My last words were barely more than a whisper and I knew that my allies couldn't hear it. I collapsed from the staring of speaking so much and understood that using the power to switch souls must have drained the monster. He could have killed me when he had done the deed and then he'd have been in the clear to escape, but he knew that he'd need the strength just to make it up the hole and out of this damned crypt.
Out of the hole. If I could not get them to drop the body back down, I would be left with getting out of the hole myself. This wouldn't be easy if it was even possible. If it was simple the wizard would have crawled from the hole many centuries ago. I had to hope that I was somehow more clever than the century old wizard and that maybe I could come up with something that he did not.
I thought, then, upon the Dean Brandon Smythe's pet shoggoth and how it had moved me from the desert and to the halls of Miskatonic University. It was a wishful thought. I could not conduct a similar feat without losing complete control of my mind. I would enter the void as Dr. Andrew Doran, at least in mind, and would leave a monster befit his shell.
I rested there, beneath the hole on my knees and looking upward at the quickly rising form of my own body when I noticed something cold and hard in my grip.
In the grip of my left hand...
I looked down at where my left hand should have still been and stared at it intently. I rolled my wrist,and while nothing visible happened, I could feel my wrist roll. I had heard of phantom pains and feeling limbs when they were long missing, but this was different. I could feel something in my left hand. I slid the thumb of my left hand up and down what was in it and wiggled my index finger. My examination yielded interesting results. I was holding my rune covered .38 pistol.
Suddenly, I had a plan. The soul is a fickle thing. Laws of science don't apply to souls. Laws of the void don't even apply to souls, which is probably why shoggoths crave them so much.
Swapping the bodies after I had so recently cut off the wizard's arm with the magic sword had left me in control of a piece of my original body. My soul still had a left arm.
Maybe I wouldn't need magic at all. Maybe I could just...shoot something.
I liked this idea and it gave me a renewed energy.
The devil wizard's arm was cut off directly below the elbow, so I could only assume that any control I might have over my body's arm would be limited to only the wrist and my hand. It would have to be enough.
Using the rotted eyes in the soft skull of the dead wizard, I looked up the hole another time and this time I paid close attention to where the limbs of the body were situated.
Regretting it as I did it, I then moved my left wrist only barely, twisting the gun up and to the right.
Then I squeezed the trigger. The boom of the pistol filled my ears and the hole. As the ringing in my head subsided, I heard a howl of pain that was entirely inhuman coming from the shaft.
I looked back up the hole and was greeted with an excellent sight.
I was falling.
The wizard didn't have as far to fall as I had the first time, but he was still in my sore body. I let him hit the ground, hoping he hadn't broken any of the merchandise.
Before he could get up, I punched him hard in the base of the back, hoping that my tail bone was hurting him as much as it had been hurting me. His right wrist was bleeding, so I kicked it, flinching as I did. Getting back into my body looked like it was going to be a painful affair, and I wasn't making it any better.
I didn't know how I knew, but somewhere deep in the head of this long dead wizard's ragged corpse was a piece of a thought that he had left behind. I couldn't just touch his flesh with my flesh and hope the souls
would trade again. It had to be something different.
Using the wizard's hand, I ripped open my own shirt. The, taking my dead stump, I thrust the cleaved and against my own chest. To all watching, it would look only as though I were poking him in the chest with a rotten piece of arm, but he and I both knew it for what it was.
I had the soul of my hand deep into my own chest and once I had found what I was looking for, I tore it out of my body.
In the next moment a surge of confusion came over me. My perspective changed and instead of looking down on my own face, I was looking up on the face of a withered and ragged corpse. The eyes were nothing more than pinpricks of light that resided deep within the skull. Of the skull, a large portion of it was missing, exposing the rotten brain. How a soul could be housed in such a beast, I did not know.
