“A Cat of Ulthar, I believe.” Randolph winces as one of his finger-talons catches in the hem of the sleeve. From under his bed, he seems to hear a scraping noise, but dismisses it. Insects, mice—this is an old structure, not often subjected to fumigation, so vermin of all manner will find a way to multiply within its walls, beneath its floorboards.
“A talking cat?”
“Honestly, Orme, all these years, all the things we’ve seen, and you’re going to disbelieve in a talking cat?”
Orme gave one of his rare grins, a shining thing that lights his face. “Point taken.”
“The Gates will open again!” The yearning is clear in Randolph’s tone and puts Orme on alert. He knows how his friend struggles with his appearance, intuits that over the years the Dreamscape has become a second home to his misshapen companion . . . and that the journeys there have become more than a work-related necessity. When Orme speaks, it is gently.
“But, my old compadre, even if the Gates are open, I don’t know how much more your body can take.” He frowns. “There are no fissures in your . . . carapace, you’re as solidly put together as ever, but that solidity leaves no room for expansion. Whatever is happening inside you is not healthy. Your blood pressure is on the rise, your resting heartbeat races, your skin is tight as a drum, which tells me you’re retaining far too much fluid. This is not good, Randolph, and I don’t believe you can survive another tour of duty in the Dreamlands.”
“Do me a favor, old friend, and don’t tell her that?” Tears well. “I must go back, Orme. I need to. Even if I die, let it be in a place where I can look like a man, a true man.” All Appleton says is, “Come on, Randolph. It doesn’t do to keep the professor waiting.”
When Miracle Brady (formerly an incumbent of the Undecayed Whatley Chair in Elder Gods Studies at Arkham University) took over leadership of the League’s Dream Division, she went through the department like the proverbial dose of salts. With Randolph no longer capable of running the day-to-day operations, the place had been allowed to slide toward the primordial swamp they were meant to be saving the world from.
Certainly she understood that getting new staff in had been fraught: these days, with the war still raging in Vietnam and mounting problems in the Middle East, budgets didn’t stretch very far—especially not for Hoover’s pet projects. It was widely known on the Hill that Nixon was afraid of the powerful head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Based on an unflattering psychological profile prepared by former agent G. Gordon Liddy, the president had chosen not to remove Hoover because he was afraid that the director could “bring down the temple” by releasing damaging information about him. But that didn’t stop “Tricky Dicky” from doing his best to starve Hoover’s departments of funding.
Nathan Brady, Miracle’s own father, had to turn a penny around in his pocket three times before he thought about spending it these days as director. Of course, no one was really prepared or qualified for what they were needed to do. The old guard was drawn from FBI men on their way out or down, from the mad who could sometimes pass as sane, or from the kooks and eccentrics who had nowhere else to go. Sometimes they just needed bodies to fill gaps.
Miracle Brady neither suffered fools gladly nor minced her words: she was just as likely to use the profane as any of the multisyllabic words in her impressive vocabulary. She’d gone through the Dream Division like a reaper through the fields, separating wheat from chaff and discarding anything suspicious or that did not fit her purpose.
In the first weeks of her reign, Randolph had heard the whispers from those few of his colleagues left standing . . . of section heads interviewed then simply walked off the premises, not allowed to collect personal items from their desks, ears ringing with promises of packages tied up with string that would be sent to their homes. But there were others who did not ever leave the bunkered walls beneath the Monument—those kept in the lower levels, whose personal effects were thoroughly searched for any secrets or hints of unseemly activity, any artifacts that might link them to the Armies of the Night, marking them as worshippers of Cthulhu, or Dagon, or Nyarlathotep, or any gods who slept or woke, who tried to come through or pervert the fate of humankind.
All these tales Randolph had recalled when he had first waited for the terrible and brilliant beauty (oh, they always mentioned the beauty—even men about to die will note if their executioner is of surpassing prettiness, as if that somehow makes their deaths worthwhile) of Miracle Brady to descend upon him. But when the professor arrived, all she did was politely introduce herself, run her frank regard over his warped form, ask pertinent questions, and listen carefully to his replies, nodding and making a steeple in front of her with long fingers.
