“John, this—” Jessica started to say.
“Give me a moment with her,” I said.
“John—” Jessica said.
“Please.” I closed my eyes. “We’ll talk later.”
I remembered her soft touch and the feel of her body against mine. Jessica and I had been friends for a very long time, almost siblings, but I’d always wondered what it would be like to be with her. Now our friendship was as much ruined by that as by her betrayal. I hated her, wanted her, resented her, and missed her all in one go. There was also the fact that the monster inside me was like much of the Mythos and craved physical contact. I feared it wanted to take her and Mercury to sire a host of monsters. I feared it had done the same with my children back in New Arkham whom I had never contacted to inform of their dark true nature. Maybe the transformation wouldn’t affect them without the Hand of Nyarlathotep branded to their shoulders, or maybe it would skip a few generations.
Either way, I was a coward.
Jessica looked down, then exchanged a look with Jackie. “All right.”
My ex-partner walked past me and I didn’t have the decency to look her in the eye.
When she’d left the room, Jackie looked up to me. “You should really forgive her, Pa.”
“It’s complicated, Jackie,” I said.
“You mean because you fucked her and she tried to kill you?” Jackie asked.
I frowned, noting she was a more observant girl than I’d given her credit for. “You shouldn’t use that sort of language, Jackie. Your Old Pa wouldn’t have approved.”
“My Old Pa also said not to whore, drink, or kill people, which you and Mercury do all the time. I have dog ears; I’m always hearing things from your bedroom which would make the people of my hometown blush.”
I grimaced. “I actually don’t drink anymore. I can drink paint thinner without being poisoned.”
“Not really a defense, Pa.”
She had a point there.
I looked away. “I don’t forgive easily.”
“Is it so bad being a monster?” Jackie asked. “You always tell me not to be ashamed, but I know you hate what you are.”
I grimaced, knowing how hypocritical I was being. “It’s not the physical changes I fear, Jackie. It’s the mental. I know ghouls and they are a decent, if slightly peculiar, race. I do not know what I am becoming, but it terrifies me it is not the kind of thing that would recognize you and the others of my family.”
I was lying about the physical changes not frightening me, but that didn’t make the rest of my statement untrue. I had a hideous vision in my head of metamorphosing into something horrifying that would kill those I loved.
“Maybe you won’t,” Jackie said. “Maybe you won’t randomly start worshiping Azathoth and Nyarlathotep or Yoggy-Sathoth. Maybe you’ll just be you.”
I was tempted to tell her that I already heard from Nyarlathotep on a regular basis. That he was the angel and demon on my shoulder. That I did worship that Dark Trinity, Cthulhu, and other gods in my dreams even as I held to the Old Gods of Earth in my waking hours.
“Maybe I would be,” I lied.
“Why are you abandoning me here, Pa?” Jackie said. “What did I do?”
“We’re not abandoning you,” I said. “We would never abandon you.”
“You leave me alone in the city when you go caravanning now. I run the shop just fine.”
I grimaced, really disliking how this conversation kept turning against me. The truth was we’d only just started leaving Jackie alone after her latest growth spurt. Some of the men in the caravan had determined she was old enough to lie with and either wanted to buy or take her. “It was complicated.”
“You decided I was safer back in a city of horse thieves and murderers versus with you, two people who’d kill anyone who touched me.”
I frowned. “You’re really highlighting that I’m a shit parent.”
“Not a shit parent, but a bit challenged.”
I gave short chuckle. “The answer is I didn’t want you to see me when I finally became the creature that might not recognize you. I feel like I’m dying, Jackie, a little at a time. I want you taken care of. They’d accept Mercury here as well.”
I wasn’t actually sure of that but as today had established, I was a horrible liar and a craven.
Jackie stared. “It all comes back to that, doesn’t it?”
“Not entirely,” I said, thinking about what was to come. “Mercury and I are going on a very dangerous journey. One that is probably going to get us killed. We have a chance of doing something great, though, and maybe saving a lot of lives.”
“You’ve said any person who tries to be a hero in this hellhole of a world is a damned fool.”
“You pay way too much attention,” I said.
“Dog ears,” Jackie said, giving her right one a tug.
I snorted. “Either way, I want you to be safe while we’re gone and there to be someone who takes care of you if we’re not there.”
“What about Jessica?”
“She’s going too.”
Jackie seemed to accept that. “All right, I understand.”
“Thank you.”
“You should still forgive Jessica, though.”
I didn’t answer as we walked back to prepare for our trip.
We had a lot of miles to cover and precious little time to tread them.
Chapter Eleven
It did not take long to get everything loaded up and to depart in two composite “Hummer-class” vehicles. The interior of the Hummer I drove was old and patchwork, but such was the case with most vehicles still operational in the Wasteland. We were passing up through the Sea of Ash, an immense black rock-covered desert that often rained down soot from three low-simmering volcanoes off the coast.
In the distance, I could see several of the lava-river-filled mountains streaming down red fluid as black hydra-mollusk creatures played and danced around them. The hundred-foot-long Tunnelers were one of the many races unveiled by the Rising, but a species I’d had little contact with. I intended to keep it that way. Still, I couldn’t put into words the scratching in the back of my mind. Professor Armitage and the Great One were hiding things from me, that much was sure, but there was a great deal more going on here than their stated agendas. I just wished I had an idea of what.
