Chapter 21 The Hollow Between Beats
Iris Beaumont
I’m in this ruined room by myself, staring at the spot where Clive once stood. Rhythmic waves of red light on the walls gradually dim, akin to a dying heart’s final pulses, causing terrifying shadows to stretch and contract across the debris. A quiet ringing pervades my ears, occasionally broken by the sound of something thick and not like water falling on stone. In five hundred years, I’ve never been so aware of my knowledge gaps.
Where Clive had been, there was nothing. It was neither life nor death, but an empty void, incapable of recalling its form. The chamber felt thinner now, its air steeped in the stale scent of time itself: dust, iron, and something faintly sweet, like roses left too long in the dark.
My composure, perfected through half a millennium of predatory patience, fractures. I move forward, each step deliberate against the uneven floor, the heels of my boots clicking with obscene normalcy in this abnormal space. The sound echoes, suggesting vastness beyond the chamber walls that should not exist.
“Detective?” My voice sounds foreign to my own ears, smaller than I intend, brittle as thin ice over deep water. The chamber swallows the word without answer.
I approach the spot where he vanished, where the stone floor now bears a web of hairline fractures, like veins beneath pale skin. As I watch, thin ribbons of crimson seep upward through these fissures—not blood, but something that resembles it in consistency only. This substance glows from within, pulsing with its own internal rhythm that bears no relation to any human heartbeat.
Curious despite my growing unease, I crouch and remove one gloved hand. The silk is Valentino, absurdly delicate for our expedition beneath the cemetery, but I’ve found that maintaining standards of dress helps maintain standards of self-control. The glove is black against my pale skin as I extend one finger toward the seeping red.
The moment contact is made, heat sears through the fabric—not gradually, but with such immediate intensity that I jerk backward, a reflex I thought beaten out of me by centuries of necessity. The silk smokes, then blackens, the fine material curling and warping like a living thing in agony. Beneath it, my flesh blisters, a bright flare of pain I haven’t experienced since the last time I walked into sunlight without protection, nearly two hundred years ago.
“Fascinating,” I murmur, examining the damage with clinical detachment even as the pain registers. The burn forms a perfect circle on my finger, the edges unnaturally precise. The tissue is already beginning to heal rapidly, yet the process is slower than usual, suggesting that the cause of the injury is hindering the repair.
Movement at the tunnel’s mouth draws my attention. The Archivist stands there, his silhouette broken and distorted by the dying sigils that pulse on the walls. His parchment-like skin, usually the color of ancient vellum, now absorbs the fading bloodlight, taking on a sickly crimson hue around the edges. He leans on nothing, yet gives the impression of support, as though the very air has become substantial enough to bear his minimal weight.
“Where is he?” I demand, rising to my full height. My voice holds the razor edge that has made lesser creatures quail for centuries.
The Archivist tilts his head, an unsettling bird-like motion that has always made me question how human he ever truly was. “Merely elsewhere,” he says, the words carrying the weight of clinical detachment, the tone one might use to describe a misplaced book rather than a vanished man.
I say “Elsewhere” again, feeling how it fails to convey what I mean. “Not dead? Not transformed? Just... elsewhere.”
“Semantics,” he replies, shuffling further into the chamber. The bloodlight dims as he approaches, as though he’s absorbing it with each shuffling step. “Death is merely a transition to another state. Transformation is merely a shift in material condition. Detective Morrow has undergone both, or neither, depending on one’s philosophical bent.”
My patience, never abundant, thins to transparency. “You knew,” I say, the accusation sharp enough to slice through his prevarication. “You knew the bridge would consume him.”
With a slight wave of a withered hand, the Archivist dismissed the matter, much like a king would brush off a bothersome subject. “Again, a semantic distinction. Consumption does not occur with the bridge; the vessel persists. The prophecy was quite specific about this point, though translations have muddied the precision of the original text.”
“Don’t lecture me on translations,” I snap, taking a step toward him. “I was there when most of those texts were written. I’ve watched your kind distort them for centuries to serve your own purposes.”
His laugh is dry as autumn leaves crushed underfoot. “My kind? And what kind would that be, Iris Beaumont? Or should I say, Iris Laroque? Iris Montague? Iris Dontello? Despite its many names, this creature hasn’t changed at all since the initial taste of blood.”
Thinking about my past lives and the names I no longer use makes me feel unbalanced. I had often questioned the Archivist’s knowledge of my past, yet I assumed it came from his job of recording the paranormal. I’m curious about the origins of his knowledge, and how much of it stems from information I didn’t mean for him to have.
“We are not discussing me,” I say, my voice steady despite the first flicker of genuine uncertainty I’ve felt in decades. “We are discussing Detective Morrow, and what you’ve done to him.”
“What do I do?“ I detected a slight tremor in the Archivist’s voice, the first sign of emotion he had shown. “I’ve merely been the instrument of what was always meant to be. Generations of careful selection had bred, trained, and positioned the halfling, all for this moment.”
In the dimming light, as he talks, I see something I hadn’t before: faint red veins pulsating beneath the Archivist’s fragile skin, mirroring the dying symbols on the walls with their patterns across his face and hands. The Archivist’s old body is now animated by the same hungry light that devoured Clive, giving him a liveliness I’ve never seen in him previously.
“You’re feeding from it,” I whisper, understanding dawning with terrible clarity. “Whatever consumed Clive, you’re drawing power from it.”
The Archivist’s gaze narrows, the hunger in his eyes intensifying as he meets my defiant stare. “Sentimentality can be a dangerous weakness in our line of work,” he replies, his voice tinged with an edge of warning. “You must learn to prioritize the greater good over personal attachments.”
As he speaks, the fissure in the ground widens further, tendrils of darkness snaking out from its depths like hungry tendrils seeking purchase. The dark energy is tempting me, and it might consume us all.
But I will not succumb to the Archivist’s influence. Drawing upon reserves of strength I never knew I possessed, I raise my hand and channel the essence of the ancient sigils etched into my skin. Energy pulses in the atmosphere surrounding me as a luminous wall materializes to defend against the approaching gloom.
“You might have set up this meeting,” I state with a voice that is calm but firm, “but I’m the one who will dictate its conclusion. Clive’s fate is not yours to decide.”
The Archivist’s expression flickers with surprise, then transforms into a mask of cold calculation. “You are a formidable adversary indeed,” he concedes, his tone laced with grudging respect. “Keep in mind, though, that the bridge necessitates sacrifices. Are you prepared to pay the price for meddling in forces beyond your comprehension?”
I meet his challenge with a steely gaze, unyielding in my resolve. “I will do whatever it takes to protect those I care about,” I declare, my words a solemn vow.
With a final, lingering glance, the Archivist steps back into the shadows, his form dissipating like smoke in the wind. The tremors subside, the fissure sealing shut as though it had never existed.
As the echoes of his presence fade, I turn to face the uncertain future ahead, knowing that the choices I make will shape not only my destiny but that of the worlds beyond the bridge. And with Clive’s fate hanging in the balance, I steel myself for the challenges that lie ahead, ready to confront whatever darkness may come my way.