Chapter 2: The Four Pronged Wheel

There was no reasonable explanation as to why Audrey had never before visited the Saperavi city library beyond that of negligence. Though a lifelong resident, she was also a creature of the suburbs. She only knew of the historic structure because Laura had been taken to gush about it. That was Laura’s getaway where she could sit and read or think or write (or all three at once when the mood struck her) away from all the noise of her life. Now Audrey could see why. The architect and original owner had always planned for it to be a repository of public knowledge. His aesthetic sensibilities were just an added bonus. The gothic architecture evoked a towering cathedral. Four wicked spires, roofs with crenulated edges, and dozens of buttresses spread out in a chorus line. It seemed to exist in a pocket of time, incongruous with the concrete bricks and steel beams poking up at the eyes of God. Laura loved this place, often scaling to the top floor so that she could look out on the city through its gigantic red porthole. Though it had a hostile facade, beneath its sharp edges was a haven of beauty and warmth. Audrey hoped that, should the night turn out as she planned, they might spend a day here in the light of each other's company.

The imposing doors that towered over her in the dark gave way to a cozy and modern interior, well-lit and full of mac computers. It felt like stepping through an anachronistic portal. She perused the large and scarcely populated ground floor until her eyes settled on a friend. Dove sat in a green armchair with a copy of The Lathe of Heaven cut open along the spine. They were not inclined towards serious reading at the moment, because they used their free hand to doodle on an index card. It was a little cartoony imp with a bubble head and hands that stuck out its tongue in indignation. They looked up and beamed at Audrey as she strolled in their direction.

“Hey dude!” They spoke, just a tad overzealous, “glad you could make it.”

“Hi Dove, why aren’t you waiting in the conference room?”

“Locked,” they shrugged, “plus Marcus has been in and out of the bathroom since he got here.”

“Oh no,” She brushed her hair back.

“Yeah, he’s fine, you know how Marcus gets when he’s nervous. I’m sure he’ll be hunky dory after we grab him up and get this show on the road.”

Considering the time, it was surprising to see a handful of people other than her friends wandering around the library. Only a half and hour to midnight and they still went about their routines. There was a librarian with a kind but over-caffeinated affect, a security guard on the upper balcony smoking against regulation, and a mousy girl scowling and typing away at her sticker-clad laptop. Something about the whole locale felt like a scene in a black box theater. The bright lights of the main floor were punctuated with deep pits of darkness. The tall bookshelves surrounding them were all packed with tomes sealed airtight against each other, and each shelf cast a long shadow that stroked the back of its neighbor. All new and well-known authors were kept at eye-level, while the higher you rose the more obscure and esoteric they became. The exterior of the library resembled a church and the interior acted as a covert museum. The books hidden in its catacombs required extensive academic credentials just to touch. Deeper still there were secrets. Not the kind that were spoken of in smoky rooms, but those reviled and coveted in equal measure. It was intoxicating.

They met Marcus sitting on a bench outside of the restroom. He looked haggard and sick. Cold sweat hung from the tips of his hair in fat droplets. His skin paper white like he had been clipped from an errant page. He looked up at his two friends with his foggy glasses barely hanging onto the cliff of his nose.

“Hey guys” his voice was trepidatious, “we getting this over with?”

“Uh, I guess…” Dove bit their lip “are you sure you don’t wanna duck out? I’m sure Aud and I can make a decent excuse for you if we rub our remaining brain cells together a few dozen times.”

“No” was his flat response. “It’s already come this far. The only way out is through.”

