Its claws and mouth clenched, but it made a low chuckling noise from every part of the library around us.
“Yeah, that’s not good,” Thom said, having taken a table leg off the floor.
“Argh!” August hissed, a glowing angle shooting from the Hound’s side and going through his stomach out the other side.
“No!” Mercury said. The spell ended as yet another square struck her in the hand, causing blood to pour onto the floor.
The Hound growled, looking more menacing than ever. The library’s ambient light dimmed as it continued to grow brighter. Soon, everything was dark in the room except for the blazing-white inferno of the Hound. Its squares started to separate, bit by bit, and I knew we were going to die. So I charged and grabbed it by the throat, slamming its head into the strange matter floor and walls around me with my right hand. The creature was so surprised by my sudden action that it did not react as I concentrated and sought the impossible moments of time all around us. Then I fed the Hound to them.
Like a piece of meat thrown in a grinder, the Hound of Tindalos was crushed under the weight of dimensions beyond pressed on top of one another. I’d chosen a space that bent upon itself for infinity, and while it can travel through the angles about us, curves seemed to cause it immense pain. I don’t know where the knowledge came from, but I calculate the Hound was broken under the force of a thousand micro-singularities.
The Eyes of Yog-Sothoth hooted and hollered from their place beyond our universe, finding my destruction of the Hound to be the height of comedy. I could no longer see them, but instead saw another world. Images of a boiling sea world and cities of strange geometry filled my head like memories of a distant past. I fell back on my ass, stunned by the sight I’d witnessed through the dimensional barriers, which were paper thin in this place. I’d seen some seriously messed-up shit in my time ranging from a color from outer space, a mass sacrifice of children to create an artificial paradise for their spirits, and a tower of Elder Things in the Dreamlands. Seeing the world was full of terrible things just one frequency of reality over and that I had some link to them was almost one revelation too many.
“Did you see any of that?” I asked, wondering how it had appeared to them. My eyes were apparently monster eyes now, perceiving the world in a way unlike the way of humans. I wished to God I could pluck them out, but I needed them if I was going to plug Whateley.
“You just stuck the demon-dog thing into the white-space around me, then withdrew your hand. It was gone,” Mercury said, looking at me in mixed fear and wonder.
“I guess that arm is useful for something after all,” Jessica said, trying to make a joke and failing badly.
I looked down to my right arm. Its illusion was now broken, having returned to its previous horrific state. “Fuck.”
“Well, good job anyway. Want to share how you killed it?” Thom asked, waving his makeshift club as if it was dangerous.
I looked at the club’s round base and made a guess as to why it worked when so much else didn’t. “Curves. The Hounds hate curves.”
Thom blinked. “Curves.”
“They are as unsettling to them as its universe would be to you … us.” I tried to imagine what it was like for a creature of a purely flat universe or a million more dimensions than me coming into our world and what a terrible experience that would be. It would be like a fish coming up from the depths of Cthulhu’s grave to explode when it reached the surface, all that pressure and water around it being necessary for its survival. It almost made me feel sorry for the varmint.
Almost.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” Thom started looking around for round objects to arm himself.
“Curves, right,” Mercury said, going to the side of the fallen August. Mercury was trained as a medical doctor and might be able to save one of our two patients. Except it didn’t prove necessary.
Much to my surprise, August sat up, and not only did the terrible hole in his stomach seal over, but his gray and tattered robes also knit over the now-healed wound. Even the stains from his blood disappeared, making me wonder at his robes’ dilapidated state.
“A useful tidbit of lore,” August said, dusting himself off. “I was about ready to summon something bigger and nastier to eat it—which might have compounded our problems—but I’m glad that didn’t prove necessary.”
“We need to exchange notes,” Mercury said, looking hungry. August had the real magic, not this ‘technology of the mind’ business, and I knew my lover would latch onto him like a tick until she sucked him dry. Which perhaps wasn’t the most flattering of descriptions to apply to the woman you loved, but it was accurate.
August smiled. “I’ll teach you, perhaps, little witch—provided you come up with something interesting to offer me. Sadly, you’re not my type.”
“I’ll try and hide my disappointment.” Mercury rolled her eyes. “I’m many things, but not a whore.”
“Then you haven’t been offered enough,” Thom said, tempting me to punch him. “Everyone has their price. Look at us.”
Jessica was at the side of Bobbie Merriweather. Contrary to what I’d expected after all the rumors of her newfound devotion to human purity, she seemed to be trying to help the Deep One hybrid. I didn’t think there was anything she could do. Bobbie had a brutal series of cuts across her chest, and they would have been fatal to a human.
But she wasn’t human.
“Get away,” Bobbie said, clutching her wounds closed. “I was born from the womb of Mother Hydra. These scratches will be healed in minutes.”
I questioned how that worked, since it looked like her hands were all that was keeping her intestines from falling out from her body. Yet despite this, she stood up and the wounds were already starting to look like scratches.
“Huh,” Thom said, looking at her. “I’ve killed plenty of Deep Ones over the years. None of them could do that. You must be a double freak.”
