The Gods of HP Lovecraft

by Martha Wells

  He reached out and nudged it one inch closer to me. “This is half. The balance on completion of the assignment.”

  Sure, I wanted to grab the envelope and bear it away for some private time with my stack of outstanding bills. There was also a Bettinardi Model 2 Matt Kuchar blade-style putter that I wanted almost more than I wanted a blowjob. But I left the envelope where it was and sat back in my chair.

  “When you say ‘assignment’,” I said, “what exactly are we talking about?”

  “Can we first agree that you’ll work for me?”

  “No, we can’t. I want to know what I’m signing on for.”

  He cocked his head to one side, like an ostrich examining a bug he might eat. “Does it matter?”

  “Sure it does.”

  He made a show of looking around my office. Drab furniture that was fourth- or fifth-hand when I bought it from a thrift store. Wallpaper that was probably pasted up when Jimmy Carter was president. Some house plants dying a slow and horrible death. Low lights that tried and failed to soften the edges of the squalor. And me. Short, skinny, semi-tidy, with too much stubble and thinning hair. His eyes drifted back and locked on me. He wore a thin, knowing smile.

  “And you’re in a position to be selective about the kind of jobs you accept, Mr. Hunter?”

  “I am, Mr. Boots,” I said.

  “Even for twenty thousand dollars?”

  “Even for twenty million dollars.”

  We both smiled. He thought I was joking. I knew I wasn’t.

  Mr. Boots took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his lips, then neatly folded the cloth and put it back.

  “It is my understanding that private investigators often provide additional services.”

  “Depends on the investigator,” I said. “And it depends on the service.”

  “I’m looking for someone to champion my cause.”

  “Yeah, that means nothing to me. You’re beating around the bush, Mr. Boots. How about you stop doing that and actually tell me what you’d like me to do for that much money. You have to know that it’s a tad above my normal rates.”

  “There are private investigators who would walk into hell for that much money.”

  That was true enough. I know some P.I.s who will beat up a nun for a lot less. Israel Bohunk comes to mind. A professional rival who is arguably the least humane human being I’ve ever met. He sometimes provides protection for a dog-fighting ring run out of South Philly. His office is every bit as seedy as mine, I’ll admit, but we have different reputations if you look close enough. I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do for money. No joke. And although I do have my more extreme moments once in a while, which resulted in me burying a few bodies in a landfill or in a swamp over in the Jersey Pine Barrens, my motivation isn’t the same as Bohunk’s.

  There are others, too. The worst were the skip tracers and bounty hunters. They all run under nicknames they think make them sound cool. Bugsy the Mummy, Abel Cain, Dr. Snatch. Like that. Maybe it’s that nobody has either the heart or the courage to tell them that their nicknames are stupid as shit.

  “What kind of job?” I repeated, saying it slow, spacing the words.

  “We would like you to pick up something and deliver it safely.”

  “What kind of something? I don’t courier drugs or stolen goods.”

  He smiled. “It’s a religious artifact. We want it delivered very quietly and without incident.”

  “Is it stolen?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  -2-

  “No,” I said.

  “Don’t you want to know who it was stolen from before you turn us down?”

  “Not really.”

  His smile widened. “Are you sure?”

  I sighed. “Okay. Impress me.”

  “Nazis,” said Mr. Boots.

  I blinked. “A religious artifact stolen from the Nazis? Now I’m thinking you have me confused with Indiana Jones.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Nazis?” I said, studying him.

  “Nazis,” he said.

  I sighed. “Okay, tell me.”

  -3-

  Mr. Boots said, “During the Second World War the Nazis, as you’ve no doubt heard, went to great lengths to, um, appropriate a great deal of art, and there are legal battles ongoing even now to settle claims of ownership. The same is true of a variety of holy relics and objects of importance from various cultures. The Spear of Longinus, believed to be the weapon that pierced the side of Jesus Christ is one such item. Others include clippings from the beard of Muhammad, a tooth from the Buddha, the bones of Orestes and Theseus, the Holy Belt of the Virgin Mary, the Grapevine Cross…”

  “The Ark of the Covenant?” I suggested.

