by Byron Craft
“Their kind that were proficient in the use of the Windlass was known as Tanists.”
A cold chill traveled up my spine despite the warmth of the day. A Tanist is what Francisco Sayter called himself. I bid Otto goodbye and hurried to the car before he could think of something else to say.
Bell was at the wheel and Robber, back to his old self, sat between us. As we pulled away from the curb, I noticed a large shadow glide over us. Bell and I both turned at the same moment and watched a black feathered vulture land on the top of the statue of Jeremiah Arkham. “Can it be, Sir?” exclaimed my partner. We looked at each other and said together, “Maggot, the turkey buzzard!” Robber was clueless.
***
The lack of hydration was making his tongue swell. The discomfort forced him to exit his slumber. Ian Woodhead was no longer in the Dreamlands but in the dark cavernous prison. He longed for his apartment, in the waking world of Washington DC, looking out upon its architectural graces, suffused in a splendid sunrise.
Ian Dragged himself to his feet, he observed the faintly glowing embers of his campfire. Soon there would be no fire at all. Tossing a few twigs onto the coals to keep it going he next fashioned himself a torch from a stout piece of wood, twigs, and strips of cloth torn from his shirt. Ian wasn’t concerned about keeping warm now; he needed water, moisture, or the lack of it would drive him to an agonizing death.
He staggered through one tunnel section after another in what he believed would eventually end in a hopeless search for water. He blamed himself for his life-threatening predicament. If only he hadn’t been so foolish to stick his nose into an open doorway that ultimately led to his imprisonment. He had been following Francisco Sayter for quite a while. Francisco had gone by many names, but his aliases did little to disguise his size. Washington knew that he was smuggling something out of Arkham and the concerns of his superiors were that it was weapons grade material. Sayter had been retrieving objects from the sea. What they were, the mission analysts back in DC did not have a clue. Two of their agents, in all probability, died trying to find out. Ian assumed that they had met with dire circumstances because they were never heard from again.
The objects, which were smuggled, were glass cylinders. Ian’s curiosity as to their contents was side tracked when he learned what Sayter used to transport them. It was a Windlass. He and all the agents at the OSI had been directed to study that foul-smelling book ever since he brought it back with him from Innsmouth. That was where they learned about the device. He had led his policeman friend to believe that he was with the OSS. Hell, even the men in Navy Intelligence, during the Innsmouth operation that he teamed with, thought he worked for the Office of Strategic Services. His was a covert operation so deeply embedded in the OSS as to conceal its identity so it could be plausibly denied by its sponsors. They were known only to high command as the Office of Scientific Investigation.
The Necronomicon was fairly precise as to the purpose of the Windlass. However, until Ian kept Francisco Sayter under concealed surveillance, they all thought it was the stuff of myth. Ian had watched from a darkened corner of the abandoned house, one evening, as Sayter left with his booty and returned empty handed only seconds later. Ian radioed his observations, in code, back to his headquarters, later that night. Most, on the receiving end of the transmission, assumed that he had been drinking. He had observed Francisco Sayter bring up the Windlass from beneath a hidden panel in the floor. After a few adjustments, he had walked right through the white plaster wall, in the old ballroom, as if it wasn’t there.
The following evening Ian watched from his hiding place until Sayter, once again, walked through the wall. An image shimmered there momentarily allowing Ian to examine it closely. He saw wooded rolling hills under an afternoon sun. Feeling along the solid plaster wall and locating the edges of the portal, he outlined the shape of the opening with a piece of coal he took from the fireplace. Possibly a breadcrumb trail left for whoever may follow.
***
“For the love of Mike!” he exclaimed. “Do you think that was Maggot the turkey buzzard?” asked Bell.
We were back in our office. I was sitting across from Bell and had my feet up on his desk. Robber was in the corner gnawing on a bone I picked up at the butcher. “Beats me,” I answered, wishing he would stop talking. I was trying to catch a few winks. It felt great to lean back in the chair with my eyes closed, but he kept yapping. “If it is Maggot then I doubt that it is just mere coincidence,” I pondered keeping my peepers shut hoping he’d take the hint.