There had been no follow-up visit, though Randolph’s nerves stretched long and thin waiting for one. When he finally snapped and asked Orme what was happening, his friend looked at him in rare amusement and said the neoteric head of the Dream Division had decreed that Special Agent Carter was not to be interfered with.
So, Randolph went on with his work, which had gone smoothly for the past couple of years (right up until the Gates closed two weeks ago), bringing intelligence back as and when he could, interpreting other signs and wonders that the League’s new cadre of Dreamers reported. Unlike the old days, when he’d had to forcibly recruit the mad—those whose minds were open to the flow of the universe, whether they wanted it to be or not; those who’d slept in cells with locked doors and padded walls—this new team were handpicked, not mad, or not noticeably so, when they began. Gradually, the newcomers replaced the originals, and there were fewer and fewer of them now, those whose lives were a delirium; they no longer “worked,” but remained in the bowels of the Monument, for where else might they go? What might they blurt out in the light of day if discovered by the Armies of the Night? Randolph had found a use for them, to his shame . . .
Still, he didn’t want to attract Professor Brady’s attention to himself, lest she one day decide he too was chaff. And as his travels changed his form further and further from what it had once been, he set foot less and less outside his division, then his labs, then his room, and passed messages up to the director and his intimidating offspring via Dr. Orme Appleton.
So this audience is an unusual occurrence—the fact it has been requested by Randolph himself makes it even more so.
Orme knocks, then waits before opening the professor’s door (she never says “Enter”), waits until he sees Randolph take a deep breath to calm himself, waits until his friend expels said breath, then gives a little nod (not to Orme, but to himself: I am ready). Dr. Appleton turns the brass handle (shaped like a wolf) and pushes the heavy wooden panel back, stepping aside to allow Randolph to go in first.
The office is large, painted such a glacial white it’s almost blue. A large mahogany desk takes up a considerable amount of real estate; there are bookshelves filled to overflowing, filing cabinets that appear locked, a Picasso pencil sketch (a minotaur, never offered for sale on the open market), and a photograph of the professor (aged five) with her parents, Ellie and Nathan Brady.
Miracle Brady’s hair has turned salt and pepper in a remarkably short period of time, but there’s no trace of a wrinkle on her light-brown skin. Her pale blue eyes have lost none of their acuity. She wears a trouser suit of gunmetal gray, a slender gold watch on her right wrist, but other than that she’s decidedly unadorned.
In front of her is a coffee table with an ashtray into which she taps gray cinder. Randolph knows she’s tall, well over six feet, but she doesn’t rise to greet him, just stays in the armchair and gestures for him and Orme to join her in the small area she’s quarantined in her office as a “sitting room”—delimited by the edges of an expensive rug that was once a wall hanging in an exclusive school in England.
Miracle Brady’s feet rest flatly on the head of a woman. A woman on a stone seat, wooden staff in one hand, a serpent’s thick body in the other. Wide-eyes icthyoid and protuberant, pouting lips, fla
ttish nose, black hair medusa-like in its disarray. Her simple green robe appears scaled; at her feet, a field of blossoms—black, silver, red, yellow, and richest chestnut petals on stalks of green (all picked out in the hair of dead children). A tangle of branches and trunks, undergrowth and vines, twist together to form a dense curtain.
There is more, Randolph knows, for he saw the tapestry once before it was cut up and turned into carpets. The largest piece is in the director’s office.
Professor Brady has kicked off her sensible shoes and is squeezing her toes through the pile, as if trampling the head of a serpent.
“Agent Carter, what a surprise. Dr. Appleton, a delight as always. Have a seat.” As Randolph chooses the loveseat (the only one that will accommodate his shape), he misses the look that passes between them, the look that says they might be more than colleagues. Orme takes the other armchair. Randolph’s not likely to pick up signals like that, even were he to see them—human interactions have become even more of a mystery to him over the years. In fact, he tries not to think about them too much, lest the things he is required to do, needs to do, become ever more difficult.
“Good afternoon, Professor Brady. I trust you are well?” Randolph’s creaky on pleasantries, but the old forms are still there. He can still make small talk, just as he used to with Dorothy Williams.