This was unlike Marcus. Audrey could tell that there was more than just nerves that were upsetting her friend. Marcus could come off as deadpan, yes, but those who knew him could always catch glimpses of his jovial disposition. Even in the most stressful situations, he tended to have some clever quip that could cut through the tension. His mind was a steel trap and here it was split in half. No humor could pierce the thick miasma of this night. Each of the friends shared an inkling that the atmosphere could only get worse before it got any better. Something within Marcus knew that the events unfolding before them were not simply creepy or strange or concerning, they were unnatural. He had felt lesser omens before, such as the week when his dad had died. Every morning he would struggle in bed as if an undertow had formed in his mattress, and his mother would come in and assure him that it was just a bad dream. But he knew that he had been wide awake. He had only been in fifth grade and his father was off on a business trip on the coast of Miami. He did not have the wherewithal or ability to warn his dad that the commercial yacht his boss had rented for their final day was going to capsize. That was the strongest that his intuition had ever acted up before, and it was minor league compared to the dread that had just enveloped him.

The twin oak doors of the reserve room did not stand out against the wall of similar doors in which they were inset. If anything, the look of the drab back half of the library, situated under a canopy and lit by buzzing fluorescent lights, felt bizarre compared to the rest of the extravagant space. That was what Dove and Audrey saw. For Marcus, it was only a tissue-paper veil over the reality of what lay before them. A faint, blood red glow emanated out from the thin gaps in the doors, capturing everything he saw in its aura. The light was dulled when he looked to its source directly, but the further it fell into his peripheral vision the deeper and darker the crimson shade grew. When he turned his sight from one friend to the other, sometimes he could see curling tendrils that dissipated as soon as they caught his attention. They reminded him of the floating shadows of stray collagen fibers that sometimes appeared in the vitreous fluid of his eye, only these tendrils were the shade of a fresh scab and writhed like hungry worms. They were beckoning him further and further into the throat of the snake. They were eager to greet everyone, to learn of your triumphs and woes, to caress your old wounds, to devour and claim you.

The director finally took notice that her actors had reached their designated spots and the doors swung out on their hinges to reveal Laura. She wore an open black shirt dress with a tiered hem that hovered only an inch over her pointed heels. Deep red velvet sleeves billowed out to her deft fingers. The sight of her melted every misgiving from Audrey’s heart, her simple eyes taking in every curve and intricacy of the woman that towered above her. Around Laura’s neck there was a gold pendant that hung just beneath her collar bone. Embedded in its surface was a bulging tear-drop jewel the same color as her sleeves. Two sharp crescent moons dangled from her ears on silver chains. Her hair, now dyed with errant streaks of white, was tied into a perfect french braid that slithered over her left shoulder. Those caustic brown eyes were mad and hungry, overflowing with the intelligence of a beast, white eyeliner artificially emphasizing their mass before pushing outward in two symmetrically clipped wings. Audrey could not help but fantasize of Laura whisking her away to some dark corner free of prying eyes.

“The guests of honor have arrived, hehe,” Laura hissed and giggled to herself, “you all have impeccable timing, the festivities will soon be underway.”

“Hi Laura!” Audrey barked, “You really pulled out all the stops, gosh.”

“Can we just see the thing or what?” Dove felt uncomfortable enough without the impromptu flirting session. “Marcus is clearly sick and this fucking library is skeeving us all out.”

“Oh…” Laura gave a look of sympathy, “are you alright, Marcus?”

“Yeah, fine.”

Marcus sized Laura up wearing the grim, scrutinous visage of a great horned owl. It was clear that she was the source of the red glow, it flowed out from her body as if she had hidden fog machines in her sleeves and under her dress. The mist came from her, but something else made him quiver, as in her presence he could see the wall closest to her subtly undulate. The wood had veins. Laura looked to be a parasite that was feeding off its essence. This was certainly not the woman he had once known. Her sensibilities had always been a bit dark, off-humor, but that was just a charming quirk to an otherwise kind and normal personality. For lack of a better term, the darkness of this new Laura felt authentic. She had blown them off from meeting in person for a number of weeks and now he could see why. Just her words distilled down into text on a screen were insufficient to reveal her inhuman qualities. She was dangerous. She held twisted secrets within her that corrupted all those who learned of them. She was one of those very secrets, yet not hidden away in an impenetrable sarcophagus. She was here, alive, in the flesh. The old Laura had grown from a bud to a rose with wicked thorns. These were all the uncanny insights of the fly already caught within the spider’s web.

