by Howe, A. E.
“We kill him.”
“That’s a little rude. Baron, that one is Jasper. The one on the left is Silas. Trust me, boys, he will suffer much more if we stake him out on the sand so he can experience the sunrise.”
“Do you have the journals?” Jasper asked again.
“Everything is there. We still need to carry it down here to the beach.”
“Must hurry,” Silas said menacingly.
“Why? We have all of these hooligans rounded up. Which reminds me.” Captain Hume stepped over and pulled the rag out of Neith’s mouth.
“About time!” she yelled.
“Careful. Now that the Marsh brothers are here, I’m no longer sure that you are necessary to my plans.”
“I wouldn’t try that,” Neith warned. “You aren’t half the scholar I am.”
“There’s some truth there. Fine.” He bent down and untied her. She glared at him the whole time.
“Did they help you with the murders?” Blasko asked.
“Funny thing about that. When I killed Wallace Brock, I took him out in a small boat in the middle of the night to get rid of him. That’s when I met these two. Once I explained that I was familiar with their ancestors and cousins on the other side of the world, we talked and learned that we had some compatible goals. We were all—”
“What the hell are they?” Josephine interrupted.
“They are hybrids. Their great-great-grandfather, Obed Marsh, mated with the Deep Ones, dwellers from the depths. At least that’s what one tribe in the South Pacific calls them. I was there at Kanaky where the natives live in harmony with the Deep Ones. Obed Marsh visited the islands in the early 1800s and learned some of their secrets. He brought wealth and the Deep Ones to Innsmouth, Massachusetts.”
“This is the corruption I was talking about,” Carter said, pointing with his good hand at them.
“Show them your other arm. They’ll be amused,” Hume said.
“The hell with you!”
“Do it.” Hume pointed the gun at Josephine. Reluctantly, Carter held up his arm.
The Marshes were more than interested. They slouched toward him in an oddly effective shuffle, eager to examine the tentacles.
“You have been touched by Dagon! The great elder,” Jasper proclaimed.
“Told you they’d like those tentacles.” Hume laughed. “Don’t get too friendly with him, boys. Robert Olmstead is a relative of the Carters.”
“Distant relative,” Carter mumbled.
“What are you getting out of this?” Blasko asked the captain.
“Riches and eternal life.”
“Trust me. Eternal life is overrated.”
“The books I found will give me powers that are hard to comprehend. All will be mine when I take the Oath of Dagon.”
“Remember your promise to us!” Jasper burbled angrily.
“You’ll get your gold.”
“You promised them gold?” Blasko asked.
“More than that. The journals of Obed Marsh chronicle the deals he made for the gold trinkets he melted down at the Innsmouth refinery. With the journals, they can reconstruct the network he’d formed with the Deep Ones. The other fools around here have only been after fish! Pathetic use of a relationship that could net them a fortune and immense power.”
“We will rebuild our family’s fortune!” Silas was shaking, but whether with anger or excitement, Blasko couldn’t tell.
“One thing I don’t understand is why you killed the one who attacked me,” Josephine said.
Captain Hume ignored her. “Enough talk. Now that you all are here, we can kill these interlopers and be done. Everyone except the vampire.”
“I kill her.” Silas Marsh was obviously still angry at Josephine for interrupting their attack on Blasko.
“Touch her and I will pull you apart with my bare hands,” Blasko said with an intensity that made even a creature such as Silas pause.
“I don’t fear you,” he said, never blinking his bulging black eyes.
“More the fool you,” Blasko warned.
The creature hissed and moved toward Josephine. Carter, standing next to her, stepped in to stop Silas’s advance. He extended his tentacled arm and Silas hesitated.
“Go on. Kill her,” Jasper urged.
