“You missed out. Do you think the cultist in our group might be able to bring him back?” Thom asked.
I wasn’t sure how to react to the fact we were having a discussion about resurrecting the dead. “I don’t know. Maybe if you’re willing to pay the price.”
Thom looked down. “I don’t care. I’ll do anything to get those I loved back.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “Then I wish you luck. I’ve heard of resurrection spells and techniques, but everything I’ve seen always brings them back changed.”
“We all change,” Thom said, patting me on the shoulder. “You know, you’re all right for an abomination.”
Shaking my head, I took out my pistol and took aim at the bottles. My shooting had suffered since my transformation began and I needed all the practice I could get. I lifted my gun out to shoot when I noticed Jessica walking over.
It was time to settle this between us.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Thom said, looking between us before departing.
Chapter Thirteen
I almost turned around and walked away, but chose to stay for reasons I didn’t fully understand. Jessica’s approach invoked all manner of feelings and I didn’t know how to deal with them. I wanted to forgive her but couldn’t. Still, I was able to suppress my sense of betrayal as I looked at Jessica, keeping our time at Miskatonic University in mind. She clearly still loved Jackie, despite the fact my daughter was becoming a monster. She’d also fought with me against the Hound of Tindalos, not hesitating for a second to risk her life for me, just as I’d done for her. It had been like old times, and I missed those days.
Other memories invaded as I gazed at her dust-covered, smudged face. The two of us watching The Seven Samurai in the dilapidated New Arkham Majestic movie theater. Gamma Squad’s nightly poker game when we were lucky enough to have leave back on base. I remembered being named godfather to her children and she’d vowed to protect mine should I fall before her. I also remembered touching her and the attempt on my life. No, it was not going to be easy to cast that aside.
Jessica coughed into her fist. “I thought we could talk.”
“You thought wrong,” I said through clenched teeth. I temporarily forgot Jackie asking me to forgive her.
“Why not?” Jessica said, crossing her arms.
“Why do you think?” I snapped.
“Yeah, I did,” Jessica stopped in front of me, reading my thoughts. “Because you wanted to die.”
I opened my mouth to respond before closing it, her words sinking in. That was the matter’s heart, wasn’t it? I had spent the past year growing more intense in my self-loathing. I’d made it clear I wanted to die before becoming a monster but had those words been hollow? Had they just been a defense against the darkness inside me? A lie to make myself believe I was stronger than I was? Probably. It wouldn’t be the first self-deception I’d engaged in to survive this world I’d been born into.
“John?”
“Give me a moment,” I said, forcing myself to remember what Jackie had said. I needed to be stronger than my rage and be the bigger man. I needed to recognize the real source of why I hated her so much. That I had believed, for a second, she hadn’t cared about what I was becoming.
It quieted some of the storm inside me and allowed me to speak truth I hadn’t even been able to admit to myself. “I don’t want to die, not really. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I want to live. I just don’t want to become a monster. There’s a difference.”
“Would it help if I apologized?” Jessica surprised me by asking.
I blinked. “What?”
“Cause I do.” Jessica said. “I’m sorry.”
I stared at her as she broke away, aimed her gun at the bottles and shot five in a row. She was a better shot than me. I had to admit a bit of jealousy and wondered how she’d managed to move so far ahead of me.
In the end, I decided I needed allies more than I needed enemies. “Apology accepted.”
Jessica gave me a sideways glance. “Really? That’s all it took?”
“No,” I said, honestly. “But I’m at a point where I need to stop lashing out at everyone who cares about me.”
“I see,” Jessica said. “How long do you have left?”
“It depends on whether the Yithians cheat us or not,” I said, simply. “But if they do? Not long.”
Jessica was silent. “Have you considered that you may actually remain…you?”
I paused. “No.”
“I sought out people who might be able to—” Jessica started to say.
“Don’t,” I said, simply. “What will be, will be. It’s funny. I could have been killed any number of times in the Wasteland over the years, but it’s the slow transformation within that was driving me insane. I just want to put it out of my mind now until my crucible is complete.”
