Arkham Nights

by Glynn Owen Barrass

“The privilege of rank,” I chuckled.

  “Actually, it’s a damn queasy business,” Jacobi answered.

  The men ahead of me entered the wall of mist at approximately one and a half minute intervals.

  “We don’t want them getting in each other’s way,” Jacobi explained.

  I waited impatiently and finally Oakes—the soldier from Bruxton—entered the mist. That left only me, Jacobi and Crowley.

  Jacobi looked at his watch and counted down the seconds.

  Crowley appeared deep in concentration.

  “Okay,” Jacobi said, “It’s go time!”

  I nodded, clutched the Tommy gun tightly and ducked into the mist.

  I felt only a brief spritz of dampness and emerged a couple of feet further down the path we’d been traveling. The only difference was another vale of mist about seventy-five yards further up the street. Well, that and the ugly bastard of a monster that was supposed to stop our passage.

  It was squat and greasy-looking. Tentacles about the width of fire hoses swept slowly across the lane as if trying to sweep up anyone foolish enough to attempt passage. Well, Riley Barnes was just such a fool and judging from the absence of soldierly body parts, the men that had gone ahead of me had made it past without incident to pass through the obscuring mist at the end of the street.

  Feeling cocky in my apparent invisibility, I started to lope forward figuring it would be a piece of cake to avoid the slow-moving appendages. I had only gone two or three steps when a loud curse rang out.

  “Christ, it’s got me!”

  I searched for the source of the cry but couldn’t see anything. The distraction almost landed me in trouble as I hopped over a thick, questing tendril at the last moment.

  “Where are you?” I shouted, seeing a curled tentacle waving about only yards from where I stood.

  I heard the sickening crack of a bone snapping, followed by an agonized groan.

  “Barnes, forget about me... and get the hell out of here...”

  “Like hell, Oakes!” I shouted. “I don’t plan on drinking alone in Bruxton.”

  I unslung the Tommy gun and fired a short burst into the center mass of the creature. It didn’t have a recognizable head and I was probably just whistling past the graveyard if I thought I could kill it.

  “No gunfire!” Oakes moaned. “You’ll alert the enemy.”

  Ignoring his statement, I started to fire off another burst at the monster but stopped as Oakes began to become visible. I managed to avoid another sweeping tentacle and raised the weapon in hopes of blasting the appendage rapidly crushing the life from Oakes. I was squeezing the trigger when the poor guy’s head literally exploded from the pressure.

  “Damn,” I muttered, lowering the Thompson.

  I started to fire another burst at the murderous creature but remembered Oakes’ warning. No point in getting his pals killed as well. I had truly done crapped in my mess kit concerning the gunfire and might as well have erected a big sign saying, “Come and attack us.”

  I was pissed at myself and even more pissed at Jacobi for not utilizing Crowley’s abilities to transport the men past Oakes’ killer. I planned to voice my opinion in no uncertain terms once I made it to the other side. Glaring at the monster, I spat in disgust and sprinted toward the wall of mist at the other end of the street.

  “What the blazes happened back there?” asked Jacobi as I staggered through the misty vale. “There was to be no weapons fire.”

  “Oakes bought it,” I answered, glaring back at Jacobi. “He didn’t have a damned wizard to teleport him across.”

  “Look, there’s a reason...”

  Crowley interrupted and said, “You’re under no obligation to provide explanations to this fool.”

  “Why, you dirty sonofabitch!” I growled, rearing back to unload on him with my right.

  Strong arms grabbed hold of me and kept me from decking Crowley.

  Jacobi looked at me and in a soothing voice said, “Listen, Barnes. I don’t like it any better than you. Oakes was my man and my responsibility. Aleister has extraordinary abilities but there’s a limit to what he can do without depleting his energies. We’re going to need him to expedite our return home when the time comes.”

  “Don’t you mean if the time comes?” I asked.

