The Amulet

by William Meikle

  He shifted his weight and sat on my chest. My muscles tightened as I tried to breathe. He brought the knife up again and it headed for my cheek.

  "All that talk of theirs about money-they didnae tell me that it was worth a fortune, did they?"

  He was talking to himself, but I didn't have time to pay much attention; the dancing silver knife in front of me hypnotized me.

  "Two thousand pound, they said. Bollocks-that wee trinket must be worth tens o' thousand, at least. And I suppose they sent you tae get it aff me? A saft bugger like you?"

  He laughed, an evil, cold thing, and drew back the knife to strike.

  I got my left arm in front of it. The blade sliced easily through my coat and the jacket underneath before bringing a burst of red heat as it found my skin, then my muscle. It scraped as it hit bone. I squirmed, trying to get some leverage, and tried to fight back the pain as I pushed, twice, before I managed to overbalance him. He fell away off my chest and onto the floor beside me.

  I tried to scramble away but he was on his feet again before I had got off my hands and knees, and his foot drew back. I turned away, too late, and the booted foot hit me full in the ribs, sending me rolling into a corner of the room. I looked up into his eyes as he came for me and saw the wide grin. He was in his element. The knife glistened redly as he brought it up in front of him and licked the blade.

  "Got you now, you fucker," he said and moved in for the kill. I tried to put my arms up in front of me but my chest muscles screamed in pain and refused to allow any movement. I kicked out with my feet, every action bringing fresh pain to my chest, but he danced away. He laughed again and waved the knife at me.

  "I think the auld folk will hiv tae send somebody a wee bit bigger the next time," he said. He kicked me, hard, in the big muscle of my thigh, bringing another bolt of pain that threatened to send me spinning away into a faint. I struggled to keep alert, pushing my back against the wall, trying to get as far from him as I could. It wasn't going to be far enough-he was still smiling as he came for me.

  I caught it, that fetid smell which stuck in the back of my throat. Marshall must have smelled it as well. He stopped, a puzzled expression on his face, then turned away from me as a rustling in the corner of the room caught his attention.

  I followed his gaze, and my heart gave a lurch. Once more I had difficulty drawing breath, but this had nothing to do with the searing pain in my chest-this was from a much less physical source.

  At first there wasn't much to see-only a deepening of the shadows, a new blackness that hadn't been there before. Then there was a spiraling, rainbow cloud of dancing motes of light that slowly coalesced into form.

  Suddenly, the smell got stronger, enough to make my eyes water and my throat clam up in rebellion. The motes swirled faster, and a figure formed in the cloud, pulsing into and out of the blackness. There was the far off, almost inaudible, noise of flutes-no tune, no recognizable harmony, like a group of kids at their first recorder lesson.

  I blinked, and it was there-the tentacled beast. It took full shape as I watched, drawing the heat from the room as it came through. A spider web of frost crawled its way across the mirror behind the creature.

  "What the fuck is that?" Marshall shouted, looking to me for help, but I was only able to shake my head. Suddenly I felt pity for the man.

  He turned away towards the door, but it was on him in less than a second, pouncing across the room like a cat after a mouse. It didn't seem to have any use of its arms; they hung, useless slabs of meat at its side. But then again, it didn't need them for its purpose. The tentacles all screamed in unison as it bore down on the doomed figure of Marshall.

  The tentacles caught his arms first, and I could see the cloth of his jacket fray and tear as the tiny teeth went to work, saliva glistening evilly in the dark.

  He screamed, in pain at first, then a loud roar of defiance, and lashed out with the knife, drawing a line through the red distended scalp of the thing. Blood welled up, but only for an instant-the wound closed itself almost as fast as it was formed. A shiver ran through the scalp, but the creature didn't falter in its attack.

  Marshall opened his mouth to scream again, and one of the tentacles cut off the sound before it could escape, its saliva-coated teeth biting down hard on the meat of the doomed man's tongue, causing a sudden explosion of blood to run down the man's chest as the tentacle chewed.

