait on the ambulance. We need to deal with the rest of the things in the building.” I pushed a bit of magic and all the ghouls disappeared. So many disappeared that there was a loud popping and the air pressure in the room changed. The elevator dinged again, and I turned to watch it. The doors opened and instead of the expected three shadow people, Jerome came out.
“Those people are slimy,” he said as Bobby and Janelle left the building.
“Eaten by ghouls,” I said.
“That’s nasty!” Jerome said and I silently agreed. “I’ve gotten rid of seven shadow people. Remiel keeps exploding them, which is becoming a problem. As it turns out, they have thoughts. If he explodes another, he’s liable to have a breakdown.”
“Really? They think? Can you hear it?” I asked. He nodded. “What do they think?”
“Mostly they think, “You can’t see me.” It isn’t a logical thought process, and I would never confuse it as a human, supernatural, or even a demon. I kind of wonder what Aurora hears from animals. At any rate, they can think and we can hear their thoughts, so killing them is a huge problem that’s going to get bigger if Remiel accidentally kills another,” Jerome told me.
“Raphael exploded a ghoul too. I thought he’d just poured in too much magic or didn’t have the touch we have, but maybe there’s something else going on there.”
“How so?” Jerome asked.
“When Uriel dealt with the box the other day, every time he touched it with magic, the box gave up something new,” I said. “What if the exploding wildlife is related to the mechanism that made it impossible for Uriel to exorcise the box?” I suggested.
“Maybe. I can’t figure out what the black magic in the box does,” Jerome said.
“Yeah, I think we need to better study this box before we exorcise it. Once we remove the magic, the box either implodes or explodes, so maybe we need to leave this one intact and just study it in a contained environment.”
“I’ll get all hands on-deck, and we’ll take it to your office,” Raphael replied and pulled out his cell phone.
“Good. I’ll go save Remiel from exploding more shadow people. Did you see any shadow people in the elevator?” I asked Jerome.
“There were three riding it earlier, but I’m not sure why. They got off on the second floor. There’s a dozen incubi and succubae on the fifth floor along with probably 20 or more shadow people, and there’s no telling how many in the rest of the building. They thought about a hundred came out before we arrived.”
“Good to know,” I said. “Do you want to take the elevator back up?”
“Yes. There’s a bonkyu in the north stairwell and a pack of banshees in the east one. I didn’t check the south or west ones before deciding on the elevator.”
“I’ll handle those stairwells,” Raphael said as the elevator opened and the three shadow people, frozen in time, stared blankly at Jerome and I. I considered sending it on, but Jerome stepped into it. I followed him, and within a moment, the elevator was clear of shadow people. Three for me, seven for Jerome, and an unknown number for Remiel, leaving probably about 90 of them. No problem.
The elevator stopped on the second floor and woman stepped in. She looked amazingly calm, and I realized she was the first person besides Jerome, Dad, myself and the two guards eaten by ghouls that I saw in the building.
“You know there’s an infestation,” the woman said to me, and I felt a ripple of magic.
“I do know,” I said, and touched her shoulder. She collapsed onto the floor and I pulled a squirming, yapping, dog-sized demon from her. I felt succubus magic try to seduce me into keeping it and held it out at arm’s length. A couple of harpsichord notes played as I sent it across the Divide. Jerome grinned.
“It’s cooler with sound effects,” he told me. “I thought about doing the Star Wars pew-pew of their laser guns, but the harpsichord notes seemed like a better option.”
“Pew-pew would have been good too. You know, in case the urge hits again.”
“You know we can’t leave her on the elevator, right? The shadow people seem to think they are entertaining,” Jerome said. “We’ve seen several with serious weapons of war.”
“Well, I’m not carrying her, so do you want to take her via magic?” I asked.
“Meh, I don’t really have a choice,” he said, and the elevator stopped on the third floor. The door opened. A shadow person stood frozen in front of us. I reached forward and hit the door close button. The elevator didn’t move. I hit it again, and still nothing. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and it suddenly stopped. A second shadow person froze at the corner of the open elevator door. I sighed, stepped out of the elevator, and sent the shadow people back. The door slid closed behind me. Fuck. I sighed again.
“Anyone on this floor?” I shouted down the empty hallway. Nothing moved and I reached behind me and hit the elevator call button. I turned and put my back against the wall across from the elevator. The one I’d just stepped out of stopped at the fourth floor, and I hoped Jerome was paying attention. I couldn’t help but worry about him. I waited as the elevator reached the fifth and final floor. There was a shout from the floor above me that was human, but not Jerome. A small, furry thing ran past my feet. I couldn’t identify it. It wasn’t a rat, but it kind of looked like a rat if one mated with a kangaroo. I made a mental note to check out wombats on the internet, since I didn’t know what they looked like. There was another scream that was decidedly male, although still not Jerome.
“Hello!” I shouted. “Soleil Burns, exorcist! I’m by the elevators if you can walk. If not, shout back to me.”
“Help!” The voice called out and I wondered if I was about to get ambushed by a demon. The voice called out for help again, and there was no ripple of magic with it. Well, fuck, here’s to bad decisions. I started carefully walking toward the cry, but first, I texted my father to let him know what floor I was on and what I was doing. Then I forwarded the text to Jerome as well. I had plenty of time since I couldn’t walk out in the open down the hallway. I needed to keep my back against a solid surface so that a shadow person with a flame thrower couldn’t sneak up on me.