Chapter 28: No Way Out

After waiting for Hellie to finish chowing on Tiny Jem, exhaustion flooded my body all at once. The toll of our battle demanded its due. But thankfully, Hellie had allowed me to straddle her back, but because the jostling banged at my wounds, I requested that she walk as slowly as possible.

Our journey home was nightmarishly long.

My bruises ached, and chills started overtaking me. Nevertheless, I kept my trembling hand pressed against Hellie’s side. It allowed me to share her invisibility, which was crucial to us getting back unseen.

When we reached the backside of my building, I directed Hellie to phase us through the wall. On the other side, the theater was dark, and sound boomed from the speakers—someone had a movie in progress.

I spotted Jammer in the back row munching on popcorn and curled in her seat. As I took my hand off Hellie and rolled off, we both became visible. Jammer, understandably frightened, screamed. She hadn’t seen Hellie in her hellhound form.

And the irony—Jammer was watching a hellhound flick. I know it was morbid, but her reaction made me laugh. Seeing a real-life hellhound the size of a Clydesdale materialize during the movie must have been mortifying. While snuffing my laugh, I lost my balance and dropped to the floor. The last thing I remembered was an obviously puppeteered hellhound ludicrously attacking a victim on the movie screen as Jammer approached before I mysteriously heard Gene calling me.

“Billy. Billy?”

“Gene.”

“Here, drink this.” Jammer pushed past Gene, then knelt and offered me a drink.

“No, set it down by my hand.”

Jammer complied, and I feebly used a hand dance spell to convert the water into a healing elixir alchemically, which I promptly consumed.

The restoring effects of the drink were immediate. I didn’t feel like I had been unconscious, but as I regained clarity, I realized everything in the room had changed from my last memory.

Time had passed.

The movie sat on pause, and the room lights were up. Hellie had converted to her human form and was dressed in a long pajama shirt, sitting in the front row eating popcorn, looking blissfully happy. And I think Jammer had on a different pair of pants. Concerned, she and Gene crowded around me but backed as I rose. That’s when I noticed I wasn’t wearing my backpack anymore.

“Where’s my backpack?”

“It’s right here.”

Gene handed over the open backpack. I quickly and angrily shot in his direction, “Why is it open?”

Jammer interjected. “He tried to check the book to find out what was happening to you.”

“Tried is the keyword. It wouldn’t open for me.” Gene pushed the backpack into my hands with an annoyed attitude. “I asked you for permission, and you nodded.”

“What? I don’t remember. Wasn’t I unconscious?”

“No, more like spaced out. You never closed your eyes, staring off into the ceiling.”

“I thought I heard you call out for Shellie, but Jammer said you said Hellie.”

Oh shit.

“What else did I say?”

In a spellbound and curious tone, Jammer answered, “You said Tiny Jem is dead.”

I paused for a moment, reliving mental flashes of Hellie consuming Tiny Jem.

“What is this, Billy?”

Gene held out Tiny Jem’s Boomstick, which I had confiscated. I didn’t know if it held any value, but I wasn’t leaving behind Gluttony’s Auracroft.

“Put it down, Gene. It could be concentrated evil. It’s Tiny Jem’s Auracroft.” Then, in a sharp tone, I said, “Did you realize you had me start the hunt for Gluttony? We almost died.”

Responding, Gene swiftly placed the Boomstick on the ground and said, “No way. The casting spell for that was on another page.”

“What?”

I swiftly dug into my bag and opened Rules of the Black Arts for Advanced Users.

“‘To begin the hunt for Gluttony, the words “Ostende mihi gulam in anima mea” must be spoken. ‘”

I stopped because that was how far I had gotten on both of my readings.

“Continue,” said Gene with a snarky inflection.

I obliged.

“‘Take time to meditate on the phrase to face the root of Gluttony within yourself. Proper mental and physical preparation is necessary before challenging Gula, or defeat is inevitable.'”

“It’s a meditation phrase, Billy.”

I turned to Gene, stunned. “We killed Tiny Jem. He was Gula. He had to be. Right, Hellie?”

Hellie turned away, curling into sleep mode. Gene didn’t react, but Jammer was all emotion. “Like killed, killed?”

“Yes, Hellie ate him. But we saved two-thirds of his throuple.”

Jammer made a blah noise, signaling me to look over. “Are you saying Tiny Jem’s in a throuple? Gross.”

“That’s what your’re focusing on? Yeah, he was in a throuple. Now, he’s no longer on this plane.”

Gene pushed his glasses on his face, crossed his arms, and spoke up. “Then I suggest you better perform the unmasking ritual to make sure Hellie ate the right guy. Study over this page. I’ll get you what you need.”

Gene flipped to the next page and left. Looking over the page he had directed me to, I read “Unmasking the Avatar.” I gritted my teeth in self-knowing embarrassment. I had seen this page before, but I skipped over it. My focus was for shit.

Did Gula possess Tiny Jem to fool me? Was Hellie’s instinct off?

I don’t know what I felt worse about—maybe wrongly killing Tiny Jem or accusing Gene of being the reason for it. Whichever it was, I didn’t have time to reflect. Instead, I plopped into the seat next to Hellie and tried to focus on the reading.

Before my eyes hit the page, I noticed Jammer starting to sit next to me, then quickly changing to sit by Hellie. After brushing off that little distraction, I delved into the hunting ritual.