Jessica glared. “Knock it off, asshole.”
“I owe the Captain and you guys my life. So, I suppose I can. Consider my lips sealed about you all being unnatural abominations.” Thom shrugged, then made a key-turning gesture in front of his mouth. “You realize Professor Asshole summoned this thing to kill us, right?”
“What?” Mercury said, turning her head. “Why the hell would he do that?”
“The man’s been giving me the stink eye since I got here, and I was the first. He treated everyone who came into this place as little better than rats in his walls. He led us to this kooky place and left right before things went south,” Thom said, counting off events on his fingers. “Need I remind you, if not for the fact that three of you are wizards and one a mutant, we’d be screwed every which way from Sunday.”
“I am distressed to find myself agreeing with Mister Braddock,” August said, frowning. “Professor Armitage has always been an isolationist. He also possesses the power to summon and control a creature from the Many-Angled Place. It’s possible he thought pre-emptively eliminating us was the right decision.”
“So, let’s shoot the bastard,” Jessica said.
Thom shook his table leg at us. “I suggest we play nice, get our weapons back, and then kill this bastard.”
“And lose what we were promised?” Bobbie said, almost healed. “Fuck that.”
Thom shook his head. “We keep our deal with the Yith. If they wanted to kill us, they wouldn’t need to invent a story about the last imprisoned Great Old One struggling to get out. I believe this Whateley is a threat to this planet, and last I checked, we live here. I also want my brother back. We just need to kill Armitage quiet-like and make sure he doesn’t come back.”
I hated that we lived in a world where making sure an enemy stayed dead was a concern. “Before we start plotting murder, we might want to determine whether or not he’s the party responsible.”
“And how would you suggest we do that?” Thom asked, glaring at me.
“You could ask
me,” Professor Armitage said, standing behind him.
Despite defending him, I wanted to quick draw on him and put him down. Alas, I didn’t have the will or the weapons.
“Dammit,” Thom muttered, turning around. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”
“No,” Professor Armitage intoned. “I don’t.”
I pointed at the gory remains of Mathew. “Tell him that.”
August shrugged. “I can bring him back.”
“Leave the dead in peace,” Jessica snapped. “I’ve seen what kind of things you wizards return to life.”
August was nonplussed. “Just making an offer.”
Thom, meanwhile, looked intrigued.
“I returned minutes ago,” Professor Armitage said. “I sensed the leak in the barriers and was reinforcing them. Marcus Whateley must have been undermining our library’s protections to observe us. When he saw you, he undoubtedly sent the Hound.”
“Why not send it when you were here?” Thom asked.
“Because I would have killed it,” Professor Armitage replied. “Obviously.”
What a smug asshole.
“Why should we believe you?” Bobbie asked, looking at her blood-soaked clothes in disgust. She wasn’t paying much attention to our conversation. I wondered what she had been bribed with to make her so unconcerned with treachery.
“Because if I wanted to kill you, I’d just do this,” Professor Armitage said, lifting his crystal staff.
“Wait,” I started to say, but a flash of light consumed us and the seven of us found ourselves in a darkened underground garage. Gray-robed figures were loading up supplies into vehicles all around us. He’d shifted us through space. Again. I was getting really sick of that.
“Except I’d have dumped you into a volcano, or space, or the space between dreams,” Professor Armitage said.
“How powerful is that thing?” Mercury asked, staring at the rod.
“Very,” August said, unimpressed. “Which is why I’m getting mine back.”
“You could have asked for forgiveness for your many crimes,” Professor Armitage said, staring at him.
“That would require my caring about what the University thinks of me,” August replied.
“Your supplies are being readied,” Professor Armitage said, not even bothering to gesture. “You must leave within the hour.”
Thom looked outraged. So was I. “After all you put us through—”
Mercury grabbed my left hand, calming me.
Professor Armitage’s next words silenced us all. “Professor Whateley has been spotted in a town called Insmaw to the North. You can catch him if you reach him before the next two days have passed. The Great One’s time sense is blocked past this point—which probably means that is when the world will end.”
This day just kept getting better and better.
Chapter Nine
“So, the world is going to end in a week? Can you be a little more precise?” I asked, deciding exactitude was in our best interests. “I’d hate to miss the deadline by an hour or two because I was watering the horses.”
“Nine days, in all likelihood. The time fluctuates, I’m sorry to say,” Professor Armitage said, looking among us. “The Great Race could once travel to the far future, but it is now impossible. Our lost brethren in the future may or may not still exist.”
Curious how he referred to the Yithians in the far future as his brethren. That wasn’t a concern, however, with fate now against us.
Mercury then pointed out a flaw in my logic. “So, the future can be changed? It had to be if your people in the future aren’t there anymore.”
“Time can only change at the behest of the Great Old Ones and Other Gods,” Professor Armitage replied. “They alone can alter causality.”
“The Elder Gods are more powerful than both,” Bobbie replied, making a four-armed star sign over her heart.
“Believe what you will,” Professor Armitage said. “What I have said is the truth and you must make haste to Insmaw.”
