Chapter Fifty-Eight

W HILE BO WAITED outside for the coroner, Brittany started a cursory search of the apartment. Travis, for his part, leaned against the wall near the front door, 'keeping watch.' Britt had the distinct feeling he was mostly watching her ass, though.

The body was still by the bar. The blood had stopped flowing, but had made a crimson pool around the corpse. Brittany didn't want to touch it, or get near it, which discounted the kitchen as a place to investigate. But she figured there'd be little in the kitchen worth looking at.

Instead, Brittany moved to the bedroom.

Like everywhere in Manhattan, the room was tiny. It fit a queen-size bed, but barely, the bed stretching from wall to wall. There was a single night stand, small and shabby chic. A night light was in the lone plug on the wall. The closet was large, as tended to be in New York, and quite filled with clothes. Kerri Dove had quite the shoe habit, not on the order of, say, Sex in the City , but a fair amount of the woman's income seemed to go into keeping name brands on hand. Or foot, as the case may have been.

Brittany was sorely tempted to try some of the shoes on, rationalizing that it wasn't as if Kerri was going to be using the Manolo Blahniks any longer. But then again, it was a bit creepy. And Britt was a relatively tiny human, just over 5 feet, and definitely not able to fit into just anyone's shoes anyway, so it was safe to have a moment of larcenous day dreaming.

But aside from the few fashion finds, there wasn't anything of interest in the closet. Certainly nothing referencing The Noble Mystery or any other cults. She tapped on the wall. Solid. Enough. At least enough to indicate there likely wasn't a secret room hidden about.

"Is that you banging?" she heard Travis ask.

"Yeah," Brittany replied. "Making sure we're not missing a room."

"Doesn't really seem like there's space for that."

"Are you looking around out there?" Brittany asked, taking the two steps necessary to see out the bedroom door.

Travis smiled — he hadn't moved.

"I'm looking," he replied.

Brittany frowned, and went back into the bedroom. She pulled the covers off the bed, then hefted the mattress off the platform bed, pushing it up until it leaned against the wall. The bed frame looked to made out of three units of drawers, with one piece of plywood connecting them across the middle. Brittany looked through the drawers, at least the ones she could open, but only found purses.

The plywood connecter was loose. It had holes for screws, so that it could be firmly connected to the drawers, and ostensibly make the bed a stable platform. But the screws had been removed at some point, and never been replaced. They weren't loose, they were straight-up gone.

Brittany reached towards the board, then stopped. Something felt wrong. A sickness inside her, a gentle sort of nausea and a bit of a headache. She stood up and looked around, trying to identify the source of the discomfort.

But it wasn't coming to her. Nothing stood out—

"Hey, uh," Travis said from the other room, his voice quavering just a bit, "I think, uh, maybe you might want to come see this."

Brittany raced out of the bedroom, skidding to a stop on the hardwood floors.

The corpse on the floor had started moving.

It was as if something inside the body was struggling to get out. Like a human cocoon. Things pushed outward against the skin, stretching it taut. It looked like a really well done horror film, and Brittany felt her gorge rising.

She chanced a look over at Travis.

He had a gun in his hands, pointed at the body.

"Don't—" Brittany shouted, but it was too late.

Travis fired two quick shots.

The concussive sound reverberated around the room, and Brittany winced, holding her ears with her hands.

She kept her eyes open, trained back on the corpse. She had a bad feeling she knew what was about to happen.

The bullets had pierced the skin in two spots, a tight grouping. And from the left hole emerged a tentacle, feeling around.

"Fuuuck—" Travis shouted. "What the fuck is that?"

Brittany had no answer for the man, watching as the tentacle felt around the body, slowly and carefully at first, until it found what it was looking for. Then it grabbed hold and pulled, tearing apart the other bullet hole, making it larger and larger.

Then, it slipped back inside. For a moment the body was still, just laying on the ground as if it were nothing other than a normal corpse, just hanging around in its murder spot.

Brittany felt the familiar buzzing in her head, the pressure as her brain struggled to deal with the things it was seeing, the oddity it was forced to process. She took deep breaths, willing herself into a state of calm, a state of acceptance.

"You got this," she whispered to herself.

She opened her eyes to see a creature pulling itself through the corpse of Kerri Dove.

It had a mass of tentacles where the head should be, all moving and squirming.They were a little bit shiny, which could have either been its own secretions, or just the remnants from emerging through a bloodied corpse. Its skin was a dark blueish hue, almost iridescent in the streetlight coming from outside. It had legs and arms and more joints than expected. The limbs ended in long multi-jointed claw-tipped finger-things. All told, as it straightened up, the creature stood perhaps six feet tall. But it dropped down onto four legs, four long spindly legs, and seemed to apprise the situation. Brittany couldn't discern any eyes in the head, just the tentacles. Almost like Medusa, if Medusa had snakes all over her head, and not just as hair.

The creature roared, revealing a maw filled with curved black teeth. The tentacles never stopped flopping and waving around.

Travis was making noises, and not good noises. The random sorts of sounds that invariably meant he was losing it.

"Shit," Brittany hissed. She knew the guy wasn't going to be able to handle it, but really hoped she'd have been able to keep him out of the way of the brain-breaking stuff.

The creature angled towards Travis, taking a tentative step in his direction. It was still new in the world, figuring out how things worked, and what the rules of the universe it had fallen into were.

Brittany's mind raced. She thought through the experiences she'd been up against, and ultimately asked herself what Dulce would have done in the situation. She knew the creature, clearly a predator, would likely head after Travis first. He was moving and loud, so certainly the easier and weaker target, despite being larger than Brittany. She had seconds to act and get them both out alive. Maybe minutes if she was willing to sacrifice Travis.

Extra-dimensional beings were challenging to deal with. It was, after all, the entire reason for the BEA existing. For the most part, it was requisite to identify the being in order to discern the weaknesses it might have as well as the rules it would likely follow. Which was why the BEA maintained a full-time librarian.

But in order to call Robert and get his help, she needed time.

The creature turned its attention to her, then back over at Travis.

Travis was not doing well. He blinked over and over again, and his mouth was making weird shapes. A bit of drool clung to his lip, and it didn't seem like he was focusing on any part the world in particular.

Time for action , Brittany thought.

The creature launched itself at Brittany just as Brittany dove for Travis, tackling him into the bathroom. She kicked the door shut, and immediately, something slammed against the door.

Travis was squirming on the floor, and Brittany had to take a precious few seconds to extricate herself.

She got to her feet, wincing as the creature thudded against the door another time, bits of plaster dropping down from the walls and ceiling. She fumbled around in her pocket, grabbing her phone, and frantically dialed.

On the other end, it rang.