So that was why Riley had come here… That was why he’d pulled me out of the tub. It wasn’t me he cared about saving, of course. Epistola had robbed him of his most sacred duty. He’d come to rescue his pride.

“Azathoth has deemed me worthy!” the scarlet witch cried. “And I am mortal no longer!” For a moment it looked like she had begun to grow in size, but then I realized her feet had left the ground and she was rising above the stage. It seemed as if the swirling energy in the very air around her was offering an invisible stepping stool. The hooded figures fell back with murmurs of awe, and they began kowtowing before their goddess’s power.

“I have looked upon the face of Azathoth and lived!” she crowed. “I am now the conduit, the incarnation of Yog-Sothoth! I control the gate!”

“INSOLENT HUMAN!” Riley bellowed, his voice louder and more resonant than ever before. “You know not of what you speak. You dare utter the name of the hollowed gatekeeper, who your pitiful mind cannot begin to comprehend?”

“I more than dare! I take control. The power of the gate is mine now!” She swept her arms up to the widening blackness above. “You are too late. I have succeeded where you fail. I have become greater than you. And now I will destroy you!”

“YOU DARE TO CHALLENGE THE MIGHTY CTHULHU?!” Riley’s voice was so loud, I had to cover my ears, and I crumpled against the tub. I could feel the reverberations of his words pounding into the core of my being like thunderclaps.

“Mighty Cthulhu is not here,” retorted Epistola, unfazed. “I see only a boy. A weak, small boy who surrendered his godhood for the first pathetic weakling nag he looked upon!”

Even though the blood on my chest had washed away, the raw knife wound throbbed and ached. ‘Pathetic’ was the understatement of the century. As wrong as Epistola was about everything else, it was undeniable how unworthy of Riley I ever was.

“Mnahn’grah’n!” she spat at him.

Though I could still feel the rage roiling off Riley, Epistola’s last utterance had a strange effect on him. The alien word seemed to hit him like a slap in the face, but instead of lashing back at her, he became very still, and then after a frigid moment, he closed his eyes and lowered his head. As I gazed up at his profile, I was dismayed by the expression of conflicted anguish that twisted across his clenched features.

“Yes, you know it is true.” Epistola took his silence as an opportunity to rebuke him further. “I used to worship you. But you are no Great One! I doubt now that you ever were. You were to bring about the end of the world, and I was to be your servant. And now, look at you.”