“Well then,” Laura purred, “I’ll guide you to your seats.”

Audrey was up first. Laura took her hand in a tender grip and pointed her to the seat square in the middle of the wide left hand side of the conference table. When Audrey’s eyes brushed the wheel, she found herself awe struck in the presence of its baroque majesty. A looping and intricate design that paired with the building's exterior like a fine wine and cheese. Her eyes stuck fast to it as she sat down in the steel folding chair assigned to her. Laura motioned for Dove to sit opposite to Audrey. The symbol was streamlined and iconographic, something that you might expect to see stenciled on the back of a shirt or a stop sign. It was fine, they guessed, but most definitely not worthy of all this headache. Marcus came up last and Laura flashed him a thin smirk, her black clad lower lip obscuring the caps of her pearly whites. He was to sit at the front of the table, before a symbol that warped his vision just to look upon. Interlocking severed limbs and faces baying in orgiastic ecstasy. Inhuman intelligences caressing his basal ganglia. The closest work of art he could conjure up to make any sense of it might have been some lost painting from Goya’s black period. Except, instead of being painted on the walls of his house, if it were painted on the inside of his decaying skull. The tableau before him was a feat of artistic dexterity that could only arise from the putrefaction of humanity.

Pantomiming the magician pulling away a burdened table cloth in one seamless motion, Laura whisked away the banner to expose the items underneath it. Right where the three bottom prongs had been there were three identical knives pointing towards the center of the table. The handles were carved out of resin and curved to the right. Near the blade were three rings that had square holes set in their centers. There was no hilt to protect against grabbing the blade, which was a stout arc with a fin along its back. The shape suggested that these knives were designed for skinning. At the point of each was a varnished maple wood bowl with a pitch black soup filled up to a millimeter below the rim. They might have been frozen solid as Laura lifted them with stoic hands and placed them in front of each attendant guest. There was just the slightest sloshing as she set them down, a single drop hopping out in front of Marcus. When it hit the off-white table, the concentrated black became the same crimson shade as the pendant sitting above Laura’s breasts and the final item in question. A thick red leather journal, bound with black string, and bearing the four-pronged wheel as a white stamp.

“So is this you treating us to dinner?” Dove gave a half-hearted chuckle and reached for their respective knife, “some truly innovative performance art right here, making your friends eat soup with a knife.”

“It’s blood, Dove.” Marcus stared deep into the bowl.

“What?!” The steel of Dove’s knife clattered on the table, “are you fucking for real, Laura?”

“Guys!” Audrey yelped and turned to Laura, “they’re just being silly, this isn’t blood, right?”

“It is,” Laura gave her full smile, her canines gleaming, “no worries for you, Dove, I didn’t stick any pigs for it. Despite its immaculate freshness, this blood is older than any animal on the planet.

“The blood in each bowl comes from a separate individual. They were gathered from different sites and temples scattered across the world: the blood before Audrey came from a reliquary in eleventh century France; the blood before Dove was discovered in the aqueducts of Machu Picchu; and the blood before Marcus was dripping from the mouth of a hyena found in sixteenth century Tanzania. Unfortunately, I cannot say what or whom these samples originated from, as all who might have held that knowledge died out long ago. What I do know, about them and the species that they spawned, can all be sourced from this book. Alongside said knowledge is the rite that I have summoned you all here tonight to perform. This is great work, and my gratitude to each of you is eternal.”

Audrey listened close to Laura’s vague proclamations. She must have rehearsed this sermon numerous times in front of the mirror. Laura reminded her of a little kid, spinning preposterous tales to any one who was willing to humor her. Except… the longer she stared into Laura’s eyes, the more the words made sense to her. It did not matter to her if the whole thing was just an elaborate performance. Audrey wanted to be a part of it. Laura loved her and she would not hurt her. She would not hurt their friends, even if she liked to give them a little scare. She was kind. She was a genius. Audrey understood that, because Audrey had the spark of genius too.

“Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, I would like you all to pick up your knives.”

