Thomas Sniegoski - In the House of the Wicked

The sounds of a struggle drifted out over the Shadow Lands, and the hobgoblin smiled.

Standing atop an outcropping of solidified darkness, the diminutive creature squinted through the gloom at the elaborate estate in the distance, now under siege by some of the more destructive beasts that called this deep section of the endless realms of black their home.

Squire chuckled with each new roar that filled the constant night, and the flashes of gunfire that attempted to drive back the attackers.

“Good luck with that,” the hobgoblin said with a laugh.

There had been lots of comings and goings from the estate of late. Squire tried to remember how long it had been since the estate had torn through the darkness to drop down uninvited into his solitude. He couldn’t remember, although he also couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had been driven from his adopted home world to take up residence in the land of shadows.

This place of perpetual night did things to the memory, made it hard to recall specifics. All Squire knew was that he’d been there for quite some time. And the invaders of his long-sought-after peace?

They’d been there too fucking long.

Which was why he’d instigated this latest wave of attacks, taunting the monsters of the shadow realm into laying siege to the mansion.

The monsters who called this place home could have the estate and everybody inside it, for all he cared. Squire just wanted to be left alone, without a hint of anything that he had been forced to leave behind.

Or the friends who he had lost.

He was squinting through the darkness again, savoring the sounds of battle, when there came a flash.

Squire was violently knocked from his perch atop a petrified piece of shadow as it was eaten away by the explosion of brilliance. He tumbled to the ground below, where he lay perfectly still for a moment.

“What the fuck was that?” he growled, rising on shaky legs. Strange blossoms of color, like a kaleidoscope, swirled before eyes now accustomed to total darkness. It took a little while, but his vision finally cleared, and he began walking across the darkness, drawn toward the estate.

He had no idea what that light had meant, but he knew that it wasn’t good. The goblin had been around power such as that and knew its potential for destruction in the wrong hands… Even in the right, it was a force to be reckoned with.

His thoughts began creeping toward the past, and he quickly pushed them away. They were gone, as was the world he’d called his home. This was his home now, the Shadow Lands, and he needed to find out what that light was all about.

His pointed ears picked up a distinct sound carried on the still air.

The goblin stopped to listen, searching the horizon for the source of the mechanical rumble and finding the shape of a vintage car as it barreled across the expanse of darkness, kicking up clouds of granulized blackness.

It looked as though this time trouble had decided to cut him a little slack. This time he didn’t have to go looking for it.

This time it was coming to him.

It was like driving blindfolded.

The flickering greenish light thrown by the damaged right headlight only illuminated the darkness so far before being gobbled up by the all-encompassing black in front of them.

Foot pushed down on the gas pedal as far as it would go, Remy attempted to keep the vehicle going straight ahead, reaching out with his limited preternatural senses in the hope of finding the point where he had first entered the world of shadows.

But he could sense nothing, the tracking skills normally exhibited by his kind strangely dormant. Remy felt oddly different, and considered that his encounter with Deacon’s life force-draining apparatus might have done even more damage than he had thought.

He started to roll down the window, hoping to pick up a lingering scent in the air of this infernal place, when his eyes caught the shape of the young woman cowering in the backseat.

“Ashley,” Remy said over the sound of the buffeting wind as it came in through the open window. The unpleasant stink of the atmosphere here, like a wet cave or an old, musty basement, was not the scent he was looking for.

Ashley ignored him, continuing to stare at a spot just behind the front seat. He imagined that she was probably in some sort of shock. How couldn’t she be? This sort of thing wasn’t easily processed by the rational human mind.

“Ashley,” he said again, a little firmer. His eyes went from the girl in the rearview to the darkness in front of him and then back to the girl. “I’m going to get you out of here. I just need you to hold on… Can you do that for me, Ash?”

She still didn’t answer, and gazed unflinchingly ahead.

“I know this is a lot to process,” he told her. “But you have to keep it together… You have to be strong.

“You’ve been given a glimpse of a world that you don’t belong in. A world that most people never see, but I’m going to bring you back to what you know… Beyond this darkness”-he nodded toward the windshield-“everything you know is waiting.”

He was about to look back at the reflection of the young woman in the mirror when something large ran through the feeble beam of light. Remy jerked the steering wheel quickly to the right, stepping on the brake ever so slightly to keep the car from tipping, but still maintaining their speed.

Ashley yelped from the back, the car’s sudden movement breaking her near-catatonic stare.

“Hang on,” he told her, as the smell of something unfamiliar wafted in through the car window.

Remy was about to turn the wheel again when the attack came.

A large, black claw lashed out, tearing at the driver’s-side window and ripping the door away as Remy struggled to steer the car from their enormous attacker. He remembered the beast that Scrimshaw had taken down with his rifle and wondered if that was what they were now up against.

Or was it something worse?

Ashley wailed from the back as Remy stomped on the gas pedal, holding on to the steering wheel for dear life, so as not to fall from the open car to the ebony elements.

Something huge roared close by. The car shuddered viciously, as if struck by a savage hand-or claw-and lurched to a sudden stop. Remy reached behind the seat and grabbed the tire iron from Ashley.

“Stay in the car,” he ordered, jumping out into the darkness. Clutching the tire iron, he willed the fire from inside to infuse the metal with the divine power of Heaven.

But the fire did not come.

Like his tracking senses, he found the power of his unearthly birthright strangely silent. Remy could feel it there, but it was weak, deathly still.

A snuffling from the darkness before him sent him leaping backward toward the front of the car. He stood in the beam of light from the single headlight, tire iron ready, waiting. He could hear the shadow beast growl, the sound of its weighty footfalls from somewhere beyond the headlight.

Something moved in the darkness, and Ashley started to scream again. Bending down in a crouch, muscles tensed, Remy waited for the attack that he was sure would come.

He didn’t have long to wait.

The monster lunged into the light with a roar, an enormous piece of darkness dislodging itself from the environment of solid black. It was bearlike in appearance, only twice as large.

Remy swung the iron with all the strength he could muster, connecting with the monster’s lower jaw with a sickening thud. The shadow bear cried out, rearing back, surprised by the sudden explosion of pain. It retreated into the concealing dark beyond the car’s light to reassess its prey. Remy stayed in a crouch, paying attention to the senses he still had, ready for the next attack.