Wrath of N'kai

by Josh Reynolds

  Shaking, Pepper turned. A tall shape emerged from the trees. “You OK?” Officer Muldoon asked, reloading his rifle as he approached. He stopped. “That you, Pepper?”

  “It’s me,” Pepper said, wincing. She was getting some feeling back in her arm now, but it still hurt like blazes.

  He looked around. “Where’d the rest of them go?” He didn’t ask what they were. From the look on his face, he seemed to have a pretty good idea.

  Pepper pointed. “They’re going after the countess,” she said, still trying to understand what had just happened. “Where the hell did you come from?”

  “I was following someone. Maybe you saw him – tall guy, foreign looking…”

  “Yeah, I saw him.” She rubbed her chest. “He’s the one in charge.”

  Muldoon cursed. “You said he’s going after the countess? Can you walk?”

  “My shoulder hurts.”

  “But not your legs?”

  Pepper winced. “You’re all heart, Muldoon.”

  Muldoon smiled grimly. “Come on. I’ve got a feeling she’s going to need our help.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Tunnels

  Curved brick walls rose around Alessandra as she reached the bottom of the steps. They were slick with effluvia and mold, and old mortar drifted through the air. Everything stank of river mud and other, less identifiable things. She smiled slightly. Forgotten tunnels could be a thief’s best friend.

  As Jimmy had said, it appeared that French Hill and its environs were riddled with old tunnels like this. Secret paths from cellar to cellar, or cellar to cemetery in this case. Alessandra paused, listening to the drip of moisture and the whisper of vermin. She let the flashlight play across the tunnel. She wondered which had been built first, it or the mausoleum. She looked down. The muddy floor was covered in bootprints.

  She drew her pistol and followed them. There were signs of regular passage, back and forth. Whoever was using this place had been doing so for longer than the robbery. Then, if Sanford was correct, Gomes and the others had been busy for some time. She wondered what else might be going on, just underneath Arkham’s feet.

  She caught a whiff of something and stopped. The tunnel had narrowed significantly. There was a crudely reinforced archway ahead. She sniffed the air. Beneath the river stink was a coppery odor. Blood. She glanced back the way she’d come, half-convinced something was creeping up behind her.

  She steeled herself and pressed on. The walls here were covered in thick curtains of root, and loose soil crunched underfoot. The edges of what could only be wooden caskets jutted through gaps in the brickwork. She tried not to think too hard about what might be in them. Or about the smell of blood, getting stronger.

  At the end of the passage was a chamber of sorts. Small. Cramped by stacked coffins, most of which appeared to be rotting down to their nails. Some had been shattered and recently. But among the broken husks of wood was a new body.

  Gomes hadn’t died easily – someone had pulverized him. The chamber was full of splintered wood and broken headstones. Several braced archways, reminiscent of mine entrances, occupied two of the walls – offshoot tunnels, of the sort Jimmy had mentioned. Blood soaked the dark brick.

  She crouched beside Gomes. A cursory glance told her he’d been dead for some time, a day at least. As she examined him, she spied something pale in one of the coffins. Another body – a man. She vaguely recognized him as one of the robbers. Someone had stuffed him into a casket after beating him to death.

  Orne was tying up loose ends. She could feel it.

  A sound intruded on her reverie. She froze, alert. The silence stretched about her, taut and unyielding. But just as she’d begun to think she’d imagined it, it came again. A slow, persistent scrape, as of a spade. As if someone were digging. A chill gripped her and she stood and backed away. Perhaps someone had noticed the light. She told herself she didn’t want to be found here. She was in enough trouble as it was. And someone needed to report the bodies to the police.

  The sound was louder now, more insistent. As if the unseen digger were growing more agitated – more eager. She turned to go, when in the glow of her flashlight, she spied a footprint in the loose soil. More than one, in fact. A dozen or more, all in a cluster before a low tunnel. She paused and turned back to the dead men.

