by Barry Reese
“It was fashioned in the 1600s, in Romania,” Lydia said, holding the mask in an almost loving fashion. “The wearer gains increased strength and speed, but only during nighttime… and it comes with a price: An almost manic desire to wear it again and again, to run through the shadows of the night, warring against those who would punish the innocent.”
“If it’s a weapon for good, why would Nyarlathotep want it?” Stone wondered aloud. He was studying the mask as closely as possible without actually touching it. In his long years of adventuring, he’d come across numerous objects of occult power, but few had affected him the way this one did. He could feel its presence in his bones, and he had the sudden, almost absurd, urge to snatch the mask away from Lydia and try it on.
The Peregrine made a noise indicating his disgust. “He’d want to either pervert it for his own uses or just simply destroy it. That’s the way he works.”
Stone gestured towards the Mask, his penetrating gaze locking onto Lydia’s. “There are dangerous men in search of this Mask. We don’t know what their ultimate goals are, but a man named Captain Hazzard has already died because of them. It’s essential that you allow us to take the Mask and safeguard it.”
Lydia closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened her mouth to speak, her voice sounded very different than before. It had a deeper quality to it, and the way she enunciated her words made it sound like she was almost a different person entirely. “Beneath the waves, He slumbers. Soon, it will rise… the dreaming city, the waiting beast. Prepare yourself for the final battles… don’t waste your time on these silly games of pursuit, brothers!”
Stone rose from his seat, hands clenching into fists. “Hazzard? Is that you?”
Lydia’s eyes opened, but it was the mind of Captain Hazzard who now seemed to inhabit them. “I can’t stay for long, Stone. The other side is calling to me… but you have to warn the others! There are greater events at work here than you know! There is a prophecy and it cannot be stopped! Be prepared to halt the aftermath!”
“Give us more details!” Stone exclaimed. “Who is behind all of this? What do they want? What is the dreaming city?”
Lydia/Hazzard seemed to shake all over, and the Mask of Nyarlathotep slipped from their fingers. Max dove for it and caught it in his hands inches before it smashed against the floor. “The monster in red, the Oriental mastermind, and the Napoleon of Crime… the terrible trio!”
As quickly as he had come, Hazzard was gone. It was immediately obvious that Lydia was once more in possession of her own body, for she looked about her in confusion. “I… I was in contact with someone from beyond,” she stammered.
The Peregrine stood up once more, the Mask held against his side. “You were channeling Captain Hazzard.”
Lydia started to say that she had never felt anything like that—channeling was generally a conscious effort on her part. To be taken over like that, with no warning, was frightening and indicated that the spirit in question must have been very powerful.
Her words were lost in a hail of gunfire, however, as the front door to her home shattered beneath a storm of bullets.
The Peregrine and Stone both whirled about as a half-dozen men dressed in dark clothing entered the building. The men held their guns on the heroes as their leader moved around them, coming to stand between the gunmen and the vigilantes. It was Doctor Satan, looking appropriately threatening in his crimson cloak and horned hood.
“I thought you were dead,” the Peregrine said, staring daggers at Satan.
“The reports of my demise… well, you know the rest.” Satan gestured towards the Mask. “Hand it over and we can all part with no one getting hurt. Resist and you’re going to die. Truth be told, I’m hoping you’ll resist.”
Stone concentrated, calling upon the Granite Discipline. It would make him nearly invincible for a few brief moments, moments in which he would have to defeat all his enemies and help the Peregrine escape with the Mask.
“I can sense what you’re doing, Stone, and I consider it worthy of reprisal. Show him what happens to people who defy me, boys.”
The gunmen opened fire in the confined space, their bullets ripping through furniture and wallpaper. Several of the bullets found homes in Lydia’s body, riddling her with holes. Both the Peregrine and Stone jumped to the sides, away from each other, and Max managed to knock over the table, using it as a makeshift shield.