  More tentacles found his body; writhing and cavorting like a nest of snakes. One found his left eye socket and Marshall gave one last moan as it burrowed. His body jerked, once, then was still. The dead body was lifted off the ground and shaken like a terrier with a mouse, and there was a thud as something heavy hit the floor.

  The creature lowered Marshall's body and bent over it, paying no attention to me as I started to scramble away.

  All I wanted to do was to get out of that room, away from the horror, but my eyes kept drawing back to what was happening on the floor. I could see bulges moving from the mouths, down the tentacles towards the head, the large red raw head growing even as I watched. If anything, the noise was worse, the tearing and the gnawing sounding like a dog with a juicy bone, and, beneath that, a low, almost orgasmic, moaning.

  I got myself to my hands and knees. Fighting back the nausea, I crawled towards the door.

  I got halfway there when my hand struck something on the carpet. I thought at first it was the knife, but then I felt the grooves and the chain. I almost laughed-it was the amulet-Marshall had it in his pocket all the time. I wrapped the chain around my hand and kept going, the pain in my ribs and my arm causing me to wince with every movement.

  It seemed to take forever to cover that short patch of carpet. At every moment I expected it to come for me, my back muscles tensed against the awaited assault. My mouth wanted to scream, but I managed to force it down as I concentrated on reaching the door.

  I only looked back once; as my hand closed on the handle of the door and I pulled myself upright.

  Marshall's body lay on the floor, strangely deflated, and at least twenty tentacles still burrowed their way deeper, seeking out the soft parts, their slimy bodies red with gore along their whole length, the saliva now a pool on the floor, a spreading puddle of spittle and gore in which the creature knelt as it continued feeding.

  I opened the door, slowly and very carefully, but I couldn't prevent the old hinges creaking loudly in the silence. The creature stiffened, and two of the tentacles lifted from their bloody feeding, dripping more gore and saliva onto the body beneath them as they swayed in the air like mesmerized cobras.

  Although there was no sign of eyes, I had the feeling that they were watching me as they danced in synchronized time, tiny tongues licking their gums as if trying to taste my position. When another two joined them I knew it was definitely time to leave.

  I ran out of the door fast, slamming it shut behind me, and got halfway down the first flight of stairs before the door shook as something heavy tried to force its way through.

  Despite my pains, I ran faster than I had ever thought possible, my feet splashing through puddle after puddle as I made for the car.

  I knew that I would be next-that thing wasn't going to stop until it had what it had come for. I'd run out of options-my only hope being to return the amulet to its owner and hope that she knew a way to stop the beast from taking it back to Durban.

  I didn't pass anyone on the streets in my flight to the car-not even a curtain twitched at my passing. If someone had asked me to run a mile before that night I would probably have told them that I wasn't capable, but the adrenaline pumped through me and fear kept me going. I didn't look back, not once; I was afraid of what I might see.

  The car park was deserted and the pub lights were out when I reached the car. I found my keys at only the second attempt and slid into the driver's seat, placing the amulet in the glove compartment and shutting it in where the sight of the tentacles couldn't remind me of the horror in the flat.

  As I
turned to reverse out I caught a flash of movement in the headlights and my heart missed a beat, but on a second look the beams lit up a startled cat leaving in the opposite direction.

  Now that I had stopped moving I was acutely aware of my wounds and my pains. I felt the hot trickle of blood at my ear and my arm pounded with a dull hot thud in time with my heartbeat.

  I couldn't go home, not when I knew that the creature had been there before, but I needed to do some work on the wounds, and I needed some rest. Suddenly I felt very tired. I thought of the people who would help, then remembered my promise to Doug. Maybe the archaeologist could help me make some sense of the situation.

  Twenty minutes later I pulled up outside his house, and for the first time in a while I looked at my watch. It was only 12:30, only just over an hour and a half since I'd walked into the East End pub, only four and a half since the summoning in the clearing. It felt like a year.

