Somewhere around thirty yards into the tight tunnel, William began to panic.
“Move, move, move. We need to go back. We can’t be here!” His words were stringing together so quickly that I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I had to ask Nancy, who was directly between her father and myself, what it was that he was saying.
She added, “He says that these are the tunnels reserved for the servants to move around the city.” He face paled as she realized what that meant.
“Why should that matter?” Leo said loudly from the front of our troupe.
I had been careless and stupid, and that realization presented itself as rage. I slapped the stone wall solidly, sending a wave of pain from my wounded shoulder that threatened me with nausea. William had known right away and I should have consulted with him about these tunnels before we dove in.
“It matters,” I answered trying to temper the frustration in my voice, “because the Elder Things that lived here were served by shoggoths!” The last word came out in a hiss.
Leo’s face, having traveled with me long enough to know what a shoggoth was, lit up with understanding before a flash of fear passed over his swollen eyes.
Leo turned to William immediately and began talking him down. Panic in an enclosed space that could possibly be closed off by ancient proto-shoggoths wasn’t going to help us survive. After a few moments, William quieted, but his panic was still evident.
“What did he tell him?” I asked Nancy.
Nancy frowned. “Leo said that we don’t know that any shoggoths are still around and using these tunnels. He said that going forward was only probably going to kill us, but going backward was definitely going to kill us.”
It was hard to argue with that logic.
Our team continued down the tunnel and through several turns with minimal visibility. At one point, I passed my lighter up to Leo so that he could have some sort of warning before any shoggoths were right on top of us. There were offshoots and other tunnels that intersected with the one that we were using, but we stayed true to that one, hoping that at a later time we might be able to map out where we were and where we would need to go. We didn’t hold strong to that hope as we had all experienced the backwards physics of the city, but we didn’t want to make anything harder on ourselves than it had to be.
Finally, our tunnel opened up into a smaller room, nothing like the two caverns that we had previously seen. This room was still covered in the smooth-as-glass stone, but the little light that there was had a red hue to it. Whereas the caverns had been circular, this room was perfectly square and about the size of my office back in Miskatonic. Two large statues on plinths had made up the center at one point, but all that remained of the statues were chunks of stone surrounding the plinths. The plinths themselves were around the length of a person wide and long and stood shoulder height on me.
The panic and the tight quarters left our party catching their breath. Leo inspected the rest of the room while I put my head back into the tunnel we had just left. I needed to know if we were being followed by Nazis, stray penguins, or proto-shoggoths. Although, I was sure that we wouldn’t know the proto-shoggoths were near until they were on us.
I held my breath as I listened and stood there like that for a full thirty seconds before letting my breath go again. I turned back toward the group.
“I don’t think that we were followed.”
Nancy’s shoulders visibly sagged and her father quickly fell to the floor between the plinths and returned to pouring over his journal.
Leo came up to me, “There is only one other entrance to this place and it is the same size as the tunnel that we left. It is a fair bet that this place was only used by the shoggoths.”
That didn’t sit well with me, but I was willing to push it to the back of my mind for the moment. “Well, I figure that we won’t have to worry about the shoggoths for now and the Germans haven’t picked up on us yet. I suggest that we rest.” Then a thought occurred to me. “But no one sleeps!” I said it a little louder than I needed to, but it got the message across. I calmed down as I added, “In case we need to move.”
Leo saw past my outburst and lowered his voice so that the Dyers couldn’t hear what he was saying. “You saw her again?”
I nodded. “Sebastian and I flew here. It was the only reason I found you as soon as I did.”
Leo’s eyes lit up. “They were shooting at you.”
I nodded again. “We crashed and Sebastian had been hit. When he blacked out Olivia was there.” I shook my head. “He didn’t make it.”
Understanding and sympathy filled Leo’s expression. “I am sorry. He was a good friend.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “And another one lost in my foolish crusade.”
Leo gave me a half-grin. “All crusades are foolish until they bring results. Let us bring this one to a close so that his death isn’t equally as foolish.”
He stepped away from me and took a seat across from the Dyers at the other plinth. I joined him with the Dyers sitting against one plinth and us facing them sitting at the other plinth.
I waved a hand at William and asked, “What is this all about? He couldn’t read that damned book yesterday.”
Leo nodded. “You are not the only one who has been through much. We marched for half of a day before we finally reached trucks. It was at that point that they decided that killing me would be easier. My only value would be as a hostage against you, and you were dead.”
Nancy interrupted. “Until I spoke up. I told them that he had become invaluable to father in the translation of the journal.”
Leo nodded. “Instead of killing me, they beat me to find out how true it was. I spouted things that I had heard you say about the void. It seemed to be convincing enough. They beat me for another handful of minutes before Strobel demanded that they put me in the truck.” He didn’t say it with any pain in his face, only as a fact. Leo was a soldier and knew that sometime that meant taking an ass-kicking.
“We arrived at the city and somehow they began unloading explosives.” Leo frowned. “It was as if they knew right where to hit the mountain. The explosion opened up a tunnel that led directly into the city.”
