“Delayed eye movements, unfocussed pupils. You’re not well, Mr. Hohman. A man in your condition should be in bed. Why you have chosen to grace our gathering with your attendance?” He chuckled. “I do not see the good professor with you. Perhaps he had something more pressing to do this evening than to save you?”
Should he remain silent? No—his only remaining weapon was his voice. He cleared his throat and tried to hold his head high. “One man of faith is enough against the forces of darkness.” In this unholy setting, he did not believe it, though he knew he should.
Barrett looked at him. “Not tonight, it seems. Tonight—of all nights—the Prince of Darkness shall come up from his infernal palace! Not some cheap substitute, such as the man who these faithful servants followed until his deception was revealed!” He gestured off to one side, toward a small clump of black cloth, hair, and congealing blood. “Tonight, Lucifer himself rises from within the earth!”
“You think so?” Hohman’s voice wavered, but he thought he could see an opening. “They have been fooled once—will they be fooled so easily again!”
Barrett smiled and motioned to two of the guards, who carried forward a heavy, clanking sack. “I am quite genuine, sir. The Dark Lord blesses those who honor him. Behold his bounty!” He reached inside, drawing out pieces of gold and silver plate, necklaces of pearls, and other finery that Hohman had not even seen on Philadelphia’s most prominent citizens. He tossed these to his followers, their fingers scrabbling on the stony ground to pick up what they could.
Hohman’s teeth clenched on his lip. He saw a silver tray glisten near his feet. That item, casually tossed on the ground nearby, would more than pay off his debt to Boyer.
“Shall we begin?” Barrett walked to Hohman, his face inches from that of the braucher. He whispered, “But an instant’s worth of secrets will repay decades of research. Today, the Host from the Hill—the next, that of the Air. And who knows what next year—the reward of the Old Ones themselves?”
Barrett opened his hands; he held two pieces of wax. He plugged his ears with them and held up a wickedly curved obsidian blade. He waved it before Hohman. Holding up his left hand, he sliced it open. The blood spattered on the cold, hard ground. He began a chant, discordant syllables causing the air to ripple and bend. Aklo, Hohman thought.
The ground began to throb, first gently, but soon rising in intensity until Hohman could feel his teeth vibrate. The ground shook, cracked and crumbled. The fire crashed over, smothering much of the flame. Outside the remnants of firelight loomed large shapes that glistened as crystals. Stone shards shot out from the darkness, transfixing many of the witches where they stood. With them came a whispering, like an unseen cloud, secrets of distant worlds and the terrors of stygian grottoes and lonesome plateaus, flowing over each other. It was this, more than the Sabaoth’s physical presence, that caused that crowd atop the Hexenkopf to shriek and flee. Those who ran toward the glistening shapes screamed, followed with the sound of snapping bones. As blood flowed, the voices grew more insistent.
Barrett had been slowly walking toward the balloon. Now he leapt into the basket and cast off the ballast. The balloon began to lift off into the sky, snowflakes swirling around the bag. No doubt he expected to escape the Host from the Hill by going where they could not follow.
As the whispering crept into the ears of the guards, Hohman felt their hands loosen. He wrenched his right arm free. He threw his weight against the other, knocking him over onto a burning piece of wood. The man screamed. The other grasped at Hohman, but he jumped away, weaving through the panicked worshipers to the other side of the fire. He found his eyes casting about for a gold ring, or set of sapphire-studded earrings. If he could find just one, it would solve everything. His horse was still swift in a pinch, and he could be away in but a minute…
He remembered Schild, and his wife, and the cabin back in Rose Valley.
He remembered his faith.
Hohman ran for the rising balloon. Dodging aside from the dark bulk of one of the Host, he grasped a rope trailing from its side, hauling himself upward. The entire balloon shuddered as it ceased its ascent and descended slowly, the winds pulling it away from the hilltop. Hohman pulled himself up, hand over hand. The wind, without any cover to lessen its force, blew around him, chilling him. The sweat on his shirt and in his hair was turning to ice. He would not last long.
