28 – Comprehending the Incomprehensible

“She’s still breathing—”

“Get her inside, quickly!”

“Rick, get me the first aid kit. Sofia, find clean towels.”

“On it.”

Leslie swept his arms over the table in Varn’s back room, knocking aside stuffed animals, party balloons, and packs of trading cards destined for the prize counter. Erika’s hands shook around Delilah’s shoulders as she helped Anna lift the girl up. The metal creaked under Delilah’s weight, and a few stray cards fluttered to the floor; Erika barely noticed. She focused on Delilah’s face—ashen, lips parted to draw in faint breaths, and coated in a sheen of sweat. Blood seeped through the torn fabric of Delilah’s t-shirt, gathering in unusually dark pools.

“Here,” Rick said, holding open a large white case.

Anna pulled out a box cutter and, lifting the fabric off Delilah’s skin, sliced straight through her shirt. Tossing aside the cutter, Anna grabbed hold of Erika’s hands and pressed them down near a large gouge in Delilah’s shoulder. “Pressure here,” she said.

Erika swallowed hard, trying to steady her breathing. Considering what she had been through this evening, it felt ridiculous to be squeamish. Something about severely injured humans just bothered her on a deeper level. The Doctor working on Anna was among the worst she had felt, but this could easily top that.

Delilah’s wound wasn’t clean; the edges were jagged, almost burned, and the blood oozed slow and thick, as if reluctant to leave her body. Perhaps because she had been outside for an unknown stretch of time, Delilah’s body lacked the warmth and heat that people were supposed to have. Her blood chilled Erika’s fingertips.

Blinking, Erika broke from her stupor. Her eyes snapped over the dark, sticky blood and the large crescent-and-cross tattoo marring Delilah’s chest. “I’ve met this person before,” she said, realizing that they all could be in grave danger. “She isn’t a normal human. The Mummy is after her and she has some invisible friend telling her how to escape.”

“What a coincidence,” Anna said, tone flat as she rummaged in the kit with brisk and precise movements. “I won’t be able to do anything for internal bleeding,” she said, uncapping a bottle of alcohol before unfurling a roll of gauze. “The wound might be partially cauterized? It looks burned.”

Erika shifted her hands to get a better look, only to jolt back as she felt something scrape against her palms. She let out a yelp that startled the others into backing away.

Two alien paws slithered from the wound, bent at an unnatural angle. They swept down, digging claws into Delilah’s skin before they sank back into the wound, drawing the flesh closed in a tight seam.

“Uh.” Erika, eyebrows crammed up her forehead, flicked her gaze to the others—all frozen where they stood—before settling her focus back on Delilah. “You all saw that, right?”

“Yep.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What the fuck?”

“Language, Daniel.”

Erika pulled out her bat, readying it, as Delilah’s form stirred. Rick’s hand went to his sword hilt, and Leslie drew a pistol, keeping it aimed at the ground. Anna took a hearty step backward, moving near the wall with Daniel and Sofia.

Black, featureless eyes snapped open, and Delilah slowly sat up.

Erika tensed. She remembered those eyes—even with all the oddities she saw, solid black eyes stuck out. The last time she’d seen Delilah, those eyes lit up with excitement when she saw food, shame and anger when being admonished, and fear when The Fixer arrived. Fresh out of the oddity that was The Castle’s hospitality, black eyes hardly seemed worth raising a fuss over.

Delilah’s eyes met Erika’s, looking empty and unreadable.

Emotionless.

No one moved. Erika’s blood-slick hands tightened on her bat. The others hovered between fight and flight, weapons half-raised, but not sure if they should attack.

“Delilah?” Erika whispered.

The answer came simple, short, and wispy, almost in a sing-song tone. “No.”

Erika swung, ignoring the surprised yelp from Daniel. She stopped her bat an inch away from the side of Delilah’s head. The girl made no move to duck or block. She didn’t even flinch. “Nya.”

“Yes,” ‘Delilah’ said, speaking in the same airy tone.

“Are you an Outsider?”

“No.”

