“You see, Sam, I rule here.”
Sam noticed something was wrong. Her voice sounded different. It sounded … familiar. But whose was it? Was she just goading him, trying to confuse him further? Set him further off his guard? Sam concentrated, trying to place …
It was then that he noticed Suzanna’s body was gone. His eyes went wide. He looked at Atlach-Nacha. She now bore the familiar face of Suzanna Wvinch, but with six glowing red eyes. “Did you really think that you could find your way here so easily had I not allowed it? I did more than that! I made this happen. I invited you, gave you a map, and provided transportation! You are now mine, Marshal Sam Branson! I. OWN. You.”
Sam dropped to his knees, his head in his hands. He moaned and crumpled forward … then shot straight up with a massive, impossible revolver in each hand. “No, Ma’am,” he said, and cocked his guns. “I don’t believe you do.”
Atlach-Nacha’s six eyes widened, burning crimson. Sam winked and pulled the triggers. Fire and lightning belched out and tore two holes in the demon’s thorax. Sam jumped up and ran forward, now holding a bowie knife in his hand. He shot his left hand forward, holding the creature’s head and fangs away from him, while he made an incision across the base of her abdomen.
Four small forms spilled out and onto the floor, amid the ichor that flowed from the wound. Eight legs spasmed in agony as Sam performed his horrible surgery.
“Now get gone, Lady,” Sam spat.
Atlach-Nacha twisted around and scurried off as quickly as her wounded body could carry her. Sam knew she’d mend, though. This was her domain and she couldn’t be killed here. They were all her Dreams after all.
Sam checked the little shapes he’d pulled from her insides. They had grown and were now almost the size of full-grown men. Sam knelt by the nearest one, and cut away the outer layer of mummifying spider webbing. As he sliced, a teenage boy’s face and body were freed from its prison. As soon as his whole head and chest were free, the boy awoke with a start. He looked around, gasped. He sat up … and was gone.
Much the same followed for the next two. And with the fourth, Sam found young Louis Eliot and breathed a trembling sigh of relief. Louis opened his eyes, clearly terrified at first, but saw Sam and relaxed. “Mr. Branson?” he said and disappeared.
This was the world of Dreams; they’d left because they’d woken up. He only hoped they’d awakened someplace safe. Either way, it was time for Sam to wake up.
- - -
A knock on the door woke Sam. Puzzled, he sat up. He had thought he’d awaken right after he set the boys free, but he must have slept for hours beyond that given the late morning light pouring in through the windows.
Sam padded over to the door and pulled it open.
“Nice job, Branson,” rumbled Frank Nardi, shouldering past him into the hotel room. “The city is all talk about the boys ‘magically’ reappearing in their rooms at some point in the night. Everyone is ecstatic, and one boy knows the truth. He knows you saved them, and he’s said so. You’ve become something of a local hero … heh! Literally over night!” He clapped Sam on the shoulder.
Sam smiled. “I’m just glad they got home, and that everyone is safe.” Sam turned to use the bathroom.
“Whoa, Buddy! What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“You don’t feel it?”
“Feel what?” asked Sam, mystified.
“There is a huge spider bite on the back of your neck. Looks like it might be infe—Wait. Hmph. Now the swelling is going down.”
Sam locked eyes with Frank. “I’m thinking that’s a message from Atlach-Nacha. She’s telling me to watch my back.”
EPILOGUE
Frank stood next to Sam in the hospital corridor as they wheeled the gurney out, the form covered in a sheet. “They found her this morning. Her stomach had been sliced open,” Frank said. “They don’t think she ever woke up.”
Sam dropped his head forward. “Just when you think you’ve won,” he whispered.
“Not your fault, Sam.”
“Bullshit!” Sam snapped back.
Frank held up calming hands. “Hey …”
“There’s no victory here.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“The darkness is still growing,” Sam said, his jaw clenched. “All we’re doing is keeping a few candles lit.” He paused. “I just hope it’s enough,” he added under his breath as the orderlies moved Shirley Manning’s body down the hall. Sam did his best to keep the tears from his eyes. He failed.
THOSE FOLK BELOW
Josh Reynolds
For C.J. Henderson.