Laura’s three friends each found the handle of their blade and held it tight. None of them were conscious of their syncretic choreography until they felt the holes of their handles pressing against the skin of their palms. Dove released it from their hand and recoiled, but they could feel the hand still drawn to the resin as if they had magnets grafted into their fingertips.

“Good job!” Laura clapped her hands together, “cut your palms above the bowl.”

Audrey slid the blade across her left palm in one swift motion, bowing her nerves like the strings of a violin. She flinched when the metal severed skin. Her body quivered as the first rivulet snaked its way across the triquetrum, hamate, and capitate before cascading off of the scaphoid. It was a deep cut, overeager to please. Tears welled in her eyes while she gritted her teeth, fingers spasming as she tried to ball her fist. She managed it, squeezing drop after drop of bright red that was abruptly swallowed in the black morass. It hissed and fizzled on the surface. The sound was akin to a carbonated soda poured over ice. The damage to the tendons was not so severe as to disable all fine motor functions, but the effort and pain elicited a deep, bellowing howl. It was the moan of a hound caught in its master’s own trap. This outburst of self-inflicted violence put a microscopic chink in Laura’s armor. Only for a moment. Her sharpened, watchful gaze broke, giving way to a flood of human emotions that clouded her vision. Was Audrey alright? Why did she have to go so far? Was it all just to please her? Her steady hands trembled before she caught herself. Something within her grounded her fear, stole it from her. Her vicious confidence was restored.

“Fuck!” The will it took to keep their hand from grasping at the knife had Dove doubled over, their breasts pressed against the plastic table. “Audrey, please, snap out of this! It’s a nightmare, it has to be a nightmare… Please, please, please don’t let this psycho bitch do this to you! Do this to us!”

Marcus swiped his palm with the precision of a surgeon, glowering at Laura all the while. Though he could not resist the compulsion, he sure as hell was not going to give her any more of his essence than the bare minimum. Nothing about the situation made sense to him. How Laura could puppet them all without even lifting a finger was beyond him. But his intuition stung deeper than the knife. Whatever twisted game she was playing, Laura was not playing fair, and he was not going to let her forget that. He used his unbound eyes to stare daggers into the devil’s heart, baring his teeth upward in a show of utter disgust. They had all trusted her. Trusted that there was at least some sanity in the world. Trusted that the one they called a friend would not sell them out to a rancid pipe dream. If her mask slipped for even a second longer, he would have leaped over the table and decapitated Laura. Unknown adrenaline surging through him borne from pure ire. What would it have taken, though, for that much humanity to well up inside her? Would her precious Audrey need to collapse to the floor and choke on her own bile? And if he had managed to rend her head from her neck, would she not simply keep going, her disembodied sneer chiding him as it sat in his hands?

“Laura!” Dove wailed “I can’t ask how, I can’t understand any of this. But Why? We’re your goddamn friends! Why are you doing this to us?”

“Oh Dove,” Laura’s joyful smile ever so slightly shifted to one of sympathy, “you’re right, you don’t understand. I know what it was like when I didn’t understand. The pain and fear engulfed me. You just need to trust me. Trust me, and you will be happy. Trust me, and all the impuissance of your life will no longer command you. Just a little pain will give way to the most profound pleasure.”

It hit Dove then and there that, regardless of what kind of creature now possessed her soul, the woman before her had gone stark raving mad. They saw no deception or malice in those eyes. Clearly she believed every spoonful of saccharine drivel that fell from her maw. More than the blood and the pain and the manipulation, the fact that she thought it all a kindness made Dove’s stomach turn. What the fuck could break someone’s mind so thoroughly? They now knew what Audrey and Marcus had already accepted: there was no way out. Dove brought their chest back up and let their head roll back, hot tears filling their eyes as the cold grip of the knife hit their flesh. A low, guttural sound bubbled up from their throat. It was the death rattle of their sanity.

“It is time to drink,” She drew the three mid fingers of her right hand across her tongue while her eyes rolled back. “Have your first taste of the feast and listen to my words.