William looked up from his journal then. “That would be my fault. In my original document, I explained the exact location of where tunnels ran through the mountain. Danforth found an entire map. I included that.”
I shook my head. “Then it wasn’t your fault. It was Brandon Smythe’s fault. He’s the one who gave everything that you left at Miskatonic to the Germans.”
That didn’t seem to change the guilt-ridden look on William’s face, but he dropped the subject and put his nose back into the journal.
Leo picked the story back up. “It didn’t take long for us to figure out that they are definitely looking for some sort of armory or weapons cache.” Leo waved his hand at William. “He still couldn’t read the journal when we finally made it into the city. It wasn’t until we reached what Dyer kept calling the Central Commons that the journal finally made itself clear to him.”
William looked up again. “The Central Commons is the common area for the entire city. It was by sheer luck that we found it.”
“What is it?” I begged.
“The Central Commons is where all of the maps of the city are. Instead of histories written all over the walls, maps and alien languages cover every inch of that massive place,” William said. “Once I was in there, something...” he hesitated, “clicked... and I was able to read the journal again.” It was William’s turn to frown, “Although, it turns out that while I was here previously, I had written the entire thing in my own code. I have been deciphering it since.”
“And what does it say?” I demanded.
William’s eyes grew wide. “For one, it showed me that those smaller tunnels are for those beastly shoggoths. They have no solid mass and are therefore able to squeeze into much smaller tunnels than their barrel-shaped masters.” He calmed back down. “For another, it has shown m
e how to navigate this place. I’m fairly certain that I could find the armory that the Nazis are looking for.”
“Good,” I said. “You’re going to take us there.”
“What?” William said. “Are you just another war monger like our German enemies?”
I shook my head, but before I could reply, Leo answered for me. “If you are going to destroy a city, you need a very big bomb. Where would you hide a big bomb, Dr. Dyer?”
Realizing his point. William lowered his head back into his journal and kept scribbling notes.
Leo looked at me with a smile. “We might actually pull this off.”
I smiled and put false bravado behind my words. “Of course! I never had any doubts.”
Something crossed my mind then. “If there’s an entire map room, why did you need the journal to navigate us? Can’t the Germans still find the armory?”
William shook his head. “The maps were extradimensional. Our minds cannot retain them after we have seen them.” He held up his journal, “That is why I wrote this, but I also wrote this to explain the hazards that we face.”
“Hazards?” I asked. “Like the shoggoths?”
William shook his head. “No. Environmental hazards. A map room that the mind can’t hold onto isn’t the only alien thing in this city. We are only human and there are environmental conditions that the Elder Things were more adept at handling than we are.”
I frowned, “A lot of them?”
William smiled. “No need to worry, Andrew. I have it all mapped out here. There are work-arounds for most of them.”
I accepted William’s statement as truth and decided to rest my head against the plinth for a moment. Before it could touch the cold and smooth stone, I decided to ask Leo, quietly how Nancy and William had been holding up.
“Nancy is our little soldier. I have been very impressed by her.” On my encouragement, Leo continued. “I made an early attempt to escape and she took out two of the German soldiers by herself.”
I was also impressed and whispered as much.
“And her father?”
Leo frowned. “Obsessed. Once we entered the Central Commons his nose was in that journal of his and he only came up when he needed air.” Leo smirked at his own joke.
His smile turned serious. “Blowing up the city is a good plan. With Dyer we could even make it work, but what about after? How do you plan to get us away with our boat sunk and a Nazi sub guarding the waters?”
I couldn’t even bring myself to smile as I said, “The same way we always escape: with a whole lot of luck.”
Leo hung his head and began to laugh quietly. “Let us hope that our luck never runs out.”
I agreed with him and the following silence made me realize something.
Nancy hadn’t said anything in quite a while.
I turned my eyes toward her and saw her, with her head on her father’s lap. Her eyes were wide open and staring at me.
She was smiling.
Leo noticed her at the same time I did. “Is everything alright, Nancy?”
“That isn’t Nancy.” I replied.
At some point in the last few minutes Nancy had fallen asleep.
Leo realized what I was saying and brought his pistol up and took aim on Nancy. William finally took notice and began to demand what was going on when Nancy sat straight up.
I put my hand on Leo’s arm and lowered his gun. “How can we help you, Olivia?”
Olivia, in her Nancy suit, shook her head. “How can I help you?”
She slowly raised her own pistol and aimed it at Leo and then her father and then at me. “All of this dead weight is slowing us down!” She was spitting as she spoke. “Anyone can read that damned journal now and Leo looks like he lost a fight with a baseball bat! Let me help you again!”
William looked at his daughter. He didn’t understand what was going on.
It was then that he said the words that I hoped he would never say again. “Nancy, what are you doing?” Stress filled his face and his confusion was turning to fear. “Put down the gun, my girl!”
Olivia made a mocking hurt face, “Maybe I wouldn’t be holding a gun at all if my daddy hadn’t run away from home.”
William’s fear is replaced with concern. “That wasn’t my choice, Nancy. You know that.”
“Blah, blah, blah, bang!” Olivia said, and then shot William in the throat.
