Chapter 60: Peekaboo
Elian had nothing.
No information. No lead. No answer about the father. No body found. No sending ended.
The eclipse was tonight.
He sat in the small sitting room and stared at the table.
"Stop that," Riven said.
"Stop what."
"Looking like the world is ending."
"It might be."
"It’s not." Riven sat across from him. "We don’t get everything in one shot. If we did, what would be the point? Where’s the fun in that?"
"There is no fun," Elian said. "None of this is fun."
"Speak for yourself," Riven said.
Sable put tea in front of both of them. "He’s right. We go in tonight with what we have. We see what we see. That’s enough for now."
Elian looked at the tea.
It’s not enough, he thought. Two days before the eclipse I had nothing. I still have nothing. And tonight we’re going to do this ritual and I don’t even know what we’re going to find.
He drank the tea anyway.
They set up in the small sitting room as night fell.
Nobody used it. It had been built for ladies’ tea parties — pale walls, delicate furniture, the kind of room that assumed its occupant would be hosting guests over embroidery. Since Elian was not doing that, it had sat empty for months.
Perfect.
All the candles out. Complete darkness except for the moonlight coming through the window — and tonight the moon was going to disappear.
Riven moved through the room like he’d done this a thousand times. Maybe he had. He laid out herbs that Elian didn’t recognize — native to this world, different from anything in his tradition, but he could feel the intent in them. Old. Specific. Like they’d been used for this purpose for generations.
Sable arranged objects at the four corners. Chanted under her breath in a language Elian didn’t know.
Elian watched.
He’d never seen this tradition performed before. His own practice was different — different tools, different words, different framework entirely. But the principle was the same.
You’re calling something to show itself, he thought. You’re making it harder to hide.
Riven drew symbols on the floor. Complex ones. His hand moved with the confidence of someone who’d memorized them so completely he didn’t have to think.
"Stay back," Riven said without looking up. "Behind this line. Whatever comes — don’t cross it."
"What comes?" Elian said.
"We’ll see."
The chanting built.
Outside the window, the eclipse began.
Elian watched the moon. The shadow creeping across it.
He’d seen lunar eclipses before. Back home, they’d always felt — restless. Spirits a little louder. Presences a little closer to the surface. Nothing he couldn’t handle. Nothing that changed the fundamental nature of the work.
This felt different.
This felt like the world itself was holding its breath.
The light changed — going red at the edges, blood-red, and with it came a pressure he hadn’t expected. Not just spiritual activity. Something deeper. Like the rules that kept certain things contained had temporarily loosened.
The room felt different.
Heavier. Like the air had texture now.
Riven’s chanting got louder.
Sable’s got louder.
Elian stood behind the line and felt the pressure build and build and—
In the corner of the room, in the darkest section where the moonlight didn’t reach, something moved.
Not the Varek. He knew the Varek’s presence by now. This was different.
Denser. Older. The specific weight of something that had been bound for a very long time and didn’t enjoy it.
It started forming.
Slowly. Like darkness solidifying. Like shadow deciding to have edges.
It rose.
And rose.
And kept rising.
Seven feet tall. Maybe more. The sitting room had a normal ceiling and this thing nearly touched it.
Elian’s neck craned up.
Oh, he thought. Oh that’s—
The red eyes opened.
Blood red. Exactly that. Not glowing — just that specific terrible color, two points of it in the dark, looking at them with the patient attention of something that had been waiting to be seen for a very long time.
None of them moved.
None of them breathed.
The thing looked at Elian. At Riven. At Sable.
It had a smile somewhere in the dark. He couldn’t make out the face — just the outline, just the shape of something enormous standing in a room it barely fit in. But the smile was there. He could feel it.
Then he saw the teeth.
Just a flash. Just enough.
Old, he thought, completely numbly. That thing is very, very old.
The thing tilted its head.
Looked at them like they were mildly amusing.
Opened its mouth.
"Peekaboo," it said.
And it was gone.
Just — gone. The corner was empty. The pressure was gone. The darkness was just darkness again.
The three of them stood in the small sitting room in the red light of the eclipse and didn’t say anything for a very long time.
Riven spoke first.
"You should find another husband," he said.
Elian turned to look at him.
Riven looked completely serious.
"I mean it," Riven said. "There are other kings. Other kingdoms. This one has a seven foot thing attached to it that just said peekaboo at us."
"Riven—"
"I’m just saying. Options exist."
Sable sat down. Heavily. On the floor, because the chair was too far.
"I need a moment," she said.
"Take your time," Riven said.
"That was—" She stopped. Started again. "That was considerably larger than I expected."
"Yes," Elian said.
"And older."
"Yes."
"Old," she said. "Very old. Whatever that thing is, it’s been feeding and building for a long time." She looked at the corner where it had been. "I’ve never felt anything like it."
"Yes," Elian said again.
"And it said peekaboo."
"It did."
Sable looked at him.
"Elian," she said. "I have been in this work for a long time. I have dealt with things that most practitioners would walk away from." She paused. "I am telling you honestly. That is one of the most unsettling things I have ever seen."
"I know," Elian said.
"So what do we do," Riven said.
Elian looked at the corner.
At the empty darkness where seven feet of something ancient had just introduced itself.
It knows we can see it, he thought. It showed itself. It wanted us to see it.
It’s not scared of us at all.
"We figure out how to fight it," Elian said.
"With what," Riven said. "Our current tools are—"
"Insufficient," Sable finished. "I know." She stood up. Brushed herself off. "We need to go back to the beginning. Everything we know about multi-generational entities. Everything about how they feed and what weakens them." She looked at Elian. "This is going to take time."
"We don’t have a lot of time," Elian said.
"We have more than we had twenty minutes ago," she said. "Twenty minutes ago we didn’t know what we were dealing with."
"Now we know we’re dealing with something that says peekaboo," Riven said.
"Now we know exactly what we’re dealing with," Sable said, ignoring him. "That’s something."
Elian looked at the window. At the eclipsed moon, red and heavy in the sky.
The Varek didn’t show, he thought. The Varek was supposed to be revealed tonight. Instead something else came. Something we’ve never seen before.
Which means there are more players in this than we knew.
Which means the Varek knew what we were doing and stayed hidden.
Which means it’s smarter than I gave it credit for.
Which means we have two problems now instead of one.
He looked at Riven and Sable.
"Nobody sleeps tonight," he said. "We start working."
Nobody spoke for a long time after it left.
The sitting room was just a sitting room again. Pale walls. Delicate furniture. The eclipse visible through the window, the moon still red and heavy.
Elian looked at the corner where it had been.
Seven feet. Blood-red eyes. A smile that showed just enough teeth.
Peekaboo.
He thought about what his master had told him about demonic entities. About the ones that had been accumulating power for a long time. About how they developed — not just stronger but more complex. More aware. More capable of understanding what frightened people.
It knew we’d be scared, he thought. It knew and it found it amusing.
"I need to think," Riven said.
He sat down. Just sat, which was unusual for Riven. He usually moved.
Sable was still on the floor.
Elian was still standing.
They stayed like that for a while.
The Varek didn’t show, Elian thought. We planned everything around the Varek. And what we got instead was something we didn’t know existed.
Which means there are more layers to this than we knew.
Which means we’re further behind than we thought.
He looked at the eclipse through the window.
The moon was starting to come back. The shadow moving. The red fading at the edge.
The eclipse is ending, he thought. And we have nothing.
He looked at Riven.
At Sable.
We have each other, he thought. And we have tomorrow.
Nobody argued.