The Mysteries of Holly Diem (Unknown Kadath Estates Book 2) (20 page)

“What the fuck does that mean?”

That sound again. It must have been
laughter.

“Your client is that king you
mentioned? The yellow one?”

“Our firm works on retainer, for a
variety of clients. In this matter, our client prefers to remain…”

“There you go.” I wasn’t sure, but
you play the ball where it lies, as long as someone’s watching. “Interesting.”

The look they exchanged made me think
my assumption was mistaken, but that could have been their intent.

“Our time is short, Mr. Tauschen,”
Mr. Sothoth said, examining a pocket watch taken from an interior pocket, his
hand crowded with at least six fingers. “We must have an answer.”

“You never answered my question. What
do you want her for? C’mon, Sothoth. At least give me a clue. Fuck, Marry or
Kill?”

“Yes.” Mr. Yog nodded, pushing the
parchment across the desk. “At least.”

“Our intentions, Mr. Tauschen,” Mr.
Sothoth said, nodding for me to take the parchment, “are irrelevant. However…”

The parchment was incised with what
at first seemed to be an immensely complicated version of one of April’s
characters. The letters were carved deep in the fiber, and the paper around the
lines was scorched and withered. April’s designs were spare and evocative, though,
whereas this was baroque and malevolent. Just looking at it filled my mouth
with the taste of rotten fruit.

Mr. Yog said something – just a few
words – in a language that turned my stomach upside down and filled my head
with such loathing that I wanted to be rid of it.

The parchment rippled in my hands as
if it radiated tremendous heat. The lines of the characters blurred and then
resolved. Things became entirely too clear.

“Our client, and their intentions,”
Mr. Sothoth buzzed. “Do you understand?”

Every bad thing I ever experienced,
every outrage I had committed, even the horrors of the Experimental Wards at
the Institute faded by comparison to what I saw burned into the parchment. No
art nor pornography could have been so graphic and sickening, so dedicated to
perversity. The thing depicted – I had to assume that was the “client” – could
not exist in a universe that contained a shred of kindness or decency. It was
not alive, nor could anything like it have been born into the world. The scene
depicted was hideous and cruel, and it broke something inside of me. I felt as
if a liter of diesel had been poured into my skull and then left to congeal.

There was only one living thing in
the vision, a survivor of the crude and savage genocide implied in the hideous
background. It was a girl, and it was very clear that she was not fortunate.

I’m not sure exactly when I realized
that, rather than depicting Yael – as I had assumed – the girl was someone else
entirely.

April.

“Our client is insatiable,” Mr.
Sothoth explained, tapping one of his many-jointed fingers on the parchment. “Its
appetites are broad. Should you choose not to assist us with acquiring Yael
Kaufman, we will instead turn to your companion, April Ersten, for assistance.
Do you understand, Mr. Tauschen?”

I understood, though I was too entranced
by the awful parchment to respond.

“Our agents will be in touch in good time,
Mr. Tauschen,” Mr. Sothoth buzzed. “Do sleep well.”

***

Yael’s face was creased with concern, her thin fingers on my wrist, checking
for a pulse.

She really was a
nice
girl.

I pretended to rally slowly, so as not to startle her.
She relaxed when I started to move.

“It’s stressful, knowing you, Preston.”

“I know. Sorry about that.”

“Are you okay? You look as if you’ve been lying here
in the hallway for hours.”

She was right, of course, but I didn’t notice until
that moment. Then the cold concrete and the various matching aches and pains
spread liberally throughout my body made the whole affair explicit.

“Seems that way.”

Yael’s nose wrinkled and her gaze was coldly
analytical.   

“Dunwich said something about visiting the Night
Market. Were you drinking there, or something?”

Something about the disapproval in her voice struck me
as hilarious. Yael made it clear she did not appreciate my reaction.

“Sorry. No. Yesterday was a long day.”

She frowned and studied me closely. Yael was trying to
decide whether to tell me something, I realized, gauging my trustworthiness. It
must be bad, I figured, if she was willing to consider it at all.

“I heard.”