Surprise filled William’s eyes as he slumped over.
Leo leaped up and at her quicker than I could, but Olivia was faster and spun around with her pistol. Three more gunshots took Leo in the gut and he collapsed between Olivia and me.
I was screaming and my own pistol was up and aimed at Nancy’s body before I realized what I was even doing. I halted myself from shooting her and instead leapt at Olivia.
But not physically.
On instinct, I left my body and jumped at my insanity. As I came at her I noticed that I wasn’t the only one. She had summoned the Night Gaunt to return her to the Dream Lands.
The Night Gaunt got to her before I did, but I still got to her. As she started to rise into the aether, I gripped her around the waist and jerked down with all of my spiritual strength.
Together all three of us, the Night Gaunt, Olivia, and I, all fell to the floor.
Olivia kicked me in the face before I could get up.
“My world, my rules, Doran!” She kicked me again. “We could have been happy together!” She was screaming. Another kick came at my face. “What did you hope to accomplish by coming here?”
I sat up before she could kick me again and said, “I just wanted to release your pet.”
The guttural language of the Night Watchers erupted from my mouth as I cast a spell that Olivia never took the time to learn.
The Night Gaunt’s head jerked toward me at the sound of those words. Its blind gaze looked right at me before jerking back toward Olivia. Olivia’s eyes went wide with realization. She barked the only guttural command that she had ever learned. It was the same phrase that I had taught to the Ancient Child, but her words had no effect this time.
The Night Gaunt, now freed from her control and resenting the claim of ownership that Olivia had placed over it, lunged at her.
She swung her arms and barked other magical phrases she had learned while riding shotgun in my brain, but nothing stopped her attacker as it batted her hands aside and tore into her neck with its fierce claws. As her neck ripped, her screams went quiet.
It was quite different to see the death of this completely spiritual being than it was to see William die.
Instead of bleeding from her wounds, each new wound aged her. In seconds, she looked over a hundred years old and her flesh just began falling off.
I enjoyed every moment of her death, watching with a sadistic glee that I hadn’t realized myself capable of.
When not even dust remained of Olivia, the Night Gaunt turned toward me. I could tell that it was sizing me up, preparing to make an attack, but I did nothing.
Night Gaunts are intelligent creatures and this one was no exception. It might have been the hands that destroyed Olivia, but I was the one who had been the victor in that battle. Instead of lunging at me, it leapt straight up and vanished into the nothingness.
I returned to my body and moved to Leo’s side. He was still gasping and spitting blood with each breath.
“You damned idiot!” I shouted at him. “I told you to ignore her.”
Leo spit blood. “She...killed Dyer.”
I slapped my hand on the floor in anger. “And you, dammit!”
Suddenly Nancy was conscious again. Her eyes fell on Leo and I first and she was by our side in seconds. “What happened? Oh my God! What happened?” Her head spun around and her eyes found her father before I could say anything. Her screams were incomprehensible.
Finally, she’s just repeating through tears as she hugged her father’s dead form to her chest, “What happened?”
Leo shook his head at me
and I understood what he meant. “The Nazis found us. I was able to push them back, but they got us.” I hugged her to me, pulling her off of her father. “Nancy, I am so sorry. I am so very sorry.” I said those words, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how much Olivia’s gunshots had alerted everyone in the city to our current location. “Nancy, we need to get out of here. They are going to be coming back.”
She pulled away from me then and fell on top of her father, sobbing into his blood soaked shirt.
Leo tried to sit up, but spit up a lot more blood. He was dying and it wasn’t going to be long.
“Sit still, idiot.” I told my friend. “I am going to try something.”
I reached into the void and forced it through my body and into my hands which were hovering over Leo’s wounds. Using my will, I tried to shape the power and then released it.
The pain on Leo’s face was suddenly gone and his breathing became much steadier.
“What did you do?” Leo asked.
I frowned as I answered, “I didn’t save you, if that’s what you’re asking.” I helped him to his feet. “That is a fatal wound and gut shots don’t heal.”
“If I am not healed, then why do I feel better?” Leo asked.
“Take a look.” I said, waving my hand at his stomach.
Leo unzipped his jacket and pulled up his shirt. Underneath, his flesh was pale and stained with his blood. Wiping away as much as he could, he saw that he still had the three bullet holes and they were still leaking blood, but not nearly as fast as they had been previously.
“I took away the pain and slowed your death. We still have a war to win.”
Leo frowned but nodded. “I am unsure how I feel about this.”
I explained, “We had two options. Either you die and leave us to find this armory by ourselves with monsters and a large collection of Nazis hunting us, or I could give you a chance to save our lives, the world, and to take the fight one last time to the Nazis. Did I guess wrong in what my friend in arms would prefer?”
Leo gave me half of a grin. “No, but I still would have preferred a discussion.”
“Duly noted.” I replied. Looking at Nancy, I added. “Don’t tell her. I don’t want her thinking that I could save her father. That kind of false hope would destroy her.” Leo nodded in reply.
The Adventures of Andrew Doran: Box Set Page 40