Back From the Undead (30 page)

“Glad you could make it,” he says. “Sorry about the cramped conditions, but the location seemed appropriate.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about. “I’ll get over it. Tell me why we’re here.”

“Sure. I know who’s behind all this.”

“You mean besides Isamu?”

“Isamu’s just the facilitator. The real mover behind all this is a lot older, a lot more powerful, and a lot nastier.”

“The deity that’s backing Hemo’s move into the afterlife market?”

“Exactly. His name is—”

“Yog-Sothoth?”

Stoker blinks, then looks annoyed. “What? No. Who the hell is Yog-Sothoth?”

I sigh. “Never mind. Just a guess.”

“The player here is a badass named Dagon. You familiar with the name?”

“Can’t say that I am.”

Stoker shakes his head. “Imagine a cross between King Kong and the ugliest fish you ever saw. Gigantic, scaly, toothy, with fins like the sails on a Chinese junk. Webbed fingers and toes, claws you could use as meat hooks for a dead elephant.”

“Wait,” I said. “Fish?”

“And that’s just the physical description. This is an Ancient One we’re talking about here, one of those beings that lives and breathes HPLC. The bottom of the ocean is just as comfortable an environment as dry land as far as this guppy is concerned, and it ignores little details like rapid decompression, too—laws of physics are for the
little
people.”

“Like leprechauns?” says Charlie.

Stoker gives him a look. “Like everyone else on the planet that doesn’t have reality-bending sorcery running through their veins.”

“So
not
leprechauns.”

“No,” Stoker says. “Not leprechauns.”

“Wait,”
I repeat. “Fish? This is all coming back to
fish
again?”

“What do you mean again?” Stoker asks.

“I ran into this crazy skeleton-monster thing that told me fish were angry at me. Which
almost
makes sense, now. But—” I shake my head. “I must be missing something. Skeletor made it sound like some kind of personal vendetta against me, and that doesn’t track at all. For that matter, why is some ancient fish god involved in all this, anyway? The hereafter environment wasn’t aquatic.”

“Maybe they’re planning on flooding it later,” Charlie offers. “Wouldn’t be hard to do, right? If the whole thing’s a simulation anyway.”

Stoker shrugs. “Maybe. Could be that Dagon was the only deity they could interest in their project. A god of fish is better than none.”

I think about that. It doesn’t seem right, somehow. “How’d you find this out?”

Stoker looks away. “Sorry. Some of my contacts would prefer to stay anonymous. Let’s just say I know someone on the inside and leave it at that.”

“Let’s not. The inside of what? If you had someone at Hemo, you should have told me before this.”

“I didn’t say it was someone at Hemo.”

“Then who?”

He grins. “Would you believe a little fish told me?”

“Not likely.”

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out and see that it’s Gretch. “Hold on, I have to take this. Gretch?”

“Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I have the information you requested.” Her voice is brisk and curt, all business. She must be busy. “Yog-Sothoth. Also known as the Key and the Gate, the Beyond One, Opener of the Way, the Lurker at the Threshold, the All-in-One and the One-in-All. An Outer God, extremely powerful—though it’s hard to say exactly
how
powerful. The cults that worship these entities all tend to claim that
their
Unspeakable Entity is the last word in Unholy Ghastliness, so deriving any objective data is difficult.”

“Can you give me a ballpark figure, cosmically speaking?”

“Said to be more powerful than Azathoth.”

“And Azathoth is…?”

“Said to rule all time and space.”

“Ah. I see what you mean about objective data.”

“Yes. But beings of this scale are often described in contradictory terms. For instance, Yog-Sothoth is also said to
exist
throughout all time and space, but its followers frequently concentrate their efforts on trying to bring it into this dimension—so apparently it isn’t quite as omnipresent as they claim.”

“Right. So what sort of god is it, aside from contradictory?”

“It’s primarily a god of information—knows all and sees all. That description, while probably exaggerated, holds at least some truth; cults that follow Yog-Sothoth are usually driven by the esoteric knowledge that can be obtained. It may not know everything, but it does have access to a great number of arcane secrets.”

A god of information. Well, that makes more sense, considering the computer-simulation aspect. “Okay. Does Yogi-Bearsloth have any connection to a marine deity named Dagon?”

