The Dark Rites of Cthulhu (10 page)

Do you wissssh an esssscape from thissss?

“Yes, yes!” he shouted over the din of the murder.

Then witnessss what awaitssss your kind, until your mind can take no more and sssseekssss the comfort of oblivion. Behold, my gift to you.

Images then slammed into his brain so fast and strange that Dennis couldn’t make sense of them, but even in half realized mental glimpses, they burned. Undulating masses twisting in the lightless reaches of space, an abandoned city both alien and coldly beautiful choked in yellow mist by a still lake with something monstrous just below the surface, another city beneath the waves wreathed in shadow, madness, and death, barrel-shaped monstrosities playing with the primordial ooze they found and not only accidently creating life, but the things that would one day consume it.

There was more, so much more, but as the Black Flyer had said, the rest Dennis lost to sweet oblivion as he slipped away into unconsciousness. 

Dennis awoke with a start and a scream. His sudden movement stirred up the crow feathers that lay all around and on him, and seeing them flutter caused him to scream again.

He looked about the room, there were hundreds of black feathers, two scattered circles of red sand,
gleaming shards of glass from the broken window, but not a single drop of blood, nor any other trace of Radu save for a pile of shredded clothing in a heap by the bed.

Dennis stood on stiff legs and limped over to the pile of torn garments. Bending, knees popping, he riffled through the torn and blood-free cloths until he found the key attached to the plastic tag with
Sunshine Harvest Motel
pressed into it.

Straightening up, he looked at the ancient papyrus scroll that lay where it had fallen, and then to the green covered
Cultus Maleficarum
on the bed next to Radu’s – or was that Grigory’s – suitcase.

Dennis looked at the old book with its terrible, wonderful secrets and thought long and hard about the possibilities it offered.

Then the image of the Harbinger of Hermes peeling away the old wizard’s face from his skull like a rubber Halloween mask flooded Dennis’ mind. He shook his head back and forth to clear it, and when the phantasm had left him, he was looking down by his left shoe where something round and blue stared up at him.

Radu’s glass eye, like his torn clothes, was all that was left of the man.

“Fuck that,” Dennis whispered and turned to unlock the door.

Once back in his own room he grabbed his suitcase, which he never even unpacked last n
ight, and left for the lobby. 

Out by the registration desk, Jim was still wearing the cowboy costume, minus the cheap felt hat, and was talking to an older, heavyset man, probably his dayshift replacement.

“Hey, Amazing Kraygen, happy day after Halloween. Getting an early start on things?” Jim smiled a weary ‘I haven’t been to bed yet’ smile.

“Yes, and it’s just Dennis, not Kraygen. By the way, can you tell me whether anything…weird happened last night?”

Jim and the other man exchanged looks and then the younger one answered. “Nope.  Nothing out of the ordinary. Why, you hear something last night?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Uhm, buddy, you got something…” The older man said and pointed to Dennis’ head.

Dennis reached up and plucked a long black feather out of his hair. 

“So, you off to do some more magic then, Dennis?” Jim asked, picking up the checkout paperwork.

Dennis thought for a second. “No. I think I’m going to go back home to Michigan and pick up accounting again. It’s a lot safer.”

He signed the papers, handed back his room key, and walked out into the sun-bathed, early morning parking lot toward his dependable old Ford. His little inner voice piped up,
You know, this is a good idea. Accounting is good, dependable, well-paying work. Why I bet if you went home and contacted the old firm they’d be happy to hire you back. Oh and you could look up Lisa, you know she always had a thing for you…
  On and on the little voice went, and this time Dennis agreed with everything it had to say.

The Grey Rite of A
zathoth

By Robert M. Price

I write in great haste. I must needs set down my recent experience while I am able, for I do already feel the memory fading and failing, as a dream flees with the dawn, as I was told. While no man is entitled to expunge from his memory any knowledge, even if it be possible, I confess I shall not mourn the flight of that recollection which I am presently to lose. And yet the knowledge may someday prove of value, even of great necessity, for the good of mankind. I shall not consult this account again, but shall lock it away for any who come after, whoever they may be, as Providence shall decree.

My name, John Checkley, will likely be familiar to you. Upon my arrival in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, subsequent to certain much-noised difficulties in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, I waxed curious concerning a notorious resident whose acquaintance I could not make in my new congregation of King’s Church, as he frequented the Congregational Church instead. The man’s name was Joseph Curwen. By all accounts, Mr. Curwen, a prosperous but secretive merchant prince, was the possessor of a keen intellect and of numerous esoteric scholarly interests. I ventured to call upon him and was welcomed quite cordially, contrary to all I had been told of his supposed reclusivity. I was relieved to find him wholly congenial as a host and convivial as a companion. I soon learned how much we had in common, as we had each traveled extensively through the capitols of Europe, sampling liberally the rich opportunities there afforded to the seeker after knowledge of the unseen realms. I, of course, sought an education in the field of theology, of which I made ample use in my later controversies with the Calvinists of Puritan Massachusetts. Curwen’s quest inclined him to more arcane pursuits of a medieval character. I should not hesitate to brand the speculations implicit in his cryptical hints as heresy, but I have long championed sectarian tolerance, and if Joseph Curwen could be persecuted for unorthodox beliefs, so could the Quakers and the Baptists, a thing I decried in print. I now know, to my chagrin, that even enlightened tolerance must draw boundaries.

