"Alright. Take it from the top and talk like im'n idiot." The scotsman stared, hazel eyes narrowed in confusion and wonder at the contraption the three otherbeings stood around.
"Because you are an idiot?" Echo cooed with a subtle venom towards the man, eyes piercing in their flicker.
"Now now. Be nice." Victor Blood's voice held a thinned patience towards the two.
"Oi, I'm bein' nice. I'm always nice. Talk to y'ur little monster!"
Iain crossed his arms over his chest and huffed, motioning towards the devilish Imp who stuck a forked tongue out towards the scot.
"Echo…" Victor’s voice was thick with warning now, though his hands and eyes had fallen to a panel of circuits and wires, a small tool taken from the interior of his coat to fiddle with one of the finer details.
"Yeah okay. Sorry." They rolled their violet eyes and meandered away to do their job, long spaded tail flickering in a show of irritation behind him.
Iain crossed his arms over his chest and sighed.
"I swear…I get why yah keep em round, real tactical advantage but he is also a real pain in me' arse. Don't see what you see in him."
"They are just jealous of you Iain."
Victor mumbled back towards the incubus not bothering to stop what he was doing to look at him.
"Of…me? Why?"
"You are my best friend. They are my… partner. They fear the obvious."
"We've never-"
"I know, and that's not even it either. Echo and I are open, I think its an…intimacy thing, look we can talk about it more later." He had grown frustrated again trying to patch the circuitry and juggle relationships..
"You wanted me to explain again, so this is my simplistic version: I studied my magic. Which basically functions through dark matter and reverse engineered that to make portals."
He motioned to the contraption and it made more sense to the scot.
"We get the big bighty monster to run through, and they are right in our holding settlements. No sedatives, no helicopters, slightly less expensive and much less work."
As he finished speaking he finished too with his modifications and moved to the nearby computer to put in the necessary calibrations.
"This will be a good trial run. If it's true and there is a lovecraftian god about, those sort of cosmic beings tend to feed on-"
"Heads up" Suddenly the coms came to life with Echo's voice.
"You've got a friend coming."
"Fuck. I'm not ready." Victor couldn't spare the moment to take his fingers from the keys so Iain relayed the message,
"How long we got then lass?"
"Mmm I don't know. He is big and lumbery… but only if he stays calm. I saw him move quick for a deer, snapped her in two. I'm keeping a distance."
A few keypresses later and the curved metal which had been set up in the middle of the dense Georgian forest. began to hum lowly before a silky blackness began to rise up to fill the space between the arches almost like a viscous liquid.
But no sooner had this began than a loud screech crescendoed through the rolling hills.
Victor and Iain’s eyes met, the witches fingers finally flying to the com link in his ear.
“Echo?”
“Vicky this thing is no joke…” Their voice seemed to shudder with a fear, an unusual addition to the sassy creatures tone, which was enough to stoke a shock of fear in Victor’s own heart.
“I think…it heard or felt the machine…it’s heading your way. And fast.” Victor didn’t really need this information from the being, he could hear the lumbering monstering barreling towards him, angry guttural cries between the crack and timbre of falling trees.
“fuckfuckfuck” Victor waved Iain away from the portal, fingers flying back over the keyboard, furiously trying to make sure the link was secure, that they were sending the creature to the retrieval point where a crew was already waiting and a chamber already prepared.
The next moments happened quickly and would likely be relived by the witch for years to come- if he survived.
As the beast, large and unearthly in form, broke into the small clearing Victor stepped from the consoles,
“klikka á svipunni” The Nordic tongue was heavy from the witch, his words weighted by magic which propelled a whip from his hand, black and smokey like that which filled his now humming gate. The whip wrapped around a propelling tentacle which had left the angry creature, and with a fierce tug he pulled it down and forward, sending the alien creature toppling over itself, screaming angrily and waving its many arms in distress as the magic lasso wound itself about the creature and made as if to drag it through the portal, connecting with its source matter like a liquid metal and tugging the creature with it.
For a brief moment Victor felt the flush of triumph, before one of the monster’s tentacles broke free of its confines, whipping out and wrapping around his torso so quickly he hadn’t the chance to take a breath for another spell.
As the monster was dragged through the portal by tendrils of darkness, so too was the witch, chest crushed beneath the weight of the monster and the panic rising.
He heard , distantly, his friends call out for him, but his only breath was directed towards muttering the summoning spell for his sword. It formed in his hand as he was meeting the inky black liquid, cold on his skin like arctic water.
He realized it was too late, he was going with the beast… and he couldn’t really be sure where- the wild swings of tentacles had struck the computers and the arches- finely tuned scientific instruments.
Reality was a sputter, he was released in the chaos, the sensation of being pulled apart and put back together not unfamiliar to him, but suddenly he was falling, he hit something hard, a wall, and then the ground. And he didn’t recall much else, the darkness which he often lived amongst, finally consumed him.
From seemingly nowhere, splattered with black ikor and dressed in finely tailored designer clothing fit for a fashion model, lay a very very out of place witch, rightfully unconscious in a new realm.
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