The Mysteries of Holly Diem (Unknown Kadath Estates Book 2) (30 page)

“Then don’t let it be a waste. Sumire was the one who
actually saved you, right? I think you are safe putting faith in her. She’s a
hero, right?”

Dunwich watched us from the end of Kim’s spare kitchen
table. If he had thoughts, he kept them to himself.

“I wouldn’t have expected to hear that from you.”

“Me either, Kim. Guess I’m in a weird mood.”

She nodded and started to clean her tools.

“We are done. You can dress.”

“Okay.” I pulled my shirt back on carefully over the stitches.
“Thanks for the help.”

She nodded. She didn’t say anything else, until my
hand was on the doorknob.

“Whatever happens,” she said quietly, her voice
strangled with forced passivity, “I won’t be here. When you get back. I’ll be
gone, from the Estates, forever.”

I just stood there, eyes on the door, too tired for
machinations.

“Why?”

“It’s ruined either way, isn’t it? I don’t want to
stay and see the ending, Preston. I’ve seen enough to know that it will be
ugly. You are taking Sumire and Yael with you, aren’t you?”

“No choice.” I lied. “Even if I ditched them, they
know where I’m going. You know I can’t talk them out of it.”

She sighed again.

“You’re awful.”

“Maybe. I’m surprised you would run away, though,
Kim.” The words hurt her, as I intended. “If you’re worried about Sumire, then
why would you leave before you know she’s safe? And what about April, for that
matter?”

“You ruined April a long time ago,” Kim said, shaking
her head to negate I don’t know what. “And I’m not worried about Sumire’s
safety – she’s invulnerable.”

“Listen, this is insanity. She got her arm cut off…”

“She’s fine,” Kim said brusquely. “I’m worried about
the road Sumire will go down. Holly, or April, or you – it doesn’t matter. None
of you have good intentions.”

“Then stay here, and be a good influence.”

“I’m not harboring those sorts of delusions,” Kim
said, sniffling. “Frankly, I’m tired of stitching all of you back together.”

“Is this about the Toad attack? Because that was a
fluke, a one-time occurrence…”

“Really? You’re sure?”

It would have been a good time for a lie.
Unfortunately, somehow, I found myself lacking one.

“No. I guess not.”

“It wouldn’t make a difference, even if you were,” Kim
said tersely. “I see people where the rest of you see tools. I don’t want to
see them broken – and I don’t think I want to see you achieve whatever you came
here to do, Preston. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“Should I hope for April?”

I consider it.

“Not really.”

“Oh.” Her eyes remained stubbornly dry. “I see.”

“Where will you go?”

“Away from here. From this city.”

“Is that even possible?”

Kim did not respond. I left as quietly as possible.

***

Yael closeted herself with Professor Dawes in his apartment that
afternoon, laboring over crucible and parchment, while Sumire ran errands, and I
drank instant coffee and ate aspirin until my ears rang. Sumire returned a few
hours later, dropping off what looked like links of chain with Yael and Dawes,
and then disappeared again promptly. We didn’t talk on the train ride to
Innsmouth.

It was raining when we arrived at the station, but the
rain tapered off as we approached the crumbling docks. The smell of the sea was
pervasive, the crashing of waves on the nearby shore a steady percussion. The
swollen moon appeared close enough to graze the rotting warehouses and
workshops that lined the narrow streets. Creeping along in the shadows or along
the fences and gutters of the ancient canneries and fishmongers, the Cats of
Ulthar followed us – a grim and silent presence at our heels, ever since
Snowball accepted Lovecraft’s wrapped body at the gates of the Kadath Estates.
I didn’t know what help they might be – what help anything could be, given the
circumstances – but I felt better with company.

We followed the same path along the sandy alleys as we
had in our first visit, Dunwich taking the lead with Yael close behind, masked
clamped over her head. Sumire followed boldly, inviting confrontation, a large
canvas bag stuck clumsily beneath her arm, and Professor Dawes and I slunk
after. The cats were silent as ghosts at our heels. We all had our reasons.

The beach at the end of the road shone like marble in
the moonlight. The waves were thick with bioluminescent algae, the shore strewn
with a wealth of seashells and sea glass. The charcoal remains of Madeleine’s
ruined lair were strewn with roses and orchids, sage and yarrow, kelp, and
abalone shell. The door leading to the Tidal Chamber and the submerged caverns beyond
were buried beneath an enormous pile of heaped coral and stone, suffocated under
tons of dripping rock.

Elijah Pickman waited at the end of the road, beside
the last of the weather-beaten buildings, illuminated by a gas lantern hung on
a nearby piling. He had loosened the Pallid Mask slightly, so that it hung
grotesquely from his absent face. His shadow stretched across the building wall,
flexing and bowing without any corresponding movement on his part.

“My great-grandaunt and great-grandmother send their
apologies,” he said merrily, his voice emerging from the shadow. “I am afraid
you won’t be able to see them this evening.”

The smile that crossed his face did not belong to
Elijah Pickman. That expression belonged to the Pallid Mask, and it was foul.

His shadow split from him and crept toward us like a
living thing. The stars dimmed and the surrounding buildings receded, but the
moon was bright and sickly in the pitch sky. I remembered this darkness, or
another like it, from the incident in the subway station two years earlier. An incident
that had not necessarily happened.

“Sumire.” Yael’s lenses were two brilliant reflections
of the swollen moon. “The etchings.”