  Dirt crumbled from the far wall. An old brick bulged and shifted, as if something were pushing against it from the other side. She cocked her pistol. The sound was loud in the confined space. The unseen diggers ceased. She heard a soft sound, a hiss or chitter. Rats, then. Likely drawn by the smell of the bodies.

  Decision made, she stepped into the tunnel, electric torch held high. “Enjoy your meal, fellows,” she murmured. “With my compliments.”

  The tunnel was narrower than the one she’d arrived by, and consisted of planks of rotting wood and sailcloth, fitted to hold back the soft earth. A newer tunnel, by a few decades at least. But still older than most of the town. A smugglers’ tunnel, hacked out of the earth in the years before the British had surrendered control of their former colonies. It smelled of something peculiar, not earth or rot but something else.

  The tunnel wound around and down in serpentine fashion before suddenly sloping upwards at a shallow angle. At one point, she fancied she could hear the murmur of the river, somewhere on the other side of the rotting timbers. But all too soon it faded, leaving her with only the sound of her own footsteps for company.

  That sound changed imperceptibly. She looked down. Brick, rather than dirt. The sides of the passage had narrowed. It was barely wide enough for one person to pass through. Up ahead, a wall. No, not a wall. A shelf. The back of a shelf. She slowed. What was it Jimmy had said? That one could move from house to house without being seen. She let the light play across the shelf and caught the gleam of glass. A wine-rack. She laughed softly and went to it. It moved easily, following grooves scraped into the brickwork. The bottles rattled, echoing eerily. She stepped into a large wine cellar.

  She paused, listening. Above her, floorboards creaked. Faint music. Voices. A party, perhaps. Hadn’t Orne mentioned a party? Was this his house, then? It would make a sort of sense. She frowned, wondering if she ought to have accepted his invitation.

  The cellar was surprisingly clean and spacious. Then, it would need to be, if people were moving in and out of the tunnel. She let the light play across the contents as she explored. Occasional laughter drifted down from above. The shadows bunched and heaved about her, dancing away from the light. A damp breeze reached her, stretching from the other end of the cellar. There was an opening there of some sort.

  She followed the breeze, moving as quietly as possible. The opening proved to be a raised ring of old brick, set into the floor. The mouth of an old cistern, perhaps.

  Alessandra crouched, examining it. She decided to risk the chance of someone seeing the flashlight, and shone it into the cistern. A set of stone steps wound around and down, just like in the mausoleum. “Not a cistern, then,” she murmured. Something older, perhaps. Another tunnel, extending through the depths of French Hill.

  She froze as she heard the creak of the cellar door opening. A rush of noise filled the space – laughter, music, voices raised. Feet on the steps. Someone coming for a bottle of bubbly. She debated brazening it out, but decided discretion was the better part of valor. At least until she knew more. Besides, where better to hide a stolen mummy?

  She started down. As she descended, she realized that the steps went farther down than she’d first thought. Too far. Below the level of the river, perhaps, but she wasn’t sure. The tunnel beyond was old, but well maintained. There was evidence of new plaster and other, minor repairs. There were electric lights as well, strung up every few feet. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble. The question was, why?

  “Only one way to find out,” she said, softly. At the end of the brick tunnel was a room. A proper room, not simply a chamber. The walls were plastered over, and carpet laid. Soft,
crimson lights burned at the four corners, casting long shadows. The room reminded her of the exhibition room in the museum, save that it was smaller by half. Exhibit cases lined the walls and filled the empty space like a labyrinth. She wandered among them, taking note of the items on display. It was a cabinet of curiosities.

  Strange things from Arkham and beyond filled the cases – withered batrachian shapes, no larger than cats, whose tags proclaimed them Ponapean mermaids; glass bottles containing slivers of metal or stone that seemed to resonate curiously as she bent to observe them; and other things, unidentifiable and unnamed.

  There were mummies as well. Broken things glaring through the sides of glass sarcophagi at the intruder in their midst. Some, she recognized as Egyptian. Others were of more uncertain pedigree. A few were not really mummies at all, but rather bodies dried and shrunken by exposure to great heat.