“Imagine a circle. A perfect circle. A circle that no human being could draw. That a computer could only approximate. The circle is two dimensional. It is three circles. There is nothing above or below it. Yet it is three circles all the same. Each share the same space. The same form. Three-in-one. But you can only see one. Imagine that two of the circles began to rotate. They swivel in separate directions. They pull themselves into a Z axis which did not exist alongside the X and Y. They have birthed it. The circles are all perpendicular. But you can still only see the two dimensions. From your limited framework, these three circles now look like a single circle with an equipoised cross inside of it. This is an easy picture. The real transformation takes place now. Consider that these circles are three and that they are one. They are also infinite circles. Those infinite circles begin to rotate too. But they do not rotate into the third or fourth or fifth dimensions. No, each of them rotates along a unique axis. They birth a dimension that is neither linear nor sensical. There is no means on earth to calculate how these circles will change as they ascend. You can still see it. It has twisted itself into something strange and new. It draws you in. The one circle is three circles. The three circles are four paeans. The four paeans are the queen. The queen is the four-pronged wheel. The four-pronged wheel is the infection. We are the infection. We are the wheel. We are.”

Every one of them drank it up. None of them could remember drinking. The words were all they heard. The words were all they saw and felt and tasted. The nonsensical words that corresponded with birth and death and rebirth as one singular existence. They could still catch the metallic sweetness at the back of their throats and see the bowls before them bone dry. There was a distinct wetness on each of their lips and chins that was leaking down their necks. Marcus was no longer alone in his second sight. Dove and Audrey could see the mist that wafted out from Laura’s body. The very same mist that slowly, agonizingly slowly began to squeeze out of their own pores. Each got their own shade of red. Each got their own unique pain.

Marcus collapsed onto the table. His head was flooded with a razor thin migraine that stabbed at his neurons ten thousand times a second. His skull was giving birth to his own brain. The same black, ichorous blood that he had just imbibed started to flow from his eyes and his mouth and his ears as he squeezed his cranium in a vice grip. He split open his mouth to scream, but rather than any sound there came a torrent of effervescent oil. His eyes rolled back into the hellscape of his brain as his canines visibly grew longer, thinner, and sharpened to a sinister point. Dove could only catch a few second of their friend’s torture before their own followed suit. Some invisible force had upturned a cauldron of hot coals into their lungs. They could feel the tissue charring and dying from the inside out. Reaching for something, anything to save them, they inadvertently toppled their spent bowl over to the floor. Every inch of skin sizzled like bacon drowned in an emulsion of its own fat. Moving from their fingertips inward, all the color fled from their skin until they became as white as ash. They tore at their burning flesh with their sharpening nails, but it only took a moment for the hideous gashes they made to scab over and disappear. Audrey had the privilege to take in most of these grotesqueries. The first pain she felt was the guilt for helping to inflict this terror on her friends. The shame that spoiled her heart. The shame of enjoying it.

And then came the flood of infection straight to the marrow of her bones, to the arteries in her heart, to her ligaments and tendons, to her brain matter. She could feel them each dissolve within the acidic ink that replaced her blood, which now seeped from every hole in her body as she underwent the change. Her corpse was eating itself. Otherworldly cancerous cells devoured their sisters and metabolized every physical remnant of her humanity. She knew that she should have been dead. She knew that she was dead. All the while, though, she was still conscious and able to experience the accelerated rot of her internal organs into a slop that fed the alien ecosystem that now comprised “Audrey.” Once the night sky of her new vacuous fluid turned transparent, she could see Laura staring down at her with a loving grin.

“L-L-Laura I-”

Laura took Audrey’s wriggling head into her arms and tilted it up. In one fell swoop, she gave Audrey a long, deep, lustful kiss that flowed through both of their beings. Laura tasted the steaming blood inside of her mouth and her knees shook in delight. The two lovers moaned in supplication to one another. In that moment, all the pain disappeared from Audrey, as did Marcus and Dove. All of them consumed in a plume of blood mist.