Ten minutes later, Gene announced his presence by dimming the lights. I looked up and watched as he walked down the stadium seating aisle to us.

When he reached ground level, he placed a blank piece of paper, a brush, and an ink bottle on the floor before me.

“Are you ready?”

I had committed the actions of the ritual to memory, but my partner in crime had fallen asleep. I thought about waking Hellie but decided against it.

“Let’s get this done.” As I moved from my seat and sat crossed-legged on the ground, Gene got comfy in one of the front-row seats to my right.

I screwed off the top of the ink and dipped the thick Bristol brush tip into the bottle, scraping off the excess ink as I pulled it out. I then held the brush over the paper and waited, concentrating on the words, Gula ostende mihi faciem tuam.

Minutes flew by quickly. I held the brush off the page for so long that it began to hurt. But I didn’t falter; I pushed past the ache, and that was when it happened.

My hand took on a life of its own, pressing the brush onto the paper, and I didn’t interfere. Instead, I let the automated drawing flow. The strokes were masterful and clean, shaped with a confidence I could never do with my art. Then the brush fell from my hand after using the splatter technique.

We all gawked at the symbol that belonged to Gluttony. Still sitting cross-legged, I weaved my fingers into the ritual’s hand movements while speaking the magical phrase aloud. “Gula ostende mihi faciem tuam.”

Each word in the phrase caused vibrations on the page. The ink rolled into tiny pearls like sand, dancing and changing form. Then the name Wallace Jemson appeared, a life-sized spectral image of him hovering over it.

“Hellie, we weren’t wrong.”

Hellie woke up, looked at the image, and curled back into sleep.

After a minute, the vision faded, and the ink on the page splotched.

“Now that would have gotten your hunt started. You would have known exactly who to go get.”

Gene was not letting my accusation go.

“Yeah.” I humbly acknowledged him, but I couldn’t apologize. Not yet.

“At least it was the right guy, but I knew it had to be. He transformed his appearance into this blobby but stout, grey smoke-emitting, pig-snouted, red-eyed, horn-crowned demon. That shit was intense.”

“What if it wasn’t the right guy and the entities tricked you? Sins deal in illusion. It was stupid of you to engage. Hunting should be off limits without performing the full rituals first.”

“There you all are!”

We all turned to see Myles standing at the theater’s entrance, out of breath.

“We need to take a quick drive. Gene, it’s happening just like you said.”

***

Myles didn’t clue us in on the emergency. He had taken us onto the backroads to bypass driving through Milicent, the only small town in the vicinity of our isolated campus. Only Gene seemed to have an idea of where we were headed. I didn’t push since Myles hadn’t offered any information. He was as terrible as Gene about saving up big reveals. Besides that, he had been stone-faced for most of the trip after he learned about the battle between me and Tiny Jem.

Glancing out the window and based on our general direction, it appeared we were heading toward the Bramwell-Gates Bridge, also known as the BGB by the locals.

The question is: Why were we taking the backroads?

Hellie was the only one who was enjoying the trip. She hung her head out the window, taking in the night air. On the other hand, the rest of us were solemnly quiet. Even Jammer was uncharacteristically without words. The few times I looked at her, she reeked of embarrassment. We had never sat so close. Maybe she felt squished, being in the middle of Hellie and me in the back seat.

By the time we reached our destination, the weariness I felt from my ordeal caused me to lose the modicum of curiosity that I had. Honestly, I wanted to sleep, and only tagged along at my roommates’ insistence. As everyone exited the car, I stayed seated, focused on the serene field outside the car window.

Gene tapped on the glass. “Are you getting out, Billy?”

“Yeah, coming.”

“It’s this way.”

Myles led us through the field into a line of trees just off the cliffside embankment of the Moondog River. Once we hit the clearing, Myles threw his hands out to his sides, intimating, Can you believe this? His big reveal was apparent for us all to see. The BGB, the main entrance to Bramwell-Gates Arts Institute, was no more.

Jammer and Gene walked ahead of the group to the cliff’s edge for a better look.

They both uttered, “Holy shit,” almost at the same time.

I, along with Hellie, moved up next to Myles. Half a mile into the distance, the area bustled with activity on both sides of the destroyed bridge—blue and red lights of the Milicent police and emergency vehicles bathed the wreckage. The bridge appeared to have caved in from the center, leaving remnants dangling off the cliffside. Pieces of the wood-covered exterior floated in the river below; some chunks flowed toward the falls downstream.

Clearly mystified Myles said, “Yeah, this is crazy. The BGB collapsed. I tried to check it out earlier, but the authorities had the road closed five miles outside of Milicent. That’s why I brought you all this way. I got chatter about it from one of my contacts in the fire department. He said they were keeping news of it quiet until all the big brains got together.”

“John, I mean, Mr. Shulenmeyers is going to freak out. How did it happen?”

“Nothing official has come through yet.”

“This sucks for everyone trying to get out of town. They’ll have to take the old access roads.”

“Yeah, but my same contact said some of those roads are down from mud and rockslides.”

“Well, emergency services can be contacted. They’ll figure something out.”

“I don’t think they will. Now we’re all trapped on campus. Gene predicted it this afternoon.”

Gene walked over to Myles and me, looking very serious.

“This is one of the signs of the Bramwell-Gates Legend, Billy. So, unfortunately, that means we have a short time until the end.”