Silas reached out and swatted Carter to the side. Carter stumbled and almost went to the ground. As he regained his balance, it brought him close enough to Captain Hume that he would be able to get inside his gun arm before the man could pull the trigger. Glancing quickly at Blasko to make sure the vampire was aware of what was about to happen, Carter charged forward. Unfortunately, Hume saw the move coming and swung his gun in closer to his body. Even as Carter grabbed the captain’s arm with his tentacles, he was still able to shoot Carter in the leg as they both fell to the sand.
Blasko took advantage of the confusion and flew at Silas, who stopped his attack on Josephine to meet the assault. What Silas hadn’t counted on was Josephine. Once he turned away from her, she ran at him and grabbed his face with her nails. They sank deep into the wet, scaly skin of his face. Blasko slammed into him from behind and all three of them hit the ground.
Silas was howling at the pain from Josephine’s nails. Jasper ran to his brother’s aide and was able to batter Blasko into a defensive retreat, while Silas managed to get Josephine under some control. Blasko struggled and landed a stunning blow to Jasper, who fell back away from him.
Carter, ignoring the fiery pain in his leg, used the same tactic that had worked so well on Neith to smother the captain with his tentacles. Hume flailed desperately as he lost oxygen, finally releasing his hold on the gun.
Neith, who’d been stunned by the turn of events, came out of her temporary paralysis and ran to Hume’s aid. She grabbed the gun he’d dropped and placed it against Carter’s temple.
“Let him go or I will kill you!” she screamed in Carter’s face.
Feeling the barrel of the gun against his head and hearing the truth in her voice, Carter released his hold. Hume kicked at Carter as he fought his way to a standing position.
“Stop fighting or Carter dies!” Neith shouted to the others. Josephine and Blasko slowly gave up their struggles against the Marsh brothers. Silas and Jasper pulled both of them to the ground and squatted on top of them, nasty wet grins on their faces.
Blasko was at a loss what to do. If he attacked the creatures, then Carter would die. If he did nothing, the monsters would kill Josephine. Even if by some miracle he was able to fight them off, Carter would still die and then Neith would turn the gun on him.
For a moment nothing happened. They were all too exhausted from the fighting. Then Blasko saw Silas’s mouth open, revealing rows of sharp teeth that he lowered toward Josephine. Blasko’s body tensed as he prepared to throw Jasper off his back and lunge at Silas, Carter’s life be damned.
“Stop!” yelled a voice, coming loud and clear from the dunes behind them. It sounded almost like a movie director yelling “Cut!” and had the same effect. Everyone looked around to see who had spoken and what power they had to enforce the command.
Josephine couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Lined up on the shallow dunes and holding lanterns were a dozen more creatures. Some of them were wearing fishermen’s clothes, while others weren’t wearing anything at all. They had Donavan and Jamila with them, though both looked as if they were in some sort of daze. In the middle of the group stood the man who’d shouted. She recognized Enoch, the fisherman who had creeped her out the day before and who had rented the boat to Donavan. He was holding a shotgun to his shoulder, pointed at the Marsh brothers.
“Silas, Jasper, let them go,” he ordered.
The Marsh brothers turned as one and started back toward the surf. Hume and Neith followed close behind them, heading for the raft.
Blasko, Josephine and Carter stared in disbelief at the surprise retreat. As they watched, a dozen more heads rose out of the water. The creatures moved slowly and steadily into the
shallows, causing the four fugitives to stop.
“We’ve taken the rest of your crew, Jasper. Everyone needs to just give up ’cause we got you dead to rights,” Enoch said, walking toward them.
Blasko and Josephine got to their feet and Blasko went to check on Carter, who waved him off. After a brief examination, he’d realized that the bullet had only dug a channel along his thigh, not penetrating his leg. He stood up slowly and limped over to Blasko and Josephine, and the three of them faced Enoch.
“I met you the other day,” Josephine said, brushing nervously at the sand on her clothes.
“You were scared of me.” Enoch walked toward her, but Blasko and Carter moved in to block his path.
“If I meant you harm, there would be nothing you could do to prevent it,” Enoch said. “I’ve come to stop this coup. It is a desecration of all that we believe.”