“What? How?”

“Dunwich told me.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“He also told me you were laying out here. Six hours
ago.”

“You left me here all night?”

“I tried to get you to go to bed. You wouldn’t wake
up,” Yael explained, looking as if she regretted it. “I couldn’t move you by
myself.”

“Huh.”

“Yes.”

I decided to verify something.

“You know,” I muttered, with a stretch and a yawn, “I
had the strangest dream…”

Her eyes narrowed.

“…about lawyers.”

I was talking to a statue with horrified eyes. I
pretended not to notice.

“They had a really weird name…
Yog & Sothoth
,
as I recall.”

Yael flinched as if I had flung something in her
direction. Her response fell apart before she articulated a single word.

“What an odd dream,” I observed glibly, cracking my
back and contemplating the act of standing. “The funniest thing, you know…”

Her eyebrows went up, and she made an ambiguous noise.

“…they asked about you.”

It was like watching a balloon deflate. I have no idea
whether it was relief or confirmation of fears.

“Are you okay, Yael?”

She nodded absently, and then offered her hand to help
me to my feet. Her fingers were narrow and warm and felt as if they might
fracture if I gripped them too hard. She was slight, so I had to do most of the
work. I felt as if someone had replaced my brain with a kilo of broken glass, and
I had a new chip in one of my front teeth that I couldn’t leave alone, but the
important stuff seemed intact. I didn’t even feel that sick or feverish – just
a week or so behind on sleep.

“Are
you
okay, Preston?”

I offered a distracted nod.

“I’ll make it, one way, or another. I’m a survivor.”

Yael nodded seriously.

“I can see that. Dunwich informed me of what
transpired, in a general sense. You must understand – what seems important to
us is not important to the cats, and it goes against their nature to share
secrets, even with allies. At best, I heard a general outline of events. Yesterday
seems to have been replete with opportunities for you to betray me, Preston.”
Her expression was calm now, her voice steady and confident. Whatever anxiety
had seized her, she reconciled herself to it with enviable efficiency. “Did you
avail yourself of any of them?”

“Sometimes you talk like one of those lawyers, girl.”
I ran my hand through my greasy hair. “Look, I gotta go check on April. It’s
been hours. Maybe a shower and something to eat, and then we can…”

I tried to slip quickly by her, toward my door. Yael
was having none of it. She halted me with a pair of fingers gently pressed
against my sternum.

“April is fine. She and Sumire are asleep, and Dunwich
is watching over them. Answer the question, please.”

“You are a tough cookie, aren’t you?” I pushed her
hand away gently. “I don’t know what happened on your end at all, you realize.
If we are going to work together, we need to have equal standing.”

“If there is to be any cooperation between us, then I
need to know that I can trust you.”

“I could say the same about you, Yael.”

“Could you?” The look in her eyes was Artic Circle
frigid. The question was not rhetorical. “Do you truly doubt me?”

I’m a convincing liar, but I am no magician.

“No,” I admitted, with a shake of my head. “Not at all.”

“I will tell you everything that happened while you
were gone,” Yael promised, as if it cost her nothing. “I think I need to do that,
actually. I need to know which side you are on, first, though.”

“Side? I lost track of all my options.”

“There are only two choices, Preston.” Yael had a look
of regret on her face, as if spoiling a child’s illusion. “With, or against.”

Her tremendous aplomb, the graceful and principled
opposition she offered up with the kind of guileless sincerity of a children’s
story – I had an inkling why Jenny Frost turned into a tongue-tied mess around
her, why the Outer Dark was covetous. Yael made everything simple – because, in
her eyes, it was – and the universe apparently lacked the will to contradict
her.

If I had known the location of a sword embedded in
stone, or a lost magical ring, I would have taken Yael there directly.

“Having seen the alternatives, it would be insane
not
to be on your side, Yael.”

“You have your own circumstances to consider.” Yael
spoke softly, not really looking in my direction. Her arms curled around
herself, in an unconscious hug. “My enemies, as you are now aware, are numerous
and powerful. They would be willing to solve all sorts of problems for you. We
hardly know each other, after all.”