“Mmm. Not directly, no.” For the first time, Gretch sounds hesitant. It’s not like her to be unsure, but she’s probably juggling a dozen high-profile situations right now. “I seem to recall there’s some sort of link through family connections, but I can’t recall the precise details at the moment. I’ll do some more research and get back to you.”

“Sure. Sooner would be better, though, okay? Things are starting to escalate here and I need as much information as I can get.”

“Will do.” She hangs up.

I turn back to Stoker. “Okay, so this Dagon—he’s big, he’s mean, he’s waterproof. I get that. But what else can he do? What kind of sorcerous whammy can we expect him to throw our way?”

Stoker pushes himself to his feet. He’s a big guy, and this is a small room; he seems to take up a third of it. “Dagon’s an up-close-and-personal sort of deity. He won’t sit back and hurl thunderbolts or change you into a frog—if you tick him off, you can expect an actual visit from him. A dripping-wet, rip-the-roof-off-your-house-at-three-
AM
kind of visit.”

“I hear Arizona is nice this time of year,” Charlie says.

“Good advice,” says Stoker. “In fact, I may just follow it myself.”

“Oh?” I say. “The mighty Impaler, heading for the hills at the first sign of an angry Outer God?”

“Damn straight,” he says, and seems to mean it. I see something in Stoker’s eyes I’ve never seen before: fear. “Near as I can tell, this thing is unstoppable. I may be a killer, but I’m just a man. I’m done.”

I feel strangely disappointed. Stoker’s right, he is a killer—but until now he also seemed unkillable, a force of nature unto himself.

He isn’t, of course. He’s only human, just like me—and even though an entire planetful of supernatural beings haven’t been able to beat him, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have limitations. And he’s smart enough to know that.

But I’m still disappointed.

“So that’s it?” I say. “What about the kids? What about that baseball glove you sent me?”

“Forget about them,” he says flatly. “There’s nothing we can do but cut our losses and walk away. Sometimes you lose—that’s a harsh truth, but it’s one worth knowing. I do.”

Charlie shakes his head. “Come on, Jace. Last train to Loserville is about to board, and this mook needs to be on it.”

“Give me a moment, will you?” I ask Charlie. “Stoker and I need to talk alone.”

Charlie shrugs. “Try not to hurt him too bad,” he says. “I’ll wait up on deck.”

He clumps his way up the metal ladder. When he’s gone I turn to Stoker and say, “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Yeah? And what makes you think I’ll tell you now?”

“Because I’m talking to you as one human being to another. I know what it’s like to feel outnumbered and outgunned. Whatever’s got you worried—
besides
the Codfather—you owe me, at the very least, a heads-up.”

He studies my face. “Maybe I do,” he admits. “But I still don’t know if I should tell you.” He sees the anger on my face and adds, “You don’t understand. I’m not keeping this secret for selfish reasons. This is something you might not
want
to know, okay?”

“I already know lots of things I wish I didn’t. One more won’t make a difference.”

“This might,” he says.

And then he kisses me.

NINETEEN

To say I’m surprised is putting it mildly.

I pull back, smacking my head against the metal bulkhead. “What the
hell
?” I blurt.

Stoker shrugs. “I
said
you might not want to know.”

“Yeah, but—what the
hell
?”

“Very eloquent. I’m glad you’re taking this so well.”

I resist the urge to knee him in the groin. “In what universe did you ever,
ever
think a romance between me and you might be possible? You’re an
international terrorist
. You’ve committed
multiple homicides
. It’s not only my
job
to send your sorry ass to prison, it’s the only chance I’ll ever have to go back to my own reality!” I realize I’m yelling.
“How does any of that add up to you and me together?”

“Well, I’ve always been an optimist.”

I glare at him. The knee to the groin is sounding better and better all the time. “Listen. I’ve wondered since the day I got here just how crazy you really are. Now I know. Whatever signals your twisted brain thinks it’s been picking up from me, they’re imaginary. You hear me? Not interested. Not now, not later, not if we both become pires and go to the moon and the Earth blows up and we’re stuck in a little moon dome for the next thousand years. Not with a gallon jug of tequila. Not if you have your brain swapped with a twenty-year-old clone of Elvis Presley.
Are we clear?
”

“Not really. Who’s Elvis Presley?”