  Alessandra heard the creak of a floorboard and turned. A shape was creeping among the display cases at the far end of the room. Someone else was poking around where they shouldn’t be. Someone who’d followed her down the tunnel, perhaps. She secreted herself between two of the standing sarcophagi and drew her pistol.

  The shape moved closer. Whoever they were, they hadn’t noticed her yet. One of Zamacona’s companions, maybe. She raised her Webley. As the shape passed the sarcophagi, she cocked the pistol. “Stop where you are,” she murmured.

  The shape froze. “Turn around,” she said. The shape turned. She sighed. “Mr Whitlock, you do turn up in the oddest places.”

  Whitlock glared at her. “I could say the same thing about you, countess. What are you doing here?”

  “You first.”

  “Orne was behind the theft.”

  “However did you guess that?”

  “One of the robbers talked to someone he shouldn’t have,” Whitlock said, glancing over his shoulder. “Did you hear that?”

  “No. Why are you here?”

  “The same reason as you, I figure.”

  “You came alone?”

  “I’m not an idiot. Muldoon is outside.” He paused. “Or he was. He’s following some guy we saw watching the place when we arrived – tall, dark…”

  “Zamacona,” Alessandra said, softly.

  “You know him?”

  “Unfortunately. He is dangerous, more than you can probably imagine.”

  “I’m armed,” Whitlock said.

  “We hit him with a car. He got up.”

  Whitlock looked askance at her. “What?”

  She shook her head. “Never mind. Why is Muldoon following him?”

  “Obvious, isn’t it? He’s the murderer.” Whitlock grinned. “Or maybe not. Who knows? But it’s a bit of a coincidence, him watching the place…”

  “No, you are right.” Alessandra looked at him, suddenly certain though she could not say why. “He killed them. He killed Visser as well.”

  “You got proof?”

  She shook her head. “Just a feeling.”

  Whitlock stared at her for a moment, and then grunted. “Me too.” He tensed. “There it is again. Tell me you heard that.”

  She did. A creak. Something jostled one of the cases. She peered past him, trying to see. But she saw nothing save shadows. Whitlock turned. “I’ve had a weird feeling since I came in here,” he muttered.

  “How did you get in, by the way?”

  “Climbed the fence, came in through the atrium.” He smirked. “He left it unlocked.”

  “And you managed not to be noticed?”

  “Big party,” he said. “Lots of noise, lots of booze. Nobody looked twice at me. How did you get in?” Whitlock asked as he padded after her.

  “There is a secret tunnel, leading to the cemetery.”

  Whitlock shook his head. “I really hate this town.” He paused. “Huh. Would you look at that…”

  “What?” She turned to see him studying a case containing a book, open to a rather grisly etching. “What is it?”

  “Pigafetta’s Regnum Congo,” he murmured. “That book is older than this town. And worth more than either of us.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A copy was stolen from the university library a few years ago. My company is responsible for the policy on the university’s rare manuscript collection.” Whitlock leaned close. “That’s it. Look – there. See the scorch marks?”

  “Looks like it was in a fire.”

  “Close. It was struck by lightning. Or, rather, the house it was in was struck. Some shack in the Miskatonic River Valley.” He turned. “What else do they have here, I wonder?”

  “I am only interested in the one thing, myself.” Alessandra made to head for the doors, but Whitlock grabbed her.

  “You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying where I can keep an eye on you.”

  Alessandra stared steadily at him until he released her. “Surely you do not think I am still responsible for all of this?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” he said, in a low voice. “But until I get some answers, I’m not letting you get away. So stay close.”

  Alessandra considered ignoring him. But Whitlock was stubborn enough to pursue her, if provoked. For the moment, she would simply have to endure him. “Fine. But do not get in my way.”

  “And you stay out of mine,” he began. She heard the telltale whistle of a leather sap, moving swiftly, and turned, a warning on her lips. But too late. The blow solidly connected and Whitlock staggered with a groan. He fell against a display case and slid down, clutching at his head. As he fell, two shapes were revealed. Men in oxblood robes, their heads hidden beneath heavy cowls. They both carried blackjacks.