  “I plan on seeing that it does,” he answered. “We may be few in number but each man here is highly trained and extremely motivated. What happened to Oakes is tragic but it’s the cost of what we do. The best we can do for the lad now is see that his life was not given in vain.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I mumbled. “Sorry about going off all half-cocked. Truth is, I’d like to find my partner and go home.”

  Crowley smirked but said nothing.

  “Apology accepted,” Jacobi said. “Please understand, I have every intention of ending this rotten business and getting my men home safely. With luck, we’ll find your partner along the way and return him as well.”

  “Good enough,” I answered.

  We shook hands and Jacobi gave the order to move out.

  We hadn’t traveled far when we noticed that the buildings we passed on each side of the lane were no longer towering but now one and two-story structures. Jacobi’s reconnaissance reported that Huns had been spotted a short distance ahead. We made our way forward waiting to see the German thugs we had come to stop. Well, the Yellow Cross had come to stop them and I was along for the ride in hopes of locating my wayward partner. Still, what was going down in Europe didn’t sit well with me and I was more than happy to lend a hand.

  I didn’t know exactly how Jacobi expected to get the jump on our German friends—especially after my noisy display in Oakes’ defense—but my unspoken question was almost instantly answered as a thick fog descended over the area.

  Jacobi looked at me and grinned. “Courtesy of Aleister,” he said.

  “But can we see them in this wet blanket?” I asked.

  “It can be dissipated when needed,” Jacobi answered.

  “I guess wizards are good for something,” I begrudgingly admitted.

  “We’ll approach until we meet up with my point man,” Jacobi continued. “At that time the fog will lift and we’ll come down on the bastards like a ton of bricks.”

  “That’s my kinda strategy,” I answered, giving him a thumbs up.

  We moved out and reached the point man in a matter of minutes. Jacobi conferred with the soldier and then addressed the rest of his men. “Listen up, everyone,” he said. “We’re about to enter the alley on the right. It runs for only a short distance and leads to a courtyard where our targets are deployed. Hanson reports there is quite a bit of debris in the area so take cover and engage the enemy when the fog dissipates.”

  We had our orders and soon reached the courtyard. Our point man had left a sentry with his throat slit behind a pile of cracked masonry, which seemed like the best way to leave one of them in my eyes. Our little group was locked, loaded and waiting for Crowley to lift the fog.

  Crowley spoke with Jacobi and nodded. He mumbled some gibberish that was Greek to me and made some weird gestures with his hands. The fog began to slowly clear and we got a hint of what the kraut-eaters were up to. Through the thinning tendrils of mist we watched them remove materials from their backpacks to begin constructing a spindly tower of sorts.

  “What the hell are they doing?” I asked.

  “Based on what I’ve seen before,” Jacobi answered, “it may be a portal device to summon reinforcements.”

  “You guys got something like that?” I asked.

  Jacobi shook his head and frowned. “Just Crowley, and his power has its limitations.”

  “That ain’t good,” I replied.

  I started to wisely point out that we should definitely end their efforts, when we were all shocked by the sight of some strangely garbed men leaping from the nearby roofs and emerging from between doors.

  “Hold your fire!” Jacobi barked to his men, who
were tensed and ready for action.

  I watched in surprise as the medieval-looking arrivals let loose a volley of crossbow bolts at the Germans. The enemy held their fire and laughed.

  “Who are those guys?”

  “Carcosans would be my guess,” Jacobi answered.

  “Well, they’re a nice diversion for sure but they don’t seem to be having much effect. Some damned thing is repelling their shafts.”

  Jacobi peered through the remnants of fog and cursed. “See that soldier with the globular device strapped on his back?”

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  “It’s emitting a force field that the Carcosans can’t breach. Someone will have to go in from the rear and take that bastard down.”

  I was all set to volunteer for the job when an unexpected sight greeted my tired eyes. “I’ll be damned,” I laughed. “Jacobi, I think your problem’s about to be solved.”

  Trevor Towers was charging in from the rear with a wicked-looking blade in hand. I’d seen that look in my partner’s eyes before and didn’t envy the globe-toting Hun.

