16.7

 

Then the hunger came. The energy in the key was hers and hers alone. To store it in an inanimate object was base and disrespectful. She looked up at her flatmate at the top of the stairs. “Let me see the key, Paul. Just for a minute.”

“Sure.” Paul held it up and began to trot down the stairs.

Steve must have felt the shifting weight on the wooden structure. “What the fuck are you doing, Paul? I said to go and lock the door to my room.”

“Roisin wants to see it. Perhaps it means something special to her. It’s only a weird key.”

“Paul. Stop.” Steve barked the order at him, his raised voice enough to stop the man in his tracks. “She doesn’t want to just look at it. She wants access to my room. My artefacts.”

“Isn’t that good, though? You said it was good, earlier. She said she was only alive because of your artefacts. Surely having her surrounded by them will protect her.”

“Protect her? Maybe.” Steve held on to both bannister rails to stop Roisin getting past him while he argued. “Or maybe it will do the opposite. She’s connected to whatever the intruder is, and I have a good idea what that might be. If I’m right, she’ll use the artefacts to open a doorway into the world of whatever’s inside you and thrust me, whichever one that is, it will mean the end of the line for us, for her… possibly the whole of humanity.”

“Is that hyperbole, Steve? You do have a habit of overdramatising things, sometimes.”

“Just do it, mate. Actually, no.”

Paul shook his head. “Make up your bloody mind.”

“Come down here and stop Roisin getting any closer to my room—” He raised his voice again as Paul started down the steps. ”LEAVE THE KEYS -- and I’ll lock the door myself. I need something from up there, anyway.”

Roisin looked up at him. “From your room?”

“In a way, yes. I need something from my room to get some assistance.”

The assistant stared at him. “If you go up, she’ll follow you, and you just said she can’t go up there.”

“Which is why I need Paul to hold her back.”

Roisin felt the pressure pulse again — harder, sharper, almost angry. She winced. “It doesn’t want you to.”

Steve froze.

The assistant whispered, “He knows?”

Steve nodded slowly. “Of course he knows.”

Roisin pressed a hand to her chest. “It’s… It’s trying to stop you.”

Steve crouched beside her again. “Listen to me. You have to hold on. I’ll be quick.”

Roisin grabbed his sleeve. “Destroy them all. You must.”

Steve’s voice softened. “I can’t destroy them. They’re pieces of angels.”

The assistant swallowed. “What do you have up there? More of the paintings?”

Steve shook his head. “The opposite. Whatever’s inside her wants to bring order into the world.”

The assistant shook her head. “That’s good though. Isn’t an end to the chaos what we’ve been working toward?”

“No.” Steve grimaced as Roisin tried to push past his arm. “Chaos is creativity. Order is stagnation.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, you don’t.”

Paul ducked under Steve’s outstretched arm and stood between him and Roisin. It was the difference between gossamer and ship’s canvas. There was no way Roisin was getting past her heavily-muscled flatmate. Besides, he smelled so good. Full of life. Full of energy. She could see the fractals spilling out of him. So much potential in one human form. All she had to do was…”

“Ros!” Steve slapped her across the cheek. Whilst a slap from Paul would have knocked her out, Steve’s touch merely made her face smart. There would be a red palm print on her cheek, she was sure.

The pressure pulsed again — a deep, resonant vibration that spread through Roisin’s ribs, her throat, the base of her skull. Her vision blurred. The room tilted. The shadows along the walls stretched upward, as though pointing the way.

The assistant squeezed her hand. “Stay with me. Stay with me, Roisin.”

Roisin tried.

She really tried.

But the pulsewas stronger now, pulling her inward, upward, toward something she couldn’t see but could feel with terrifying clarity.

Steve stood. “I’m going.”

Roisin shook her head weakly. “Steve—”

He didn’t wait.

He moved toward the stairs, each step slow, deliberate, as though testing the air before him. The echo pulsed violently, and Roisin cried out, clutching her chest.

The assistant held her tighter. “Steve, hurry!”

Steve reached the top and stepped onto the short landing between the stairs and the door to his room.

The house shifted.

Not visibly.
Not audibly.
But Roisin felt it — a subtle tilt, a change in pressure, as though the building itself were holding its breath.

Steve opened the door to the attic and placed his foot on the first step.

The pressure surged.

Roisin gasped, her back arching, her breath catching in her throat. The assistant tried to steady her, but Roisin’s body felt weightless, suspended between the sofa and something else entirely.

Steve froze. “Roisin?”

She couldn’t answer.

The pressure pulsed again — a deep, resonant thrum that filled her skull with light.

And then—

A flash.

Not a memory.
Not a vision.
A place.

A corridor of light.
A surface like glass.
A figure standing behind it, wings unfolding in slow, deliberate arcs.

Roisin’s breath hitched.

The assistant shook her. “Roisin! Roisin, stay with me!”

Steve turned from the stairs. “Roisin!”

The echo pulsed one final time.

And Roisin whispered, barely audible, a slight smile playing across her lips. “It’s already opened.”

Steve went still.

The assistant’s grip tightened.

Roisin’s eyes drifted toward the landing.

Something moved in the darkness above.

Not a shadow.
Not a person.
Something else.

Something waiting.