“That’s the part that confuses me, I guess. Why do
they need my help, if they are so terrifying? Why not just snap you up and be
done with it?”

“They tried that, actually,” Yael answered, with a
modestly downcast expression. “It didn’t work out, because of...circumstances.”

“Circumstances?”

She just nodded.

I glanced at the sun, struggling pitifully to make an
impression through a blanket of wet clouds. I would have to make a decision
soon – but not quite yet. Yael and I still had a little time, for whatever it
was worth.

“If I believed I could collect, I’d sell you out in a
second, Yael. Consequences be damned.” I was too tired to pretty it up, but she
took it well. “I don’t trust your enemies enough to make a deal, and I think
it’s in my best interests to stay on your good side.” I actually meant
April’s
best interests, but that’s best unsaid. “I didn’t betray you, to Madeleine Diem,
or Mr. Yog and Mr. Sothoth.”

To her credit, she didn’t need to stare deeply into my
eyes or perform some sort of half-assed interrogation. She just gave me an
approving nod, a wan smile, and stepped out of my way.

“Take your shower, Preston, but do not linger,” she said,
her voice hushed. “There is something I need to show you.”

An archive of small wonders and mysteries. Collecting the
secret names of flowers and the dead, transient as the clouds that drift in
from the cold waters of the ocean. Arachnid patience and black marble eyes,
weighted with ancestral memory.      

The train rattled like the ball bearing in a can of spray paint. The back
of my shirt was wet with sweat before we went three stops. The air in the cars
tasted stale and metallic, and the lights flickered intermittently in the
tunnels.

“Innsmouth, huh?”

“Yes.”

“You never told me what happened down here, while I
was chasing my tail in Iram.”

“Yes. At the time it didn’t seem prudent,” Yael said,
looking guilty over the omission. “I had to make sure you weren’t orchestrating
events.”

“I’m not the type, I swear.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” she said, with a
brief smile. “Madeleine Diem made it altogether clear that you had nothing to
do with this – and if it means anything, I apologize for suspecting you.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“Whatever suspicion you were operating on, you were
right. It was probably smart, getting Josh to find the address,” Yael
continued, glancing over at the subway map and counting stops. “I don’t think
Holly or Madeleine expected anyone to come check on Madeleine’s former home.”

“I don’t understand why,” I complained, resting my
head against the window. “Sure, Holly didn’t tell us about it, but we would
have turned that info up eventually. Wouldn’t anyone have gone looking for
answers there, once they knew it existed?”

“No.” Yael shook her head. “Sometimes I think Josh
doesn’t like you very much, Preston.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Josh gave you an address, but that’s it. He could
have given you a few helpful pieces of information, had he been so inclined.
They would have been obvious to anyone reviewing newspaper clippings, and
obviously relevant.”

That goddamn vulture. I resolved to strangle the ghoul
at the first opportunity.

“What didn’t he tell me?”

“You’ll see,” Yael said, clearly enjoying herself.
“Don’t worry.”

I wasn’t worried. I was annoyed, but I didn’t share
that. Yael had come around to my side – at least as far as the attack on Sumire
went – so I didn’t want to antagonize her with my impatience.

We pulled into the last stop in Sarnath. There were
only two stations that served Innsmouth, and I suspected we would use the
latter, as it was closer to the water. Public transportation omitted some
neighborhoods in the Nameless City, and the waterfront was perhaps most notable
among those omissions.

The car mostly cleared out. As we rolled out of the
station, I decided to change the subject.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” I said, smiling
pleasantly. “Where did someone like you have the misfortune to encounter Jenny
Frost?”

“Why does everyone always ask that?” Yael sighed. “In
the Waste, naturally.”

“The Waste?”

“Yes. The enormous wasteland that surrounds the
Nameless City.” Yael toyed absently with vinyl mascots April had attached to
her umbrella strap. “You must have come through it on your way here.”

“I suppose,” I said, scratching the stubble on my
chin. “I don’t remember much, though. Mountains, I think, and after that,
desert. A train, maybe? That’s about it.”