The basket tilted toward Hohman, with Barrett lying on the slanted side. Still holding his cane, he thrashed wildly at Hohman, his blows raining down on the sides of the basket. One blow caught Hohman on the knuckles, drawing blood. He had no chance of climbing higher under the assault. He let go with the injured hand, flailing about for anything he could use against his foe. The ballast was already gone—Barrett must have dropped it when the balloon changed course. His weapons were long gone. He needed—
He touched the rosary in his pouch. Pulling it out, he flipped it up through the air. The first time, it struck Barrett in the face. He blinked and redoubled his efforts with the cane. Hohman pulled back his arm and tried again. This time, it caught around Barrett’s neck. With one hand still around the rope, Hohman held on to the rosary and twisted it, using it to support his weight. The string stretched but did not snap.
Barrett coughed and hacked. One hand grasped at the beads, while the other swung the cane back and forth. It caught Hohman on the scalp, and blood seeped into his hair. He hung on desperately, forgetting the frigid air and the height. Barrett’s flailing soon died down, his cane dropping from numb fingers into the darkness. He heaved once. His arms jerked once or twice, as Schild’s had on the rope, and was still, his face blue, his tongue protruding from his mouth.
Something brushed Hohman’s legs. He jerked them away, but he soon felt it again. Branches. He let go of the rosary, both hands now wrapped around the rope. When he struck the trunk of another tree, it was not enough. He fell, branches cracking and scraping about him, until he struck the ground. He was dimly aware of the balloon rising into the gloom.
It was bright and warm, and a presence was nearby. He drifted in and out of consciousness, not willing to leave the comfort of heat and ignorance. He finally awoke. He was in his small cabin, on a bench near the hearth. Anna leaned toward the firelight, his shirt and thread in her hand.
He sat up, with only a touch of dizziness. She smiled. “Welcome back, Johann. You have put quite a tear in this shirt.”
“Anna, I—” He fumbled for words. He had gone through a night of fire, blood and madness, and yet, the condition of his clothes was suddenly of prime importance.
“You’re back. That’s all I ask.” She put down her sewing and gave a slight smile. “And you are far more difficult to mend. A farmer coming home late found you in the woods near Hellertown, and your horse nearby. No one knows what you were doing, but likely the fever sent you astray.”
So all of it—the balloon, the witches, and the gold—had passed unnoticed. He smiled. “Likely. What is today?”
“Christmas Eve.” She put a hand across his chest and spoke quickly. “The auction is over, but the people prevailed upon Mr. Boyer to let us live here until he found tenants. We will have to move soon, but we have a respite for now.”
Hohman lay back down and stared at the planks in the ceiling. “A respite.”
Only now did he realize how everyone was there as well. Professor von Junzt had been right: the Host and their masters would, indeed, return and retake the world. He had no doubts about that, after what he had seen. All that anyone could ever have was a momentary respite.
Hohman closed his eyes. For the moment, that was enough.
Breaking Through
Steve Dempsey
I went into the kitchen to get some more beers. The top of the fridge was stacked with overflow from the pile of washing up in the sink. Dirty mugs, take-away cartons and empty cans stood in precarious stacks. Some had spilled onto the floor. I couldn’t remember the last time Tag or I had done any cleaning, or if
we ever had. As long as we paid the rent on time, the landlord never came round. What did we care? The whole house was littered with the debris of our student life. There was a knock at the front door.
“Tag. Get that will you, mate,” I shouted back down the gloomy corridor. I carefully opened the fridge, trying not to topple any more of the mess onto the floor. Tag didn’t answer but I heard some noise. It was probably the TV, or some first year students come round to buy some E. We tried to stop them coming to the house but they never listened. I grabbed a couple of beers and wandered back out. Beyond the Seventies style archway into the living room the front door was open.
“Tag, you lazy git. Shut the...” I turned into the sitting room and stopped. Tag was lying on the floor on his back, his face a mess of red and black. A man stood there with his foot on Tag’s neck.
