Lovecraft Country

by Matt Ruff

  The potion was a concoction of Braithwhite’s, but the specific choice of container had been Montrose’s idea.

  “No volunteers?” Lancaster said. “Fine then, we’ll start with you, Braithwhite.”

  He put down his empty glass and tossed his cigar butt into the fire. Noble brought him a knife from the bar, then returned to stand by the door. The men of the Chicago lodge all fixed their eyes on Braithwhite; the atmosphere in the room grew charged. Atticus tensed, preparing for action. Only Caleb Braithwhite remained relaxed, or seemed to, until suddenly he leaned forward in his chair, stuck two fingers in his mouth, and let out a piercing horse whistle.

  As the whistle died away, Lancaster sat with his head cocked and the blade poised over his left palm. “What was that?” he said. “Calling for your magic pony?”

  A Coca-Cola bottle came flying down the chimney and shattered. The fire was instantly doused and white smoke jetted from the hearth. At the same moment, the clubhouse’s electricity went out.

  At the sound of Braithwhite’s whistle, Atticus had turned to face the door and committed everything he could see to memory. Now, though blinded by smoke and darkness, he knew exactly what combination of steps would get him out of the room.

  There was only one obstacle in his path, and it didn’t have immunity.

  As Hippolyta emerged from the powerhouse she had the wind knocked out of her. For one brief, confused moment she thought she’d just run down the stairs too fast, but then the second punch landed on the side of her head and she realized she was in trouble.

  She fell on her side in the snow and tried to reach for the pistol in her pocket, but Detective Burke grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm up and got the gun first. He kicked her in the ribs, flipping her onto her back, and stood watching while she writhed and tried to catch her breath.

  “Well, well, Orithyia Blue,” Burke said. “What are you doing here?” He gave her another jab with the tip of his boot. “Who else is with you, huh? George around here somewhere? You didn’t bring Horace, did you?” He smiled at her reaction to her son’s name. “No, I guess not—you probably left him with a babysitter tonight. Don’t worry, though, I’m going to go check up on him after we’re done here.”

  Time doubled back to Solstice Night in Wisconsin, Hippolyta hearing again that funny double pop as the two dark coats collided with each other. Burke’s smile grew puzzled and he turned towards the open doorway of the powerhouse, even as Hillary stepped up and shot him a third time at close range. Then Burke was on the ground and Hillary was standing over him, gooseflesh breaking out on the freckled skin of her arms.

  “You all right?” she asked Hippolyta.

  Hippolyta, still short of breath, stared in mute fascination at Hillary’s bare wrists.

  “Yeah,” Hillary said. “I brought a spare handcuff key. Thought I might need it.”

  Hippolyta sat up and pressed a hand to the side of her jaw. Something about Hillary seemed terribly familiar to her in that moment. “Who . . . who are you?”

  “Nobody you need to worry about,” said Hillary. “But can you do me a favor? When you see Mr. Braithwhite, tell him I quit.”

  Then she was gone, running in her stockinged feet through the snow to where she’d left her boots and her coat.

  Caleb Braithwhite, exiting the parlor a few seconds after Atticus, slammed the door shut behind him and did something that made it not want to open again. As they dashed away down the hall, Atticus could hear the doorknob rattling and fists pounding against the wood.

  Then the pounding ceased, and a powerful force blew the door straight off its hinges. Lancaster came out, waving away smoke. Noble, blood streaming from his broken nose, was right behind him. Then came the other lodge members, scattered at first but quickly reforming into a tight group that followed on Lancaster’s heels.

  They proceeded swiftly down the hall, chasing the sound of running footsteps in the darkness. The sound had just faded away when they stumbled over one of the downed security guards. “Quiet,” Lancaster hissed.

  From not far ahead came the sound of an avalanche of pots and pans hitting the floor. Noble started for the kitchen, but Lancaster said, “Wait,” and then, turning, stepped over to the doors of the ballroom and shoved them wide.

