We walked back to the table at the front of the store and sat down. Andrew looked at me with curious concern.
“When we first talked,” I said, “I neglected to tell you certain details of my recent past. I apologize for that. I was afraid that doing so might violate a confidence. However, my hesitance with respect to that is gone. We are on a different path now, and I feel that the end does justify the means.”
Andrew’s brow wrinkled at that statement, but he did not interrupt me.
“A few weeks ago, my mentor, Professor Josephson, was asked by a colleague to decipher some equations. This colleague is a member of a small coalition—an unpleasantly smug lot—to combat the forces of the Ancient Ones. It was one of these men who interfered this morning.”
“Who are these men? Are they affiliated with any sort of organization?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I don’t think so. But that’s not the point. The professor did an excellent job with the task he was given. In these equations, he discovered a relationship between the Ancient Ones and certain stars. According to his analysis, the calculations can be used to predict when and where one of their kind might next appear. All you would need to know is what source star corresponds to what entity, and the next astral alignment can be calculated.”
His eyes lit up instantly.
“That is unbelievable!” he said.
“This piece of parchment,” I said, patting the briefcase, “was one of the reference materials that Professor Josephson was given. It indicates that the author knew about this relationship between the stars and the Ancient Ones. It was his intention to discover the source star that corresponds to each of them. But this list is far from complete. It contains only one entry, for an entity named Hastur.”
I stopped myself there. Even though I had committed the act and made up my mind, something inside me still objected to what I was about to say. But it seemed Andrew could see where I was headed.
“And this man wrote that piece of parchment,” he said slowly. “With his own hand?”
That question nearly threw me. I tottered. We had no possible way of knowing if the nameless experimenter had penned his own notes or dictated them to an underling. But if that were the case, the equally nameless helper would surely remember such important details. In the blink of any eye I convinced myself. With lying now easier for me that it had previously been, I nodded in answer to his question.
“So, all we would have to do to learn the rest of what he learned,” I began.
“And destroy a priceless archaeological artifact,” he finished bitterly.
“Andrew,” I said, “if he knows which star belongs to Sothoth Pnath, we can easily find out once and for all if that thing is responsible for the death of Elizabeth.”
Even before I had finished speaking, he was shaking his head.
“I understand the temptation,” he said. “But will you please listen to yourself? This is—”
“What, foolish? Criminal?” I sighed. “You have already asked me to suspend my beliefs, and have faith in your plans. Now it’s my turn to ask something of you. Certain sacrifices must be made. Think of the knowledge that can be gained. I certainly would have preferred to do the research myself, wading through those ancient tomes, page-by-page and line-by-line. But that is no longer an option. We must resort to whatever means possible.”
I held out my briefcase in one hand towards him.
“This.” I pointed to the case. “This is our key. Right now, it’s only a piece of paper. It contains a certain amount of information. But by sacrificing it, we double, triple, quadruple our knowledge—knowledge that can be shared. We would be serving more than ourselves. We would be serving the greater good.”
I had nothing left to say. He sat with his eyes closed, elbows propped up on the table, massaging his forehead. Frowning heavily, his head shook slowly from time to time. It appeared his mind was made up. But before he could speak, our conversation was cut short by the sound of the front door opening.
I first noticed Andrew’s unblinking gaze. I had been seated with my back to the door, but upon turning around, I was met with the sight of a beautiful young woman, perhaps only eighteen or nineteen, with long brown hair, and dressed in white. She was extremely wan, and as she entered the store, her movements were stiff. In her left hand, she held a red rose; her right was concealed from my view.
“Good morning,” Andrew said, standing from the table. His voice was much more pleasant than it had been with me. “Can I help you with anything today?”
She seemed to have not heard him at first, looking distractedly around. When she did speak, her voice was a haunted, despondent whisper.
“I am searching for knowledge,” she said. “Knowledge attained through the pain of sacrifice.”
Andrew looked at me, his brow furrowed. I stayed where I was as she continued to speak.
“A pound of flesh? If I could muster the courage. But I am weak from the struggle.”
“Miss,” Andrew said, walking toward her. She also took a few more halting steps, then stopped directly in front of him.
“Shadows from the past stalk me,” she said. “Pursue me. A moment’s rest and they engulf me. I am tired. The shadows…they are everywhere!”
With that final exclamation the object in her right hand flashed into view: A knife! She raised it high above her head, but awkwardly. She lunged at Andrew. I could only watch in horror as the glinting metal slunk toward him, but slowly as if through water. He had more than enough time to react. Stepping to the side, he grabbed her right wrist with his left hand, and with the other, slapped her firmly across the face. Her legs collapsed from beneath her, but he caught her before she fell. The knife and flower fell to the floor from limp hands.
“Bring her over here,” I said, clearing space on the table. Andrew carried her over, and laid her carefully on top. He felt her neck for a pulse, and paid careful attention to her respiration. Curious about the items that she had dropped, I walked over and picked up the rose. Almost at once I noticed a peculiar odor.
“Don’t smell it,” Andrew said. “I know that spell. It’s been poisoned. Just throw it away. It’ll be harmless before long.”