And for Lin Carter and Seabury Quinn.
Weird heroes all.
Frank Nardi stared at the smiling man sitting across from him and tried to resist the urge to pull his weapon. For one, he doubted it would do any good, and for two, he thought it might annoy the smiling man’s government handlers. As if reading his thoughts, the expression on Indrid Cold’s face got wider and thinner. Sharp enough to draw blood, Nardi thought sourly.
“Not quite,” Cold said.
Nardi swallowed. “Don’t do that,” he said. Cold’s eyes shone like polished glass, and his skin was waxy. He sat at ease, in front of Nardi’s desk, hands folded. Two goons in black stood by the door, occasionally sticking a finger into an ear and murmuring a reply to a question Nardi hadn’t heard. They were standard government issue—high and tight, off the rack, and heavily armed. Cold, however, was a different make and model entirely. He was dressed the same, but that was as far as it went.
Cold chuckled. The sound made Nardi’s skin crawl. Cold leaned forward. “I apologize, Mr. Nardi. I often forget the social niceties.” Cold set his gloved hands on Nardi’s desk and cocked his angular head. “The question stands—the auction tonight. Are you involved, or no?”
“If I say no?” Nardi asked.
Cold leaned back and spread his hands. “Then I will leave, and report as such to my superiors. And you will continue on your chosen course without the interference of the United States government.”
Nardi grunted. He liked the sound of that. He looked back at Cold, and felt a surge of nausea as something moved beneath Cold’s cheek. Nardi thought of a dead cat he’d seen once, and the maggots squirming under its fur, and swallowed hard against the sudden rush of bile in his throat. He took a breath. “Why do the Feds care about some old book?”
“Not the book, per se,” Cold said. “Rather, those who might be interested in buying it from your client—Count Anton Sforza, late of Venice and Kensington, currently residing at the Hotel Miskatonic, on West College Street.”
Nardi blinked. “He’s a count? News to me.” He sat back. “And I work for Harold Clemmens, not Sforza.” Harold Clemmens, president of Miskatonic University, was the last word made flesh. It had been his signature on the contract that saw Nardi and his people providing security for the school’s library, a repository known far and wide for containing the largest collection of rare occult material in the western hemisphere.
The auction was one of Clemmens’ bright ideas—Sforza was an alumni and a potential donor with deep pockets. He also had one of those aforementioned bits of rare occult material to sell. The University wanted it, but they wanted Sforza’s goodwill more. So they’d set up a private auction, on Sforza’s behalf.
“Clemmens—yes,” Cold said. “Perhaps I should ask him.”
“Yeah, maybe you should,” Nardi said.
Cold hesitated. For a moment, the inhuman smile slipped, and Nardi caught a glimpse of what was underneath that grinning mask. The sick feeling came back, and stronger than before. Cold pushed himself to his feet. “Do not confuse my leniency for kindness, Mr. Nardi,” he said.
“No need to worry on that score,” Nardi said. He tried to meet Cold’s eyes. but couldn’t quite manage it. He’d seen worse, but not by much. Nonetheless, he didn’t feel like being bullied in his own office. He pointed. “There’s the door.”
Cold stared at him. The smile was back, sharp and cruel. Cold knocked on Nardi’s desk with his knuckles. Something white fell out of his sleeve. “Be bold, be bold, Mr. Nardi, but not too bold, lest your life’s blood run cold,” he said. Then, he turned and left, his handlers following like shadows.
Nardi watched him go and then looked down at the white thing. It was a worm—a maggot, he thought. He crushed it with an ash tray, and sat back, stomach churning. He ran his hands through his thinning hair, trying to force down the old fear, force himself to pretend that the world wasn’t really this way. But the crushed remnants of the worm were still on the bottom of the ash tray, and Cold’s grin was still hanging there, in his mind’s eye.
He’d run across Cold once or twice since setting up shop in Arkham, always at the fringes of things—bad things, always. He’d had his best scroungers dig up what they could on the grinning man, but it all amounted to bupkis. Stories and half-truths, alphabet soup fables, shared around the water-cooler by spooks and federal wage-slaves.
