As soon as he finished talking, my balance went haywire, and the world spun at once. I didn’t even get to scream as Hidebehind slammed me facedown into the dirt. For one split second, I absolutely zero bearing about myself, having to take precious seconds to figure out which way was up and waiting for my brain to catch up to the rest of my body. Hidebehind pressed down on my neck, and I felt dirty, chipped nails rub into the soft parts.
“Me take time with you. Me not tell my name to nobody for long time, little logger,” Hidebehind said.
Then he started stabbing something into my back. Turning, twisting, and screwing it in.
I started screaming.
There’s a pain you can see coming. Then there’s a pain you don’t see coming. Then there’s the pain you don’t see at all.
There was the fact that I had no idea what Hidebehind looked like, except for that raggedy-ass t-shirt he seemed to be wearing. Plus, the fact that he was bipedal… I think. And tall. Very tall. But the searing pain in my back started giving me some wild ideas. Stingers. Claws. Talons. Teeth. Some knife. The point is that the pain of the unknown tended to be coupled with fear, and I was not prepared for that kind of torture.
“Scream, little logger. Scream,” he kept talking through my screams, and I could barely register what he was saying. “Me have not had guts for long time. Not until the cutters came to the forest. Oh, me smelt metal on them. Smelt the ash. Heard the screams of the big tree. Me not hungry like this for long, long time.”
I screamed until my throat grew hoarse, and kept screaming just for the hell of it. Because there was nothing else I could do. My arm could barely reach behind me, not that it would do any good. My ankles were fucking shot. And my back—my fucking back, the thing was skewering something into my spine.
Holy shit, it hurt.
I felt his other clawed hand reach underneath my stomach and take a fistful of my belly fat. Then he began to squeeze and pull.
“Oh, oh, oh, oh,” Hidebehind cooed, like he was taking a pie fresh out of the oven and it was simultaneously too hot to touch and too scrumptious to wait. “Boy innards. Mmmmmm. Me will tear you open like like eggyolk, slurp it all up. Oh, oh, oh, oh.”
Coming here alone was a mistake. The moment I lost contact with Wol and Hwari, I should’ve tried something else. While I was safe. Without my familiars, I was no better than a hedgewitch. Worse, because I’d only been at this for a few days.
He pulled on my stomach so hard that I began to scream even louder. I didn’t know I could.
In a last-ditch effort, I reached into myself, finding connections to everything available to me right now.
Azag answered me from my wrist. Even now, the daemon was waiting. Cold. Calculating. Not watching… but somehow aware that I was in trouble. A cunning instinct borne from time.
The Eldritch Knife felt hot in my palm. I wanted release. But how? Without a circle to contain it, it would be the school all over again. There was madness in its impulse, and some kind of worry to try and trick me into using it in a way that I hadn’t practiced yet.
And the third connection. No consciousness. Nothing. Just pure energy. Something that was still not me, but without it’s own will.
I fed that connection with all I got, and screamed the first coherent word since the Hidebehind began to eat me alive.
“SOWILŌ!”
Remember what I said before about circles providing focus? It’s more than that. It’s a limiter. Kind of a mental crutch to do exactly what I set out to do. It’s not just a containment, it’s a letter to the universe that says ‘Hey, I intend to pay this price for this effect. I might give a little more or less, but that’s about how much I want to give.’ A self-proclamation to keep myself in check, as well as whoever else was related to the circle.
When I wrote the Sowilō rune, I purposefully didn’t put a circle. Because I wasn’t looking for a flashlight, I wanted to make my whole cast glow. At the time, putting a circle to contain it wasn’t necessary. It was deemed more effort than it was worth—what’s the point of putting a circle that says ‘make the whole cast glow’ when the whole thing will glow without a circle anyway?
So when I fed into the connection with Elder Futhark’s 16th rune, it greedily swallowed my energy whole and lit up the whole place with electric blue light.