“A penny for your thoughts, Booth?” Mercury asked, distracting me.
She was sitting beside me in the front of the vehicle I was driving. Like me, she had changed to a set of thick white clothes designed for desert travel with goggles and a mask hanging from her neck. My arm was once more covered in an illusion, but I’d had it bandaged and double-wrapped again, just to be on the safe side.
“I was just contemplating our quest,” I said, looking in the rearview mirror to see Bobbie Merriweather catching a nap in the back. Bobbie had fully recovered and was wearing a pair of denim pants with a long button-down blue shirt.
Having nothing else to do for several hours more, I continued speaking. “This is not an adventure story. Every surviving being, human or otherwise, should be involved in such a quest. Who sends six or seven people out to save the world?”
“I don’t care much for the responsibility of saving everything either,” Mercury said, reaching over to the glove box and pulling out one of the nutrient bars the University had supplied for us. I despised their taste, but they were surprisingly invigorating. “However, we’re getting paid. That’s enough to justify taking the risk.”
“Tell that to Mathew,” Mercury muttered.
“You’re not helping,” I replied.
“You should take comfort in religion. I believe the Elder Gods are behind our journey and will support us in our hunt for this Whateley creature,” Bobbie said, looking up from where she’d been sleeping. Assuming she’d ever been doing so at all versus spying on us when we were freer in our speech.
“Are you trying to convert us?” Mercury asked.
“I
believe so,” I said amused. “Which is a shame because you’re an atheist and I’m quite comfortable with polytheism.”
“Any god explainable by science is insufficiently advanced for worship—and everything can be explained by science,” Mercury said, smirking.
“Says the sorceress.” I chuckled.
“Details, details.” Mercury laughed.
“Read the Re’Kithnid,” Bobbie said, shrugging. She looked out the window to the volcanoes dotting the landscape. “It’ll open your eyes to the truth of the universe. From the story about how Re’Kithnid was born from dreams of a counterpart to Dread Cthulhu to when he built a glorious elysium on another world to when he taught the Crow King how to battle the Old Ones with his coffin-shaped chariot.”
I had read the Re’Kithnid. It was a book written in the Thirteenth century by the Heretic Nun Brianna Lethder. Brianna had spoken of Elder Gods opposing the Great Old Ones, an apocalyptic battle between Good and Evil, plus a beatific opposite to Cthulhu called Kithnid. It spoke of how humans, Deep Ones, and ghouls would eventually all become one race with humanity embracing free love with the monsters. It was an honestly rather pornographic work which had only been preserved by perverted old priests long after they had sentenced Brianna and her lovers to death by torture.
“It’s a nice story,” I said, deciding to be honest rather than fake interest in her religion. “But it’s not what I believe.”
“I’m sorry you have no hope then.” Bobbie turned away.
“I give myself my own hope,” I said. “It frees my gods from any responsibility to care for my well-being.”
Bobbie smiled. “I used to believe like that. It was simpler then.”
“How does a Deep One hybrid become a believer in the Elder Gods, anyway?” I asked, feeling a strange desire to continue this conversation.
Bobbie shook her head. “To ask that question is to ask my life story.”
“We’re still a long way from Insmaw,” I responded.
“Regale us, oh bounty hunter, with your tale,” Mercury said, agreeing.
“All right,” Bobbie said, stretching her neck. “A long time ago I was a Deep One princess.”
“Pardon?” I asked, surprised by her statement.
“I didn’t know the Deep Ones had princesses,” Mercury said, blinking. “You also don’t look like a fish-woman. You’d think that would be a requirement to be fish-person royalty.”
“Smooth, Mercury.” I rolled my eyes.
“You’d think, but no,” Bobbie said, ignoring the implicit insult. “I wasn’t strictly a princess, though. It’s just the closest title I can think of for describing my position. My mother was Mother Hydra herself, first of the Deep Ones and mother as well as consort to Dagon the Second. They were the weakest of the Great Old Ones spoken of in the Necronomicon but still members of that body. Obviously, my name wasn’t Bobbie then, but I cast aside my old identity when I abandoned the gods of my people.”
I whistled, impressed by her pedigree. Not everyone could lay claim to being half-Great Old One.
Mercury just listened, attentive.
Bobbie continued, uninterested in our response. “My father was one of the many humans sacrificed by Obed Marsh during the early days of Innsmouth’s accursed pact with my people. My mother raped him with her powers, then devoured his bones, birthing me a year later. I was but a school of such spawn and we battled it out nightly until only I remained. The Hydra only wanted the strongest of her brood to live as a lesson for what was expected of me as her priestess.”
“Charming,” I said.
Mercury just grimaced.