Stone, meanwhile, rolled against the wall and then sprang upwards with a mighty roar, slamming against two of the men. Though he despised killing, Stone had no time to pull his blows under these circumstances. Powerful granite-like fists punched through cartilage and bone, rendering the two men quite unconscious.
The Peregrine jumped up at that moment, having secreted the Mask inside his jacket. Max unleashed his own attack, firing both of his pistols with unerring accuracy. He gritted his teeth as a bullet tore through his own shoulder, but it wasn’t enough to knock his aim askew. Three of the men were felled, blood flowing freely from their wounds. The final gunman was brought down by Stone, who charged into him with the full impact of an elephant, shattering the man’s arm.
Doctor Satan had not stood idly by, however. He had drawn a small knife that quickly grew with magical power. It became a curved sword, looking much like an Arabian scimitar.
Satan slashed at Stone’s back, the blade slicing through the professor’s shirt and leaving a wicked-looking trail of blood down the man’s back. Despite the Granite Discipline, Stone’s body was not impervious to magical attacks.
Stone gasped and turned around, using his martial arts training to block aside another stab of Satan’s blade. The Peregrine took careful aim at Satan’s head, planning to once more send the villain back to the grave. As he pulled the trigger, Satan turned his head towards him, and a flash of light emanated from the scarlet-clad killer’s eye. Max felt his body lose its equilibrium and he staggered back, losing his grip on his guns. They fell to the floor as he collided with the wall. The impact knocked the Mask out of his coat, and it landed right next to the dropped guns.
Doctor Satan spun around, sweeping his blade in a deadly arc. It whistled past the top of Stone’s head, lopping off several strands of his hair in the process.
Stone managed to catch the villain with a knee shoved into Satan’s stomach. The attack was powerful enough to knock the air from Satan’s lungs, but the killer recovered quickly enough. He opened his mouth, calling upon one of the many spells he kept prepared at all times. A plume of flame shot forth from Satan’s mouth, enveloping the professor.
Stone managed to remain calm, divesting himself of that tattered and flaming remains of his shirt and then dropping to the ground, rolling around until he no longer on fire.
As he rose, he saw that the Peregrine was once more on his feet, as well, guns in hand. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Satan.
“Where could he have gone?” Stone asked, moving quickly over to check on Lydia. She was dead, making him utter a few words of regret under his breath.
“There’s no telling. If he had a teleportation spell primed and ready, he could be halfway across town by now.” The Peregrine moved to the doorway and looked out. The sounds of sirens were growing louder, and Max knew that the neighbors had called the police, worried by the gunfire. “Maybe Hazzard was right… we can’t stop this from happening. We just have to be prepared for whatever comes next.”
“We can’t just give up,” Stone answered with a stern shake of his head. “Maybe the others are having better luck than we are.”
The Peregrine put away his guns and grimaced. He didn’t feel like arguing with Professor Stone, but he had meant what he said: Hazzard’s spirit had told them to stop wasting time with this and start focusing on stopping what would come first. The question was, what did the obscure warning mean? What was the dreaming city? Who or what was the waiting beast?
“Before we head back to the Aerie, I want to make a phone call.” The Peregrine pulled out his ra
dio communicator, a portable device of his own invention that allowed him to speak to his allies across great distances. It functioned like a traditional telephone in many ways, but with the added ease of mobility and enhanced clarity. “If you don’t mind handling the authorities…?”
Stone nodded, moving outside where he could greet the police as they arrived. The Peregrine dialed in a number and waited for the man on the other end to pick up. “Ascott Keane?” he asked. “I need some information.”
CHAPTER VI
The Unknown Island
The rain fell in sheets, reminding Nathaniel Caine of the night when he’d inspected Hazzard’s body. Only here, instead of being safely hidden within the cold confines of a city morgue, Nathaniel was trudging through a muddy path on Unknown Island.