At the same time, I flipped around with all I was worth, trying to shove the shining cast in the Hidebehind’s face.
It was his turn to scream.
I barely got a glimpse of him. Tall—way taller than I thought he’d be. Ten feet and change, if I had to guess. His arms were pallid gray—the same as his legs, but the raggedy t-shirt sleeves came down to his elbows regardless. More glimpses. Stringy black hair and sharp teeth. Not fangs, teeth. Long filthy fingers that covered his face and—
Then he was gone.
The light immediately faded, having only been there for a brief moment. A flash and nothing more, really. But it had been enough. I gasped, trying to get to my feet, then stumbled forward. My arm in the cast felt numb, and small tingling sensations were spreading to my shoulder and chest. I gave too much in that little display. Too much of myself. This was what happened when a drained Practitioner pushed himself even more without using a circle, without his familiars to power his workers.
I whimpered as the darkness crawled back in.
Hidebehind was snarling and spitting, growling words in English that I didn’t recognize. He spat a curse in what I think was French, and his footsteps began circling the edge of my hearing.
“Me will rip you apart!”
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My brain spoke before I could. “Like eggyolk? Because I’m pretty sure—”
He screamed in rage, his voice coming from behind me again. I didn’t even have the strength to spin around to defend myself in case he rushed me again. Luckily, he didn’t.
“Little boy logger! Stupid, stupid, filthy little snack piece. Me will nibble on intestines, use ribs to pick out guts from between me teeth!”
Hidebehind kept muttering curses, and I realized one thing.
He was staying behind me.
I shuddered. I was getting cold. Something wet and slick was running down my back. Blood? I didn’t have much time.
“Hidebehind,” I said, and put a little bit of my thoughts into it. Just enough to establish some connection.
“AAAHHHH!” he screamed in rage, and I heard the moving of limbs.
The connection was destroyed before I could even sense anything.
Damn. Worth a try.
I put a hand to my stomach. A little wetness. Steadily, I brought the same hand to my nose. A coppery smell. I remembered how hard he’d twisted my belly as he pulled.
Small panic crept in again, a different sort. An image of my stomach twisted open popped in my brain, unwelcome, but there all the same. That maybe he’d already torn me open, and adrenaline was keeping me from feeling it. I used to read stupid creepypasta about dead people, not realizing they were dead. Closing my eyes, I shook my head.
No. I wasn’t dead. Not yet.
Think, Jain. Think. What would Wol do? What would Mina do?
Well, Mina would just water-bazooka this guy to hell. Seoul would provide some light so that she could see. Protect her back.
Hidebehind sniffed from behind me. “Me smells your guts.”
I felt the blood drain out of my neck, heading towards my stomach. Probably just my imagination. Had to be.
But I noticed something interesting. Ever since we started talking again… he hadn’t moved. He had remained behind me the whole time. Why? Well… his name was Hidebehind. Duh.
Words have power. Names? Even more so. Especially in this world.
And this thing’s name was Hidebehind.
I started getting an idea of what Wol would do.
“Hidebehind, you have said your name. I’ll say mine. My name is Jain Shin Hallow, the last of the Shin Shamans, and the heir of the Hallow Diabolists.” I reached out as I said it, searching for a connection. I had the satisfaction of feeling something go taut, and my Third Eye gave me the image of a red-yarn being held strong.
The Hidebehind’s breathing grew a little stronger. It felt harsh.
“What? How? What is boy logger—”
It was weaker than before now. Not because of the light, but because of my new understanding. With understanding came power, and that was something I could exercise over the creature. It wasn’t weaker as a whole, but weaker comparatively to me. I hadn’t grown stronger, just stronger against it.
You see, the hint is in the name.
Hidebehind.
He has to hide behind. And no, that’s not a joke.
He has to hide. And he has to do that behind me.
“Hidebehind,” I said his name again. His growing anger was palpable.