Joseph Curwen’s manner of conversation produced in me strangely mixed sensations of expectancy and of apprehension. There was no guessing what he might say next. One was eager and yet frightened to receive the next revelations, mercifully cloaked in ambiguity as they might be. But things were about to become altogether too perspicuous.

“Dr. Checkley, I am of course familiar with your theological polemics and with the courage which moves you to advance them against those less amicable than yourself. I should like both to reward and to test that courage. Indeed, I have reserved to you a great privilege accorded to no divine in the history of Christendom.”

I confess that the grandiose character of this utterance at once took me aback. In truth, Curwen’s words were so extreme as to compel their hearer to question their speaker’s sanity. And he had not even got to the hinted disclosure. I replied, “Mr. Curwen, whatever you intend, I am sure there are many who are more deserving than I. I would only puff myself up with vain pride should I accept the favor with which you tempt me.”

“So you compare yourself to our Saviour and me to his diabolical tempter.”

He had taken me by surprise, and I knew myself for a woodland creature caught in a trap. There was naught for it but to laugh and to let my host proceed.

“I dare say, Mr. Checkley, that, as a clergyman in the Church of England, you are a believer in the resurrection of Jesus Christ; am I correct in that opinion?”

“Of course you are, sir. And what of it?”

“Then I fear a grave duty has fallen to me. I must inform you of the error of your sincere belief.”

As Curwen himself had already mentioned, I was no stranger to polemic and debate on religious subjects. I had met more than one Deist in public debate as well as in pamphlet wars. Their futile arguments aimed at refuting the resurrection of our Lord did not shake my faith in the least degree. I did not fear aught that Curwen, now seemingly revealed as an infidel, might propose. I braced myself to engage in the tiresome rhetorical motions entailed in these exchanges. But I quickly found that such was not after all what my host had in mind. He continued.

“Do you think me a religious skeptic? A denier of all things supernatural desirous of winning you to my opinions? Let me assure you: that is antipodal to the truth. In truth, I aim to confirm your faith, that and more! For in truth, Jesus
the son of Joseph did not return from his death sixteen centuries agone. But rise he will. Today. And it shall be done by your own word.”

I glanced over in the direction of the door by which I had entered. My one thought was now to take my leave with as little offense and mutual embarrassment as possible. It had become inescapably clear that Joseph Curwen was beside himself. What he might be planning next I could not guess, but I did not fear violence. Nothing in his manner, his words, or his movements suggested such. But I had no desire to be the audience of a sad spectacle of pathetic madness such as now seemed likely to commence.

Wordlessly beckoning me with a wave of the hand, Curwen strode into an adjacent room. It would now be a simple matter for me to head for the opposite door. Yet to do so would be unconscionably rude, as foolish as this may seem. Besides, my curiosity had gotten the better of me. I could not resist the lure of whatever charade he might have in mind. So, yes, I rose and followed him. The trail led through several small rooms and down a twisting flight of crudely hewn steps. My apprehension was growing as I realized that, the deeper we descended, the more difficult it would be to escape should there prove to be aught from which to escape. Perhaps we all have a dangerous dose of Faust inside us; I only hoped, in vain, as it would prove, that Joseph Curwen did not possess rather too much of it.

At length we arrived at what looked like a workroom, a makeshift laboratory of some sort. The nitrous walls were lined with rough shelves laden with ancient-looking jars and flasks. There were two or three tall posts upholding beams designed to brace the stone walls, somewhat reminiscent of the walls of a coal mine, and these featured a series of pegs and hooks from which depended various kettles, tools, and pitchers. Most of the jars bore labels emblazoned with numbers, Hebrew characters, or zodiacal symbols. All were crowned with metal stoppers. Curwen reached for one of these and emptied out its contents upon the stained and splintered table surface. The stuff was a very fine dust, none of it clumping together but instead resembling fine sand. Curwen commenced to explain.

“As is commonly rumoured, I have engaged and, in fact, still engage in a clandestine traffic in, shall we say, archaeological specimens… for my private collection, as you might say. I have learned that one stands to learn far more of the vanished past if one bypasses the stone monuments, which conceal as much as they reveal, and instead seek the wisdom of the ancients from the ancients themselves.”

“You mean,” I countered, “from their writings. Have you then made important manuscript discoveries?” He must have suspected, as I suppose I did, that I was offering him a sane and reasonable alternative, hoping to fend off some terrible truth he seemed on the point of revealing.

He paused and smiled in a way I cannot say I liked. “In truth, Dr. Checkley, I have. You might find several of them to be of deep interest. But that is not what I mean. I mean the ancients themselves. It is quite possible, you know. Does not scripture say that the Witch of En-Dor invoked the shade of the prophet Samuel to converse with King Saul?”

“Indeed it does, Mr. Curwen, but that episode is hardly meant as an example for us to follow! It is properly called Necromancy, and people have been put to death on account of it, as I am sure you know from your experiences in Salem.”

“Of course I do, my friend. But you, yourself, abandoned the Puritan kingdom because of its rulers’ intolerance of heterodoxy. Are you still so fair-minded?” He had me.

“I hope that I am. Proceed, then. What have you in store for me?”

“As I say, the rarest of treats! What God the Father would not or could not do, you shall do, here and now. Another voice from of old set me upon the trail of perhaps the greatest discovery of its kind: the very remains, such as they are, of the Nazarene Jesus. They are my newest acquisition, and I mean to give you the honor of initiating… the process. It is surprisingly simple. Now if you would just read the words written on this slip.”