So, I did.
They resisted with what was probably all of their strengths, but I was the stronger.
I blew the door off of its hinges and into pieces, sending it scattering across the room inside. Leo and I stepped inside the room as one and readied our weapons.
No amount of readiness could have prepared me for the surprise of what I saw.
The room was small, but made so by the adornments on the walls. The walls were covered by metal, shined to mirror like quality and each foot of it was trailing a bundle of cables. Each one of those cables came down and directly into the arms of one of five people lying on tables in the room. There were two men and three women, all wearing nothing but these wires from the walls. In the center was a man watching monitors, paying absolutely no attention to me as he spun dials and pulled levers. Each movement that he made caused a
twitch or a hint of an emotion across the face of one of the five.
I could feel the power coursing through those cables and down into each of those bodies. They were collecting magic and funneling it into the Traum Kult. The Dreamers of Germany were feeding on magic.
Sitting next to the man was the book. The Necronomicon rested on the same platform as the levers and dials that the man spun.
I wasn't looking at the book, my goal for the last week. No, my attention was on the man.
"Dean Brandon Smythe? That explains how they got the book."
The Dean glanced over his shoulder, giving me a passing glance. "One moment, Doctor. I'm almost done." He hit another lever and then turned to face me, picking up the book.
"What is this?" I demanded.
The Dean of Misktonic University, the man who put me on this quest of the damned, answered, "A recruitment drive."
"What?" I asked. Leo stood next to me not understanding any of the English, but waiting silently for my signal to attack.
"To put it simply, the Traum Kult have put together an engine of magical collection and distribution. That," he held up the Necronomicon, "with this, makes them the most powerful beings on the planet." He hugged the book to his chest and stepped closer to me. I didn't miss that he stayed just out of sword range.
"With all of this power, you'll be able to harness and control all of the monsters and beasties that you love so desperately to fight." His face twisted in a half smile that didn't seem at all natural on his face.
"I will, huh?" I rolled my eyes. "You expect me to do this while working for the Reich?"
He shook his head. "With all of that power, do you think you'd really be working for anyone?"
I ignored that statement and waved my sword about, indicating the wiring coming from the wall. "This is all just collection. What's the source?"
The Dean's smile turned darker and suddenly it fit his face. "The Nazis." He shrugged. "Not the Nazis directly, but from the POW camps. Every time the Germans gas or mass execute people, there's a member of the Traum Kult standing by and funneling all of that life energy directly the the Kult headquarters."
I gagged and almost threw up. Leo saw this and raised his gun higher, preparing to end the Dean's life.
"Don't let it get to you, boy." The Dean was speaking to me with sympathy in his voice and I almost gagged again. "The Germans are going to kill them anyway. We're only collecting that power and using it to come out on top. You've seen it in all of your studies. Civilizations rise and to do so they must step on the lesser civilizations. The Traum Kult is rising," he hesitated, "and we want you to lead us."
I straightened. "Give me the book."
He reached out and handed it to me. I assumed it was a trap and reached very slowly for it. When nothing happened, I grabbed it quickly and flipped through the pages, making certain that it wasn't a fake.
It was the real thing. I now held the American translation of the Necronomicon with all of its additional secrets and spells.
I looked at the Dean. "Why would you give it to me?" He shrugged and folded his now empty arms. "I told you; I'm hoping that you join our cause. You can't kill off the Traum Kult, we're scattered all over the globe. You're certainly not leaving the same way that you came in, the Nazis are on their way her en masse and you will not be capable of fighting your way through them all. You're tired and wouldn't make it."
I sighed. He was right, and I'd tried not to think of how we would escape up until now.
The Dean continued. "I don't want to put it bluntly, but I will. You can join the Traum Kult and lead us into glory, or you and your friend can die here."
Dean Smythe had me cornered. I could lead Leo into certain death, or I could fulfill the prophecy as I had seen it in Berne. I could become the Bringer of Cthulhu.
That image shook me to my core. I shuddered involuntarily as it came to the forefront of my mind and I saw it all again. There I was, standing on the beach as writhing inhuman beasts crawled and slid across the sand. Cresting the waves was a terrible shape, both solid and gaseous with horror rising off of it as if it were steam. I could hear the words as I chanted them, reading directly from the book -
The book.
I had another option.
I looked at Leo and smiled. In French I said, "Don't worry. I think that I know what I'm doing?"
"You think?" Leo asked. He didn't take his gun or eyes off of Dean Smythe.
In English, I said to the Dean. "Smythe, I've decided to fulfill a prophecy."
He smiled, misunderstanding what I was saying. "Really? I'm glad to hear it."
"I don't think you will be, actually." I held the book back out to him. "When I last saw you, I told you that the day would come when I put you down." I let the book drop. "That day has come."
The Necronomicon hit the floor with a loud slap that drew the Dean's attention. His five cultists all sat up abruptly and glared at me with hate. With the Dean's eyes on the book, his friends were the only witnesses to my bringing the magical sword down onto the cover of the tome.