Rachel was at his side, grateful for the small protective spell her husband had cast over each of them. The rain struck against an invisible shield just inches over her head and shoulders, rolling off the mystic “umbrella” and leaving her dry, but not particularly warm.
The married heroes had arrived courtesy of a Catalyst-generated spell, standing on the shores and looking out over choppy seas. The wind was howling when they had first arrived, but had slackened since, leaving the rain to fall in a steady downward arc.
“So what are we looking for?” Rachel asked, straining her mental abilities in an attempt to locate any other living entities on the island.
“There’s a powerful mystic artifact at the heart of this island,” Nathaniel said. “I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I can sense it up ahead… if we can grab the bloody thing before the villains do, we might be able to disrupt their scheme.”
“You know more about this than you’ve let on, don’t you?”
“Did you see that in my head? Or is just a woman’s intuition?”
Rachel nearly slipped on a patch of wet grass but Nathaniel caught her by the elbow and saved her from an embarrassing spill. “The latter.”
“I’ve had some visions, and I know there’s a prophecy involved. A snippet of it has come to me: That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die.”
“What does that mean?”
“Those were words written by a mad monk named Abd al-Azrad. He worked on a dark book called the Necronomicon. His name actually translates to The Worshipper of the Great Devourer.”
“Now who would name their child something like that?” Rachel asked, half-joking.
“People who are pawns in a great game between chaos and order. I believe the men behind all of this are trying to raise the sunken city of R’lyeh. The Great Old Ones slumber there in stone houses, waiting for the stars to align so that they can reawaken.”
Rachel’s curiosity was beginning to overwhelm her now, so she peeked into her husband’s mind and plucked out what he knew of the Great Old Ones directly from there. What she saw chilled her far worse than the cold rain could ever do.
The Great Old Ones, she saw, were ancient extraterrestrial beings of immense power, and most were also colossal in size. They were worshipped by deranged human cults, as well as by many non-human races who were thought to exist only in myth or human nightmares. The Great Old Ones were at some point imprisoned—a few beneath the sea, some inside the Earth, and still others in distant planetary systems and beyond. The reason for their captivity has never been known, though two prevailing theories eventually won out as the most likely:
1.They were sequestered by the even more powerful Outer Gods for using black magic against them, or
2.They were sealed off somehow from the rest of the Universe of their own volition.
According to the first theory, the Great Old Ones were once related to the Elder Gods. When they committed some unknown blasphemy, they were cast out and imprisoned in various places in the Universe. The Great Old Ones impatiently await the time of their release, eager to seek retribution against their jailers.
The second theory holds that the Great Old Ones are intentionally dormant. To account for this, it is possible that the Universe experiences cosmic cycles, similar to the natural seasons which occur on Earth. Just as some animals hibernate during the winter, so too must the Great Old Ones rest in a death-like sleep during the present cosmic cycle. If this is so, the Great Old Ones are currently trapped by powerful cosmic forces and must remain so until such time as the planets are in a certain alignment.., or “the stars are right”—the event upon which they may be released and can revel once more across the cosmos.
“Make more sense now?” Catalyst asked, looking at his wife with some amusement. He hadn’t felt her mental probe, but the look on her pale face had clued him in to what she must have done.
“It’s scary as hell, is what it is.” Rachel looked up at her husband and her face was full of concern. “How do you sleep at night, knowing these things?”
“Not well,” he admitted. “It’s strange… a lot of things I have to read up on. I mean, I’m supposed to be the High Mage of my generation, so I figure I should be an informed bloke, but some of this stuff just comes to me. And those things are usually the worst.”
Rachel stopped moving and embraced him, using her telepathy to tell him just how much she loved him. He kissed the top of her head and felt her suddenly stiffen. “What’s wrong?” He pulled away and saw her staring at something through a clearing in the underbrush.
The strange cyclopean ruins that planes had seen from overhead were just over the next ridge, and strange lights were now dancing all around them. Amongst the flashes, Catalyst could see figures moving amongst the ruins.