“Can’t be good, if the government sent somebody to sniff around,” Mark Berkenwald, one of Nardi’s partners in the Arkham Detective Agency, said, as he leaned through the door. Berkenwald was one of the new guys, brought in to replace the old guys. Nardi shied away from thinking about the old guys. He gestured for Berkenwald to come in.
Berkenwald took over Cold’s vacated seat and asked, “So, what did he want?” He glanced at the ash tray, and then quickly away.
“To know whether we were involved in this auction or not,” Nardi said.
“Did you tell him?”
Nardi snorted. “If he’s asking, he already knows. The question is, why does he care?”
“Think he knows something we don’t?”
“Probably,” Nardi said, after a moment. “What say we go ask our client?”
- - -
“Ah, Mr. Nardi! Over here, over here!”
Nardi pivoted, trying to avoid a caterer bearing an armload of bottles worth more than his house, and focused on the voice, through the clamor of the set-up. He raised a hand as he caught sight of the thin shape of Harold Clemmens. Clemmens caught Nardi’s hand and gave it a rapid tug. “Mr. President,” Nardi said. Then, pitching his voice low, he added, “Got a visit from our friendly neighbourhood government representatives today.”
Clemmens blinked. “Oh dear. What—?”
“They’re interested in all of this,” Nardi said, motioning toward the auction set-up. They were using a back room at the university library—part of the original building, before it had been refurbished in 1976. Nardi knew it was where they’d kept part of the Angell bequest, before some break-in or other around 1928. After that, it had been a storage room, until the refurbishment. Now it was what Clemmens liked to call a ‘usable space.’
Despite the potted ferns and about twenty years’ worth of air freshener, the room smelled sour to Nardi. Something had happened here. He didn’t need Madame Renee’s psychic gifts to know that, but he wasn’t sure he needed to know anything more. Every time he walked into the room, he felt as if he’d flipped on a light and seen something skitter away. Roaches on the floor, rats in the walls, he thought, as he watched the chairs being set up. He shook himself and went on, “Is there something I need to know, sir? Why are the Feds interested in this?”
“That’s not the sort of attention I was hoping for, I must admit,” Clemmens said. Dodging the question, Nardi thought. Clemmens was a straight arrow, relatively. Something had him on edge. He wondered if Cold had made good on his threat to visit the president. Clemmens frowned. “No, not at all.”
“It ain’t good,” Nardi agreed. He glanced around, taking in the activity. His people threaded through the crowd of caterers and janitorial staff, setting up cameras and marking blind-spots. It was standard operating procedure, where the university library was concerned. The facility had more break-in attempts per month than the average small town. And half the people on the guest-list for this function had likely funded at least one of those attempts. Nardi wanted a record of faces, just in case.
“Any publicity is good publicity, isn’t that the saying?”
Clemmens and Nardi both turned, as a third man joined them. Anton Sforza wasn’t tall, but he was dark. Nardi couldn’t say whether he was handsome or not, nor did he particularly care. Sforza didn’t dress like a count, whatever a count was supposed to dress like. He was wearing a suit, and a nice one, tailored to fit, but he looked like an investment banker, rather than royalty. He was holding a champagne glass, and he took a swig as he looked around. “Quite the set up, Harold. Color me impressed.”
“Yes, well, we do like to show our best face, when opportunity permits,” Clemmens said. “Anton, you remember Mr. Nardi?”
Sforza extended his hand, and Nardi took it. Sforza had a good grip. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Nardi. How’s everything coming?” Sforza had the slightest trace of an accent, but as to what kind, Nardi couldn’t say. Speaks English better than me, wherever he’s from, he thought. One more mark against him, in Nardi’s estimation. He didn’t like Sforza. Something about the man set off every alarm bell in his head.
“I think we’re almost set, sir,” Nardi said. “Cameras are up and rolling, I’ve got people at every exit and I’ll be on stage with the auctioneer.”
“Excellent,” Sforza said. He took another gulp of champagne. It was expensive stuff, Nardi suspected, and Sforza was putting it away like Gatorade. “You should unwind, Mr. Nardi. Have some champagne, rejoice in your task’s completion.”
“I don’t drink.” Nardi cleared his throat. “About the matter I mentioned?” he asked. “Is there any reason that the federal government might be interested in this auction?”