A psychic scream ripped through the room and I gritted my teeth through it, pleased with myself for guessing right. The book was as much a piece of the void as the piece of the reef from Innsmouth had been. It had been made in our world, but had been used and changed by the void. It had become alive and my sword was melting it.
I was also pleased with myself for another reason.
I had changed the Cthulhu prophecy. If there was no book, there would be no summoning of the dark lord.
The Dean was screaming, both in pain and in anger. His eyes bulged as they looked at me accusingly. I expected his eyes to burst from his head, and I wasn't disappointed when Leo pulled the trigger to his machine gun and made it happen.
The book had almost completely dissolved now and the scream was getting weaker. Still connected to the cabling, the Traum Kult members began hurling spells of lightning and fire at Leo and myself. I deflected them all with my will power and found it very easy to do.
The power still had hopes for me and had decided against abandoning me after my betrayal.
Or maybe all of those lost souls were begging for retribution.
I preferred to think the latter.
In a matter of seconds the room had been reduced to a bloody mess. It wasn't until the smoke had cleared that I realized Leo had been giving me a pained look.
"That book could have changed the world." I could see the Resistance dying in his eyes, but he had no idea what this book really meant to humanity.
"Yes, and that was why I destroyed it."
I stood there for a moment, looking at the carnage surrounding us, and gathered my wits. I was tired, but the magic continued to surge through me. I needed to destroy this room, but first I needed Leo's help.
"Start pulling these wires off of the bodies. I need them."
Leo looked at me in horror, but I ignored it and started about pulling the wiring from the nearest bodies. After a moment of just standing there he came back to himself and helped me.
His look of horror returned when he saw me attaching
them to my own body, but he didn't slow in his work and was soon helping me to stick them to my skin.
"What are you going to do?" He asked me in almost a whisper.
"He's going to give me the juice to get us out of here and destroy this place." Olivia answered from behind
the Frenchman.
Leo shook his head. "I cannot go back in there."
Olivia quieted him with a touch. "It won't be like last time. With this much power I can protect you both." She looked at me. "With this much power he doesn't really need me, I would think."
I looked at her as Leo finished attaching the wiring. "Actually, I would like the few shreds of sanity I have to remain in place. So, if you don't mind, get ready to get us out of here."
Leo looked around at the walls. "What about this place? How are you going to destroy it?"
"That," I answered, "is my job." I quickly created a ball of energy between my hands. Inside it you could see lightning bouncing around and desperately attempting to get free and wreak havoc.
"I'm the only thing holding this energy together. As soon as we vanish, it'll destroy this room, and maybe more." I looked to Olivia. "Are you ready?"
She nodded and touched Leo and I.
***
It had been a week since we'd magically teleported out of Germany, and I was sitting in the former Dean's library and drinking the former Dean's scotch while Leo sat across from me.
I hadn't expected Olivia to take us all the way back to Arkham. Leo's love of the Resistance meant that he needed to be in France, and I would have expected Olivia to understand that better than anyone. Her response when I asked her about it was that she'd read Leo's mind, and now that he knew of this other world, he would be considerably depressed to return to fighting only Nazis.
Because 'only Nazis' isn't enough?
I accepted it and Leo never brought it up. As a matter of fact, he'd decided to start learning English and I'd been helping him for the last two days.
Idleness wasn't in either of us, so we'd started coming back to the school. When the administrative board had inquired as to where their Dean had gone, I didn't hesitate to tell them that he'd been discovered to be a Nazi spy. They didn't believe me until they saw Leo's stern look. At which point, they decided that they needed a new Dean, and who better to fit that role than an Alumni with a Doctorate. I threatened decapitation, but they wouldn't listen. They said they'd handle the major decisions and that I could feel free to join in on discussions at anytime, but the University needed a Dean, even if he hated the idea.
This specific moment in...my...library, drinking my scotch was one of revelation.
"She's standing right next to you." "Still not see here." Leo answered in broken English. I was making him only talk to me in English to aid in the resurgence of the little bit that he'd already known.
I looked at Olivia. "Maybe this means his mind is healing?"
She shrugged. "Or that the magic I used to convince him I was real is wearing off. There is no way to know for sure without speaking directly to someone else who had seen me, and Father Blake is a little out of our way."
"What she says?" Leo asked.
"She shrugged." I smiled at her.
I was getting antsy to show off what I'd found, and switched to French to tell Leo. My fingers scratched at the folder beneath them.
"Do you know what this is?" I asked rhetorically.
He shook his head.
"This is a report is a firsthand account by a Dr. William Dyer of this very University. In it he describes terror and horror like we've never seen." I smiled. "He also goes on to describe a battle between two major races of long ago."
"Battle?" Leo asked, sensing where this was going.
"I think this is the largest known collection of alien weaponry on the planet, and I have reason to believe that Brandon Smythe gave a copy of this account to the Traum Kult."
Leo smiled, my excitement becoming mirrored in him. "When do we leave?"
"In one week." I downed my scotch and poured another.
"Where is it?" He pressed.
I gave my newest companion and friend a bigger grin than I'm sure he'd ever seen me produce. "We're going to Antarctica."
Andrew Doran at the Mountains of Madness
Chapter 1: Utah
Utah, in the summer months, is Hell.
