Sue vox's Arc

Chapter 2 of 6

The shadow poured into the specimen's glass eyes at last. Sue watched it fill them like ink filling water. But the trap was not sealed. She had wax on only one eye. The second eye still lay bare, and the shadow thrashed inside the glass, hunting a way back out. Along the rims her seals were already splitting. Thin cracks spread through the wax like frost on a window. "Hold it," she told herself. She grabbed her jar of black wax and dug in two fingers. The stuff had gone cold and stiff. She smeared it over the bare eye anyway. The shadow slammed against the glass. The specimen's stuffed head rocked on the bench. A crack ran wider under her thumb. Her lamp flame bent. Behind her, wings beat. A raven perched on the withered rosebush by the wall, and its eyes caught the light like two small mirrors. Sue's chest went tight. She had covered every mirror in the room. She had forgotten the bird's bright stare. The shadow felt it too. It surged toward the raven's eyes, testing the crack in her seal. If it reached those eyes, it would slip free and start again. Eleven years of work would break in one second. A growl rolled from the doorway. The black dog stood there, ribs bare through rotted skin, red eyes burning. It had followed the whisper for weeks. Now it stalked toward the raven, hackles up. The bird shrieked and beat its wings. Sue lunged for it, wax jar in hand. The dog snapped first. Its jaws closed on the raven and dragged it down. Feathers scattered. The bright eyes rolled loose across the floor. Sue dropped to her knees and smeared them dark before the shadow could reach them. Two more reflections gone. She crawled back to the bench. The specimen's eyes bulged with trapped black. She scraped the last cold wax from the jar and pressed it into every crack, thumb pushing hard. The shadow beat against the glass once, twice. Then the wax held. The eyes went still and dark and full. Sue sat back on the floor. Her hands shook. The whisper was gone from the walls. It was inside the glass now, sealed, silent. The dog licked a feather from its teeth and lay down by the rosebush, watching her. The specimen stood finished on the bench, its eyes two black stones with something moving deep inside. She had it. After eleven years, she had it. But the wax was cheap and the trap was thin. She had used the last of the jar. If the shadow pushed hard enough, or if the cold cracked the seal again, there would be nothing left to fix it with. The trap held tonight. She did not know if it would hold by morning.