She nodded and then tore open the canvas bag with her
mechanical arm, sending a dozen hatefully rendered etchings onto the wet
roadway, where the rain and mud immediately began to muck them up. The shadow
quailed and pooled, shimmering with anxiety. Elijah cried out like a sleeping
child in the grip of a nightmare.

“Sorry,” Sumire said, sheepishly laughing, and rubbing
the back of her head. “Still getting used to my new arm. Guess I don’t know my
own strength, huh?”

Elijah took a halting step toward the etchings, his
shadow quavering at a distance.

“Are…are those…?”

“Yes, Elijah. I’m afraid so,” Yael explained solemnly,
while Sumire hurried to gather the fallen canvases. “Those are the etchings you
produced for the King in Yellow, to provide it with passage. Madeleine must
have given you the particulars, right? I’m so disappointed in you, Elijah. You are
such a gifted artist. What a waste of talent, simply to acquire a bauble like
the Pallid Mask. You could have accomplished so much more.”

“Give them to me!” Elijah snarled, while his shadow rushed
toward us like the incoming tide. “Those are mine!”

Yael scattered a handful of papers onto the wet
asphalt, directly in the path of Elijah’s liberated shadow. The surge of
animate darkness collided with the discarded paper, and then recoiled like a rebounding
bowstring.

“I hate to litter,” Yael explained, striding forward
confidentially, papers blowing from open hands in all directions. “You’ve
driven me to it, though, Elijah.”

“What folly is this?” Elijah hollered. The Pallid Mask
slipped slightly to expose the absence it concealed. “You think I can be
contained with the Yellow Sign?”

I caught one of the fluttering pages and glanced at
the intricate symbol traced on it.  April had drawn the same symbol across her
skin before her earlier confrontation with Elijah. Sumire gathered the
etchings, placing them in a pile in front of the Professor, who was busy
fumbling through his book bag.

“No, I don’t image the Yellow Sign will be enough to
confine you,” Yael confirmed, allowing the remainder of the papers to scatter
as she approached Elijah. His shadow had retreated completely, looming
massively above Yael on the wall behind him, a black wave contemplating the
shore. “It should be enough to impede, however. Go ahead, Professor.”

“Right,” he said, producing a bottle of starting fluid
and spraying it liberally on the collected etches. “Sorry about this, Elijah,
but you’ve left us no other option.”

“No!” Elijah’s voice seemed to come from everywhere,
while he fell to his knees, trembling as if in terrible pain. “Stop that this
instant!”

His shadow threaded a careful path between the pages
Yael scattered on the street, moving with tremendous speed, screaming toward
Dawes like a heat-seeking missile. There was a barb forming at the business end
of the shadow, glistening wetly from a thousand different impossible facets.

Sumire stepped confidentially into the shadow’s path, driving
her mechanical arm into the asphalt up to the wrist. The Dhole bone fingers gleamed
and the polished metal wiring sang with heat and pressure. Elijah’s shadow
cried out and recoiled like a child burning their hand on the oven.

“Not bad,” Sumire said, admiring her artificial limb.
“Fight fire with fire, right?”

“Sumire’s arm is also an artifact of the Outer Dark,
now, Elijah,” Yael reminded him, collecting a handful of forged spikes from the
satchel on her belt. “That’s something you did.”

Professor Dawes took a book of matches from his bag. I
shielded them from the drizzle, because it’s embarrassing just to stand around
while everyone is saving the day.

“I really hate to do this,” he muttered, struggling to
get one to strike. “Barbaric thing, burning art.”

“Not this art,” I said, trying not to look at the grotesque
etchings. “Trust me.”

Elijah cried out again, and the moon seemed to groan
in sympathy. His shadow was as dark as ink on a white page, and it roared
across the ground, swallowing Yael’s wards like candy, looming above Sumire, ominous
as a thunderhead. She laughed and launched herself at the shadow like a
Hollywood boxer, throwing haymakers with no regard for form or personal safety.

The darkness obscured Sumire from my view. I heard the
sound of metal under tremendous strain, and smelled volatized motor oil. The
opposite of lightening; a brief and energetic darkness, which unsettled the
night and shredded the sky.

The shadow broke like the skin of a pricked balloon.
Elijah wailed pitifully. Yael leapt on his shadow as it retreated, driving a
metal spike into one corner of the shadow. The darkness rippled around the
spike like impaled cloth.

Professor Dawes finally got a match to light, and
after a final moment of hesitation, tossed it on the pile of etchings, which
immediately burst into flame. Elijah writhed and struggled, while Yael sprinted
around, driving in a second spike into the periphery of his shadow.

The shadow raged and tore at its restraints, but
Sumire drove it back at every turn. I sprayed extra fluid on the small bonfire
as the etching blackened. It took Yael three more spikes to finish the job.

We gathered around what used to be Elijah.

The Pallid Mask offered us a ghastly smile from a
puddle of shadow, roughly the shape of Elijah Pickman, pinned to the ground
like a butterfly on display.

“Is this how it was supposed to work? I don’t remember
this in the plan. Is this the plan?”

“Quiet down, Preston,” Sumire advised, rubbing my
shoulders supportively. “You seem cooler when you don’t talk.”

Point taken.

The cats emerged cautiously from the shadow, scouts
first. Snowball followed shortly, escorted by a larger guard than usual. The
cats seemed worked up, hackles raised and teeth bared.

Snowball approached Yael, stopping just short and
making a show of yawning.

“Will you be able to hold the line while we are
inside, Lord Snowball?” Yael crouched in front of the great mangy white cat, a
hand on his front paw. “We will need to leave in a hurry, if all of this
works…”