The next sensation that washed away all of the confusion from the soul shift was an intense pain that came across my entire body. Whatever the wizard did to keep his body alive and intact also kept it from pains. Returning to my body was a lesson in life itself. Life was pain, and rarely more so than when you've been beaten, shot, and dropped down a long shaft in a French cave.
Twice.
Something in the back of my mind shouted above the pain, only barely, and I opened my eyes in time to see the dark wizard making another lunge at me. I swung my recently rehoused arm back around and placed the pistol directly in his line of sight.
I'm unsure what kind of damage the wizard had prepared his body for. Could he and his soul remain in that body when it was nothing but ash and long forgotten particles? I had no idea, but I was certain of one very profound thing in that moment: he'd have to spend eternity doing whatever it was he did down there without his head.
Climbing carefully to my feet and cradling my shot arm, I took the sword from the dead wizard's body and replaced it in the scabbard and then into the bag. Then I walked back to the hole where someone was shouting down to me.
"I'm fine, just send the rope back down." I shouted back up. The flashlight beam came down on my face, and I was blinded for just a moment before the rope came down to my feet.
Sliding my foot through the loop and wrapping my unshot hand around the rope, I allowed my allies to pull me back up and through the hole.
Smoke and moans of pain were what greeted me back in the tunnel.
As Leo pulled me up, I noticed that Olivia wasn't around. I looked at Leo with exhausted eyes and said, "Where is she?"
The Frenchman only pointed. I followed his arm down the tunnel and saw that Olivia stood at the bend that we had gone around once the Nazis had followed us. She wasn't shooting, but had her gun up. The firefight must have raged on while I was in the other body, but I had been completely oblivious to it. Now, I could only assume that the tunnel and Olivia's own gun kept the Nazi soldiers from advancing.
I took a moment in Leo's lighting to check and reload my pistol. I then leaned on Leo and stood very carefully. The pains that arched up my legs were impossible to describe. I was surprised to be standing. When Leo saw my careful steps he gave me a look of concern mixed with disbelief.
I shrugged and gave him half of a smile. Both caused another shot of pain to course through my body. I was hurt, but we weren't out of the fire yet.
"What happened down there?" The Frenchman asked me.
"I'll explain later," I supplied. "Right now, we need to get out of here." I pointed in the direction we had been headed. "What's that way?"
Leo shrugged. "I have never had the chance to find out."
I nodded. "You will today." I looked toward where Olivia stood, reloading her gun. "We need them to follow us. Maybe they'll take a trip down one of those hell holes I found." I then moved to Olivia's side.
I touched her shoulder while she peeked down the way we had come from. She leapt at my touch and spun around. After a loud curse in French, she poked me in the chest.
"Where have you been?"
I jabbed her back. "You know right where I was, and you should just be grateful I'm back and not some damned monster in my place."
Olivia looked at me oddly then, a hint of understanding somewhere behind her eyes. I doubt she had any idea of what had just transpired, but she fully understood that it probably came from my world of dark monsters and not her world
of Nazi spies.
I changed the subject. "How many?"
She shook her head. "Too many." Olivia leaned around the corner again and then brought her attention back to me. "They have stopped shooting for now, but only because they can't see me."
"Go with Leo. We need them to chase us. I think I can handle that."
She eyed me. "Chase us?"
"Yes. We want as many of them in the tunnels as possible. The more of them in the tunnel the less of them on the streets when we finally get out of here."
"Where do the tunnels lead?" Olivia asked me.
"Out, I hope."
"And what are you going to do that won't get you killed?"
I gave her the same half smile that I had given Leo only moments ago. "I'll improvise. You know: be American."
She rolled her eyes at me and left me alone at the bend so that she could join Leo.
I whispered to them then, hopefully not loud enough for the Nazis to hear. "Get ready to run." As an afterthought, I added, "Watch your step."
I could hear the soldiers ahead of me and knew they could hear me if I wanted them to.
Now, I wanted them to.
"I surrender!" I shouted in English. "Don't shoot, I'm coming out."I hoped that they had at least one person there who could understand it, otherwise this was going to be a horrible plan.
