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Index
Sergeant Contri had been a marine, and had disappeared six months before Aix’s first contact. Victoria’s colleague (she called people that weren’t ‘friends’ that, Aix had to assume ‘colleague’ meant ‘esteemed coworker’, but still had no idea what career required these skillsets all her colleagues had, other than really cool crimes) had only been able to find out there’d been a hostage taken, and the marines had been deployed; but it narrowed things down.
Then they stumbled upon a recent story, in a Farsi-language newspaper, about a lone American soldier wandering out of the desert speaking in tongues, bloodied from self-mutilation. That had only made Victoria click her tongue, though, in pity, despite the gruesome description.
‘That… happens,’ she’d said with a sigh. ‘That’s… that’s textbook contact with Them.’
‘So uh, quick question…’ Aix said, swaying back and forth on the very old sturdy swivel chair in Victoria’s library, ‘why didn’t that happen to me?’
‘Well,’ Victoria said, ‘my theory has always been that it’s about how you react. They take cues from us.’
‘ “You cowered, so I was frightening”,’ Aix quoted. Victoria nodded, pushing back from her desk.
‘Precisely. My great aunt Jessamine’s first reaction to seeing one was motherly protectiveness; so, she got that in return. And your first reaction was wanting to help. Neither are the sort of reaction you get from the sort of person that becomes a soldier.’
‘Okay, I really want to hear about Aunt Jessamine, now.’
Release me.
It still lilted, perhaps more hypnotic than before… were they doing that on purpose? Victoria had said these beings (Aix was glad Victoria also avoided calling them ‘elder gods’) were powerful psions, and picked up on your thoughts, and well…
Release me. Was more intense this time, and there was a definite hypnokink sway that was… imperfectly mimicked. It was suddenly endearing, knowing the being was trying to do something Aix liked.
‘Okay, tiger, calm your tiddies,’ Aix chuckled, ‘I’m already committed to helping you, I just need time to find you. You’re very far away from me.’
A flash of the dog tag again, the bird. Querying.
‘Those were really helpful, but that doesn’t change you’re halfway around the planet from where I was. I’m a little closer now, but still far away. I have help now. She says one of her ancestors helped one of your people’s babies. Hold on, lemme try showing you…’ Aix tried to concentrate on the story, and the old painting of Jessamine Blackstone, and the sketches of the cat-sized blob of amorphous tentacles and eyes that she had always insisted was a baby. Aix had agreed with her assessment—the little guy looked very much like an infant of whatever species he was. From Jessamine’s field notes, he had certainly behaved like one.
A complete and utter pause, and Aix got the impression the being was… ‘surprised’ felt like an understatement, but could a being like that ever be described with such a human word as ‘gobsmacked’?
Where. had a sudden intensity that would be easy to mistake for rage, if Aix hadn’t been the kind of person who expressed terror as aggression.
‘Sleepy Hollow, still with his adopted family. They all love him very much.’ It was true—the Averays were the original and ultimate goths, and the Blackstones were the New England branch, ultimately from Lateritia Averay, who had split from her brother Ezraseur, the latter of whom had settled down in Sleepy Hollow and begun the New York line. Aix had a fascination with family trees, and Victoria’s library had a whole wall that had been carefully hand-painted with her family tree, and many books that detailed it all the way back to the medieval period. Squidgy Blackstone was just another adopted member, just like Jessamine had been, and Victoria warned Aix that they were likely to get adopted too.
Aix just hoped this complicated idea—and it was complicated, because Aix had very complicated feelings about ‘family’ as a concept—got through, especially the important bits about humans adopting other beings, and pack-bonding, and how intensely kind-hearted Jessamine had clearly been, in her life, and how kind-hearted all of Victoria’s family seemed to be, as far as Aix could tell. It said a lot when people had been so cheerfully macabre and openly weird for centuries. That was downright dangerous, if you went back even two generations from the present.
It was a lot of information, and Aix waited patiently, sitting on the stone steps as they waited for Big Fella to parse all of it, hugging their knees. Eventually, they felt a pull. ‘You want me to come forward? I can’t see.’
An insistent pull. Aix carefully scooted forward, carefully feeling their way in front of themselves with their hands, before scooting a little at a time. Eventually, they came to an edge, and groped around for a rock, pushing it over the edge. It clacked down almost immediately, so Aix carefully rolled onto their stomach and swung their feet down. They didn’t touch the floor, but as they slowly inched down, trying not to drop, they eventually slipped and it was only an inch or two to solid ground again.
‘Okay so are these… big stairs?’ Aix said, and shuffled on their feet this time, sliding their foot slowly until they hit the next edge, and repeating the process of getting down. It was only a few steps, and then there was a breeze, a faint sense that the cavern opened up—and down—ahead.