In a heated gun battle, I chased a small group of Nazis across the Utah desert to a small train station about three miles from a now smoldering ruin of a shack that once belonged to the missing Professor William Dyer.
I went to Utah in search of Dr. Dyer, the famed geologist of Miskatonic University. It took me a week to find his niece who was kind enough to give me directions to his summer cabin in Utah. Geologists love their rocks, and the formations near his cabin were some of the most beautiful in the country.
When I found the cabin, I was already too late. William Dyer wasn't there, but three very trigger-happy Nazis were. They'd already started setting fire to the place, but I saw what I needed.
One of them was carrying a journal that I was certain didn't belong to him.
An exchange of gunfire and a lengthy chase across the desert later, and I followed them as they pulled into a train station. Smoke rolled from the stack and I was sure that it was prepared to leave. I wasn't certain that I could subdue them before they were aboard.
I leapt from my truck and ran inside. In the race for the title of ‘Most Idiotic Idea’, the decision to run blindly into the train station was at the top of the list.
As I ran through the door, a solid fist came in from the left faster than I could react. It clipped me in the jaw and I went down hard.
I'm not new to the fighting game and I came up with my pistol drawn. As I brought it around, a hand clamped around my wrist and yanked me to my feet.
These Nazis were fast.
They punched me twice in the gut and again in the chin. I felt my brain rattle in its cage and began to wonder if these foreign thugs had decided against wasting bullets on me, instead intending to beat me to death.
As I shook my head and looked around, I realized that I was completely immobilized. At each arm one of the large Nazis held me tight. My head was being held from behind by an arm around my neck and a hand on my forehead. I was stretched out and couldn't move. The entire means through which I had been immobilized would have been impressive if I hadn't been the one they were using it on.
"Andrew Doran." A man hissed as he walked toward me from the platform. His eyes were like a snake's, literally. He was a child of Yig, the snake god, and it looked like he was a member of the Nazi army as well.
Aside from the snake eyes, he looked like your average member of the Aryan race. He had blond hair cut short on the sides and combed to the side and a military physique. He was dressed in a plain brown suit, and could have passed for a Professor at my university if he didn't have the snake-eyes.
Of course, we'd probably still hire him even with the snake-eyes.
He smiled broadly as he spoke. "Dean of Missskatonic Universssity, Anthropologissst, and warrior for good againssst all of the monstersss that go bump in the night." His voice was a mix of a German accent with a less than subtle hiss. He was definitely his father's son. He laughed. "For a man who isss known to have ssscattered the Traum Kult to the windsss, you are not very impressssive in your current ssstate."
I smiled through a split lip that I could feel trickling blood down my chin. "You're doing it all wrong." I tried to shake my head and remembered the very strong man behind me. "First you introduce yourself, and then I knock out your men, beat you, and then take that journal."
The snake-eyed German brought up his left hand with the leather journal. He waved it in my face. "Do you mean thisss journal?" He punched me in the stomach then and if I could have doubled over I would have. "Now, what would Dr. Andrew Doran want with the diary of the mad old William Dyer?"
I didn't have to tell him. He knew why I wanted the journal. It was a
book of power, and lately I'd become a librarian. By librarian, I specifically mean that I'm always chasing books. At least that's how it felt.
The trip to Dyer's cabin had been a shot in the dark. I wasn't actually expecting to find Dyer there, but I knew that any scientist worth his degree had a journal somewhere and the cabin was the most likely of places.
I had been looking for William Dyer and his journal because he had been one of the few survivors of a doomed expedition to the Antarctic. When he'd returned to the United States he ranted and raved about a city in those frozen mountains that housed an ancient race of monsters. Whatever he found, he had managed to describe a city of ancient aliens and their technologies hidden for thousands of years on the frozen continent. My interest had piqued.
My predecessor to the position of Dean at Miskatonic University had been a traitor to his country and all of humanity. He had taken Dyer's knowledge to the Traum Kult, a Nazi Occult organization determined to use the creatures from our nightmares to rule the world. It was very likely that the knowledge that Dean Brandon Smythe took to the Nazis was that the technologies in the Antarctic could be used in the war effort. My only hope of preventing the Nazis from getting that technology was to find William Dyer and get to the Antarctic first.
Or, find his journal.
I didn't have to say any of this, and the spawn of Yig wasn't about to give me a chance to.
"My name is Olof." He took my pistol from the Nazi on my right and started eyeing it. "Sssee, I can be polite."
My pistol was an old .38 Smith and Wesson. It had runes carved along the barrel that gave it a certain magical ability. My gun could kill monsters that normal guns couldn't. That made it special in every sense of the word. It was my gun.
It bothered me that he had even touched it.
Olof slid the pistol into his belt and then looked me in the eyes. "I have now introduced myself, Dr. Doran. I believe you promisssed to knock out my men." He pointed up to the clock above the ticket master's booth and smiled. "I do not have all day."
I struggled in the grip of my captors. They only tightened their hold. "Don't make the mistake of thinking that you have any control here, Olof" I said. "You're on my clock."
The Adventures of Andrew Doran: Box Set Page 22