Erika ground her teeth, finding herself more irritated with the being’s one-word answers than her having taken over Delilah’s body. She didn’t actually know Delilah, not that she wasn’t open to helping her out, but if it came down to it, there were five other people in this room that she would protect. “Then what are you? What do you want?”

“Oh, what we all want, I suppose: to not be chased around by strange men in masks and tattoos.”

Erika stared a moment longer, searching for any sign of anything in Delilah’s eyes. They were just as emotionless as before, but she still slowly lowered her bat.

“That’s it?” Sofia whispered loud enough that everyone heard her. “That’s all it takes to lower your guard?”

Erika shot a glare over her shoulder, but kept Delilah in her vision. “She’s talking,” she tried, only to get a flat look back. “You want to hold a bat out all day? Shit makes my arms tired and my arms are already tired. This day feels like it’s gone on for weeks now.”

“She… it?” Daniel added, cocking his head. “They didn’t even answer what they are.”

Erika turned back to Delilah, who hadn’t even blinked, let alone moved. “Well?” she prompted.

“Depends on who is asking.”

“I have fought off cultists, naked women, birds, maggots, and the most disgusting thing I think it is possible for anyone to see. I don’t want to get in another fight today…” Erika trailed off, leaving the threat implied.

“D calls me Nya. I don’t know why—some long lost memory of a childhood television show, I believe. Various cults refer to me as second comings of a plethora of holy figures, far too many to list. Those tattooed folk you keep running into know me as Keeper of Gates, the Keymaster, Signatory of Release, the Herald, among other titles.”

“Keymaster?” Rick asked, still tense, but with a small smile. “Like, Gozer?”

Even with her back turned, Erika could hear Anna rolling her eyes.

“Not quite,” Delilah answered before turning back to Erika. “Your… progenitor calls me The Daughter.”

Erika sucked in a breath, raising her bat once again. Her movement killed the gradually lightening mood in the room, putting everyone on alert. “You’re The Mummy’s kid?”

“Not quite,” The Daughter said, entirely unphased by the array of weapons trained in her direction. “More of an aspect of The Mummy. One and the same, yet apart nonetheless. Much like the ██████ of Maggots and The Carrion Eater as well, if you are aware of them?”

Erika was not, but hearing that title gave her a sudden bad feeling about the bird things. She noted that even… whatever Nya was, they still couldn’t speak the name of the maggot god.

“Daughter is a fair description. The analogy fits close enough, for simple minds.”

“Fucking rude,” Erika said, grinding her teeth. “But… you aren’t helping The Mummy.” Erika ran through the situation in her mind, trying to figure out how The Daughter slotted into things. “Delilah said you helped her escape from them.”

“Correct. Irritating, aren’t they? Those with tattoos cannot truly be killed. Even if rendered unto dust and scattered among the stars, they will return in a few centuries and begin their hunt once again.”

“Well, that’s just great,” Sofia grumbled.

Erika agreed in full. Given what she had just done with the maggots, she wasn’t as upset, instead curious whether or not she could break that cycle too. But they weren’t here now. This thing was. “So, little mini-god with daddy issues? Is that what you are?”

“Daughter is an analogy—”

A snap of Erika’s fingers cut off Nya. “Don’t care. My taunt still works. You…”

Delilah jerked, her black eyes rolling back as she collapsed onto the table, the thump sharp in the tense silence. For a heartbeat, she lay motionless, then her body trembled. Her breath ragged and uneven, she planted a palm against the metal and tried to push herself up. She made it about halfway before catching sight of the room. With a surprised squawk, she scrambled backwards, only to fall right over the edge of the table.

“Um…” Daniel said, starting forward, only for Delilah to pop back up over the table, arms clamped against her chest and shoulder where her wound had been. He immediately turned away with rosy red ears.

Delilah’s lips flapped like a fish’s, wide eyes staring around before she settled on the only person in the room who she recognized. “What… What… What?”

“I think Nya is gone,” Erika sighed, before whipping a finger around in Delilah’s direction. “Hey, if you can talk to Nya, ask her where we can find this carrion god.”