“I don’t understand.”
“The last time I saw that big bird, it saved my life and the lives of many others. Maybe his return is an omen of sorts.”
“You told me back then that Maggot distracted Corvus Astaroth long enough for you to take him down.”
“Yeah, tough break for him,” I yawned. Corvus had revealed his true self, that day, to over a hundred of his followers that gathered in his courtyard. He was a dark and hideous Nightgaunt. Corvus Astaroth had always cloaked himself to look human, until then when his real nature was exposed, and he was sucking the life out of everyone around him.
“He had me down and almost out, so I wasn’t able to witness the whole thing,” Bell explained.
I let out a heavy sigh. Bell was going to keep pestering me until I filled in the gaps. “Astaroth had practically beaten me to a pulp. Old Maggot appeared in the nick of time and alit on a stone archway. Astaroth froze in his tracks. The bird and the Nightgaunt stared at one another for the longest damn time. Long enough for me to recover and do my thing.”
A messenger walked in and plopped down two envelopes on Matthew Bell’s desk. “What’s that?” I demanded, sitting up straight in my seat.
Bell slit open the envelope on top, “Forensics preliminary report,” quickly scanning a single sheet of paper. “Nothing we didn’t already know. The victim died from a broken neck. No other clues so far.”
“Figures.”
Bell opened the second one, a thicker packet; his eyes scrutinized the contents. I stretched and yawned again. On our way, back to the station-house, I had brought Bell up to speed on my conversation with Otto Meldinger. We already had an All-Points Bulletin in place for Francisco Sayter so that every cop on the road and on the beat, will be on the lookout for him. Considering his stature, Sayter shouldn’t be hard to miss. I also sent two uniforms to stake out the big lugs place of business. They had strict orders not to apprehend Francisco Sayter if he showed up. That was not for Sayter’s sake, rather for the safety of the two uniforms. He looked, to me, that if provoked it might take the entire squad to make the collar. If spotted, our surveillance team was directed to use the police call box that was a block away. That was when we would swoop down. In the meantime, I was going to kick back.
"Get this, Detective,” Officer Bell announced. “I sent O’Malley over to the hall of records and the library to do a little snooping around.”
“Rank doth have its privileges,” I couldn’t help myself. The kid was coming up in the world, and his new position of Sergeant enabled him to delegate to those of a lesser grade. Bell just smiled.
“You know that old mansion we explored the other day?”
I nodded.
“Well, sirree it says here that the house was built back in 1854 by a Silas Monk. Newspaper records from back then quoted the neighbors saying that he seldom went out in the day, and get this Detective, it is reported that when seen he always wore black and was seven-feet tall.”
“Sounds like our suspect.”
“It makes one think, Sir. If Sayter can travel through space as well as time, as you say, it causes you to wonder; is he a man from our time or the past?”
"Yeah, what came first, the chicken or the egg?"
"Great bombs and little cannon balls!” came a shout from the doorway to our office. The Chief was leaning against the jamb, the short stub of a cigar clenched between his teeth. He hadn’t shaved, and the thin strands of hair
on his pate were all askew. It looked like our boss hadn’t got much sleep either. “Are one of you birds going to stand and give me your seat?” Bell sprang up and gave him his chair, there being only two in the room.
I’d gotten used to his harsh attitude towards the folks that worked at Station House 13, over the years. He was always bawling me out for something or another. The Chief gives everybody a hard time. He'd have an argument with an empty house. “I’ve been making certain inquiries with some Feds I know in DC,” he said, blowing smoke and speaking as though he could hardly make an effort. “Your pal, Ian Woodhead, doesn’t work for the OSS.”
“What!” he caught me off guard on that one. “Was he canned?”
“Just shut up and listen!” He tilted forward in Bell’s chair, “what I’m about to tell you two birds is classified information. If you let out so much of a peep about it, outside this office, I’ll have you shot at dawn.”