  “Oh, no,” he said and gave a casual flick of his hand, “that’s in an Orthodox church in Axum, Ethiopia. The Thule cultists never took possession of it.”

  I stared at him, waiting for the punch line of the joke, but he appeared to be serious about that statement. Wild.

  Boots said, “The Thule Society was behind much of the Nazi drive to possess sacred objects that they believed had true mystical or spiritual power. During the war many of these objects were, regrettably, lost. There was a Thule repository in Dresden that was utterly destroyed by the Allied firebombing. So many powerful things were incinerated to the enduring loss of all.”

  I said nothing.

  “I represent a group of individuals,” said Boots, “who have gone to great lengths to recover some of these objects and return them to their rightful owners. We are privately funded and we are determined to remain discreet, even clandestine.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Although the war ended more than seventy years ago and most of the original Thule Society members are either dead or in nursing homes, the society itself lives on. With any group of hateful extremists there is never a paucity of people willing to take up the standard and continue this ugly work.”

  I nodded. I knew that to be true enough. Not specifically with the Thule Society, which I’d heard of but only in books, but with other kinds of cults and secret societies. “World has more than its share of fucktards,” I said.

  “Fucktard.” He repeated the word, enjoying it. “Eloquent.”

  “I’m nothing if not eloquent.”

  We smiled at each other like we were just a couple of guys.

  “So,” I said, “you’re telling me you stole something from neo-Nazis and you want me to pick it up from somewhere and deliver it somewhere?”

  “In a nutshell.”

  I made come-along motions with my fingers. “More. That’s not enough information.”

  “Fair enough. The Thule Society is still active, though it is naturally covert.”

  “Oh, naturally.”

  “Alas they are also very, um, aggressive,” said Mr. Boots. “They are covetous people, oh dear me yes. And they are vengeful.”

  “What is it you stole that’s got them so pissed off?”

  He cocked his head again. “By way of answering that question, Mr. Hunter, let me ask this. What do you know of the Dreamlands?”

  “As in Little Nemo?”

  “That’s Slumberland. I refer to the Dreamlands described in the writings of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Are you familiar with that writer’s works?”

  I shrugged. “Some, I guess. But I don’t read a lot of monster stories.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Considering your, ah, reputation, I would have figured you to be quite a fan of Lovecraftian stories.”

  Now I cocked my head at him. “And what exactly do you mean by my ‘reputation’?”

  I was pretty sure we both knew what he meant. It’s just that there aren’t a lot of people who know who and what I am. My family knows, of course, because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in the Hunter clan. A few close friends know. Some trusted clients. Mind you, there are some bad folks who knew but they are past tense. That’s an occasional side eff
ect of me being what I am.

  Boots fished for a way to say it without saying it. “I know,” he said.

  I shook my head. “Give me a keyword so I know you’re not dicking me around.”

  Mr. Boots considered. “Wolfsbane?”

  “Aconite,” I corrected. “I put that on my salad. Try again.”

  “Full moon?” he ventured.

  “Good for night fishing. But otherwise it don’t really mean shit. It’s Hollywood stuff. Keep trying.”

  “Do I need to say the word?”

  I grinned. “Why not? Are you afraid of the big bad wolf?”

  He shrugged. “If I was afraid of you, Mr. Hunter, I would not be here.”

  “Which makes me wonder why you are here. If your group was strong enough or clever enough to steal the item in question from these Thule asswipes, then why do you need me—or anyone—to deliver it somewhere? I mean… shit, hop in a cab.”

  “Ah, and so we get to it,” he said, leaning forward to place his incredibly bony elbows on his knobby knees. “The other party in this matter has engaged the services of a skilled retrieval specialist. He is someone we do not care to run afoul of. He has a certain reputation that I have been led to believe is in no way exaggerated.”

  “They hired a bounty hunter?”

  “In a word, yes. It is someone with whom you are, by all accounts, familiar.”