He pointed at the waste can near the checkout counter. After disposing of the flower, I carefully picked up the knife. It looked more like a surgical blade than anything else, with a long wooden handle and a thin blade, only about two inches long. The grip was intricately carved, and colored the same glossy black along its entire length. The blade had the same Egyptian-looking symbol engraved into both sides. I handed it to Andrew. He examined it for some time, turning it over repeatedly.
“Interesting,” he said, indicating the design on the blade. “This symbol, Aptu, means Messenger. I’ve come across it once before.”
“Where? What does it mean?”
“It was in reference to Nyarlathotep,” he said. “Servant of the Ancient Ones.”
He looked from the knife to the motionless woman to the wastebasket with the poisoned flower.
“It would seem that we are being watched.”
I felt the hair on the back of my neck stir.
“Watched by whom?”
Just then, the young woman spasmed so violently on the table that I thought she might fall off. Andrew and I both reacted, but before we could touch her, her eyes flew open. Having two strange men reaching out to grab her must have been a fearful sight, for she let out a shout of pure terror. When we both jumped back and held up our hands, she silenced herself and sat up on the table.
“How did I get here?” she asked. “Who are you?”
“What is the last thing you remember?” Andrew asked her calmly, trying to sound non-threatening. Realizing that the knife was still in his hand, he turned and placed it out of view on a display stand. He turned back to her and smiled. She seemed to relax a little.
“I bought a rose,” she said slowly. “From a street vendor. He was crippled. I felt sorry for him. It smelle
d…”
She trailed off and felt her left cheek, undoubtedly still stinging from Andrew’s blow.
“Miss…” prompted Andrew.
“Manning,” she replied. “Elizabeth Manning.”
“Miss Manning, my name is Andrew Cooke. I own this store. This is Robert Adderly.”
I nodded at her.
“You came in just minutes ago. Do you remember?”
She shook her head.
“This may sound like an odd question,” Andrew began, “but—”
Just then, the door of the shop flew open, and a middle-aged woman hurried into the store.
“Mother!” Elizabeth cried, jumping from the table and rushing to the door.
“Elizabeth, are you alright?” She handed the young woman a small, white handbag. “You just dropped your purse and wandered off.”
She looked at her daughter’s left cheek—still red—and eyed us suspiciously.
“Yes, mother,” she said quietly. “I’m fine.”
“Your cheek—”
“Is fine.” Her mother did not seem to be convinced, so she repeated, “It’s fine. Really.”
Mrs. Manning frowned.
“Very well. Let us be going. We shall be late to meet your father.”
As her mother pulled her by the arm toward the door, the young woman turned back to us as if to say Good-bye, but no words came out. She simply lowered her eyes. The older woman, on the other hand, made no attempt at civility, as she ushered her daughter out of the store, glaring at us all the while.
When they were far enough away, I turned to Andrew.
“What just happened here? Who is watching us? Was that some kind of warning?”
He looked at me very somberly.
“Someone has taken notice of our actions,” he said. “That young woman was sent to deliver a message. Did you hear that rambling soliloquy?”
Considering that the message had come with a knife, it seemed to have been more than a warning—though he had easily avoided her half-hearted attack.
“Knowledge attained through the pain of sacrifice…” I mused.
“The words she spoke were not her own,” he said. “She mentioned shadows. Sothoth Pnath is a shadow. Granted, I’m just conjecturing, but that is precisely what we were discussing before her arrival—the knowledge that would be attained by sacrificing the parchment. More significant to me, however, was the method of the warning.”
Andrew sounded as if he was about to explain further, but he stopped and turned away from me. I waited a few seconds, but he said nothing else.
“The young woman?” I finally asked. He still did not speak. “Because her name was Elizabeth? That is an interesting coincidence, but…”
“There are no coincidences.”
“Someone else told me that recently.” It was an attempt at humor, but the delivery was deflated by my own disbelief in what I said.
“But no, not her name.” He sighed deeply. “I made a shameful mistake a few years ago. Using that very same hypnosis spell.”
He began to pace.
“A mistake,” he repeated. “It seems someone knows quite a few things about us. This is no warning. It’s a challenge. I believe that we are being challenged, Robert.”
I had not known Andrew long, but the tone of his voice, the set of his features, implied to me he did not intend to back down from this provocation.
“Are we on the right trail then?” I asked. “If we’re being told to not speak with the author of the parchment.”
“Yes.”
He stared out the front windows to the street beyond, down which Elizabeth Manning and her mother had disappeared, just as quickly as they’d come.
“Are you afraid?” I asked hesitantly.
“Yes.”
“But we’re doing this?”
Andrew grabbed my briefcase from the floor and pulled it back up to the table. He rested his hand on top.
“Yes,” said Andrew. “Yes, we are.”