  At the far end of the room, Atticus was holding a lighter up to the exposed wall safe, while Braithwhite manipulated the dial. They both looked around as Lancaster burst in.

  “You just couldn’t resist, could you, you stupid son of a bitch?” Lancaster strode forward, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up his sleeves. “Well, you can forget all about the book, now. Forget about being my pet researcher, too. I’m just going to take your fucking head and be done with it. And after Midsummer’s Day, when I’m running the show? I’m going to make a special trip to Ardham and burn the whole fucking village down.”

  Braithwhite turned and walked forward as though intending to meet Lancaster and his entourage in the middle of the room. He moved more slowly than they did, though. His arms were loose at his sides, and his fingers waggled. He might have just been flexing them, limbering up, but viewed from a different angle the motions were a lot like those a puppeteer would make.

  As Lancaster passed beneath the chandelier, the tablecloth on one of the tables behind him flipped up and Mortimer Dupree rolled out from under it. He scrambled forward, unnoticed by the Chicago lodge men intent on Braithwhite, and used a piece of silvered chalk to make a short, precise stroke on the floor. Changing a letter.

  Lancaster and Noble and the men of the lodge all stopped short. Like passengers on an L train whose emergency cord had been pulled, they rocked forward and then back, fighting for balance. Even as they steadied themselves, their feet became rooted to the floor.

  “Braithwhite!” Lancaster roared. “What the fuck is th—”

  Mortimer made another stroke with the chalk. Lancaster’s lips continued to move, but his tongue was stilled.

  Two more tablecloths flipped up. Pirate Joe and Abdullah stood and switched on electric lanterns, illuminating the great chalk circle that surrounded Lancaster and his companions—and the larger pattern of which it was a part. To their right, parallel lines connected the big circle to a smaller one ringing the freestanding door that the three Masons had carried in from the van. To their left, a single line—straight at the ends, but zigzagging in the middle—linked to another small circle, currently unoccupied. And stretching out ahead of them, two more parallel lines, drawn so close together that they seemed like one, reached all the way to the base of the wall beneath the safe.

  “I’d say something clever and pithy now,” Braithwhite told Lancaster, “but I’ve always been more of a doer than a talker.” He took a piece of chalk and drew an outline around the safe door, connecting it to the parallel lines on the floor. Then he went over to the empty circle, where Atticus was waiting with a knife and a rolled-up parchment. But when he tried to take these implements from Atticus, Atticus shook his head.

  “I’ll do it,” Atticus said, and stepped into the circle. He cast a dark look at Lancaster. “I owe him, for Horace.”

  Braithwhite hesitated, a glimmer of suspicion in his eyes. “This ritual isn’t without risk,” he said.

  “What, as opposed to the rest of the evening?” said Atticus. “Do me a favor.”

  Still Braithwhite hesitated. But he could see no angle here, and for once, and not by accident, his intuition failed him.

  “All right,” he said. “But the rest of you should clear out, just in case.” Pirate Joe, Abdullah, and Mortimer went out into the hall. Atticus slit his palms. Braithwhite squatted down and made two strokes with the chalk, granting Atticus the power to both read and utter the language of Adam.

  The spell was different this time. What came out of the doorway was not light, but darkness—a living dark, like the creature that haunted the Sabbath Kingdom Wood. It swallowed up Lancaster and Noble and the rest of the Chicago lodge, and shot out a thin tendril of shadow to po
p open the safe. And then it withdrew, back into the doorway, leaving not even ashes behind.

  “Almost too easy,” Braithwhite said, rubbing his hands together as he went to claim his prize. “Midsummer’s Day, now, that’s going to be a real challenge for us . . .”

  Atticus dropped the bloody parchment to the floor. He raised his left arm and stripped down his sleeve, exposing the Adamite letters written on his skin. The black ink he’d used was barely visible, but he could read it just fine now, and he recited the incantation in his head, committing it to memory as he had the layout of Lancaster’s parlor. Holding it firmly in mind, he stepped out of the circle.