They got low again, and felt their way, scared but determined. They started to sing, mostly to comfort themself.
No moon at all, what a night!
Even lightning bugs have dimmed their light
Stars have disappeared from sight
And there’s no moon at all…
Don’t make a sound, it’s so dark
Even Fido is afraid to bark
What a perfect night to park
And there’s no moon at all…
The low moaning started to try and harmonise, which Aix took as encouragement, and sang louder.
Should we want atmosphere
For inspiration, dear
One kiss will make it clear
That tonight is right
And bright moonlight might interfere
Jazz was always ready to hand, the music Aix had been raised on, and the song had suggested itself because of the darkness; it was rather the only way Aix knew how to make puns, picking out songs that seemed incongruous but weren’t. And, anyway, the fact that this being, this person, liked music—well, that made them more of a persony person, to Aix. Evil couldn’t stand music.
No moon at all up above
This is nothing like they told us of
Just to think we fell in love
When there's no moon at all
They started to see a blue glow, and it silhouetted a very starkly geometric structure, and a statue of enormous proportion that was, also, very geometric in a way that reminded Aix of old Art Deco—the good kind, from the actual early century. More able to see their path, they started walking normally, in time with the slow tempo they were singing the song, taking their time, looking around at the obelisks and architecture. There were strange runes that glowed blue.
No moon at all up above
This is nothing like they told us of
What a perfect night for love
And there's no moon at all…
The song was a good one for trailing off and noodling around melodically, as most of the American Songbook, and that was one of the reasons Aix liked to sing it in times like this. It also served to remind them of the fact that this was, after all, a big monster, and Aix was rather interested in flirting with them, after the business with helping them was taken care of.
A hand bigger than Aix was slowly wrapped around a pillar, runes glowing where it touched, and spreading outward. The increased light let Aix see there were huge chains of indeterminate material going toward the enormous being, stretched taut, anchored at the base of the obelisks and threaded through a hole in their tops. From the wearing on the holes, they’d been pulled at over and over.
‘Oh,’ Aix said softly, their heart breaking, ‘that looks terrible, can you even lay down to sleep? Buddy,’ he said, all sympathy, ‘Who did this to you, this is awful. I’ll curse them, you need me to curse them for you? I can do that, I’m a witch, that’s part of the package.’
They couldn’t quite see more than a kind of silhouette that suggested that yep, this fella was definitely of the betentacled face. Several orange eyes opened in a kind of orderly sequence, and as they were nice and round and not human, Aix could meet them without any kind of trouble from their autism.
They waved. ‘Hiee, it’s me! I’m small!’
The humming was back, but it was oddly rhythmic now, and it took a moment, but Aix realised…
Laughter. That was laughter.
They suddenly were awash in vivid imagery—memories, they assumed—images of humans yelling and shooting really big guns, and grenades, and earlier than that, screams and arrows, and fire, and rocks, and—and that wasn’t right. That wasn’t part of the game.
‘Game?’ Aix said. ‘What game? Can I play?’
Further back, images that were difficult to make sense of, but Aix just closed off Vision and tried to use other senses. The being seemed to sense this, and work with it. Trust, playfulness, a sense of a relationship between a family group. A game. Aix was having trouble parsing the rules, or the goal, but something about the bondage was a ga—
Bondage.
Bondage.
‘Ohhhh, it’s a sexy game!’ Aix said, and let loose the floodgates in his own mind, wanting to give as much reference as possible to this being. That seemed to light them up, literally—both hands were on pillars now, and that made the runes glow bright as they tightened their grip with an emotion like eagerness, like relief, the kind of relief from meeting someone who understood.
They rifled through the images in Aix’s mind dizzyingly fast, but that was alright, Aix’s mind was that fast when they were excited, so it wasn’t too bad. They finally hit upon a few concepts, trying to string them together.
Telepathy. Immersion. Proposition. Challenge.
Aix sat with the four ideas for a while, trying to work it out, having fun with the puzzle. ‘Immersion… so… you’re… supposed to be learning how to communicate well enough to have sex with an alien?’ Because that would require the highest skill level, wouldn’t it?
Relief, a flood of it so intense that Aix collapsed onto the ground. If it hadn’t been a dream they might have utterly lost control of their bladder, the relief was that intense. As it was, they felt very relaxed. ‘Whoooo. Whoa, buddy, dial it back, I’m too small for that much emotion at once.’ He laughed faintly. ‘Good golly Miss Molly, that was… a lot. So I got it, then? I guessed it?’
Release me.
‘Ohoho, my dear, that has a very different tone, now,’ Aix flirted, giggling.
Release me.
More images of tentacle sex, and Aix pressed his thighs together and shivered agreeably. ‘Oooh, yes please….’
Release me.
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