The Thinning Veil, Chapter 23

The battle is ended, the hunters vanished and the spirits flown. All that remains in the middle of the field is a small cloth bag, full of little cartoon spells.

The Veil turns. It strained to its thinnest point, and was not rent. Despite that magician’s best efforts.

It’s so light in my hand, this bag. He’ll get more spells, unless I’ve terrified him to the point that he’ll never do this again. Which I doubt. He now knows himself to be fighting a war. I foresee that he’ll become a hunter, and wage this battle again.

Perhaps, someday, I will kill him.

But these spells, at least, will do no more damage. A puff of fire–like so!–and they are gone.

Happy Halloween, my children. Till next year.

The Thinning Veil, Chapter 22

John doesn’t understand what’s happening. The taller shadow doesn’t move, though John can see its smile now: curved and wide and razor-sharp like a crescent moon. The air around him feels like rotting cloth: insubstantial and decayed, its fibers tearing apart as he speaks. It slides past him like a funeral shroud and he shudders.

Then the smaller shadow detaches itself from the taller and runs toward him. John’s speech falters, just for a moment. The Veil solidifies. He begins speaking again; but even as the words tumble from his mouth, that smaller shadow seizes his arm almost in passing, towing him along in its headlong flight. John stumbles and half-runs, trying to keep his feet. Their surroundings wheel past them as though they were on a merry-go-round.

Then everything stops. The smaller figure, still holding his arm, has its other hand braced against one of its knees and is breathing hard. John surveys the open field.

Nothing. No tall shadow. No fey warriors and no hunters. No mighty Halloween battle.

It’s all gone.

The smaller figure is swearing under its breath. The voice is human.

The Thinning Veil, Chapter 21

And now the wind rises.

Can you feel it? How his words tear at the thinning Veil? He did not believe me, though I told him the exact and utter truth.

These fools. Their voices disavow the magical while their hands work its will.

I am glad you have joined me on this journey, mortal. But now it’s time for you to do what I brought you here to do. Already yon magician slides between, and his own hunters are too busy to stop him. You are the only one who can touch him, now–before he shreds the Veil utterly.

Take his bag. And bring it to me.

The Thinning Veil, Chapter 20

John crosses the field. Somehow, he’s walking right through the battle without it touching him. Perhaps his crossing through the Veil was not complete. Perhaps it’s something else.

But he fixes his gaze on the tall shadow with its smaller prisoner. His fingers fumble inside his bag. The pages of his little books slip past his fingertips.

He seizes on one and draws it out. It’s a good one, Halloween-themed even. It concerns a boy rebuking a demon, which is then forced to flee. He turns the pages, glancing at them with his peripheral vision. He finds the page and blinks in surprise.

The letters are glowing.

But this only sets him back for a moment before he opens his mouth.

“You shouldn’t do that.” The shadow’s voice is rich and deep.

He shouldn’t respond. He is no hunter. He is out of his depth and off of the map and out of his element in every conceivable way.

But: “Why not?”

“How does the rending of the Veil between this world and yours sound? All of us, pouring through to your reality, mingled and melded forever, having our way with you whenever we wish.”

His mouth is dry. Demons lie. They specialize in it. “Release your prisoner.”

“This is a guest. Not a prisoner. And it’s time for both of you to leave.”

John blinks. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. Oh, but you’ll have to leave your spells behind. Can’t have you tearing holes from the other side, now.”

“Spells?”

“Your bag.”

Now John knows he’s lying. “Hell with that,” he says. The letters glow in his vision. He opens his mouth to read them aloud.

The Thinning Veil, Chapter 19

Come forward, you. Yes, that’s it. He must get close enough for this to work.

What, haven’t you understood this yet? The Veil is not in any one place. The Veil is everywhere, all the time. It’s in every molecule of air. You breathe it your entire life. It covers everything, permeates the between of here and there in all places and all times. But it’s like a bubble too, prick it and it pops…and if that happens, if the worlds flow into each other…well.

Imagine seeing all of this. Every day. Next to your cars and churches and soccer balls.

Doesn’t seem so bad, you say?

Tell that to the man with the bag.