I’d heard of Insmaw. Centuries ago, in the Pre-Rising era, the United States government had discovered the existence of the Deep One race in the town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts. Per the records my ancestors uncovered in the ruins of the United States Air Force base that New Arkham was built on, Innsmouth had been one of many seaside communities subverted by the Deep Ones so they could shore up their decaying genetic code. The townsfolk converted to Cthulhu worship, knowing him as Dagon, and created syncretic Christian-Cthulhean rites which gave rise to the original Esoteric Order of Dagon. The United States government of the early twentieth century reacted poorly to paganism and even worse to whites breeding with other races (let alone non-humans), so they’d gathered up the hybrids of the town and subjected them to unspeakable experiments.
When the Rising occurred, the survivors escaped their desert concentration camps and returned to re-establish their former home. It hadn’t gone well, since humanity’s survivors, as well as their former Deep One masters, considered the Innsmouth hybrids to be degenerates. Some, like the inbred Marsh family, had gone to Kingsport to form the Deep One community there, while others, like Bobbie’s family, rebuilt the aforementioned Esoteric Order of Dagon. A small few, however, founded a new town. No one had heard of any violence, racially motivated or otherwise, from Insmaw, and that was rare enough. Indeed, all I’d heard about the folk there was they were pleasant but isolationist. What did Whateley want from such a place? Even more pressing, what had he gotten?
“Teleport us there, Chief, and we’ll kill the bastard,” Thom said, looking uncomfortable with his surroundings.
“I can’t.” Professor Armitage gritted his teeth.
“Can’t or won’t?” I asked, getting annoyed with his doublespeak.
“Can’t. Before you, against the Great One’s will, I sent fourteen acolytes to intercept Whateley,” Professor Armitage said, his face scrunching up with a mixture of guilt and remorse. It was the first real sign of any emotion other than disdain. “They did not complete the transition due to a barrier Whateley erected. What came back was a jumble of their organs and bones in still-living pools of biological atrocity.” He paused. “They did not live long, thankfully.”
“Tsk-tsk-tsk,” August said, shaking his head. “Disobeying your masters, Harvey? Shameful.”
The Professor looked ready to punch him. “You speak of things you know nothing about, August. I’m trying to save the human race.”
“Then stop getting in our way,” August said, earning him my respect.
“This mission just keeps getting better and better,” Jessica muttered under her breath.
“You must travel by ground,” Professor Armitage said. “We will equip you with whatever charms or spells are required to hide you from Whateley’s divinations.”
“Divinations, charms, and spells?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “So much for technology of the mind.” It was a cheap shot, but Armitage had it coming.
August chortled behind me. “I’m starting to like you, Booth.”
“Thank you.”
“Even if you are a filthy mutant,” August added, his voice not wavering in the slightest.
I debated killing the rest of my partners when this was over. “We’ll need maps, charts, gold, a new illusion to cover my arm, weapons, and a selection from books in your library.”
“Planning to do some light reading on your way?” Thom asked. “Because maybe we should be focusing on the end of the world.”
“I can do both,” I replied.
Since I doubted Professor Armitage would be forthcoming with any further information, our best chance of getting information was to avail ourselves to the University’s library. I intended to ask August what sort of books would help the most as I suspected he would be all too eager to betray his former brethren—even if he was a jackass.
“I have already sealed away the Hinton Library for the safety of my people. Access to its knowledge is temporarily offline,�
� Professor Armitage said. “You’ll have to make do—”
“I am not concerned with the safety of your people,” I said, cutting him off. “I’m concerned with the safety of the world.”
Professor Armitage opened his mouth to protest before slumping his shoulders. “You will have whatever you need.”
“Thank you,” I said. “We’ll also need new clothes. Mercury and I didn’t get a chance to pack, after all.”
Mercury snorted behind me.
The professor turned to walk away. He would bring us what we needed, though. We were the last hope humanity had. Small Gods of the Earth help us all.
“That was amusing,” August said, chortling. “You know, Harvey used to be able to laugh.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” I said.
“He seems like he was born with a stick up his ass,” Mercury said. “I was kind of hoping I’d left those people behind when I left New Arkham.”
August smirked. “You never leave behind smug superiority.”
“He murdered our friends and co-workers,” I said coldly. “Slaughtered them when all he had to do was approach us and ask us to come with him.”
August closed his eyes. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d hoped to kill you so the Great One wouldn’t be able to finish bringing together this little fellowship.”
“Why?” I asked. “What does he get out of the world being destroyed?”
“Assuming it will be,” August said. “I’m not so sure since one more Great Old One doesn’t seem like it would make much difference. I think Marcus is less enamored of the Great One than he lets on. Marcus was a far smarter man than either Armitage or I as well as being directly plugged into the nature of the universe. If he thinks releasing this monster will do some good, then he might be onto something.”
“The Great One says Marcus is trying to mercy kill humanity,” I pointed out.
“Such a trustworthy fellow, the Great One,” August said, his voice low and contemptuous. “I’m sure you’ve picked up on that.”
“I have. What’s your opinion of the Great Race?” I asked, wanting a second opinion.
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