  At a signal from Einal, one of the soldiers left the group to disappear down the street. His movements were as silent as a shadow’s, and after we’d waited in silence for a while, he returned, panting quietly, to address me in an eager voice.

  “Twenty tetrons down the street and then eighty to the right of the adjunct, they’ve stopped to do something.”

  I glanced at Demos, “Tetrons?”

  “Say feet give or take.”

  “Right,” I thanked the soldier before turning to face the others.

  “My knowledge of this area is shit, so you need to work on your own initiative a little.” It felt good being the leader again but I tried not to let it get to my head.

  “I want you to split up into two groups and get around the Germans, using any camouflage that’s good enough. I’ll sneak up behind them, and at a whistle from me you open fire on the bastards.”

  Everything went quickly, with Einal and Demos dividing the troops between them. They then marched off, giving me appreciative nods and making strange salutes as they passed.

  I didn’t bother returning a salute I didn’t know how to repeat. As the final few men and women passed me by, I turned to follow but was stopped by a pat to the shoulder.

  It was Einal, paused at the rear of her group. After looking round, she said, “There is more to this than you know, and things you should be told but haven’t.”

  She hooked her crossbow onto her belt and stepped up to me, placing her arms around my neck to give me a kiss that tasted warm and sweet.

  After too short a time she drew back, whispering, “Someone has your back, though. Trust me.”

  She turned and was gone, my eyes following her until she disappeared into the mist.

  It felt good to know Carcosan women, some of them at least, were still women after all.

  I pulled myself together, recalled what the scout had told me, and chose my path accordingly.

  Running twenty tetrons soon had me at the junction the scout had mentioned. The right-hand path looked hazy after about thirty with just a hint of the departing soldiers beyond.

  Ignoring this, I continued forward, looking for another junction so I could double back on the enemy.

  Shit, I was beginning to hate Carcosa. Why on earth would anyone want to invade the place, let alone live here?

  After another fifty feet/tetrons of running I found another junction. I turned onto it and almost tripped over the corpse blocking my path.

  I’d stumbled across a satyr, its open chest spilled of guts, most of which trailed off to my right. A look in that direction revealed the high priest Naotalba, huddled down in an open doorway. His robes were bloodstained and his hands were thrust deep into a steaming pile of entrails.

  He looked at me and grinned. His lips and chin were bloody and I didn’t like to think why.

  “I’ve divined the future,” he said, lifting hands full of dripping guts. “It does not bode well for either of us.” Then he laughed, a dirty cackle that stalked me down the street as I continued with the plan.

  The plan: join the pincer movement from the rear and charge a group of heavily armed Huns with nothing but a whistle and a song. I’d gotten through worse in the war, but nothing so bizarre.

  With the pincer in mind I ran faster, knowing I had another forty feet to go before I reached the target. Seconds later I was brought to a stop in the worst possible way. No, not a Hun ambush, it was much worse than that. I’d reached a dead end, the street ending in a tall, shadowy building.

  I didn’t stay still for long, for the building had a big, open doorway.

  I stepped in there quietly, into a small dark foyer bearing another doorway filled with fitful illumination.

  I walked quickly through the doorway, into a room that bore the first sign of habitation I’d found in a city as dead as it was bleak.

  The illumination came from a wood-fueled fire surrounded by four disheveled men. They were warming their hands, all of which appeared to have way too many fingers. None of them paid any attention to me. I snuck past them and through another door I hoped would lead me out of the house.

  I was almost right: I entered another room with an exterior doorway lining the facing wall.

  The exit was filled with foggy light. This encouraged me but also illuminated the sheet-draped form before it.

  I started to run and made a leap over the sheet’s now shifting occupant, a form that appeared way too misshapen to be human.

  Whatever it was grabbed at me as I left the threshold. I now found myself on another street with a fog-shrouded courtyard at its end.

  I slowed down, heading towards the right-hand corner and thinking that if I’d calculated right, I’d be directly at the enemy’s rear.

  I wasn’t let down.