“That's very gentlemanly of you, Chief.” He gave me something between a snarl and a growl. The Chief was nearly humorous, but I knew that his bark was worse than his bite. He actually wouldn’t have us shot, I hoped.
“I set you up in our special . . . department . . . To investigate the strange goings on in this crazy town. Well, it appears that Woodhead does the same thing for Washington. He works for what they call the O. S. I. Office of Scientific Investigation. Like a lot of the Feds that call themselves G-men, government men, they’re called A-Men because some of these clowns like to fool around with the atom.”
“A-Men!” I echoed. “Sounds like the end of a prayer.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled, “I thought the same thing.” I couldn’t believe my own eyes and ears. I almost made the Chief laugh. The comedy fizzled after that. He straightened up in the chair and became serious again, “One of my contacts told me that these ‘A-Men’ have been studying an age-old case. They believe that a long time ago something came down from the stars. It wasn't alive like you and I understand the living, but it was supposed to have come down in the Miskatonic River. This whatchamacallit plopped down in the river near a small island where, according to stories recounted about the place, the devil held court beside a stone altar older than the Algonquian Indians. According to one of the boys in DC, your suspect, Francisco, has been doing a lot of fishing expeditions out there and it ain’t for trout.”
“Then what is it?” Bell got the courage to ask.
“They don’t know kiddo, but they suspect that it may be an alien weapon of some sort.”
“And Ian was hot on his trail, and now he is missing,” I surmised.
“Yeah,” he answered with a grim look on his kisser. “Along with two of their other agents.”
“Three men are missing?” Bell almost choked.
“I am afraid so Officer Bell, we’ll probably be fishing them out of the Miskatonic River. I wouldn't have gotten far with the Feds if it wasn't for the fact that they need us, now that they are short three agents. We're local and may be better equipped to handle the situation.” He paused and took a puff on his cigar. “There’s one more thing. Your surveillance team spotted Sayter at his fishmonger's joint.”
I jumped up from my chair, “Why didn’t you tell us this in the first place Chief?”
“Hang on to your panties detective,” he shot back. “Sayter got wind of our guys shadowing him and took a powder. He left in that fancy car of his. When our boys first caught sight of him, he was loading some stuff into the trunk of the car. When he got spooked, it appears that he left his job only half-done because in his hurry to skedaddle he left the door to his establishment wide open. A definite invite to two snoops from the Mythos Department.”
***
Water! He found water! It was just a trickle, and it tasted like sulfur, rotten eggs, but it was satisfying. It was running down a boulder jutting from the cavern wall. It most likely was leaching from a nearby stream. Ian pressed his face against the rock and let the seepage dribble into the side of his mouth. The process was slow but ultimately thirst-quenching. He salivated, lapping up the moisture. After a half-an-hour, the swelling of his tongue subsided, and he started to feel the benefits of the rehydration.
Not obsessing about the water anymore, Ian concentrated once again on his only avenue of escape. Did the Arkham Detective get his message? Dunwich wasn’t much of a clue, but it was a start. Finding water bought him some time. Trapped within the continual darkness, he would have lost track of the days if it wasn’t for his wristwatch. Ian kept it wound and would calculate the hours spent frequently reading its dial by the campfire. He counted off the days since he first walked through the portal. Ian Woodhead wished by then that he would have had an army of OSI agents with him when he decided to enter and follow Francisco Sayter.
The image of the wooded hills, he saw as he had entered the portal, shimmered and then became momentarily lost in a mist. There was total silence as if the transition from where Ian Woodhead was and where he was going did not permit the presence of sound. It was more than a mere absence of noise; it was the holding of breath. Ian had enough foresight to consult his watch at that moment as well. The sweep hand did not move when he looked at it. Pressing its crystal against his ear told him that it was not ticking. Had all time stood still while in the mist? There was no telling how long he spent in there. Plodding ahead seemed like the only logical thing to do. Blindly walking along, he slipped and fell, plunging into daylight, slid down a damp grassy slope and landed on his backside.