I set my bag down on the ground, just out of their sight around the corner I hid behind. Then I came around with my pistol raised and out, butt toward the Nazis, as if it I were handing it to them.
I walked toward them, slowly and limping of course, which I hoped added to the illusion of my having surrendered.
I could hear many soldiers but only saw one. I was relying on my being an American to confuse them and stop them from firing. It was my hope that they had been asked to detain any suspicious Americans instead of shoot them.
It looked as though my hopes had been justified, and once again I caught myself wondering how much harder my mission to Berlin was going to get. How did the Germans know of my mission? How many of them were prepared for my arrival?
The one soldier came at me slowly, his rifle at the ready. His form was one large silhouette, light from his companions streamed down the tunnel from behind him.
When he came within spitting distance I reached further out with the pistol, wiggling it a bit as encouragement for him to take it.
He nodded. He removed his steadying arm from the rifle's length and reached out for the pistol.
I moved then. I batted his rifle aside and stepped forward, punching the Nazi in the face with the butt of
the .38. His nose exploded in a shower of blood.
He lost consciousness immediately, but I didn't let that stop me from grabbing him and spinning him around to use as a shield.
His companions didn't hesitate to test out my makeshift shield as they filled the tunnel with gunfire. I felt the bullets as they punched into my makeshift shield and allowed the Nazi's body to take the brunt of the attack.
Bringing my pistol up on the now-dead soldier's right shoulder, I used their gun fire to locate the enemy and then placed several well-placed shots and continued to back away from them, careful to watch for the holes in the tunnel floor.
When I rounded the corner again, I carefully laid their companion down on the floor at an angle where he would be easily seen and almost directly in front of one of those treacherous hell holes.
I scooped up my bag then and took off in the wake of Leo and Olivia, being sure to keep as close to the walls and away from the pits as possible.
Surprisingly, I caught up with them very quickly. They were only shuffling along, seemingly giving me a chance to catch up.
We ran together for another moment or so before Leo found a ladder. At that same moment we also heard the first of what I hoped to be many gratifying screams.
Someone had just discovered a hole and, hopefully, a certain headless friend of mine.
We climbed the metal ladder quickly and came out in an alley between two of the houses only a short distance from the house we had been staying in.
"What do we do now, American?" Olivia asked me. There was no accusation in her voice. She was obviously grateful for the escape, but we couldn't stay in this alley for long.
"We need to get out of Lyon tonight." I said this and looked directly at Leo. Our contact wouldn't be much of a contact if he didn't have a plan for leaving in a hurry.
Leo nodded. "Start moving east." He pointed. "I know a man who can get us out, but I must find him. Continue east until I find you." He looked at Olivia then. "Do not worry. I will find you."
I was suddenly concerned, again, that Leo might be attempting to join our duo.
He took off down the alley and away from us. Olivia and I did not hesitate and together we began running east, sticking to the alleys.
We had gone about a mile when I collapsed against an alley wall. Hopefully the Nazis were going to be held up and too nervous about falling to follow us.
Olivia squatted next to me then and smiled. "I am happy to see you alive. First the hole and then your crazy plan against the soldiers. There is much to be said about your American ways."
I shook my head. "No, the American way is much milder than the Doran way, trust me."
What I saw in her eyes then made me wonder what exactly I was getting into in joining these new allies.
Olivia's eyes didn't show gratitude or romantic concern at my being alive any more than a craftsman would have showed gratitude that the hammer he thought long lost was surprisingly easy to find.
I saw my value in her eyes then. I was a means to an end for Olivia. For the first time since I had met her, I had no doubts as to where I stood with the French woman.
And now Leo was brought into this. I was becoming a tool of the French Resistance and I wasn't certain if this was a good thing or not.