“Is that really the most important part of… everything that just happened?” Anna asked.

“I mean, maybe. We just beat down one aspect of The Mummy, why not go two for two?”

“Wait!” Delilah squeaked. “What… Why are you here?”

Confused, Erika raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you come to find me? Why are you surprised I’m here?”

“I…” Delilah trailed off, her eyes drifting to the side. “Okay,” she said, arms loosening slightly before she shivered and hugged herself a little tighter. “I guess. Why… are you with a basketball team?”

Opening her mouth, Erika hesitated and glanced around. Everyone except her still wore their ill-fitting gym uniforms. There simply hadn’t been time to change. Rick had some spare clothes stashed here, which Anna and Sofia were going to wear on their way home—thin gym clothes weren’t the best for motorcycle rides. Leslie and Daniel were going to head home, along with Erika, and Rick…

Erika had no idea how Rick came or went from Varn’s with his van trashed. Rideshare, maybe?

Delilah’s presence threw all those plans out the window.

“Look,” Erika started, then snatched a towel from Sofia’s hands and tossed it to Delilah. She yelped, but caught it and draped it around herself. “We’ve had a long day, and you’re making it longer. So why not settle down, get some coffee going, and just start over with a simple question: Why are you here? Actually… you were injured and looked like you might have been fleeing from something; are we in danger right now?”

“I… I don’t…” She trailed off, glancing to the side once again—conferring with Nya, probably. “I got away. For now.”

“Good, then let’s start from the beginning.”

The group settled down around the bloody table, leaving Delilah on one side. Sofia and Daniel stayed furthest back, Leslie kept a hand resting on his sidearm, and Rick got a pot of coffee going. From the beginning apparently meant from the last time she ran into Erika, well over a week ago at this point.

Delilah kept on the run, but never found herself chased like she had been the day she met Erika. All the masked cultists simply stopped appearing, and aside from her encounter with Erika, the tattooed people had never been a problem for her since escaping her cult’s compound. Then tonight happened.

“I started to get an itchy feeling. Everywhere felt warm and flush, and every breath was like steam. Not the normal kind of breath-steam in the cold where it just mists in front of your face for a second, but like… scalding shower steam.” She looked into the distance, staring somewhere over Erika’s head. “I’m getting to that,” she snapped.

Erika took a patient sip of her coffee, knowing it would be pointless to try to see Nya. That didn’t stop Rick from looking around in suspicion.

“I noticed my markings changed.” Delilah took a breath, her own coffee ignored. She tugged the towel down enough to show off the large crescent with the added cross off to the side. “I was looking at it in the reflection of a window, then… a giant bird crashed in through the glass.”

“Was this about… Oh, you lost consciousness, so you likely don’t know how much time passed.” Erika frowned, considering the best way to ask her question. “Ah. Nya probably knows. Did this itchy thing start about an hour ago or about six hours ago?”

Delilah didn’t answer right away, again looking off in a different direction. “Closer to six. That… feeling lasted for a half an hour? Maybe an hour. Then the bird showed up.”

Erika nodded as she slotted the timeline into place with that detail. Delilah started getting itchy before birds appeared in Chicago, which meant before Erika returned to Chicago with The Puppet. She found it highly likely to coincide with the moment Erika accidentally broke that tattooed guy’s chain.

Nya, The Daughter, was some aspect of The Mummy, as was the main maggot and this Carrion Eater. Could all the aspects feel when another was free? How many aspects—and chains—were there? Was there a critical threshold where, if enough chains broke, The Mummy could handle the rest on its own?

Rick flipped his laptop around, showing off an image of one of the sinewy-meat-clad-in-brass birds that Erika fought off in the weird Hell dimension. The photograph looked like it had been taken by someone in a high-rise, looking down on it perched on the side of the building. “One of these?” he asked.