“You must be the other little shit,” he said. I froze and then turned to run but someone else had come up behind me and belted me one across the nose. The world flashed bright and then dark and I fell.
Later I came round sitting on the floor, my back propped up against the sofa. Tag slumped beside me. His hair was wet and matted and bubbles of almost black blood were coming out of his mouth and a gash in his cheek. I don’t suppose I looked any better. My face felt as if it had been repeatedly stamped on. A man loomed over us. He was wearing brown corduroy trousers, a black leather jacket and a white shirt, now splattered with Tag’s blood. The top three buttons of the shirt were undone, showing off his chest hair. The glare from the bare light bulb behind him hid his face. He had a baseball bat in one hand and poked me hard in the chest with it.
“You see your friend?” he said, with what a strong Mediterranean accent. “You wanna end up like him?” When I didn't respond he swung his bat round, catching me square on the elbow. Electricity jolted up my arm; I burst into tears. The man pushed my face with the bat, turning me to look at Tag, “You wanna end up like 'im?” he said again.
“No, No.” I shook my head and cradled my elbow.
“So this is what you gonna do. You gonna give me all your drugs.” I didn’t answer quickly enough and he casually rapped me across the knuckles. I cried out in pain. “So?”
“Yes. Anything.” I made to get up but he pushed me back with the bat.
“I have no finish. First you give me all your drugs. Then you make drugs for me. OK?” He sounded almost chirpy.
“OK,” I said, like I had any choice.
“OK,” he said. “You right-handed?” he asked. Puzzled, I nodded and as I did he brought the bat down on my left hand. I screamed and doubled over in pain. “Now you no forget,” he said.
They, the leader Joe and his two helpers, took all our stock. That was about 4,000 pills, a month’s work. They’d admired our lab set-up in the spare room and demanded the same number of pills each month with weekly pick-ups. I’d agreed. By that stage I didn’t know what else to do and I needed to get Tag to hospital as quickly as possible. They loaded everything into an anonymous white van parked outside. As they drove away, Joe shouted, “See you next week.”
In the front room, Tag lay on his side against the sofa. I sat down next to him and leaned over. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing but the bubbles were still coming. I wanted to call an ambulance but I didn’t want it to come here. They might call the police and I was in enough trouble.
“Your friend doesn’t look very well,” said a voice from the doorway. I looked up. A woman stood there, about my age, mid-twenties. She had long black hair, kohled eyes and lipstick redder than blood. She had those boots with the thick soles and towered above us in her long black coat. She carried a large bright red handbag, slung in the crook of her arm. It was decorated with tiny black flowers.
“Oh Christ,” I said, “A witness, that’s all I need.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ve shut the door. Now what seems to be the problem?” She came over to where we were sitting, squatted down and gave Tag a professional once-over. She smelled of incense. “I think he needs some help,” she said.
“What? Who the hell are you? Just bugger off will you. I’m busy.”
“Oh, I can do better than that,” she said and reached into her bag. She pulled out a small vial. “We’ll give him some of this.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Medicine. When I medicine someone ...”
“... he stays medicined. Yeah, we all know the classics. Now what is it?”
“It’s an old family recipe. Totally Class A of course. But it will perk Tag here up no end and I don’t ask questions. The kind of questions the police ask. Even if you did call an ambulance now, I don’t imagine he’d make it anyway. She gestured over and I looked down at Tag, slumped across my lap. The bubbling had stopped and his eyes had flopped open. I didn’t seem to have any choice.
“OK, OK, just do it.”
Very carefully—and it wasn’t easy with her long black nails—she opened the vial and tilted it to Tag’s cracked lips. A blob of white fluid oozed out and slowly drained into his mouth. After a few moments he shook his head, blinked, uttered a single “God” and fell back, breathing properly again. I found some blankets and together we moved him onto the sofa. She must have cleaned up his face because he looked much better already. I looked around the room, there were piles of magazines and pizza boxes either side of the TV and blood splatters on the grimy wallpaper. There were probably bloodstains on the carpet too, but it was too dirty to tell. And then I looked at ... at my new friend standing there like something out of the Halloween edition of Good Housekeeping.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m not here to give you marks out of ten for tidiness,” she looked around, “or the lack of. I’m Sarah,” and she held out her hand. I wiped my hands on my jeans and shook her hand, holding it by the very finger tips.