“That’s it. I’m taking you into custody. You think you can drag me into another country, use me to take down a Yakuza operation, then
kiss
me—thirty seconds after you’ve told me you’re giving up?
Forget
it, sunshine—”

I’m interrupted in mid-rant, but not by Stoker. No, the sound that cuts me off is an unearthly, echoing roar, a booming, guttural howl that
isn’t
coming from above us. It’s coming through the hull itself, and originating somewhere below the waterline. That reverberating, profundo cry is being generated underwater, by something big and very, very unhappy.

“Oh, no,” Stoker says.

“Time to go,” I say, and scramble for the ladder.

“You hear that?” Charlie asks when I climb out of the hatch.

“They heard that in Seattle,” I answer.

And then we see it, too.

A fin breaks the surface of the water, looking a lot like a sailfish—one of those big, spread-out things almost like a batwing, thin membranes stretched between long, sharp spines. But on a sailfish the fin covers its whole back; this thing sports his the way a punk rocker wears a mohawk, on top of his skull.

Most punk rockers are a lot prettier, too.

The head breaks the surface, then the shoulders. It looks like the Creature From the Black Lagoon’s great-grandaddy. It just keeps on getting taller and taller, as if a skyscraper from an underwater city decided to go for a walk. Its skin is dark green, the scales the size of manhole covers. Its eyes are the dead black of a shark’s, above two slits for nostrils and the mouth of a hungry piranha. It’s got fins running down its back, the sides of its arms, and its legs. It smells like low-tide just before a thunderstorm, rotting seaweed and dead mollusks and ozone.

And then it looks down, right at me.

“Stoker?” I say with a very dry mouth. “Now might be a good time to not be in a boat.”

No answer. I glance down—and see an empty cabin through the hatch. Somehow, Stoker’s already left.

Dagon regards me with features so alien I have no idea what’s going through his giant, fishy mind. Then he raises one immense, web-fingered hand over his head, and clenches it into a fist. Well,
that
seems pretty clear …

“Hold your breath,” Charlie says, grabs me around the waist, and jumps. There’s a single frozen instant when we’re in midair and that enormous fist is hurtling down toward us like a scaly meteorite, and then we splash into the surf an instant before Dagon destroys the ship.

*   *   *

My ears are underwater when his fist smashes into the
Orca,
and it sounds like the world’s biggest bass drum being hit with a swimming pool: a booming, crashing, splintering impact with a chaser of
sploosh
.

Charlie and I are sinking fast, but at least I’ve got air in my lungs. Charlie spins me around and mimes, very quickly, that he’s going to the bottom and I should swim for it. I nod, he lets me go, and I strike out through the water, heading for the surface but at an angle; I want to put as much distance between me and Codzilla as I can before I come up for air.

Ever try to catch minnows in shallow water with your bare hands when you were a kid? Impossible, right? It’s not just that the minnows are fast and slippery, it’s that you’re pushing them out of the way by disturbing the water, too. And that’s exactly what happens as Dagon’s huge, scaly paw plunges into the ocean ten feet from me; the water surges at the point of impact, and carries me with it. Luckily, it pushes me toward the shore instead of farther away.

I make another ten yards or so before my head breaks the surface. I don’t bother looking behind me, just take a quick gulp of oxygen and dive back under, this time striking off to my left, parallel to the shore.

Sure enough, that massive mitt smacks into the water right about where I’d be if I’d gone straight. I ride the surge again, swimming with it, and then curve back toward the shore.

This time when I come up I’m beneath the remains of a rotting dock. I get behind a piling as quietly as I can, and peek out.

Dagon’s looking around at the water like a kid hunting frogs in a pond. I’m glad he doesn’t have a net on a pole—these godly types are good at the grandiose stuff, but it’s always the fine details that bog them down. He didn’t even bring a bucket to put me in.

I paddle backward slowly until I can feel rocks under my feet. Then I very carefully creep out of the water, keeping to the cover of the rotting dock. With any luck I can get enough distance from the shore to be safe—something tells me Dagon won’t stray too far from an aquatic environment.