“There isn’t much more to it. There are ruins, but
most of them are poisoned and radioactive. There are a few trading posts, some
lizards, and more bandits that I expected. That’s really about it.”

“And that’s where you met Jenny?”

“That’s it.”

“How’d that happen?”

“We encountered the same group of scavengers, and
dealt with them together. I thought I would be safer in her company…”

“Probably not.”

“…and she had been wandering aimlessly for some time,
and required a guide. We shared the same destination, so it just made sense.”

The way she described it, it almost did. Assuming you
knew nothing at all about Jenny Frost.

“That must have been an experience.”

She nodded, eyes far away.

“I don’t want to put this the wrong way,” I said,
choosing my words carefully, “but, have you noticed that Jenny is an
exceptionally dangerous person?”

“I have.”

“And?”

“I’m not sure what you are getting at.”

“You seem like a nice person, Yael,” I admitted,
exasperated. “You also seem to be friends with the worst person I know.”

Yael folded her arms and turned her attention to the
darkness outside the window.

“You don’t know Jenny Frost,” Yael said, speaking
quietly, so that I strained to hear her over the clamor of the train. “You have
no idea.”

***

“It was like this…”

“…the first time I came here. Yes.”

The rain beat on Yael’s umbrella. There was enough
room to fit me maybe halfway underneath.

“Well, sh…shoot.”

There were fragments of three of the walls, but the
front of the building had been consumed completely in the fire that reduced the
vast majority of the structure to ashes. The tremendous heat of the conflagration
had scorched houses half a block distant, and killed trees across the street.
It had happened decades ago, but the ash remained piled against the
heat-scarred remnants, as if neither wind nor rain could wash the site clean.

There wasn’t enough left to guess at what it might
have been, aside from a home to Madeleine Diem. Located at the end of a street
adjacent to the water, the building had extensive grounds, which likely spared
the adjoining warehouses and commercial property from the flames. The sea was
quiet today, but the wind carried cold and salt.

There should have been gulls crying.

“I’m thinking arson.”

“Arson for sure.”

“Huh.”

“Records say it was a temple.”

“What kind?”

“Didn’t say.”

“Who do you think torched it?”

“Holly or Madeleine.”

“I’m getting tired of hearing that particular answer.”

“Me too.”

“You wanna go in?”

“Sure,” she said, pulling on her mask. “Let Dunwich go
ahead. We have no idea if the flooring is still intact.”

The cat padded across the ash, staining his paws. The
rain pelted his coat and assaulted the umbrella. He sniffed at the scorched
timbers, then trotted nimbly across, tail waving proudly. We watched him
meander through the ruins, until he shot Yael a look.

“Come on,” she said, closing her umbrella. “It’s safe
enough.”

I had to take her word for it. The floorboards were
badly damaged by the fire, and in places, I could see down to the unfinished
floor of the basement. The waterlogged wood bowed alarmingly beneath my feet,
and had to fight the urge to try and rush across. Fortunately, the further
reaches of the floor seemed somewhat more intact.

The fire must have been extraordinarily hot. Little
remained inside but melted scraps of metal and fragments of blackened brick,
along with copious amounts of waterlogged ash.

“Preston,” Yael said, calling me over to area by the
somewhat intact east wall. “You need to see this.”

I joined her. At Yael’s feet, there was a small
collection of singed bone fragments. They were thoroughly charred, indicating a
fire that burned long and hot. I squatted and sifted through the pile. The bone
was damaged and cracked from heat, but I still found identifiable ribs, femurs,
and portions of several different skulls.

“There were a few of them,” I guessed. “Four or five
people, maybe. And they were people-people – not fish-people.”

“The proper name is Servants of the Deep,” Yael
reminded me. “As for the bones, I thought as much.”

“I’m not sure I get the significance…”

“Let’s look around some more,” Yael said, striding away.
“You’ll figure it out.”