“The Deep Ones are not an innately evil species, but time has bent them to perversities you would not believe.” Bobbie sighed, this clearly a subject of deep importance to her. “I was raised to believe that the Deep Ones were the true humanity, that other races deserved to be destroyed, and that Great Cthulhu’s rise would trigger the destruction of the unbeliever across the globe.” Bobbie smiled, but it was a bitter one. “I’m afraid it came as a great shock to the High Priests of my race when Cthulhu didn’t deign to notice us when he rose. My people had worshiped him for over a million years, and yet his awakening destroyed as much of our civilization as yours.”
“That must have caused a crisis of faith,” I said.
“Is that when you converted to worshiping the Elder Gods?” Mercury asked.
“No, not then.” Bobbie made a little Elder Sign symbol with her finger across her chest. I was surprised it didn’t cause her to flinch. Such magic was poison to the Deep Ones and other creatures of Cthulhu. “The High Priests of Dagon blamed the intermixing of the Deep One race with ‘lesser species’ like humans, Serpent Men, and ghouls. Already devastated by the Rising, they organized a genocide of all those of mixed blood who did not flee to the surface. Millions of our kind perished in the resulting purge.”
“What did Mother Hydra have to say about all this?” Mercury asked.
“Nothing,” Bobbie snorted. “She joined with Cthulhu on R’lyeh, taking all of her high priestesses with her—but me. I had been unable to hear the call because I was too busy mourning all of my dead lovers and offspring. I had dozens by that time.”
My biggest surprise from her story wasn’t the alien behavior of the Deep Ones, but the opposite. Similar stories had played out across the surface world as people found excuses for their gods in old prejudices or abandoned the world for the worship of terrible things beyond. In that, they were no different than humanity.
“So you fled to the surface?” I asked, intrigued by her story.
“Not at first.” Bobbie shook her head. “Rules do not apply to those who make them. This is a truism for both our societies. As a High Priestess, I was given a special dispensation. But it may surprise you to find out that even a Deep One princess can feel horror at the massacre of the innocent. My faith was broken, and while I might have excused Cthulhu’s or Hydra’s actions as a priestess, I could not claim what the High Priests of Dagon were doing was just.”
It made me ashamed to hate my inhumanity as much as I did. “One’s humanity is found in the oddest places.”
“I find that remark insulting,” Bobbie said, before giving a half-hearted smile. “I used magic to give myself a human appearance and led as many refugees as I could to the surface. Since then, I have fought against my people’s enemies as best I can. Humans, monsters, Deep Ones, or otherwise. The hybrids of the surface are a part of this world now, and both of its parent species must accept that.”
“How’s that worked out for you?” I asked.
Bobbie’s smile fled her face. “I’ve buried two husbands and three wives. The first of my husbands tried to burn me alive along with our children when he found out my true nature. The others died of disease, violence, and old age.”
“If you say so,” I said, wondering if any of us had that kind of time. “You still haven’t explained how you came to worship the Elder Gods.”
“I figured if I was going to be damned by my gods, their enemies would be a better choice,” Bobbie said. “I learned the secrets of the faith from a man named Carter. Now my people worship the Elder Gods, primarily out of trust for me. Even if they have never answered a prayer and only respond to my spells, it feels like I have reclaimed myself from my mother. I worship what I believe in, not what those who betrayed the hybrids among us tell me to.”
“That, I understand.” I prayed nightly to Yahweh, Jesus, the Buddha, and other deities of the Pre-Rising Earth. Beings I’d never seen a miracle or wonder to prove the existence of as I had with Nyarlathotep and the Great Old Ones. Even so, I clung to those feelings, as they felt like a ward against the darkness. In my mind, even if I could not say whether or not they existed outside of the Dreamlands. “I take it the Insmaw folk are known to you?”
“Yes, I’ve dealt with them before,” Bobbie said. “They’re good people, uninterested in the affairs of the outside world. They just wish to live and breed in pea
ce.”
“Some would say that was a threat by itself,” Mercury said, staring forward into the desert before.
“Some would be assholes,” Bobbie replied.
Mercury laughed. “Some would like to apologize.”
“I’ll accept that,” Bobbie replied, shrugging. “What is your view of being a human hybrid?”
“That you shouldn’t ask,” I said.
“I see,” Bobbie said.
We rode in silence after that point. Eventually, we came across a sight that caused me to forget about our conversation. Hundreds of spikes, each standing hundreds of feet tall, dotted the landscape. They were made of some sort of eerie black metal, existing both in this dimension and several adjoining ones, causing the mere sight of them to overwhelm human vision. Shooting between them were streams of electricity in colors and arcs I’d never seen the like of. These strange pylons altered the air around us and as we drew closer, I could feel an ionization of particles in the oxygen around me.
Storm clouds swirled around this strange forest and electricity flew from the sky down to the pylons before different-colored bolts shot back up into the sky. The world around became hazy, and I felt the same sort of “otherness” about this area that I’d felt in the Hinton Library. This was not a place of this world, this strange power station, and it was transforming our space into something other-natural.
“A Faceless One refinery,” Bobbie said, staring. “Shit.”
“You know what that is?” Mercury said, clutching the side of her seat and burying her nails into it as if on a festival coaster.
“Is this new?” I asked, unable to believe such a massive structure had been constructed recently.
“I’m afraid so,” Bobbie said. “The way was clear last time I went this way.”
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