“And exactly what is that?” Blasko asked.
“We are servants of the True Order of Dagon.”
“From Innsmouth,” Carter said.
“Yes and no. My father was on the ship that brought the gold and documents to this place. He and Hiram Sargent sabotaged it. When it sank, they brought the treasure here and hid it.”
“According to the story my uncle heard, the ship went down in a storm.” Josephine looked at the man carefully, trying to determine his motives.
“There was a storm, but the ship could have weathered it. My father and his friend took the opportunity to end another of Obed Marsh’s mad dreams. Obed built that ship, the Sumatra Princess, in order to bring men and supplies, as well as gold and sacred documents, to Cedar Island as part of a colonization scheme.”
“Why?” asked Carter, fascinated.
“He knew that, sooner or later, Innsmouth was going to be cleansed by the people of Arkham. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed that the decay and rot were more than just the result of the financial collapse of a seaside town.”
“Why did your father try to stop him?”
“My family and a few others in Innsmouth never bought into Obed’s avarice. My grandmother was a Kanaky Islander. She knew about the Deep Ones. That they had to be controlled. Instead, Obed thought he could join with them to gain gold and power. His Esoteric Order of Dagon was a nasty attempt to force the shore-huggers to breed with and accept the Deep Ones and Obed’s hybrids. When he talked of expanding his empire by colonizing an island in Florida, my father saw it as an opportunity to take down some of Obed’s ego and escape his control.”
“So your father and his friend took over the island for themselves,” Carter said.
“No! They moved here with the intent of living in harmony with the people here. And we have.”
“Obed never came looking for his gold or papers?” Carter pushed.
“Word reached him about the wreck and that all hands were lost along with the ship. Some of Obed’s own people thought that his idea to colonize an island in Florida was folly. Even if Obed had wanted to, he would have been hard pressed to mount a search effort. Since the whole escapade was an embarrassment to him, he was more than willing to let it go.”
“You seem to have done well enough on the island,” Blasko observed.
“My father inherited a great deal of my grandmother’s knowledge. He could call the Deep Ones and had runes and spells to control them. He taught others. The True Order of Dagon was founded with the purpose to live in harmony with the Deep Ones and the shore dwellers.”
“What happened to all that harmony?” Blasko pointed at the Marsh brothers to make his point.
“After the raids on Innsmouth, some of the survivors came here, including those two. Over the last few years, most of them have become part of the community. But there are those who long for the old days in Innsmouth and aren’t willing to drop the ways of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. They saw the chance to find old Obed’s gold and journals as the opportunity to return to their wickedness.”
“Who killed my uncle?” Josephine asked.
“An event I deeply regret. One of our people found out that he had discovered the treasure and panicked. I can’t tell you that it was an accident, but it wasn’t planned and the person regretted it.”
“Regretted it? Is that all?”
“If we are discovered, every member of our order knows that we would be rounded up and killed or put into asylums. Exactly what happened to those in Innsmouth. The man who killed your uncle was punished.”
“How?”
“Hideously,” was all Enoch would say. His words sent a chill up Josephine’s spine and ended any curiosity she still had.
“What about the man who tried to steal the letter?”
“Elijah had been watching Mitzi, our postmistress, ever since Captain Hume had taken an interest in her. He overheard the conversation you had with her, and decided on his own to get the letter sooner rather than later. A decision I would have approved. Remember, it’s worth our lives not to be discovered. If a great treasure hoard had been found here, we would have been exposed to the eyes of the world.”
“Captain Hume killed Elijah,” Josephine said.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Hume barked out in his defense.
“He was my nephew.” Enoch looked over at the others. “We knew it was one of them, but we didn’t know which. We disposed of the body, as we’ve always done with our kind.”
“You can’t let an outsider get a good look at one of your dead,” Blasko agreed. Everyone grew silent for a moment, then he asked, “What about us?”