“I understand,” Jessica said, taking a deep breath. “I’d like to be there for you.”
“To look over me in my dying day?” I asked, shooting a bottle despite my hand shaking. “Or to kill me after I transform?”
“Whichever you want.”
“I’d like you to be there with us.” It wasn’t entirely true, but if I was going to lie to myself then I was going to lie to myself until I believed it.
Jessica smiled and it was beatific. “Good, because I was about to offer to fuck you and Mercury both to get you to forgive me.”
“Is that still on the table?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I was joking, mostly. I’d gotten used to regular sex before Mercury had withdrawn and was starting to eye Bobbie. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been with a hybrid woman.
Jessica snorted. “No, John.”
“Fair enough.” I paused, frowning.
“Are you and Mercury… alright?” Jessica asked. “I know she loves you but how are things in the—”
“Not since my arm became a giant alien spider’s. It’s been rather hard on the love life.”
Jessica blinked. “So, you haven’t since—”
“Not since she chose to not have our child.” I corrected her before switching the subject. “I’ve heard some disturbing things about what you’ve been up to.”
“You mean the fact that I kill people and steal their stuff?” Jessica took aim again. Her next shot, like the others, was perfect. “That I turned bandit after years of protecting people from them?”
We’d killed hundreds of bandits over the years as part of the Rangers. As reduced as humanity’s population was, it was always slightly more than the amount of food and goods which could be produced. That left hungry and desperate people willing to take whatever they needed from others. There were also less sympathetic individuals who just preferred a life of murder to picking at the dirt. To know Jessica had become one of them was almost as much of a shock as the fact she’d tried to kill me.
“Among other things.” I took a deep breath. “You were always the best of us. I thought, when you came out of your coma, we would have had a life together. You, me, Jackie, Mercury, and the others we cared about.”
“I did, too,” Jessica said, shrugging. “But it didn’t work out that way, did it?”
That was putting it mildly. “Maybe I owe you an apology too.”
“Don’t,” Jessica said, placing her hand on my shoulder. “I made my choice and live with it every day. I thought it would be harder to become a bandit, but it was easy. Once I found people I cared about in the Boston Ruins, it became a simple matter of arithmetic. I’d do whatever I could to protect them. Sometimes that means shooting people and taking their stuff.”
I’d have condemned her, but murder was a daily part of life in the Wasteland. People did what they had to and lived with the consequences. “What about the killing of people with nonhuman blood?”
“Ironic,” Jessica said, pausing in her shot and lowering her gun. “We used to do that as a matter of course when were R&E Rangers. The only person we ever spared was Richard, and that was because he was an asset.
If we’d found girls like Jackie before Doctor Ward, we would have killed her too.”
“There’s an awful lot of blood on our hands,” I said, staring at my gun. I aimed, fired, and missed again. This was getting embarrassing. My aim was all off. I could see far more space and distance between the atoms in the air than a human could, but my revulsion to my powers rendered any advantage useless.
“You heard wrong about that part, though, John,” Jessica answered. “I’ve not been killing all the hybrids, inhumans, and so on. Hell, I have a deal going with the city of Tarr’ghar’rrah.”
“Gesundheit,” I joked, imagining the space between my gun shots to be far shorter. That was when I shot five bottles in a row. Yet another sign I just had to embrace my inhuman heritage to achieve my goals. I could almost hear Nyarlathotep chuckling at the fact that I was willing to give into my dark side just to make sure I shot accurately.
Damn him.
There is no damnation, John, Nyarlathotep whispered. Just different kinds of heaven for different kinds of beings.
I ignored him as I swiftly caught up with Jessica and Thom’s score.
“Nice shooting,” Jessica said, nodding. “And I didn’t name the city.”
“Is that where the Elder Thing called the Keeper is?” I asked, remembering the last Elder Things I’d encountered had tried to enslave me after killing Richard.
