Since well before the dawn of humanity, it had taken different forms, used different faces—a satyr, a pillar of fire, a small child, a storm cloud, a black goat, a giant serpent, and others. Anything that mankind feared, anything that haunted them, this being could replicate. Each guise had a different name attributed to it. Verminus. Nuada. Lud. Shub-Niggurath. Pahad, who hungers. Lilitu, the cold one. The Mesopotamians knew it as Lamashtu. Cain’s tribe called it Nud. Another clan, forgotten by history, called it Othel. To some civilizations, it was the Father of Pan. To others, the Living Darkness. One obscure sect had believed it to be the sire of Kali. The Celts figured out its real name, mistakenly thought it a benevolent deity, and had paid the price for that tragic error. The Romans had also known its real name, but refused to speak it out loud, instead referencing it only in their texts. Humanity had since mistakenly believed that the Romans didn’t know its real name either. The Greeks had believed that merely acknowledging its existence could lead to madness. To avoid the risk of speaking its name, many cultures struck all references to it from their histories and grimoires. Others simply called it He Who Shall Not Be Named.
Its real form was a shapeless, shifting darkness—the absence of light made solid.
Its real name was Nodens.
Nodens’ temples could be found everywhere across the universe. On distant planets unknown by mankind, like the twin moons of distant Yhe and the fungal gardens of Yaksh. In the deserted tunnels beneath Mars and in the center of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. On frozen, barren Io and several hurtling asteroids. And on Earth, in the ruins of Mesopotamia, Babylon, Rome, and Persia, and more recent diggings in Oregon, Hawaii, Peru, Kenya, the Yian-Ho province in China, and the Welsh counties of Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire.
Nodens existed in none of these temples. Instead, it resided in the center of a place—a Labyrinth—that spanned space and time, dimensions and realities. From there, it sent out tendrils to different worlds, searching for the slightest opening. When conditions were favorable, these exploratory feelers breached the barriers between dimensions, allowing it to infect entire worlds with its darkness. All it needed was an open door.
Nodens had corrupted other Earths before. Alternate Earths. Ones whose dominion wasn’t given to Ob or Leviathan or Behemoth or Kandara or any of the others among the Thirteen.
Now it was this Earth’s turn.
It studied the male and the female through Richard Henry’s eyes, sensed their fear, and tasted their terror.
The darkness quivered with excitement.
No matter how many times Nodens had done this over the eons, it never tired of the destruction and violation—the utter desolation that followed in its wake.
The time was near. The barriers were weakening. But first, before Nodens could totally engulf this world, it had to finish the breach. The seven sigils carved into the rocks encircling the doorway prevented that. It couldn’t touch the sigils or move the rocks.
But these creatures—and others like them—could.
“Keep walking. Bear to the right.”
“Look…” Sam turned around.
The man thrust the rifle at him. “I said keep walking. You stop again, or turn around, and I’ll blow your fucking head off. You’d better just do as I tell you.”
Despite the threatening words, the man’s voice was flat. He looked bad—spoiled. Smelled like it, too. Judging by the condition of his clothes and his unkempt appearance, he’d been out here in the woods for a few days. His skin was pale and sallow. His fingernails were caked with dirt. Leaves and twigs clung to his greasy hair, and his bald spot and other exposed areas were covered with scabs and bug bites. But it was his eyes that disturbed Sam the most. They were black—two impenetrable obsidian holes floating above the guy’s nose. No iris. No sclera. No cornea. No color. Just darkness.
Normal people didn’t have eyes like that.
The man stroked the rifle’s trigger. Sam trudged forward, ducking the low-hanging branches. Rhonda reached for his hand. Her palm was sweaty. Sam felt her pulse hammering beneath the skin. Its rate matched his own.
“Look, mister,” he tried again, careful not to turn around or stop walking. “Let my girlfriend go. Whatever the problem is, she doesn’t have to—”
“I need you both,” he said with that same inflectionless tone. “Straight ahead. Don’t stop until I tell you.”
Guy’s a freak, Sam thought. Maybe he’s sick. Infected with something that made his eyes like that. Or maybe he’s just fucked up. Wants to watch us get it on or something. Or maybe he’s gonna kill me and do something to Rhonda.
He shuddered. But if that was true, then why hadn’t the man shot him already? Probably because they were still in earshot of Mr. Ripple and the other volunteers. He was forcing them to march farther into the forest, away from the Ghost Walk. That couldn’t be a good sign. Sam considered shouting for help, but his fear wouldn’t let him. If he called out, the man might shoot him on the spot.
The ground sloped downward. They came to a thin, trickling creek.
“Go across.”
Sam and Rhonda did as ordered. Rhonda slipped on the far bank and her foot splashed into the water, soaking her shoe.
“Keep going. Straight. Not much farther now.”
Thorny vines tugged at their legs as they continued on. Occasionally, the man would give them a direction—left, right, or straight ahead. Otherwise, he said nothing. The forest was silent. Sam winced as a branch whipped his face. A red welt formed on his cheek. He rubbed it gingerly, then wiped tears from his eyes. Rhonda stumbled over a rock, but Sam kept hold of her hand and held her upright. Eventually, the dense undergrowth thinned out. They passed by some dead trees, and soon entered a burned-out hollow.
“Almost there.”
Rhonda sobbed. “Please don’t hurt us. We’ll do anything you want.”
“Yes, you will.”
The ground was covered with a thick layer of ash. It swirled around their feet as they plodded forward. Some of it flew into Sam’s mouth and nose, and he coughed. Unable to help himself, he halted. Rhonda did, too. When he could breathe again, Sam glanced back at the man, ready to beg forgiveness for defying his orders to keep moving. The plea died in his throat. The man had stopped, too. He held the rifle in the crook of his arm, pointed away from them.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said. “The ash…”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re here.”
“W-what are you going to do to us?” Rhonda stammered. “We did everything you asked.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “We won’t tell anybody. We promise.”
“Just let us go. Please?”
“You can both leave here once you’ve moved those rocks.”
Sam blinked. “Rocks?”
The man nodded his head at something behind them. Slowly, Sam and Rhonda both turned. Their eyes widened. A circle of round, gray stones jutted up from the ash. Judging by the marks on the ground, some of them had only recently been uncovered. The stones had strange carvings on them. One of them lay on its side, revealing a hole in the earth.
Sam turned back to the man. “You want us to do what?”
“I can’t touch the stones. But you can. I want each of you to move one.”
Rhonda frowned. “What for?”
“Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you.”
He pointed the rifle at them again and stepped forward, forcing the teens toward the circle. Sam and Rhonda walked backward, their eyes not leaving the gun.
“Besides,” the man said, his tone still emotionless, “there’s somebody waiting for you inside the circle.”
Sam balled his fists up at his sides. “Who?”