Lord of Fevers and Plagues

It slipped into her almost unnoticed with a breath of frozen air, the skittering of mice on a stone floor, and the cries of those dying with bitten and yellowed skin. It slipped in because the door had been opened before—perhaps not fully, but all It needed was a crack, a thin sliver. It slid in where the pale girl’s spirit was slightly ajar. Nareth, Labyrinth, the dreams, and her very nature had made it so. Now the Thing waited, tamping down the fire within the girl, choking off her speech, bored with her existence but compelled to wait within for the Others.

It hadn’t particularly tried to hide what It had done, though at first, only the Watcher had noticed. The Coyote had looked within the girl. He couldn’t see what the Thing was, but he knew It was there. As the Thing toyed with the girl’s body and her innate abilities so underused, the Coyote threatened. It’s response was to feed, kissing the Grrbrool with a seed of Ebola, smiling Its death grin as the Coyote stumbled into the wall of the hidden Library laboratory, blood streaming from his nose and mouth. It was a pity that Lycans healed so quickly.

When It used the girl to ravish Rhaven’s mind, the Coyote had called on his earthbound gods. “If you hurt my Family, I’ll stop you,” he snarled. He called on the Spirit in the Walls, slamming the girl’s body to the ceiling of the Library. The girl’s shoulder had been dislocated. The Thing had been amused. While It took no pleasure in the earthly sense from Its torments, It did relish the results.

The Coyote warned the Thing that he would break It’s shell if It didn’t stop. “Break it too badly and she will never come back to you," the Thing answered in rush of whispers.

“I’ll kill her ta free her from you, if I have to,” the Coyote said. In reply, the Thing extended one of the girl’s hands to the rusted, iron railing on the scaffolding where the girl’s body sat. At Its touch, a flood of ice...then a snap. It lifted the broken bar and plunged it into the girl’s chest. But the Coyote and the angel, Darkstorm, had intervened. They took the girl to the Wide River while her body yet lived, a place they believed could bind what cannot be bound. “I have dwelt ever in realms apart from the visible world," the Thing’s voices mocked as it hovered above the body.

The Coyote handed the girl to Darkstorm, and then pulled two gold coins from his pocket. The Thing watched. “Life is a hideous thing," It’s voices laughed. "You didn't want the body. I will take it." The Coyote and the Angel disagreed, working in tandem, the Angel pouring energy into the beast and the beast standing in Death’s river, the fire of the sun in his mouth and hands, the gold searing his flesh. He breathed life back into the girl’s body. And the Thing let her see the two, but only for a moment…then on a dry wind of plague It slipped back in.

It waited. Waited for the other Vessels…until the Death-Dreamer was ready. With a flood of vermin spilling from Its mouth, the pale girl's body found Her and kissed Her. As Death rushed into it's Vessel, the girl's body felt Her icy touch at the small of her back, tasted the charnel house on her lips. The Death-Dreamer had been called Blue. Together, They extinguished the fire of the Spirit in the Walls, the feeble Library Spirit. Together, They sought out the other Vessels, leaving in Their wake a red-haired girl with a touch of dengue fever and a Shelter full of dying rats, gifted with Black Death. They were unstoppable.

Except…

There was the problem of Sariel.

(quotes from HP Lovecraft)

Tohu va Bohu Series

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