  I sighed. “And will you tell me this guy’s name?”

  “Bohunk,” said Mr. Boots. “Israel Bohunk.”

  I drummed my fingers on the desktop and frowned at him, then down at the thick envelope of delicious tens, twenties and fifties, and then at Mr. Boots again.

  He said, “While I understand that Mr. Bohunk has a reputation for always getting whatever he goes after, I was reliably informed that you were meet to this task. Was I misled?”

  It was a fair question and I took a moment to consider how to answer it. I knew a lot about Bohunk but had never gone up against him. Actually, I’ve never been alone with him. I’ve seen him in crowds, in clubs, in bail bond offices, and even in court buildings, but that’s it. We’ve probably said fewer than a hundred words to each other. Most of our exchanges have been the kind of gunslinger nods guys like us use when we don’t want to give anything away but at the same time want to send a certain message. Or, messages, really. One message I see you. The other, I need you to see me. There’s a shit-ton of subtext to each. With certain people a small look, a lift of an eyebrow, a tightening of the lips, a half smile—they speak volumes.

  Bohunk’s probably heard some wild stuff about me. Some of it’s true, depending on who’s doing the telling. And if even half of the stories I’ve heard about him were half true, then he was not the kind of person anyone ever wants to go up against. Mind you, there are people who say that about me. But Bohunk’s different. He’s come through situations that he shouldn’t have, which means that he has something else going for him besides the obvious brutality and noticeable lack of human compassion. And you can add to that the fact that he looks like the Hulk’s bigger brother. He also has a crew of thugs that he runs with who could probably overthrow the average midsized country.

  Boots frowned very deeply. “Are you going to opt out, Mr. Hunter?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m in.”

  “If it is not inconvenient, I need you to actually say that you accept this assignment. In those words.”

  “Sure. Fine. Whatever. I hereby formally accept this job. And the money. I definitely accept the money.”

  He looked greatly relieved. “And we have found our champion.”

  “Let’s not get too hasty,” I said. “I still need some background and you got us off the subject. What does any of this have to do with H.P. frigging Lovecraft?”

  Mr. Boots bent and straightened the leg of his pants, smoothing the expensive cloth over his stick-thin leg. “My colleagues and I are of the opinion that his stories may not be entirely the stuff of Mr. Lovecraft’s lurid imagination. It is our belief, in fact, that Mr. Lovecraft was something of a savant who did not dream up his stories in the way ‘dreams’ are viewed by the average person, but in fact wrote stories based on actual visions.”

  “Hunh,” I grunted.

  “Religious visions,” he said.

  “Wow,” I said. “So… you’re all batshit crazy. Is that the takeaway from this conversation?”

  “Hardly. Nor is this a cult thing,” said Boots. “This is a legitimate religion believed by more people than you would imagine.” He paused and gave me an enigmatic little smile. “Many more people than you would imagine.”

  I said nothing.

  “And these beliefs predate many of this world’s most highly regarded and, um, popular religions.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So what? You say this like you’re a deacon of the church of Cthulhu. I mean… that is what we’re talking about, right? Big guy, mouthful of tentacles, tendency to drive his worshippers batshit crazy. That guy?”

  If it is possible for someone with skin as black as pitch to go pale, then that’s what happened to Mr. Boots. He turned the color of a charcoal briquette. A dusty black. He recovered quickly, though. I’d said what I’d said half to be a smartass—because I like being a smartass—and half to see if I could get a rise out of him. To see where he stood. And apparently Boots stood foursquare inside the church of the bugfuck weird. He also got a little upset with me. Fair enough. I was trying to be offensive. It’s a great way to gauge how serious a person was on a given subject.

  Mr. Boots was clearly very serious, and pretty soon he had me convinced that this was his actual religion. I know, that takes a lot of open-minded acceptance because… hey, Cthulhu, y’know?

  But as Hamlet was so fond of saying, ”There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Or words to that effect.

  He made me a believer. Not in his faith but in the fact that he believed.