Delilah recoiled back, bouncing her head up and down. Her foot thumped against the ground in nervous tapping until Rick turned the screen away. She finally went for her coffee, only for her trembling hands to spill it all over her towel. “I killed it. I think. I don’t really remember,” she said, rubbing the side of her forehead as she ignored the coffee staining the grey towel. “A knife in my hand… I stabbed and…” Delilah trailed off again, this time looking off toward what could only be Nya.

Erika didn’t interrupt their silent little conversation, nor did anyone else. She simply waited, watching Delilah visibly calm, settling back down in her seat. Whatever reassurances Nya offered must have helped; Delilah went for her coffee again and did not spill it this time.

“I got away, but another one showed up. And another. And then three. Nya showed me how to escape, and I did, but they just kept coming. Nya said we were headed to you, that you could help, but then one of them got me.” Her hand drifted to her no-longer-wounded shoulder. “It picked me straight up and flew off. It felt like I was being torn apart. Nya said I killed it, but then we fell. I don’t actually know how I got here, or where here is, but Nya says we got away.”

“Her memory has more holes than a round of Swiss cheese,” Sofia muttered behind Erika’s back.

Erika agreed. With how much Delilah trailed off or looked uncertain, not to mention the explicit mentions of not knowing something, she had a feeling that Nya was doing far more heavy lifting here than even Delilah was aware of.

Someone else might have been a little more delicate, but Erika needed to know. “Did you know Nya possesses you? Puppets you around? Before you woke up, we were talking with Nya directly, using your mouth.”

Delilah’s eyes widened, but she didn’t look shocked enough for this to be truly a surprise.

“Does that happen often?” Rick asked, leaning forward with interest. “Do you frequently experience periods of missing time?”

“No?”

“Have you ever found a metal implant in your body?”

“What.”

Anna rolled her eyes hard enough that Erika felt it. “This isn’t an alien abduction. She’s possessed by a… thing.”

“I didn’t think it was aliens,” Rick said, matching Anna’s eye roll as if she were the ridiculous one.

“Nya helps me,” Delilah stressed, stopping their argument. “Lately. It is a fairly recent development.”

“How recent?” Erika asked.

Delilah considered, looking upward, but not at Nya… probably. It felt more like she was thinking than consulting. “A few months.”

“October? Specifically, October nineteenth? Maybe the twentieth?” The day she had rescued The Fixer, broken a chain, and freed the maggots from their prison.

“Specific days are hard to tell from one another,” Delilah evaded. Shaking her head, she glared around the room. “I’m just surprised Nya would want to talk to you,” she said, referring to the group rather than any individual. “Normally, Nya just wants to stab people.” She stopped, mouth open, and glanced off to the side. “Okay. Fine. Nya wants to stab cultists. In fairness to me, I think most people I’ve ever met count as cultists, so there isn’t much difference from my point of view.”

Leslie, stroking his beard, cleared his throat before speaking up. “Does Nya think we are in any immediate danger, from birds, cultists, or otherwise?”

“No,” Delilah answered after a moment of silent conferral.

“Is that likely to change in the next… twelve hours?”

The silence dragged on for a little longer this time, but Delilah eventually shook her head.

“Then, I would like to get some new clothes, and get some sleep. Food in the morning. As Erika said, this has been an extremely long day.”

“We sleep here?” Anna asked, not looking at Delilah in a way that made Erika feel like she was especially pointing the woman out. “In shifts.”

“Agreed,” Leslie said, also not looking at Delilah.

“I can make a food and clothing run,” Rick offered.

“Best to go in pairs. Sofia?”

“Ugh. Fine.”

As the others started organizing sleeping spaces, Erika remained in her seat, holding her mug of coffee, staring at Delilah. She wasn’t sure what to think of the girl, but her thoughts weren’t actually on Delilah.

The birds were after Delilah, Nya took over Delilah’s body, Erika accidentally loosed some bird god upon the world. And yet…

The Daughter occupied Erika’s focus; more specifically, her titles: Keeper of Gates, the Keymaster, Signatory of Release, the Herald.

She hadn’t come out and said it, but Erika felt certain…

This was an entity who possessed the power to free The Mummy.