  Braithwhite removed The Book of Names from the safe and verified that it hadn’t been damaged. “All right, then,” he said. “Let’s get the rest of the family together and get—” As he turned around, he was surprised to find Atticus right behind him, but secure in his immunity he didn’t try to duck away, even when Atticus reached out with a bloody palm. “What’s this, now?”

  Atticus answered in the language of Adam. As he uttered the first syllable, he placed his hand on Braithwhite’s chest. A great heat burned through the fabric of Braithwhite’s shirt. Braithwhite cried out and dropped The Book of Names; he tried to pull away, but the two of them were already fused together, skin to skin, palm to chest, blood to mark. Atticus went on speaking, while Braithwhite howled and clutched at Atticus’s forearm.

  Atticus finished the incantation. The heat and the pain faded. When Atticus pulled his hand away, there was still a mark on Braithwhite’s chest, and it was still a mark of Cain—but a different one, the new a pun upon the old.

  Braithwhite fell back against the wall, saying, “What? . . . What did you?” and then his legs buckled under him and he slid helpless to the floor.

  The ballroom doors opened. Montrose and George and Letitia came in, and Hippolyta, and Pirate Joe and Abdullah and Mortimer. They came and stood beside Atticus, looking down, while Braithwhite jerked and trembled like a man having a seizure. “You can’t,” he gasped, fighting to get the words out. “You can’t . . . kill me . . .”

  “We’re not killing you,” Atticus informed him. “We’re kicking you out.”

  They cleaned up before they left. Mortimer mopped the ballroom floor while Pirate Joe and Abdullah put the props and equipment away. Hippolyta led a delegation out to the powerhouse: Letitia swatted the two guards with her wand of sleep and forgetting, and Montrose and George, after a brief discussion, wrapped Detective Burke’s body in a furniture pad and put it in the trunk of Braithwhite’s Daimler. They loaded Braithwhite into the back of the van.

  They got on U.S. 41 and drove south. It was after midnight when they crossed the Calumet River and came to a double road sign reading:

  NOW LEAVING CHICAGO

  and

  WELCOME TO INDIANA!

  There they turned left, driving onto an open stretch of ground between Indianapolis Avenue and the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks. They drew up the van on the Illinois side of the border. Letitia parked the Daimler just across the state line and left the keys in the ignition. Atticus and Montrose dragged Caleb Braithwhite out and dumped him unceremoniously beside his car. As soon as he was beyond the Chicago city limits, Braithwhite began to recover his strength, and within moments he was standing up on his own.

  Hippolyta retrieved a road atlas from the van’s glove compartment. She handed it to Atticus, who walked it over to Braithwhite. “Horace couldn’t be here to say goodbye,” Atticus said, “but he made you a going-away present.”

  “From now on,” George explained, “you’ll want to steer clear of the areas marked in red.”

  “It shouldn’t be too much of a burden,” added Hippolyta. “Most of the country’s still open to you. As long as you don’t make any detours through Detroit or Philadelphia or Harlem, you should get home just fine.”

  Braithwhite was shaking his head. “You can’t,” he said. “You can’t do this to me.”

  “Can and have done,” Atticus said. “Mr. Winthrop sends his regards, by the way. He was very grateful to get his notebooks back.”

  “Winthrop?” Braithwhite said. “Winthrop told you how to do this?”

  “Yeah,” Atticus said, “and you should be grateful too—my pop had a different end in mind for you, and I was leaning that way myself.”

  “I’ll show you gratitude,” Braithwhite promised. He turned to Letitia. “You and your tenants are going to have to find a new place to live. As soon as I get to a pay phone I’m calling in a demolition crew to turn the Winthrop House into a pile of rubble.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so, Mr. Braithwhite,” Letitia said. “It’s not your property anymore.”

  “She’s right,” said Atticus. “I stopped by Mr. Archibald’s office this afternoon. Paid off Letitia’s contract, in cash.”

  “You paid it off.” Braithwhite looked at George. “With the money I gave you?”

  “With our money, Mr. Braithwhite,” George said. “Our money.”