Thirteen
In late afternoon, I returned home to change out of my good clothes and eat dinner, while Andrew prepared for the ceremony. Before returning to the bookstore, I gathered up all of the papers from Professor Josephson related to the Portuguese parchment. The journey back was one of paranoia and fear. Everyone I saw was a potential enemy, a servant of the Ancient Ones. I neither made eye contact nor spoke with anyone. I repeatedly crossed and re-crossed streets to avoid any encounters at all. Before long, I began to feel I was being followed, and reversed direction, walking three blocks out of my way. When finally I arrived at the darkened store, it truly was not a long time before Andrew appeared and let me in, but they were long moments spent searching the shadows, finding nothing but the shadows themselves.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Andrew said when we reached the room upstairs. “I just need a few minutes to clean up. Unless you would like something to eat? I have plenty of chicken soup left.”
It was a wonderful aroma, but I had filled myself with Mrs. Bettings’ dinner not long before.
“Thank you, but no,” I replied.
“In that case,” his voice floated in from beyond the kitchen doorway, “see what you can do about removing the parchment from the frame. I have some tools in the stand near the door.”
I set the papers I had brought from home down on the couch, and found the tools near the door. The parchment, however, was a different matter. After a thorough scan of the room, the frame with the ancient document within was nowhere to be seen.
“You do still have it,” I called into the kitchen. “Don’t you?”
“Of course,” came the response. “It’s on the table.”
I looked at the table at which we sat the previous week, the table where we spoke with Andrew’s dead grandfather, where we had failed to speak with Elizabeth. It was clearly empty. Was it possible that, in my absence, a saboteur had broken in and taken it? Had this next attempt to thwart us been a success? But before I could sound the alarm, he emerged from the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel. He looked at me calmly, as I stared at him, at the empty table, and back at him.
“Touch it,” he said. “Go on.”
Hesitantly, I walked over to the table and laid my hand upon it. But I did not feel a wooden tabletop. Instead, my fingers encountered what felt like a silky, diaphanous cloth, which, sure enough, sprang into view as soon as I touched it. There was no pain at all associated with the sensation, but still I withdrew my hand as if shocked. Through the cloth, I could see the parchment, still mounted in its frame, sitting on the table.
“It’s a very simple spell,” said Andrew. “Hide in plain sight. As long as the illusion is not touched, it will persist forever. It’s amazing what can be done with it.”
When he returned to the kitchen, I reached out again and placed my hand on the cloth. It moved like the surface of water. It certainly was not the most incredible magic I had seen thus far. Communing with the dead was a power I had previously thought reserved for the Lord alone. But there was something about this spell—something about such practical, tactile magic—that constituted a new shift in my mind. It seemed a miracle, though Andrew had treated it like a mere child’s toy. Was this how Moses had felt, watching his rod transform into a snake?
I carefully lifted the cloth, and set it aside to examine the frame. It seemed it would be simple to remove the document. Taking the pliers I had found, I was able to bend the clips away, and easily lift off the various layers of board and backing paper. In order to handle it as little as possible, I carefully slid the thick, brittle paper out of the frame, and directly onto the table. Looking at it, laying bare on the wooden tabletop, I felt some small regret over what we were about to do. The greater good, I reminded myself. We have no choice.
“Very good,” said Andrew as he returned from the kitchen. “You didn’t damage it.”
He moved the sheet so that the lower right corner hung over the edge of the table, then grabbed the corner with thu
mb and forefinger and tried to crease the thick paper. The small piece he had in his fingers snapped off sharply. He grimaced and shook his head.
“This material is far too brittle,” he said. “I should have realized this. We will not be able to twist it into a wick.”
“Is that a problem?”
“It will burn very fast.”
“How much time will we have?”
He looked at the paper closely.
“A minute. No, not even.”
“Will that be enough?”
“Perhaps.”
“That is,” I said, “if he even knows the information we seek.”
“Someone believes that we’re on the right track,” Andrew said. “Otherwise, what happened today would not have happened.”
I nodded, the young woman’s strange words still ringing in my ears.
“Very well,” he said. “Let me find a dish wide enough to hold this thing.”
He went back into the kitchen, and I heard some clattering, as pots and pans were shifted around. He returned with a clear glass bowl and set it in the center of the table, along with matches. He then retrieved the container of that unique, near-invisible liquid from his bedroom, and started pouring some carefully into the glass bowl. He upended the container, waiting for the final drips.
“I hope this experiment pays off,” he said, and set the empty container on a nearby shelf.
At last, the stage was set for our drama. We took our seats at the table, and as silence descended over the room, Andrew began to meditate. After a few still minutes, he began the incantations. Once again, I felt myself a spider trapped beneath a glass. When both introductory spells were complete, he struck a match, and held it to the corner of the parchment. To my horror, it caught fire immediately, and almost half of it was consumed in the space of two or three seconds. I nearly cried aloud, but regained my composure when I saw that the wicking effect had at last taken hold. The burning slowed. Andrew and I exchanged glances of relief, and waited for the cold wind to blow.
Unlike the experience with the spirit of Mr. Hunt, it was a relatively long time before the air stirred. But slowly, the draft became a gale, and then a hurricane, as I watched the parchment burn steadily, completely undisturbed by the fury whirling around us. I was astonished that those mystifying forces—much stronger this time than last—did no harm to the room or us. When the winds ceased, and the cold presence of the spirit concentrated above the flame, I noticed with some alarm that only a third of the parchment remained.
The Shadow Beyond Page 13