“As well as can be expected, given my age and the shape I’m in.” She laughs. “I wish I had your secret, Agent Carter, you don’t age, do you?”
“No, but the price is considerably higher than a jar of face cream,” he makes a joke, is pleased with himself. Professor Brady sobers and nods.
“Please. What brings you to me?”
Randolph tells her about the cat, what the beast said; he waves his hand, with its pristine bandage wrapped by Orme earlier. The wound aches all out of proportion with its size. He remembers that cats carry poison in their teeth, but puts it out of his mind. The telling of his tale is brief, there’s not much to impart, really, and he feels suddenly foolish. That he should have had more to say, that he has failed to deliver the information with the right weight, and without gravitas, the story falls flat.
He blurts, “The cat promised.”
“There’s a sentence you don’t hear every day,” the woman opposite dryly observes, then takes a drag on the cheroot in her hand, blows bluish smoke rings that circle her head like satellites. “I’d remind you, Agent Carter, that cats are assholes and we’re never sure which side they’re on.”
“Their own. Always,” Orme interjects. “When our interests align, we’re fine . . .”
Randolph feels the discussion getting away from him. “Professor . . . Miss Brady . . . the destruction of Kadath speaks to a greater collapse. If the Dreamlands fall in on themselves, where do you think their inhabitants will try to go? All we’ve been dealing with so far are incursions by pockets of malcontents, the Great Old Ones’ minions. But the rest? The peaceable population? They won’t be so peaceable if the walls begin to close in. There’ll be a wholesale influx, wave after wave which will in turn threaten the stability of our reality.”
He puffs—the speech has been delivered quickly, and he can feel his face becoming red.
“Randolph, calm yourself.” Orme’s tone is concerned. Agent Carter ignores him, draws himself up with as much dignity as he can muster.
“It’s in our own interests to investigate, professor. Our only hope, in the end, might come from those we help now.” He can’t tell them that the closure of the Gates to the place he’s always regarded as another home hurts more than he can express.
Professor Brady nods at him, but there’s something in her stare that makes his blood cool. Even as she continues to nod, she says, “No.”
“But—”
Brady points down, to the tapestry at her feet. “Do you recall this story, Agent Carter?”
Randolph nods, but she carries on, just to hammer home her point. “Vivienne Croftmarsh ran the Esoteric Order’s Orphans Academy. Only she wasn’t just a human, she was a goddess of some sort, wasn’t she? Dead Cthulhu’s consort, forgetting her own memories to keep him hidden, all but once a year . . . until the day she got tired of waiting . . .”
“I know the tale, professor—”
“. . . Tired of waiting, and decided that if one orphan a year helped her Lord’s slow healing, then a whole bunch of them would get him there much faster . . . bring him back from his dead dreaming . . . I believe the Cats of Ulthar warned you about that, but were unable or unwilling to pinpoint a location? Almost eighty children died before we got a fix on her.” The woman shook her head. She’d been there, seen what Croftmarsh had done. It was her first assignment as an intern. “And so, Randolph, you’ll understand why I’m leery of offers from cats.”
“Professor—”
“I am sorry, Randolph. I know what this means to you, but my answer must be no.”
“Professor . . .”
“Here’s the problem I have: the Gates closed without warning. Even you didn’t know it was coming. None of your so-called allies across the borders said anything. And when they closed not even you, my Division’s chief lock-picker—the HPL’s chief lock-picker for longer than anyone cares to remember—could open them again.”
She shakes her head, leans forward, bare feet firmly planted on the head of the woman in the rug as if she daily crushes the skull of Eden’s serpent. “You’re summarily shut out, and then suddenly get a gilt-edged invitation to the grand re-opening of the Dreamscape? From a cat?”
“A Cat of Ulthar, professor, not some alley stray.” Even as the words leave him, Randolph hears how petulant they sound, but Brady remains calm and kind.
“What do you know about this Sunset City?” she asks, and Randolph bristles. She knows what he knows, she’d read his reports. He recognizes it as a test, something designed to make him think her decision is the best one. Randolph refuses to answer; his lips tighten and Brady notices.