It was strange, but of all the supernatural and otherworldly creatures out in the Wasteland, I hated the Elder Things the most. This, despite the fact they were widely considered to be one of the closest to human of the alien races we’d dealt with. Much like the Yith or Mi-Go, it was possible to communicate with them and they had understandable goals like survival or the propagation of their race.
Yet, it was that similarity to humanity which made me loathe them as they were a race of slavers as well as arrogant bastards who considered anything different than themselves beneath them. I wasn’t looking forward to dealing with them again. It was why I disliked the Yith. They were too much like the Elder Things. Too much like the worst of humanity.
“I know you hate them, John, but they’re our best bet,” Jessica said. “They might even have a cure.”
“We do not have the luxury of hatred.” I took a deep breath and shot the last of the bottles, scattering its pieces. “If we can’t find Whateley at Insmaw, we’ll go to Tarr’ghar’rrah.”
“OK. Glad we could get this settled.”
Settled. That was a good word for it. I no longer felt quite the same weight hanging over my head. I would deal with my condition by simply living with it and accept whatever hand fate dealt me. It was liberating in some ways but also frustrating because I could have accepted my situation far earlier.
I also was in a situation where Jessica, Mercury, or myself could be killed at any point. If I’d been a smarter man, I would have turned down the Great One’s offer and stayed with those I loved. I was a gambler, though, and chose to risk all of our lives in the hope of getting more time with both. It was a foolish decision and one I wanted to regret.
But couldn’t.
I paused. “So, Jessica, how is your life in the Boston Ashlands?”
“Do you mean whether I’m happy as the local bandit queen or whether I’ve found someone else to share my bedroll?”
“My, what a dirty mind you have.” I had been thinking it but that was beside the point.
Jessica paused. “No. I’m never going to love anyone the same way as I loved my husband.”
“Ah.”
“Not that I don’t screw the occasional man’s brains out.”
I smirked. “Well, if you want to rejoin us, you’re welcome.”
“Maybe you should join us instead,” Jessica said.
I was tempted, which horrified me. The life of a bandit was something which should have repulsed me but morality seemed less important than being with my friend. “I’ll think about it. We still have to save the world, you know.”
“Assuming it’s actually in danger,” Jessica said. “I don’t think this rock can look worse.”
“You never know. Thank you for this talk.”
“You’re welcome, John.” Jessica gave me a kiss on the cheek before departing. I stood there for some time longer before returning to camp in order to prepare for supper and bed. I was glad to have reconciled with her. Little did I know it would not soothe my dreams. They would prove to be the worst of my all-too-brief existence on this world.
Chapter Fourteen
August had not exaggerated his culinary talents; dinner was much better than it had a right to be Afterward, I settled down in a tent with Mercury. The large, enclosed tepee-like structure was more for privacy than protection, as our cavern sanctuary seemed to be holding up against the firestorm outside.
Neither of us was in a talkative mood and we slid into our shared bedroll without a word. I resolved to talk about the Jessica situation the next morning. Feeling Mercury press against me, I bit my lower lip and forced away other thoughts that might distract me.
Even fully clothed, I felt temptations I’d be ill-advised to indulge in. Soon, I told myself. I’ll be normal again soon. Then we can be together again. I was tempted to indulge myself in other ways. I decided to just be grateful for a roof over my head (cloth or not), as it prevented me from seeing the alien stars in the sky or the Faceless One’s magical storm. Without either to distract me, I soon fell asleep. That was when the horror of my dream began. It was a dream that would shake the core of my identity and end any pretension of my continuing humanity.
I dreamt I was an alien. This statement does not convey the level of grandiosity of the vision that haunted my slumber, any more than to look upon the Earth from space is to see a mud-covered rock. One second, I was John Henry Booth, and the next I was a being walking across otherworldly plateaus with the entire sum of his knowledge and memories available to me.