Despite her confidence, I found nothing but ash and a
few fragments of bone scattered about. Some of the bone was animal, but much of
it was very definitely not. Whatever story it was supposed to tell me, I
couldn’t hear it. I was ready to give up when Yael called me over to what would
have been roughly the center of the floor. She was examining a heavy wooden
trapdoor gravely.

“I didn’t notice this the last time I was here. We
didn’t have very long to look around, though.”

“Why not?”

She glanced at the alley that led to the water.

“Servants of the Deep. A bunch of them. Not five
minutes after we arrived.”

“What did you do?”

“Are you kidding? We did the same thing we’ll do if
they show up again – we ran.”

“Probably smart.”

Yael nudged the heavy metal ring that served as a
handle for the trapdoor.

“I did the lock already. You think you can pull this
open?”

I rolled up the sleeves of my jacket and rubbed my
hands together.

“Let me see.”

It was heavier than it looked, but I’m sort of a big
guy. I needed three tries, and a little help, but it opened.

We looked down at a stairway composed entirely of
coral, so rudimentary that it almost looked incidental. Yael clicked on her
flashlight, but all we could see were uneven stairs descending into moist
darkness.

“You first?” I suggested.

She nodded, and I let her and the cat go first. I’m
not proud.

I worried, given the proximity to the harbor, that the
tunnel would be subject to flooding, but found no signs of water, to my relief.
Drowning in the confined dark holds a particular dread that I was glad to skip.
The steps were uneven and composed of smooth material, so footing required
constant attention.

I couldn’t see much of our surroundings, other than
what was illuminated by the beam of Yael’s flashlight. We encountered a door
identical to those installed in Constance’s observatory, and I wondered how
long it had been since the sisters had last been able to share recommendations
on contractors. A pair of Servants of the Deep had been assigned to guard the
door, a task at which they had been thorough unsuccessful. A starved dog with a
blood-and-foam spattered muzzle paused in the action of removing a
fish-person’s face to grin at us, oily tongue lolling out between partially
rotted teeth.

Except there are no dogs in the Nameless City. One of
the ancient conditions that the Cats of Ulthar imposed, in return for their
patronage and mercy – according to Holly, anyway.

This was not a dog. This was Fenrir.

“Oh, no,” Yael sighed. “Jenny? Are you here?”

When I first met Jenny Frost, she was in the company
of the wolf like beast she called Fenrir. He wasn’t a pet, or a companion – but
then again, I’m not sure what he was to Jenny, or vice versa. They seem to
cooperate, at times, but I have also seen them apparently at odds. Jenny’s
treatment of Fenrir would seem cruel – she never feeds him, and frequently
abandons him for long periods of time – but Fenrir’s own malevolence defies
pity.

It seemed like Yael recognized him, too.

The ugly intelligence in Fenrir’s miserable
pink-rimmed eyes transfixed me. His stomach was engorged, swollen as if with
pregnancy, but Fenrir was emaciated, skin stretched tight over ribs and across
the spine. Lice crawled freely through his patchy coat, and the skin beneath was
blemished and coated with sores.

I took a cautious step to the side, never taking my
eyes off the thing in the shape of a dog.

Fenrir dropped the chunk of tissue he had been chewing
onto the ground, and shifted to accommodate my new position.

Another step. Fenrir was up on his feet now, tail
wagging lazily. Beady, mocking eyes.

A final step put my back against the wall. Fenrir
loped up three or four stairs, and then sat down between myself and the door
like an obedient dog expecting a treat. The scalpel was in my left hand,
concealed by the sleeve of my jacket, though I didn’t remember taking it from
my pocket. I shifted my weight to my front leg, considered my options. Fenrir
tracked my movements with ill-disguised amusement.

Yael tapped my shoulder, and I very nearly screamed.

“Preston,” she whispered, hand trembling. “Let me
try.”

I stepped back quickly, and the thing in the shape of
a dog laughed silently at our antics.

“Fenrir, I want you to listen to me.” Yael stepped
forward as she spoke, voice and stride mostly firm. I was impressed. “It’s
Yael, Jenny’s…well…”

Yael had her hands up at her shoulders, to show they
were empty. Fenrir watched with unblinking eyes.