“They just… appeared,” Esper was saying. “One second, nothing… the next, I sensed them.”
“Maybe they teleported in, like we did.”
“No,” Rachel said, shaking her head firmly. “It’s more like… they woke up. Or were turned on, like a machine.”
“We’d better get down there,” Catalyst said. He took his wife by the hand and started to lift them both into the air, but she yanked her hand free at the last minute.
“You can fly in directly,” she said. “I’m going to move around from behind.”
Nathaniel nodded, blowing her a kiss before taking off in flight.
Rachel waited until he was out of sight before turning around to face an old man dressed in a finely-tailored suit, his weight resting heavily on a walking cane as he moved into view. “He can’t see us now,” she said.
“You’re making the right decision,” Moriarty declared, his eyes fixed on hers.
Rachel said nothing, though her heart hammered away in her chest.
* * *
Catalyst soared over the ruins, his eyes fixed on the bizarre scene below him. The creatures—he didn’t think of them as people now that he was close enough to get a good look at them—were tall things, with chocolate brown hairless bodies. Where their heads should have been was a small depression, from which came two glowing lights—floating “eyes,” as it were. The creatures were digging in the soft muddy earth, retrieving small egg-shaped things that were a light yellow in color. They would then ascend the ruins, placing the eggs in a teetering pile at the very top. Nathaniel saw that something—something so dark and feral that it hurt to even look at it—was crouched over the eggs.
The dark thing had bat-like wings folded against its back and looked like something out of “Night on Bald Mountain,” a segment in Disney’s Fantasia film. Nathaniel had seen the animated masterpiece only once since its release in 1940, but the scenes with the demon Chernabog had always stuck with him.
The demon looked up at him as he soared past, and to Nathaniel’s surprise, it spoke. With each word, brimstone-scented clouds of smoke tumbled from beneath its teeth. “The High Mage… Thy appearance has honored me. I had not planned to visit with thee until later.”
Catalyst descended, landing just a few feet from the demon, which he continued to refer to as Chernabog in his mind. He gestured towards the creatures who were continuing to stack
the eggs all around them. “What’s going on here?”
“The stars are aligning, O great Mage,” the demon continued, somehow managing to sound both ingratiating and patronizing at the same time. Nathaniel got the feeling that the demon considered him too powerful to destroy, but too contemptible to be worthy of respect. “My island home rose from beneath the waves and now my servants are gathering my children… and soon one of them shall be taken by a servant of darkness and used to revive the Great Old Ones.”
Nathaniel realized that this Unknown Island was a small outpost of R’lyeh, home to a lesser follower of the Great Old Ones. How many more of these things were out there, waiting to be revived along with their dark lords?
“I can’t let that happen,” Catalyst whispered. He looked into the dark eyes of the demon. “I really am sorry for this.”
Before the demon could try and stop him, Catalyst unleashed a spell he had stored up for the occasion. A brilliant wave of fiery energy shot forth from his body, engulfing not only Chernabog but also its horrid children. The tiny babies began to cook within their shells, their screams echoing throughout the rainy night. The demon howled, seemingly taking damage from the wounding of its children. It fell backwards, toppling off the top of the ruins. It landed with a thump in the mud, its body continuing to burn. The servants of Chernabog fell where they stood, their bodies breaking down into mud and silt.
Catalyst continued to burn through the entire area, not stopping until all the eggs were destroyed. Nathaniel was standing just outside the flames, listening to the dying screams of the monstrous babies, when Rachel stepped up beside him.
“I was wondering where you were,” he said.
“I was around back, like I said I was going to be. That demon seems to have really died. He’s just dust now and a few scattered bones. I’m shocked you were able to kill him so easily.”
“He wasn’t at full strength yet.” Catalyst offered her a wan smile. “At least we made sure no one’s getting away with one of those eggs. Even if the others fail in their missions, we’ve made sure that no one can raise R’lyeh.”