“Didn’t you have it once?” she asks, although she already knows the answer. Randolph hates her for making him talk about it, but he realizes this is his only way to the other side of the conversation—through the hedge, the brambles, all the thorns pricking at his transmuted flesh.
“I did, but I lost it. I had it for such a short time, but couldn’t hold onto it . . . it was a dream, it faded.” It wasn’t a dream, he knew. He’d woken in utter certainty that he’d managed to pull the Sunset City back into this world, that he’d defeated Nyarlathotep, but when he’d opened his eyes in the morning the golden towers were gone once again. He was sure it had been there. He still felt it like a phantom limb. When he’d asked about it in the Dreamlands, the folks there had simply smiled sadly, as if he’d tried ever-so-hard but failed anyway.
“You lost it. Precisely. Which suggests to me you’re not meant to have it, Agent Carter. It’s not something that can be owned. Not by you and not by Nyarlathotep—” she raised a hand against his objection “—but it can exist on his plane, not ours, not for any great period.” She sighs. “Doesn’t it occur to you, after all this time, that perhaps there’s a reason? A balance between the two worlds? And if it is overthrown, we’ll all wink out of existence? That whatever the Outer Gods are pursuing is as likely to destroy them as us?”
“But—”
“Randolph, my decision is final. If it smells like a trap, looks like a trap, and sounds like a trap? It’s a fucking trap.”
“So, you won’t let me go?” He sounds like a child again, and hates himself and her.
“It’s a fucking trap.” She pushes out a frustrated breath. “Dr. Appleton, I’m afraid you’re going to have to deploy Stratagem Aurora, at least for as long as Agent Carter can bear it, or until he can be made to see reason.”
On his third day of enforced wakefulness, his veins thrumming with cocaine and caffeine so he cannot sleep perchance to dream, apologetically pumped into him by Orme Appleton, Randolph realizes the scuttling in the walls, under the bed, in the
ceiling above his head, is most definitely there, nothing he’s imagining. He’s begun to wonder how big the rats might be.
Or if it’s one of the Cats of Ulthar, waiting and watching. But that’s not right, because if it were a cat, said cat would have come to him and demanded to know why he’s not doing as he was told.
He’s never been subjected to Stratagem Aurora before, although he’s always known about it. In fact, it was something he’d discussed in the early days with Director Brady. He’d told the professor’s father that no one was above suspicion, and that there should always be a means of managing unexpected threats. “You can’t plan for everything, Randolph,” Nathan had said fondly. “Let’s burn those bridges when we come to them.”
Obviously Nathan had discussed it with his daughter, however—perhaps age had made him more cautious than in his younger days, when seat-of-the-pants was standard operational procedure. That was both the advantage and the problem with being the first employees of a new organization: the leeway you got to make up your own rules when there were none, balanced out by the risk that you didn’t quite prepare well enough for the unexpected. Still, thinks Randolph, it makes one adaptable, and he likes to think of himself as such. That was how he’d managed to negotiate and subvert so many of the rules himself.
Adaptability was what had allowed him to deal with the changes in his form and, later on, appetites. It’s on this third night that Randolph feels the hunger upon him. He always resists for as long as he can, but the in-between times have grown shorter and the strength of his need has grown stronger. In the past he’d staved it off with the snacks he keeps in his personal lab refrigerator (sourced from bribe-hungry morticians); once they kept him happy for quite a while, but no longer. And since the thinning of the ranks of the mad in the cells below, accessibility has been a bit of an issue.
So when Orme, unable to take anymore of his own medicine, unable to resist Morpheus any further, finally drops off to sleep in a chair in the corner of Randolph’s room, Special Agent Carter fishes the key from his friend’s pocket and sneaks out. He is careful, moving silently despite his size and unwieldy shape, down the emergency stairs, not using the elevator. There are few guards in the corridors, the eldritch sanctions the League has instituted over many years have proven most effective against incursions from elsewhere (Cats of Ulthar excepted), and normally Randolph’s handpicked dreamers are on high alert in the slumbering hours, in their own rooms or the common area where they sometimes gather if needful of company.
The Lovecraft Squad: Dreaming Page 23