The Thinning Veil, Chapter 18

John crests the hill and stumbles to a halt just past the dead-end bridge: a bridge that juts out over a wetlands near one edge of the park, providing a view into a designated conservation area.

That is, on his side of the Veil, it dead-ends. Here, it continues in a glittering arc, spanning what is here something darker, more tangled, and less sensible than a wetlands before vanishing into the distance.

He stumbles to a halt near where it begins. Beyond it lies an open field, with a forest beyond that which he won’t enter at any cost, and, where the jungle gym would be in his own world, the kind of fairytale castle that hosts goblin revels.

Between him, the forest, and the castle is a battle of shadows. Except that the weapons that strike these shadows meet something all too substantial that bleeds on the grass. Where the blood falls, dark flowers sprout and bloom in moonlight shades.

Between the battle and the forest stands a man all in silver. On the other side of the Veil, that man was a shadow whose face John could not see. On this side, his face is all too clear. He grips the coat of a smaller figure by the back of the collar, and gazes straight at John.

John opens his bag.

The Thinning Veil, Chapter 17

Don’t worry. When this is over, you’ll wake up in your bed and think that it was all a dream.

Be still now. It wouldn’t do to draw their attention here too soon, or to warn them off either. You don’t want either of those things, do you?

Ah. Here comes the cavalry, slipping through the trees. Those horses they ride make no sound, though they are not ghosts. The way their silver swords catch what light there is is most beautiful.

And now they choose the field. There on the grass, hard by that small fairy fortress there. It’s a children’s playground, on your side of the veil. Here, it is a castle to be defended.

Yes, I know that’s how the children fancy it, too. About some things their perception is sharper than yours.

Look, the battle is joined. I must say that the hunters are holding their own better than I would have thought. They’ve learned since last Halloween.

Don’t expect rescue, though. You, I’m holding onto until…ah. There he is.

The magician himself.

The Thinning Veil, Chapter 16

The wind rises to a howl. But as John begins to run, following in the direction the hunters have gone, he notices that the trees are not moving.

He shivers for reasons that have nothing to do with the wind. His bag flaps at his side as he runs. He’s sure now that it and its contents are useless, but he can’t bring himself to let go of it. Not here. Somehow he’s crossed the veil, and if he leaves anything here it’ll be losing part of himself. He knows this in his marrow.

He’s back at the cross street. The road continues into darkness, just as before–and yet not. Because he can see that way now where he couldn’t before. That road is empty.

Something draws his attention to the left. There, a short street between houses bleached bone-white in the cold light of a partial moon dead ends into an asphalt path that leads up into darkness amidst too-still trees. Normally, up there is a dog park.

Here, he doesn’t know what it is. But something’s howling, and it isn’t the wind.

He doesn’t know how he got here, and has not the least idea how to get back. That way have gone the only people who might know. The hunters, or their quarry.

John swallows his fear, and follows.

The Thinning Veil, Chapter 15

You’ve been in this forest before, but I’ll wager you don’t recognize it now. Stick close to me. The trails aren’t the same, this side of the veil.

Oh yes, we’ve crossed through. I and my kind are much stronger on this side. We had to lure the hunters here, where we can deal with them. And that other man, the one who’s a greater danger than any of them, though he doesn’t know it. He doesn’t even know he’s crossed over, though he’d suspect if he knew what to look for.

Why they followed? Oh. Well, that was because of you, you see.

You were the bait.

The Thinning Veil, Chapter 14

John stops walking and turns around. The wind has come up, following at the hunters’ heels, and he fancies that it’s easier to see when he faces downwind in the direction they’ve gone. The preachers pass him. Nathaniel calls him, but John doesn’t move. The sodium light above his head makes a pool around him and everything beyond that pool seem darker by comparison. He still can’t see what’s out there. Everything–the stars, the cars, the few remaining people on the sidewalks, the house across the street with the pale clapboard siding, the sandwich board outside the church advertising services in Spanish–it’s all dim, as if covered by a veil.

Or, well, no, as if someone’s dropped a veil over him. Nathaniel’s calls become frantic. He hurries right past John without seeing him.

“I’m right here,” John says, or tries to say, but his voice sounds muted even to his own ears.

All he’s got is his bag, with a few little comics left inside.