  They came at her quick. She caught the first blow on her forearm. The blackjack sent a shockwave through her arm, numbing it to the elbow. Her fist popped forward, piston-like, and caught her attacker in the belly. He gasped and faltered, stumbling against the wall. She made to dart past him, but the second man was already there, gripping her bicep, spinning her around, sap raised.

  Alessandra stomped on his foot and ducked aside as the sap struck a display case behind her. He lurched forward, off balance, and she ripped her arm free of his grasp. The first man was on his feet now. She drew her Webley and fired. The gunshot was loud, but his scream was louder. He stumbled, clutching at a dark stain on his shirt.

  “Enough.”

  She froze as she heard the distinctive click of a pistol being cocked.

  “Drop the gun. Turn around.”

  Alessandra did. Matthew Orne smiled at her in the dim light. This time, in this light, he did not seem so handsome. Quite the opposite, in fact. His face was twisted into an expression of almost unholy glee. And the way he held the gun was practiced – careful. He was clad in robes, as were the handful of men behind him.

  “Matthew,” she said, with forced mildness. “The party is going well, I trust. Though I suppose my invitation has been revoked.”

  “You might say that, yes,” he said. “I wish I could say I’m surprised to see you, but… well. I suspected this was going to happen sooner or later the moment you decided to stick your nose in.” He turned to the others, and gestured lazily towards the groaning Whitlock. “Bring him along as well. We’ll have a double-header today, I think.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Banquet

  The room they took Alessandra and Whitlock to was large, situated behind the collection room. It resembled a dining room, of sorts, though the decorations were not conducive to a normal appetite. A single table stretched along the room’s center, crafted from casket lids, its legs made from human femurs, bound together by iron rings. Opposite the entrance to the collection room was a second set of doors, heavy and foreboding, the panels inlaid with bone.

  There were oil paintings on the walls, depicting scenes of colonial barbarity. Men in grandiose periwigs, stalking frightened urchins through the streets of Arkham. Red-clad horsemen, running down fleeing natives or slaves. Others, even more obscene. But all had s
imilar anthropophagic themes – the conspicuous consumption of human flesh.

  “Ghouls,” she said, looking around in horror. “You are ghouls.”

  Orne chuckled. “No. We are human enough.”

  “That is debatable,” she spat. Candles made from human hands dipped in wax sat atop iron braziers and candelabras, casting a pallid light throughout the room. Bones, bleached white and scrimshawed with careful artistry, decorated the walls or hung from the ceiling like gruesome wind-chimes. The carpet was the worst, made from sewn together scalps that rustled and crinkled beneath their feet.

  “Tell me what you really think,” Orne said, as his people tied her to a chair at the head of the table. They did the same to Whitlock, who sat slightly behind her. The insurance man groaned, head lolling. There was blood in his hair, and she thought they might have cracked his skull. “It took some time to decorate properly. Ambience is so important to these things.”

  “Very pretty,” she said, not hiding her repulsion.

  Orne laughed. “I told you I had an interest in history. True for all of us, isn’t that right, Ferdinand?”

  One of the robed figures threw back his hood, revealing the florid features of the much-sought Professor Ashley. “Indeed. Though I suspect our history is more storied than most.” He checked Alessandra’s bonds. “Some say we were founded at Valley Forge, during that long devil’s winter of ’77 and ’78.”

  “I think that’s a bit of borrowed glory, myself,” Orne said. “But we are as old as this fine nation. So long as the Stars and Stripes have flown, we have been here.” He looked at the others, and they murmured assent. She had the feeling that this ritual was a regular one at these gatherings. “Oh, we have our far flung chapters to be sure – St John’s lot, in merry old England, and the Bavarian rabble, led by Kraske – but we are American-made, countess, of that you can be sure.”

  “So you are patriotic cannibals, then.”

  Orne sneered. “Cannibals eat the living, madam. We are necrophagic practitioners. We eat the dead and only the dead. The longer in the ground, the better.”