  5

  I leaned on the doorbell for long seconds as the tone played 'Amazing Grace'-a birthday present which Doug had found gloriously tacky.

  I was jumping at shadows, half expecting the beast to pounce from the shadows at any moment. I held the amulet under my jacket in my right hand, as if keeping it hidden would somehow fool the creature that was searching for it.

  Doug wasn't answering. I leaned on the door and banged it hard with my fist, sending a fresh jolt of pain up my arm. If he didn't come soon I would lie down and sleep, just curl myself up in his doorway and let oblivion take me down.

  Suddenly the door opened, almost propelling me down to the carpeted hall floor. I managed to steady myself in time, bringing a fresh jolt of white pain to my arm.

  "God, you're a mess," Doug said as he pulled the door fully open. His hair was splattered over his forehead in long strands, and I realized, for the first time, that he was going bald. He wasn't wearing his glasses and his eyes looked wide and naked, still gummy with sleep. I had got him out of bed, but I didn't have the energy to laugh at his Mickey Mouse pajamas.

  "Aye," I managed to say. "But you should see the state of the other guy."

  I almost fell into his arms, and he had to grab my arm to stop me from heading once more for the floor.

  "Jesus Christ, Derek-what have you got yourself into this time? I..."

  His voice drifted away. I looked up to find him staring at the object I held in my right hand-the grotesque shape of the amulet.

  "Is that it?" he whispered, and I heard the awe in his voice. His eyes were big and round, like a kid on Christmas morning.

  "Right first time," I said. "Just get me inside and you can fondle it to your heart's content. I even promise not to get embarrassed if you get a hard on."

  He put out a hand to help me and I howled as he grabbed my arm right beneath the wound.

  "For fuck's sake, Doug-be careful," I managed to moan when the pain had died down enough.

  Sorry," he said, looking as if he might burst into tears. I gave him my other arm and together we stumbled into his house.

  I tried not to drip blood on his carpet as he led me through the hall into his small kitchen. I had a bad moment when he peeled off my coat and I thought I might pass out, but the nausea receded, and I leaned against Doug's kitchen cupboards as he helped me take off the bloody clothing.

  I'd have to rethink my image. The coat was a bloody, streaked ruin, and the jacket underneath wasn't much better. There was a sharp intake of breath as Doug slowly stripped the remains of my shirt from the wound.

  "Christ, Derek-I don't know where to start," he said, and there was doubt in his eyes.

  "Just get on with it. You're the one with the first aid certificate."

  He muttered to himself as he went to get his box of tricks.

  "One week's training and I'm supposed to be a bloody expert."

  His voice was raised as he called back to me. "Help yourself to the whisky. I think you're going to need it."

  I managed to drag myself over to the cabinet above the fridge. I knew that's where he kept his booze; it was usually my first port of call. And one thing about Doug-he certainly knew his whiskies. I had a choice of six different malts. I poured myself a large glass of Talisker, hoping that its fiery heat would dull the pain enough, and slumped down in a battered chair.

  The first sip burned on its way down, but the second went down easy, and so did the third. I was on my second glass by the time Doug returned with an armful of bandages.

  I didn't feel too guilty about drinking it-after all, I'd bought the bottle in the first place, in return for some information on a previous case.

  He looked worried as he put the bandages on the table in front of me.

  "You really need a doctor," he said.

  "At this time of night?" I said, "Do you know any doctors that'll come out after midnight?"

  "Then we could take you to A&E at the Royal Infirmary. We could be there in half an hour?"

  "No, thanks. They'll smell the whisky on my breath, assume I've been in a fight, and leave me sitting in a chair for a day or so. Come on, man...show some backbone."

  He sighed deeply to show that he wasn't happy. He poured himself a whisky and sank a large gulp.

  "I'll start with the arm first-that looks like the worst. I think your ear will be okay-it's only a nick," he said.

  It might be only a nick to him, but it throbbed with a wet red heat, and it was all I could do to keep my fingers away from it.

