Kerri raised a brow at the wet, tattered toy and concluded: “Saliva counts too, I guess.”
“But he’s a dog!” Nate complained. “I’m pretty sure the specs call for five human summoners!”
“It’s the best next thing! Adapt!” Andy ordered.
Nate flipped through several dry, stiff pages in the book, looking for the annotations he’d noticed while examining it the previous evening.
“Just so you know,” he mentioned, “I know a college professor who ended up in the loony bin for just staring at this book too long.”
“Well, you fucking came out of the loony bin a week ago, so that’s work done in advance!”
“I doubt the professor would have done very well in the creature-splattering bit, Nate,” Kerri told him. “Give yourself some credit.”
Pencils rattled in their jars. Tim barked.
Joey popped out of the circle to lean toward the window.
“God, it’s getting closer. (Turning.) Nate! It’s getting closer!”
“Yes, I fucking heard!” He flipped back a couple pages, then read across a note. “Okay, what we’re trying here may not put it to sleep again, but it’s said to push it back where it came from.”
“The lake,” Kerri guessed.
“No, where it first came from. But remember, the second I start reading these spells, the wheezers will spot us.”
“They’ve got no way in,” Andy said after dragging the dresser in front of the door. She returned to the circle, between Kerri and Joey. “Read.”
KERRI: (Pocketing the lighter.) Read.
JOEY: (Firmly.) Read.
TIM: (Pants encouragingly.)
Nate, kneeling over, made sure the candles were properly arranged and started reciting: “?‘Nga?ah Adolon, Nga?ah Metraton, Nga?ah Zariatnatmik, Khe?a ‘nthropapena, Kniga Necronomnkon, Thtaggoa ishta nukflarr suk’lzark’ui methragamnon!’?”
Tim barked a loud four-letter word at the sudden thunder that made the butterfly displays flutter on the walls. Kerri, Andy, and Joey turned to the dormer window to see the booming sound reverberating away, the shock wave fading down the trees on their street.
And then, from the silent aftermath of that thunder, rose the distant, ultrasonic, hypermassified shriek of a hive-minded, saw-larynxed Doomsday army zeroing in on the enemy.
“Tim, stay in the circle!” Kerri ordered. “Tim! Shut up and sit! Sit!”
“?‘Ia Melekemnis, Ge?adhar la?ak sekh zfr’khack’ui…’?”
“Tim, sit! Joey, hold him!”
Thunder boomed in the north, perhaps a mile closer by Andy’s reckoning. She wanted to block her ears, not at the sound of a mountain moving, not at the wheezers, but at the words that Nate was reading. She couldn’t understand them, but she could read in Kerri’s eyes the confirmation that she wasn’t imagining it: the words sounded forbidden; they poisoned the air around them; they gave her nausea. They didn’t talk to her, but something buried deep in her genetic memory was eavesdropping and was extremely shocked.
“?‘Ganna sabakhhazk’ui, mlif nglk’ui, Ia Melekemnis gizranabakhhaztuk! Nga?ah Adolon, Nga?ah Metraton…’?”
KERRI: You read that already!
NATE: I gotta do it three times!
ANDY: Shut up and go on!
Joey, wincing at the sound of the spells, struggled to hold Tim in place.
“Come on, boy, here, stay. Look, you like the penguin?”
He squeezed a peep out of the doll. Tim nearly bit his hand off upon recovering it and curled up around it in the pentacle, shielding it from another clap of thunder shaking the house.
Nate speed-read through the verses, returning to the first line for the third time just as Kerri peeked through the window.
“They’re here!”
Andy made out three or four creatures racing down the street. The speed they were able to reach scared her, but the impunity with which they dared run through the streets of Blyton Hills, how they skipped over the fences, how they trod on the amber station wagon parked in front, which in the last few days had so seamlessly fitted in the neighborhood—that had her clenching her fists until the bones cracked.
“Are we sure the doors are blocked?”
“?‘Ia Melekemnis’—don’t leave the circle now—‘Ge?adhar Thtaggoa…’?”
“How do they know where we are?!” Joey cried.
“The spells attract them,” Andy explained.
“?‘Ia Melekemnis, gizranabakhhaztuk!’?” Nate flipped the page. Andy gaped at the amount of lettering contained on the next.
“All that?! Are you fucking kidding me?!”
“What did you expect?! It took Dunia like a whole night!”
A thunderbolt crashed, literally, not far away from the town. They could make out the sound of crushed trees in the echo.
“Wait!” Kerri yelled. “It took Dunia all that time because she was the only willing participant. We can read too, right?!”
Nate glanced over the notes, tore them out of the book and distributed them.
“You read this, you this, you this. Pronounce like it’s badass Italian; kh is Jalisco, zh is Jean-Jacques.” Something banged the door downstairs. “Go!”
Kerri and Joey joined him immediately, their own words pronounced too quick to even let someone notice the difference; Andy checked the first word and almost panicked.
“?‘Nara…Nyara…’?”
KERRI: Just read, I’m sure whoever’s listening won’t complain about your diction!
“?‘Nyarlathotep nemumfur, sum jag’rwi kjagadar uzuzwi nekrogradin…’?”
Something made of glass just ceased to be in the living room downstairs.
“They’re inside!”
“Read!”
Tim started barking again—the only thing that wasn’t causing noise at that point was the plastic penguin he was protecting. Everybody was reciting verses that thickened the air and condensed on the walls; creatures berzerked through the first floor; thunder multiplied, splitting timber and rock, destroying the world outside, creeping up the Richter scale, blocking the light. Andy noticed the shadow cast over the paper she was reading.
Nate finished his verse and flipped the page, the others hurrying down their lines to keep up. Kerri finished first, then Joey; Andy sped through a couple consonant clusters and tossed her paper on the floor just as something started slamming on the bedroom door.
“Nate?”
The dresser blocking the entrance signaled it would come apart at the next blow!
“?‘Lamakomn ngufli charkflk’ui, nga?ah, ZHRO!’?”
The house instantly quieted. Tim, embarrassed by the silence, lay down.
Kerri and Andy locked eyes, recognizing the jagged breathing sound coming from the other side of the wall.
“Nate?” Kerri whispered.
“All that’s missing is the aklo backward,” he said. “It’s gotta be here somewhere.”
“What the fuck is an aklo?” Joey asked while Nate turned over the page, devoid of side notes.
Something bony and sharp began scratching the door.
KERRI: Well?
NATE: It’s not here.
KERRI: What?!
NATE: The aklo is missing! Dunia must have known it by heart; she summoned the thing while the book was here!
The new hill two blocks from there howlretched, for lack of a real word. The solid, blazing, ear-shattering noise blew the curtains in the room and knocked the butterfly displays off the wall.