Anna Peregrine--Library of Souls

Chapter Nine

"COME QUICKLY! IT'S WAKING UP!" my uncle yelled from the kitchen.

Me and Jacob took off to find everyone hiding in a corner as the hollowgast started to wake up, its mouth was open and its tongues were on the floor limply.

"Close your mouth," I said to the hollow in its language.

It did.

"Sit up," Jacob said in the language.

The creature tried, but couldn't. Me and my boyfriend went over to it, helping it sit up. All of its injuries were cured but the gash on its neck. We told my uncle this, and I could see his irritation that the creature was healed almost completely.

"Can I help it if my dust is potent?" the healer asked through Reynaldo.

Everyone else went to bed but me, Jacob, and Myron, ready to get the ball rolling.

"Moment of truth, friends. Shall we see if we can get the old girl running again?" my uncle asked us.

"Let's not waste another second," I answered.

Myron summoned PT whilst me and Jacob got the hollow. We walked through the house, down halls until we came to do a door that the bear couldn't fit through.

"Here it is," Myron said with a smile. "The heart of my Panloopticon."

He opened the door and we all walked through, the bear and hollow staying outside. We walked in to find a giant machine that held dominance over the room. There was a man who was tightening something on the machine with a wrench.

"This is my assistant, Kim," my uncle said, and right away I recognized the man as the one me and Jacob had seen.

"I'm Jacob. We surprised you in the snow yesterday," my boyfriend said.

"What were you doing out there?" I asked the man.

"Freezing half to death," Kim said before going back to what he was doing.

"Kim's been helping me search for a way into my brother's Panloopticon. If such a door exists in the Siberia Room, it's likely at the bottom of a deep crevasse. I'm certain Kim will be grateful if your hollowgast succeeds in bringing some of our other rooms online, where there are sure to be doors in more accessible places," Myron explained.

He then got to business, giving orders to Kim who spun a few dials and pulled a lever. The gears of the machine started to hiss and spin a degree.

"Bring in the creature," my uncle said in a low voice.

Jacob called for the hollow, and it walked in growling, as if he knew what was about to happen. Kim dropped his wrench but quickly picked it back up.

"Here is the battery chamber," Myron said, drawing our attention to a large box in a corner. "You must guide the creature inside, where he'll be restrained."

I looked at the chamber to see it was windowless, and that it was once a phone booth. My uncle prepared the box for the hollow to get inside.

"Will it hurt him?" my boyfriend asked.

"Does that matter?" Myron asked.

"I'd rather it didn't. If we have a choice."

"We don't, but it won't feel any pain. The chamber fills with anesthetic sleeping gas before anything else happens."

"And then what?"

My uncle smiled and patted Jacob's arm, "It's very technical. Suffice to say, your creature will leave the chamber alive, in more or less the condition he entered it. Now, if you would kindly have it step inside."