Sforza shook his head. “Who knows why your government takes an interest in anything?” he said, dismissively. Nardi tamped down a spurt of anger.
“That was my question, yes,” he said. Clemmens shot him a warning look, and Nardi forced himself to relax.
“Well, I’m sure I have no idea why the American government cares whether or not I sell a tatty copy of von Junzt’s Unaussprechlichen Kulten,” Sforza said. He glanced at Clemmens. “Speaking of which, I do hope the University is intending to put in a bid.”
“Well, we do already have a copy of the book in question, compliments of the Warren bequest, but it’s one of the Golden Goblin editions, from 1909 or thereabouts,” Clemmens said. “Yours is an 1839 edition, isn’t it?”
“It’s a Dusseldorf, yes,” Sforza said. “Unexpurgated, including the Parisian chapter, concerning ‘those folk below’, as von Junzt called them,” he added. “With a complete set of Hasse illustrations. Used to give me the shivers, as a boy.”
“You—ah—you read it, then? As a boy?” Clemmens asked, hesitantly.
“Bit heavy going, I admit,” Sforza said. He shrugged. “The pictures helped.”
“Always helped me,” Nardi said. His earpiece crackled and he tapped the microphone attached to his collar. “Speak.”
“We’ve got cars,” came Berkenwald’s voice, surfing a wave of static. He was stationed outside, watching the street.
“Our guests are arriving,” Nardi said. He glanced at Sforza. “Anything you want to share, before we get started?
Sforza knocked back his glass, and set it onto a passing caterer’s tray. He looked at Nardi and said, “You should really try a glass, Mr. Nardi. It might help you relax.”
- - -
The auction started an hour later, after drinks and hors d’oeuvres. The crowd had circulated around the room, eyeing the other, lesser items up for auction. Clemmens was taking the opportunity to clear some shelves and pad the budget. Nardi couldn’t blame him. There wasn’t enough money to go around these days, even in Arkham.
Plenty of money in this crowd though, Nardi thought. The crowd wasn’t big—fifty at most, but well-heeled. He knew some of the names and the faces, but the rest were new to him. So he was making a list and c
hecking it twice. He had three men in the crowd, including Berkenwald, taking note of who was where. The initial bidding had gone down without a hitch; most of the big money was here for Sforza’s book.
The book was brought out. It didn’t look like much to Nardi, but he knew appearances could be deceiving. It was a black, leather-bound folio, wide and flat, and something about it made his eyeballs itch. No wonder a creep like Cold was interested in it. It wasn’t something he’d be bidding on, that was for damn sure.
A paddle flashed up, as the auctioneer called out the opening bid. “Dr. Carter, from the Sandbourne Institute of Pacific Antiquities,” Berkenwald said, identifying the bidder, before Nardi could ask. Nardi made note of the thin man, dressed in pastels and Birkenstocks. The Sandbourne Institute was an anthropological research facility on the west coast. They had a friendly rivalry with Miskatonic, for a given definition of ‘friendly.’
“Noted,” Nardi said, pressing a finger to his earpiece. “Old broad, two rows back, third from the end …?” he asked, scanning the crowd.
“Ahhh … some Brit … Goldarn … Godalming, that’s it,” Glaser, one of his other people said. Glaser was ex-Dallas PD, with a raw twang to his voice. “Cecilia Holmwood, Lady Godalming.”
“She’s here on behalf of the Westenra Fund,” Nardi said, checking his clipboard. It was old-fashioned, but reliable. Phones had a bad habit of running out of juice just when you needed them. He scanned the crowd. “Three bodies—two men, one woman, middle row, five seats in. The blonde ones …”
“Madam Amina Bera, and … guests, is what I got,” Werner, his third man, said. The Nebraskan had been highway patrol, and was as steady as a rock.
“Bera,” Nardi murmured, scanning his clipboard. French, he thought. He hadn’t been able to find any info on them, and in this day and age, that took some doing. The woman was as exquisite as an orchid, pale and blonde. The men resembled her, just enough to stir Nardi’s curiosity. Siblings, he thought. Cousins, maybe. There was something off about all three of them, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. “Keep an eye on ’em,” he said.
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