  Whispering, “Damn, my old pals, all together,” I took in the hazy forms of men in jackboots and green uniforms, their bobbing heads covered in gray chamber-pot helmets.

  It felt weird, seeing them in this alien world. Still, they fouled it with their presence.

  They were positioned two by two, with the ones nearest me, just twenty feet away, looking jittery, their rifles raised. Those beyond them were messing with something on the ground.

  I took few deep breaths, put my fingers to my mouth, and whistled.

  My reply came an instant later; from either side of the Germans, volley after volley of whizzing projectiles came pouring down.

  Then came my turn.

  Charging forward, I kept my head ducked but my eyes on the prize as I rushed the confused men. Each was covering his head despite the fact the Carcosan projectiles were falling short against their invisible barrier.

  I reached the enemy hoping the barrier’s hoodoo wouldn’t do the same to me. It didn’t, but I did experience a moment of resistance. I barged past the yelling men without a care for anything but my target.

  Some of the Huns, ones that had been busy constructing a spindly metal machine, were crouched with their guns raised while shouting in babbling tones.

  One of them had a device formed from throbbing globes strapped to his back. Drawing the knife Demos had given me, I leapt on him without a thought of the consequences.

  My lust for battle was back with a vengeance.

  I fell on him with a snarl, slipping the knife into his chest. He was dead in a second. Hearing angry shouts around me, I twisted him round to begin punching and tearing at the device on his back. Soon fists pummeled down on me and I heard guns being cocked.

  I laughed as I smashed globe after globe, tearing my hands up in the process.

  I didn’t give a shit about the pain or the blood.

  Then came the gunfire.

  The Yellow Cross boys and yours truly opened up on the Germans as soon as Trevor smashed the force field projector. I stitched one of the jackbooted thugs from crotch to sternum with a burst from the Thompson and watched his guts fall at his f
eet. Other Huns cursed and fell in agony as they were pin-cushioned by shafts from the Carcosan crossbows and decimated by my British companions. These Master Race Wannabees hadn’t counted on much of a fight and their shock at the unexpected turn of events made an organized stand next to impossible. The battle was short, intense, and gory while it lasted. I was kept busy trying to watch Trevor’s back and at the same time avoid the undisciplined return fire from the Germans.

  Before I had time to let things sink in, the gunfire stopped and all seemed right with the world. The Germans—far more than Jacobi had originally estimated—were now worm food and my partner, Trevor was alive and kicking. I didn’t know how he’d managed to forge an alliance with the Carcosans and could only guess that even the King in Yellow had his fair share of rebellious malcontents. I was soon shown the error of my ways.

  I was moving forward to join Trevor in celebration when Crowley knocked me aside and sent me reeling into a wall, causing me to lose my balance and land on my ass. Seeing red, I jumped to my feet but stopped suddenly upon catching sight of the crossbow shaft he held in his fist. The dour old sonofabitch had plucked it from the air before it could skewer me.

  “Uh, thanks...” I stammered in confusion, surprised that Crowley would’ve made the effort.

  He smiled coldly while Jacobi’s voice ordered everyone to take cover. “Boys, hold your positions and return fire!”

  “Don’t hit the big ugly guy in the trench coat!” I yelled frantically. “He’s my buddy.”

  Crowley sneered. “Your buddy better gain control over those Carcosans or all bets are off.”

  I felt like decking him but thought it would seem mean since he’d just saved my life. That and the fact that he could snatch an arrow in flight made me less than certain that I could touch him.

  Through the haze of smoke and mist I could see Trevor yelling and waving his arms in an effort to stop the violence. That’s a phrase I never thought I’d hear myself using in regard to my partner. His effort had no effect.

  The Carcosans continued to direct their fire at our positions and to make matters worse, were stripping the Germans of their weaponry and using it with deadly effectiveness. Two of the Yellow Cross soldiers were killed and a third was seriously wounded. Our return fire was taking a heavy toll on the Carcosans, but their sheer numbers made it clear that we were in deep shit.