"Are we not alone in here?" I whispered.
Milo shook his head, his expression suddenly serious. "The pocket dimension should only contain what was in range when Horrace created it. No living beings except us."
Another crash, followed by what sounded like furniture breaking. Horrace hissed, a sound I'd never heard from him before, and positioned himself protectively in front of us, tentacles spread wide.
"Something's coming," Milo's voice dropped to a whisper. "Something that shouldn't be here."
Chapter
Nineteen
Milo
The moment I heard the crash from the living room, I knew we weren't alone in this pocket dimension. My mind raced through possibilities, maybe one of my skeletons had been pulled in with us? But no, I'd sent them all back to my apartment before the rift opened. Could it be Fenric or one of the others arriving to help? But they didn't even know we were missing yet.
"Winter," I tried to keep my voice steady, "stay behind me and Horrace. Whatever's coming, I don't think it's friendly."
I glanced at Horrace, who was now fully alert, his tentacles spread in a defensive posture I hadn't seen before. All twelve of his eyes were focused on the doorway to the living room, and the musical sounds he usually made had been replaced by a low, discordant hum that made my teeth ache.
"Horrace," I made a quick decision, "I need you to try to figure out how to get us out of here. Focus on that. I'll handle whatever's coming."
"What?" Winter grabbed my arm. "No way. I'm not letting you face this alone."
I turned to her, surprised by the firmness in my own voice. "Winter, this is what I do. I protect you. That's my job."
"But…!"
"No," I cut her off, feeling uncharacteristically serious. "My job is to protect you, and that's what I'm going to do."
Another crash, closer now. Something heavy slammed against the wall between us and the living room. The entire pocket dimension shuddered in response.
I pushed away from Winter, propelling myself toward the doorway. As I floated there, I began drawing on the energy around me, feeling for the unique signature of this strange dimension. Every reality had its own magical frequency, and if I could attune to it, maybe I could use it.
I closed my eyes, focusing. The necromantic energy I usually worked with responded sluggishly here, but something else answered my call, a wild, chaotic power that felt both foreign and strangely familiar. The pocket dimension's own energy, created from the mixture of Horrace's inter-dimensional nature and Winter's prophetic power.
"I can work with this," I opened my eyes as my hands began to glow with a mixture of my usual violet necromantic energy and a new, electric blue power.
Just in time. The doorway to the living room darkened, not with shadow but with... nothing. Something was pushing through, distorting the very fabric of this already distorted reality. The edges of the doorframe bent inward, stretching like taffy as something forced its way through.
"Milo?" Winter's voice was tense behind me. "What is that?"
I didn't answer because I didn't know. In all my studies of the supernatural, I'd never seen anything quite like this. It wasn't a ghost or a demon or any entity I could name. It was... wrong.Like reality had folded in on itself and created a paradox with mass and intent.
The thing that finally emerged through the doorway defied description. It had a form, but my eyes couldn't quite process what that form was. It shifted and changed, never settling on one shape. Sometimes it seemed vaguely humanoid, other times more like a collection of shapes that shouldn't be able to exist in a three-dimensional space. The only constant was its color, or rather, its lack of color. It absorbed light rather than reflected it, a moving void in the shape of something.
"Oh," I breathed, recognition finally dawning. "It's a Void Eater."
"A what?" Winter called from behind me.
"A mythic-level being," I explained, never taking my eyes off the entity. "They're drawn to disturbances in fate. They feed on paradox and possibility."
The Void Eater moved toward us, not walking or floating but simply existing in progressively closer spaces, like it was teleporting in small increments. Each movement left a brief afterimage, a tear in reality that quickly healed itself.
I raised my hands, channeling the mixed energy I'd gathered. "Stay back!" I shouted at the entity, not really expecting it to listen but hoping to buy time.
To my surprise, it paused, its form rippling as if considering me. Then it made a sound, not a roar or a screech, but a sound like reality tearing, like the space between heartbeats stretched into audio form.
"I don't think it's here for us specifically," I called back to Winter, maintaining my position between her and the entity. "It's drawn to the prophetic energy, to the disturbance we created when we tore open this pocket dimension."