It had been raining outside when Ian exited the abandon mansion in Arkham and entered the portal. It was clear and sunny on the other side. Immediately, he located Sayter’s tracks in the soft earth. The guy easily tipped the scales at three-hundred-pounds. The impressions in the ground were deep. Drawing the 9mm Luger from his shoulder holster, he checked the clip, chambered a round and began the hunt.
Following Francisco’s trail, Ian came upon a stone circle. Irregularly formed narrow sections of granite rose vertically out of the earth. They varied in height from approximately eight to ten-feet tall. A miniature Stonehenge, he thought, it couldn’t be more than one-hundred-feet in diameter. Within its center rose a stone platform, half the height of the surrounding rock pillars. Examining it closely, while standing on his tiptoes, Ian saw that a bowl shape was chiseled into the top. It held the burned-out remnants of a wood fire. Mixed in were some bones charred black. He hoped they weren’t human.
Francisco Sayter’s footprints led through the circle towards an outcropping of rock embedded in a hillside. Grass and moss covered most of the stones. It was not a natural formation. Between the dense green clumps, mortar cement was visible joining the stone works. The fieldstone masonry ran along the hillside for several yards, then turned a corner. Gun in hand, Ian followed both the rock wall and the prints which went in the same direction. He rounded the corner. The wall continued until observation, further on down, was obstructed by an open door. It was at a right angle to the fortification. Was it made of steel or iron, possibly both? Was it an invitation, Sayter’s hideaway or an ambush? On the defensive, Ian kept his automatic pointed out front. He crept up to the opening. It was dark as coal inside. There was a mildew smell. Seconds later he thought he detected the faint odor of dead fish. A dark shape came from behind the opened door and knocked his gun to the ground. Turning quickly, Ian momentarily caught the blur of a black leather fist, the size of a grapefruit, slam into the side of his head. He was propelled sideways into the dark realm. Groggy he tried to get to his feet but fell again. His head throbbed like an elephant's migraine. An agonizing thought merged with a searing pain, “The bastard must have known I was following him all the time. I walked into his trap.” The door slammed shut. There was a metallic clang. He was locked inside God knows where?
A deep bass laugh reverberated through the door and echoed off the cavern walls. “While in there, maybe you will find my cousin's gold.” The laughter continued, fading into the distance as Francisco Sayter walked away, leavin
g Ian Woodhead to rot.
***
A tramp steamer was nosing her way out of the Miskatonic River narrows. Behind Sayter’s seafood warehouse a small barge was anchored to the dock. Bell and I shined our lights on it. There was a manual air pump on board along with a copper hard hat diving helmet and a waterproofed canvas suit. The barge was unmanned. The sun had gone down hours before, and we had parked our car alongside the building so not to arouse suspicion. With guns drawn, we walked around to the front.
When leaving our office, after the Chief gave us the news, I was stopped short by the ringing of the telephone. I picked up the candlestick mouthpiece and answered it. It was Meldinger. “Can’t talk now Otto, I’m in hot pursuit.”
“Oh, but this may be very important in apprehending your suspect,” his voice on the other end pleaded.
“What!”
"The whole thing has evil running right through it, Detective. You might say that it is from hell, or you might call it another dimension if you tend to be scientific. You must find the thing and destroy it and damn anyone who gets in your way.”
“Make it quick Prof, I’m on a tight schedule,” I had very little patience for his prattle. On Bell’s desk was an assortment of those pulp magazines he liked to read. Amazing Stories and Black Mask were his favorites. One of them had the drawing of a creature on the cover, a mass of tentacles and bulbous eyes attacking a man in a trench coat and a fedora. I hoped it wasn’t an omen. I turned it over and placed it face down on the desk.
“I believe that the man you are after, if he is a man at all, is a Myskat. I think the name might have been concocted from a mixture of root words from the Algonquian language. In fact, it is pretty certain, that a derivation of the word is where the Miskatonic River got its name,” Otto Meldinger was digressing as usual.