  For a moment then Braithwhite was speechless with anger; his face reddened and his hands holding the atlas trembled. But he mastered himself quickly. “Fine,” he said. “Keep the house. Keep the money. But the book . . .” He looked at Atticus. “Let me have The Book of Names.”

  “I don’t think so,” Atticus said. “Abdullah?”

  “No,” Abdullah said flatly.

  “I’ll pay you for it,” Braithwhite said. “Name a price.”

  “Not for every last dollar you have,” Abdullah told him. “It’s for the flames.”

  “There you go,” said Atticus. “But don’t feel too bad, Mr. Braithwhite. The truth is, the book wouldn’t do you any good, anyway. That new mark on your chest? It doesn’t just bar you from physical locations. You’re out of the brotherhood, as well.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re not a sorcerer anymore. You still have your immunity—in a more limited form—but you’ll find your other powers are gone, and trying to get them back or learn new ones will only make you very sick. You’re allergic to natural philosophy.”

  Braithwhite refused to believe him at first, but then he looked inside himself and tried to call up some of those other powers, and his expression changed from denial to dawning horror and desperation. “No,” he said. “No, Atticus . . . Atticus, come on! You can’t—”

  “Can,” Atticus said. “And have done.”

  He turned to go. Braithwhite made a grab for his arm, but Atticus pulled free easily, and then a wave of weakness and nausea sent Braithwhite stumbling backwards. “Atticus!” he cried. “Atticus, please . . . ! You need me, Atticus!”

  Standing once more among his family and his friends, Atticus looked back and lofted an eyebrow. “I need you?” he said. “I think you might want to check a dictionary, Mr. Braithwhite.”

  “You think this is over, just because Lancaster’s lodge is destroyed?” Braithwhite said. “It’s not over! There are other lodges, all over America. They know about you, now. And they’ll be coming for you, but not like I did. They won’t think of you as family, or even as a person, and they won’t leave you alone until they get what they want from you. No matter where you go, you’ll never be safe. You—”

  But he had to break off, for suddenly Atticus burst out laughing. Letitia and George and Hippolyta and the others laughed, too—even Montrose, who up to now had been feeling surly about the fact that Braithwhite was getting away alive. They roared laughter.

  “What?” Braithwhite shouted, looking at them as if they were crazy. “What’s so funny?” But for a long while they were laughing too hard to answer.

  “Oh, Mr. Braithwhite,” Atticus said finally, wiping tears from his eyes. “What is it you’re trying to scare me with? You think I don’t know what country I live in? I know. We all do. We always have. You’re the one who doesn’t understand.”

  Still laughing, they got into the van and drove away. Caleb Braithwhite remained standing out in
the cold long after their taillights had vanished into the distance. Half an hour later when the Indiana state trooper rolled up, he was still standing there, slack-jawed in the dark with a map book in his fist, like a lost traveler trying to work out just where and how he’d gone wrong.

  EPILOGUE

  Nineteen fifty-five! A new year is upon us, and as always we pause to give thanks for the advances of the last twelve months: the just ruling of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education; news that the desegregation of our armed services is, belatedly, completed; and other victories, less heralded but no less vital. We continue to look forward to the time, not far off now, when all travelers are treated as equals. And until that glorious day, we resolve to stride forth boldly, prepared for whatever challenges the road ahead may bring . . .

  —The Safe Negro Travel Guide, Spring 1955 edition

  “Sure, I can ask him,” Letitia said. “But I can’t promise he’ll do it.”

  “I’d be willing to trade favors with him, within reason,” said Hippolyta.

  They were sitting in Hippolyta’s kitchen on a morning in early March. On the table between them lay a sheet of paper on which Hippolyta had drawn an eight-by-eight array of boxes. A handful of the boxes had been filled in with numbers—tentatively, in pencil—but most were still blank.

  Letitia touched a finger to the paper. “You sure about this? The woman did try to kill you.”

  “She was trying to protect her daughter.”

  “And you think she’s going to thank you for bringing her the truth about what happened to Pearl?”