“I’m Rich,” I said.
“How about putting the kettle on and you can tell me all about yourselves?” We left Tag asleep on the sofa and went into the kitchen.
“So come on,” I said plunking a mug of tea down in front of her, “who appointed you Fairy Gothmother?”
“I suppose I did rather turn up in the nick of time.” She looked at the mug. “Quatermass and the Pit, nice. Actually I was coming to see Tag.” She reached for her bag and pulled out a couple of books. “I brought these for him.” She put the books on the table in front of me. There was a battered paperback Chariots of the Gods. It had a very Seventies gaudy turquoise cover. I laughed.
“How very undergraduate.” Sarah frowned and punched me on the elbow which Joe had softened up with the baseball bat. I winced. The other book was a thick black hardback, The Great Mother by Erich Neumann.
“Been in the rolling stacks?” I opened a page at random, “Mother, womb, the pit, and hell are all identical. Nice. Hang on, listen to this, The death of the phallus in the female is symbolically equated with castration by the Great Mother …” Sarah took it out of my hands. “Not worthy?” I asked.
“Not if you’re going to take the piss.”
“So have you been seeing Tag?”
“Not exactly. I run a small group, a group of like-minded individuals. Tag has recently joined us. I wanted to find out more about him and I brought these for him to read.” I frowned. “It’s a spiritual group.”
“With Tag! Tag’s about as spiritual as …” Sarah put the books back in her bag and stood up. “I’m sorry. Come on, sit down. Fancy a smoke?’
I rolled a joint and we talked. Sarah was a bit older than us and doing post doc work in Theology, about new religions. It was one of the few jobs where she could dress like she did. She had heard about our little sideline. I told her how Tag and I, we were both postgrad students. He was doing Chemistry and I was an Engineer. We’d made a little ecstasy processing plant which ran on solar panels and supplies filched from the Uni. We’d started with just friends but now we were turning out enough to supply most of the local clubs in South East London. We hadn’t really t
hought about it before but I guessed we must have trodden on someone’s toes. We hadn’t been careful and now were paying the price. I tried to get Sarah to talk about what she’d given Tag but she wouldn’t.
“You are not yet ready,” is all she would say in a funny voice. She left promising to return to check on her “acolyte” as she called him.
After she’d gone, I went to see to check on Tag. His injuries didn’t seem quite so bad as I’d feared earlier and I cursed myself for having given in to Joe so easily. There had only been a couple of them, surely we could have made a better showing of ourselves?
The rest of the week was hectic. I had a meeting with my supervisor on Tuesday. He was happy with my work but worried that I was getting behind schedule. This meant that I had to spend the next three days in the lab, milling tiny components for my thesis on particulate handling. I felt exhausted and only returned home late at night to sleep. I didn’t see much of Tag but he seemed to be over the worst of his beating. From the amount of blood, I’d expected a longer recovery. I suppose a little goes a long way. I left Tag in charge of the production, not that it required much work. You just had to make sure that the hoppers didn’t run short or that any of the machinery broke. I’d built in an app that sent telemetry data to my phone, to ensure things were going well and to detect any tell-tale signs of wear and tear. On Wednesday I got a text saying the mixture was running a bit thick so I had Tag clean out the water feed but apart from that it was fine. Over the next week I saw more of Sarah but less of Tag. She would come round at odd times of the day or night and they would huddle in the kitchen or disappear off for “a walk”.
By Friday I felt I deserved a bit of a rest so I didn’t get up until almost noon. I was woken by noise from downstairs. Sarah was sitting at the kitchen table. She had toned down her look from the other night although she was still wearing the big make-up. She was talking to Tag in a low voice. They stopped as they heard me approach.
Shotguns v. Cthulhu Page 10