“We can’t let you have the gold, and we need some of the books that are in the cache.”
“What for?”
“That is the good news for you and your friends. There are spells that we can use to cloak Cedar Island from the outside world. It will be a long process, but when it’s done, we will be safe from you and yours.”
“What about the people on the island who aren’t members of the True Order of Dagon?”
“As we work our spells, they will eventually want to move away. Once off the island, they will only remember their lives, but not the truth of our existence. With time, the island will disappear off of maps and everyone who’s been here will forget the island ever existed.”
“Even us?” Josephine asked.
“You and the baron… I see his blood in you. No, I think you will always remember.”
“And the other treasure hunters?”
“Captain Hume and Neith stay. The others… I think they can be made to forget and want nothing more than to return to their old lives.”
“You promise a great deal,” Carter said.
“Do you wish your arm returned to normal?” Enoch asked.
Carter looked stunned at the prospect. “You can do that? Yes, please,” he whispered.
“I think it’s rather remarkable as it is, but if you want it to return to its natural state, we can do that.”
A small part of Josephine’s mind wanted to know what they planned to do with Hume, Neith and the Marshes, but the more rational part told her that knowing would only lead to scars on her psyche and nightmares when she slept.
Blasko looked at the sky, knowing that dawn was rapidly approaching. “We need to return to Cedar Island. Would you help us get the others to the boat?”
Once everyone was on the rented boat, Enoch handed Josephine a small bottle from his pocket.
“Give them all this tonic when you put them to bed. When they wake, their memories will already be fading. As for the young Asian, I think he will survive if he’s tended to. A member of our order has some medical knowledge. I’ll send him to the hotel later this morning.” Then he turned to Carter. “Wait for me in your cabin. We have a lot of work to do.”
They returned to the hotel half an hour before dawn. Josephine sent Blasko to his coffin, while Anton helped her put the three treasure hunters to bed. Anton offered to watch over Zhao until the promised help arrived.
“I’ll sleep in the baron’s room,�
�� Josephine told Anton. While she was confident that they were no longer in any danger, she was sure that she would sleep better being close to him.
At noon, Josephine heard a soft but determined knocking on Blasko’s door. She tried to ignore it, but whoever it was wasn’t going away. She got up and hurriedly draped a blanket over Blasko’s coffin to hide it. When she opened the door, she saw a nervous-looking Bobby Tucker standing in the hallway.
“Why are you in the baron’s room?” he asked.
Amused that this was his first question, she opened the door wider so that he could see the bed. Josephine didn’t want Bobby getting any crazy ideas.
“He’s… sleeping elsewhere,” she said evasively, hoping Bobby wouldn’t ask any more questions about Blasko. “What are you doing here? Anton said you wouldn’t come for a few more days.”
“I couldn’t wait. I was worried about what y’all had gotten yourselves into this time.”
“She’s not in her—” Grace said, coming out of Josephine’s room and seeing her standing in Blasko’s door wearing her robe. “What you doing in there?” she asked with more than a hint of reproach.
“I was getting some much-needed rest until y’all showed up.” Josephine hadn’t meant to sound so ungrateful. “I’m sorry. I appreciate that you’re here, but we had a tough night. I’d like to get a few more hours’ sleep.”
After a little more convincing, they let her go back to bed.
Later, she joined Bobby for a drink in the dining room. Looking down at his glass of whiskey, Bobby said, “I won’t ask why you were in your cousin’s room.” There was more sadness than anger in his voice.
Josephine thought about ignoring his comment, but she cared about Bobby and realized he deserved more, especially after driving all that way to check on her.
“Bobby, I want to be honest with you. Dragomir and—”
“I know. I can see it in the way you look at each other. Are you really cousins?”
“No. It’s a… long story.”
“If it affects you, I’d like to hear it.”
“I know you would.” She took his hand. “I don’t have a dearer friend in the world than you, but the story involves secrets that aren’t mine alone.”