The chant hadn’t worked because I was some amazing practitioner. Well, maybe because I was talented at conjuration, but that’s only half of it. The moment I noticed Hidebehind’s presence, he’d lost a big chunk of his power. Yeah, I know. Fat chunk that is, if he could just brute force me to eat dirt while giving me a forced liposuction. But preternaturals are always stronger than we practitioners. That’s a fact. Either way, just by the very virtue of being noticed, this being had been weakened. Hence, why my half-assed free-form chanting had managed to get its name.
Then he’d hurried to kill me. Because on some instinctual level, I think it knew that.
What I was doing now, continuing to say his name, was a part of that. I was letting him know that I knew he was there.
He wasn’t hidden anymore.
Hence, he had to stay behind me.
Lost places and rules. Names and identity. Beings and their very nature. Everything was connected.
“I know you’re there, Hidebehind,” I said, purposefully not saying ‘I know you’re behind me’. Again, words have power. By phrasing it this way, I was weakening his presence without strengthening it at the same time. I hope.
You have to understand, a lot of it was guesswork.
Hidebehind’s breathing grew louder. Like, he was right behind me.
“Little logger,” he said. Hot breath tickled the back of my neck.
Yup. Definitely right behind me.
“Hidebehind,” I said. “I challenge you.”
The imminent violence in the air shifted. A subtle change, going to something raw to something more playful.
“A game?”
“A game,” I confirmed.
“Ha!” It laughed loud enough to rattle my bones. “Me am champion of Log Rolling. Speed Chopping. Sawing. With your puny arms and torn guts, you challenge me?”
“None of that,” I said, a little annoyed. “I challenge you to something else.”
“What?”
I swallowed. “Hide and Seek.”
Once more, the forest seemed to go absolutely rigid with tension.
“Hide… and Seek?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Simple. I count to ten, and I look for you. You go and hide as best as you can. If I find you, I win. If I can’t, I lose. Simple, eh?”
Hidebehind didn’t talk for awhile. “How long little logger look? Forever? Not forever. Me don’t like that.”
Smart little fucker. How come he couldn’t use correct grammar if he could figure that out?
Without voicing that, I said, “ten minutes?”
“Sixty seconds,” he said.
Oh, I could practically see his satisfied smile.
“Three minutes. Rule of threes,” I said, letting him know the power of most things being done in threes.
“Fine,” he growled. He seemed to think for a bit. “What do I get if I win?”
“I lie down and let you eat me. No resistance.”
He growled a bit. “No. Me want your name. Give me your name.”
I could practically hear Wol saying ‘Jain, no.’
But he wasn’t here, and it wasn’t like I had a choice.
“Fine. But I want something in exchange if I win.”
“Other than the little logger’s life?” he snickered.
I waited.
He let out an impatient sigh. I was losing his attention. Fast. “Fine, little seeker. What do you wish from me?”
I felt my own smile stretch. “A contract. I want you to make a contract with me, that I may conjure you.”
Another moment of silence. Shit. Had I pushed too hard? Maybe I should have just asked for safe passage. But I didn’t need just safe passage. I needed a guide. Someone like Tagalong, but that could also protect me from the other things that might be in here. Without Wol and Hwari, separated from Mina and Abigail, I really needed—
“Done,” Hidebehind said. “But me discuss details after little logger win.”
“That’s fine with me.”
“Then start counting,” he said.
I started counting.
“One… Two… Three…”
He laughed from somewhere in the forest. I couldn’t tell which direction it came from.
“Me enjoy eating you.”
“…Four… Five…”
He made a slurping sound. “Little logger’s blood smells of power. Me will grow after slurping you up.”
“Six… Seven… Eight…”
“Then me challenge Underthebed. Then me will be oldest brother! Strongest!”
“Nine…”
Then he stopped talking.
Absolute silence.
“Ten. Ready or not, here I… come,” I said weakly.
God, I hope this worked.