I was no longer just John Henry Booth but also R’thugh’cruan, an Eye of Yog-Sothoth. R’thugh’cruan was a hero on his world. In the mountainous, boiling-ocean-filled world of Kastro’vaal’utun, there were many dangers for members of his race, and it was his job to face them as a Protector. Like all sentient species in every galaxy but the youngest, the Kastro’vaal had to contend with the Great Old Ones.
I realized, then, it was a misconception that the Earth was especially cursed with the presence of the Great Old Ones. I knew, as R’thugh’cruan knew, that the Great Old Ones existed in every corner of the universe. Whenever a species achieved ultimate mastery of technology and biology, a profound metamorphosis occurred. In science, this was a theory known as the Singularity, and it had been predicted as a result of humanity’s research in computers and biology. Obviously, we failed to make the transition.
Ages earlier, though, I was an alien and part of a race which was on the verge of making such an ascension. In my vision, R’thugh’cruan was not focused on such esoteric thoughts and instead on driving a living beam of blackened light into the side of an Elder Thing. The creature split in two and rotted away to nothingness before my eyes. I turned to look upon the battlefield, where a million others of their kind had been slain by my fellow Kastro’vaals.
It was billions of years in the past, and the Elder Things were waging a war against the Kastro’vaals. The war against the Elder Things, or T’yruuk’aal’thul, as they were known to the Kastro’vaals, had been going on for the better part of two million years. It had devastated whole galaxies until saner heads had prevailed and restricted their conflict to personal combat. This fight, despite its size, was little more than a border skirmish.
Stretching forth his arms into the air and raising up on all four of his legs, R’thugh’cruan gave an alien shout of triumph. The battle was over and he’d proven his mettle. “[Thanks be to the Key and the Gate, I am victorious.]”
“[You have triumphed over a few of the Elder Things today,]” R’thugh’cruan’s primary mate T’kool’ha spoke behind him. “[But this is littl
e enough victory in a world threatened by the Great Old Ones. You, alone, have destroyed one in single combat. We should focus on defending ourselves against them.]”
R’thugh’cruan turned around to face his mate, who had teleported in at the end of the battle. T’kool’ha was just one of many mates he’d claimed, just as he was one of a dozen she had, but she was his favorite. T’kool’ha did not resemble R’thugh’cruan’s centaur-monster form that I’d seen the other Kastro’vaal wearing. They were a shape-shifting race, having long since mastered the ability of being whatever they wanted to be, and adapting to whatever environment they wanted. Instead, she resembled something more like a Venus flytrap crossed with several varieties of insect.
The human part of my mind, remembering this alien flashback, felt revolted, and it became doubly so as I felt the lust R’thugh’cruan was experiencing for this form. The Kastro’vaals had spread across the universe, assuming local forms and interbreeding with lesser species. Their offspring would transform into one of their own and feel a kinship for the Kastro’vaal. It wasn’t even an uncommon method of assimilation.
Speaking his alien language of telepathy and sub-harmonics invisible to humans, R’thugh’cruan said, “[I did not destroy the Great Color-Which-Has-No-Name myself, T’kool’ha. I won that victory through the aid of the Wise One, K’tul’u. He/she/it gave me insight into its weakness. I do not believe we can wage war against the whole of the Great Old Ones and achieve victory. We must focus on our transformation so we can survive them.]”
“[I do not trust K’tul’u or his/her/its people,]” T’kool’ha said, making strange wiggling gestures whose meaning R’thugh’cruan might understand but were meaningless to me. “[They are far along in the transformation and will soon be Great Old Ones themselves. Then things like empathy, love, and compassion will be things of the past. What is gaining the power of the universe if it costs the Kastro’vaal themselves?]”
R’thugh’cruan thought, but did not say, his answer: Power. Survival. Knowledge. The Great Old Ones were eternal unless they were killed, and even that was questionable. The Great Color-Which-Has-No-Name that had eaten galaxies was dead, but might return someday to hollow out worlds anew. R’thugh’cruan craved that sort of strength.
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