  "Talk to me," he said. "Tell me what happened tonight. It'll take both our minds off what we're doing."

  I sipped whisky as he bathed the wound in my arm, and I told him the story. As I talked his gaze kept drifting to the amulet, and his expression ran the gamut of awe, disbelief and disgust.

  "What, a real kitten?" he said as I got to the appropriate point. He suddenly looked pale, as if he might faint. Doug was a sucker for small furry animals. Give him a man with a festering hole in his arm and he'd patch it up with barely a qualm, but show him a kitten in distress and he turned to jelly.

  "Yeah, a real one," I replied. To spare his sensibilities I glossed over the actual method of the cat's demise, but I didn't leave anything else out.

  The story took a while in the telling, with interruptions for yet more whisky and questions.

  "Run that bit by me again," he said when I had finished the story and he had finished bandaging. "The bit about the chanting. Could you repeat the words exactly the way you heard them?"

  I tried, feeling at second hand the chill in my bones I had felt on first hearing them-even the air around us seemed to grow colder, as if the heat was being sucked out of the room. I looked up to see Doug nodding.

  "Yes, I thought so. Don't go away," he said, and left the room at a hurry. I sat and drank some more of his whisky. I wasn't about to follow him...I'd had enough rushing about for one night, enough for many nights to come.

  He came back several minutes later, cradling a book in his large hands, almost reverential in his handling of the old tome. The cover of the book crackled and whispered under his fingers, and I found myself hoping that he wasn't going to open it. He whispered when he spoke, as if afraid that the book might hear him.

  "This is a modern transcription and commentary on an old medieval grimoire. It was originally written by a mad Arab, Abdul Alharazed, and it has to do with summoning creatures to do your bidding."

  "What kind of creatures?" I asked.

  "You don't want to know. Listen to this," he said, opening the book and reading. Strangely, his reading voice was a deep, bass register, reminding me of Orson Welles in his more solemn, self-important moments.

  "Out beyond the stars they lived in blackness and chaos until the galaxies whirled into position and they came to walk the earth. The chief being of the mythos is C'thulhu, a god from beyond the stars, a once and future ruler of this planet. He walked the Earth many eons before man, and the ground trembled at his passing. He sleeps in Ryleh, his dreaming city beneath the seas, and when the stars are right
he will awaken and chaos will once again walk the Earth."

  He looked up at me and dropped me a slow wink.

  "Good stuff, eh?" he said before continuing.

  "The followers of C'thulhu have always been with us, from Atlantis to Mu, from Lemuria to Babylon, but perhaps the zenith of his priesthood came in Sumeria. The Sumerians inherited the lost wisdom of Atlantis, and were able to access the power of the Elder Gods through certain amulets of power."

  "These amulets gave them dominion over the lesser beings of the ether and allowed them to perform works of great magic."

  He was really getting on to it now, his voice reverberating round the room. It suddenly struck me that Doug would have made a good preacher-he had just the right mixture of plausibility and naivete. I forced myself to pay attention as he continued.

  "It is said that many dark secrets lie buried in the sepulchres of Ur. Men have searched the sands for long years and come away with nothing more than sand and dust. The secrets of the ancients remain hidden, and it would be better for mankind if they stayed that way."

  I think I laughed...it was either that or a sob. I felt too tired to know the difference by then.

  "Come on, Doug. What is this shit? It's like something out of a bad horror movie. You can't expect me to believe it?"

  It was only when I looked into his eyes that I realized he was serious-serious and excited.

  "How else do you explain what has been happening to you? I think we should keep an open mind until we get a better handle on it."

  And this from a reputable scientist, no less. It was time to put him right on a few facts of life.

  "I've got no intention of getting a handle on it. I'm going to get this little beauty here back to its rightful owner, then I'm going to forget all about it."

  He actually looked disappointed.

  "Come on, Derek. These are real bad guys we're talking about. I thought that was your thing. Besides...the amulet belongs in a museum, not in the hands of some private owner who probably never looks at it."