  “What’s the actual job?” I asked. “You keep sidestepping that. What is the actual object? What kind of relic is it?”

  “It is a small statue,” said Boots. “It is carved to represent the mountain Ngranek, a holy place on the isle of Oriab in the southern part of the Dreamlands. There is a minute map etched onto the base of the statue, written in the language of the guardians of that place, and it includes a spell that will open a doorway that will allow the faithful to travel from this world into that one.”

  “Uh huh,” I said.

  “You must understand, Mr. Hunter, that this is an item of great importance and great power. This is a place where great magic exists and where great magic can be learned. It is a place of infinite possibility, a place where the waters of many realities and unrealities merge and blend.”

  “Uh huh,” I said again.

  “It would be a terrible thing should the Thule Society appropriate this map. Therefore, we want you to go to where it is being kept, remove it, and protect it.”

  “Protect it? I thought you wanted it delivered.”

  Boots smiled. “In a manner of speaking. We want you to safeguard it using your, um, particular skill set. There is a very crucial planetary alignment occurring tonight. Gateways between worlds will be fragile at best. We want you to take possession of the stone and keep it safe overnight.”

  “You mean keep it with me?”

  “Yes. Keep it with you and do whatever is necessary to keep it safe. As I say, we have been hoping to enlist you as our champion.”

  “Just keep it overnight?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then return it to us in the morning,” said Boots. “By then the alignment will be shifting and the gateways will firm up. It is doubtful the Thule Society will be able to manage to open the doorway to the Dreamlands after the sun has risen.”

  I sat there and studied him. He sat there and studied me. The clock on the wall ticked its way through a whole bunch of empty seconds.

  “Yo
u realize that I think you’re absolutely out of your fucking mind,” I said. “I mean you get that, right?”

  His smile was very small on his very black face. “Have you ever required that your clients function on the same level of subjective sanity as yourself?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Nor do we.” Mr. Boots uncrossed and recrossed his legs. “Now let me tell you the details.”

  -4-

  The setup seemed pretty straightforward. The object was in the wall safe of Mr. Boot’s office on Walnut Street in Center City. He recited the combination and had me remember it. He said that he could not go and get it himself because Bohunk and his crew were watching the building and if they accosted him they might force him to open the safe. He didn’t come out and say that he feared Bohunk might kill him to get the artifact, but it was clear that’s what he meant.

  So, my goal was to slip in as discretely as possible, make my way to the eighteenth-floor office, open the safe, hide the object on my person, and get the hell out of there without being spotted. Then maybe go get lost for a few hours. Drive to Cape May and watch the sunrise. Take the turnpike to the Poconos and hang out at a casino. Whatever. Basically get lost, get off the radar so Bohunk couldn’t find me. It doesn’t sound easy and I knew it wouldn’t be easy. Not with Israel Bohunk guarding the place.

  The timetable was tight, but not so tight that I didn’t have some elbowroom to do research. After Oliver Boots gangled his bony ass out of my office I cruised the Net and made a few calls.

  Private investigators spend most of their careers doing background searches. It’s a lot of computer stuff. Back in the day it used to be actual paperwork, poring over ledgers and poking through public records. Now just about everything has been digitized. It makes the world less interesting in some ways, but it makes my job a hell of a lot easier. Instead of wearing out the soles of my shoes and sweating my ass off in the July heat I sat in my office eating Popeye’s chicken out of a tub, drinking Fanta and listening to old Tom Waits songs on my iPad, all while searching the endless databases, records, and websites. There are services and utilities P.I.s can subscribe to for deeper access than Joe Public will ever get. If you like your privacy that should scare you. Given enough time I can find out your pin number, routing number, shoe size, which prescription medicines you take, which porn sites you hit, how much debt you have, which charities you donate to, how many parking violations you have, how much mortgage or rent you owe, what your credit rating is, what your politics are, who your real friends are on Facebook and Twitter, where you spend your disposable income and what TV shows you binge-watch on Netflix. There are ways to keep guys like me out, but most of them don’t work all that well.