Chapter 5: Geneva-Reanimated
I couldn't escape the feeling that I was no longer in charge of this cadre I had created. Reluctantly, I had allowed for the beautiful Olivia Fayette to tag along. It had been a decision born of logic more than sexual desire, although the desire was definitely there. Olivia had the ability to get me out of the nationality of Andorra and more than halfway through Nazi controlled France with far less trouble than I would have faced on my own. For all her aid, I had to keep reminding myself that as a member of the French Resistance, she had her own agenda.
I wasn't too concerned about one gorgeous member of the Resistance. I knew that given the worst, I could handle whatever she threw at me, but, as Leo pulled up in a closed top French automobile, I was suddenly concerned that I was gathering quite the collection of Resistance members.
The car Leo had managed to acquire was beige with a rounded hood and rounded headlights. I didn't know cars, but I knew that this one would have been expensive.
Hardly a vehicle for traveling unnoticed.
The car had a backseat and a sloped rear window, but it had no doors for the backseat. Passengers would have to tilt the front seats forward and then climb into the back.
Hardly a vehicle that would be easy to exit if we're overrun.
I was beginning to question my faith in the Frenchman when he said the words that made me wonder why I had ever trusted him to begin with.
"We must hurry, they are right behind me."
I opened his door and stood aside with him looking at me with confusion. "Get out." I said. "I'm driving."
Leo looked at me for a moment longer before saying "Of course, Dr. Doran," and then stepping out of the car. Tilting the seat forward Leo climbed into the back.
I had made the decision about five minutes before Leo had found Olivia and I stepping out of an alley about two miles from where he'd left us. I was in control of this group and, if Leo was going to join us, he needed to learn who was in control and soon. My demand of the driver's seat had earned me an evaluating look from Olivia, but I didn't acknowledge it. I wish that I could say that I di
dn't acknowledge her for the same reason I'd pulled Leo from the car, but I'd be lying. I'd ignored her look in hopes of impressing her with my cool command of authority.
Damn, she was too beautiful. It was going to get one of us killed.
I tossed my bag into the backseat with Leo and slid into the driver's seat. Once Olivia was in and the door was shut, I took off for the Eastern edge of Lyon.
We hadn't driven a block on the crowded city streets when Olivia called out.
"Up ahead!" Looking at where she indicated, there was a truck blocking the road with about ten soldiers standing outside of it, their rifles were at the ready.
I had seen them as well, but her shout had definitely galvanized me into action. As the soldiers saw us and raised their rifles to their shoulders, I pulled the wheel to the left without slowing down.
Our car slid broadside to them and I gunned it, driving down a road perpendicular to our previous direction. The car rocked back and forth, and I could tell by Olivia's firing of her gun that we had someone following us. I didn't glance at the mirrors to confirm this. The alley was tight and I was crashing through bins and barely avoiding the few people taking refuge from the busy streets.
I touched the brakes for the first time as I saw the end of the alley approaching. Coming back out into the night, I turned the wheel to the right and continued toward the city's edge.
Our night had been a full one and as I drove east, I could see the first bits of orange streaking across the sky. The sun was coming up and it wouldn't be long before it was in my eyes. Hopefully it would be as much a hindrance to our pursuers as it was looking like it would be to me.
After taking the corner, I spared a glance into the mirror and saw that we were being chased by a singular military jeep. On board were only two passengers and a driver.
I'd only glanced in the mirror because the road was still crowded for early in the morning, but there was something about our pursuers that didn't sit easily in my mind.
Other than the whole shooting at us thing, that is.
I found our way out of the chase, and hopefully out of the city after leaving the alley. I was driving uphill and east which allowed me to keep the sun out of my eyes, but I was also coming to an area of town that had a large number of bins along the road. I cut into them at the crest of the hill. As the hood bashed into bin after bin they spilled into the streets. I continued over the hill and the sun blinded me for just a moment. I was grateful that the road continued straight. If there had been a wall or a bend in the road my trip to Berlin might have been put on permanent hiatus.
The Adventures of Andrew Doran: Box Set Page 12