Necropolis: Book 4: Hybrids

by Michel Weatherall

  Tamara held her hands over her mouth, terrified, alone, and unsure what to do. Her mind, still linked with Dante's saw everything! Deep beneath Dante's subconscious, lay another undiscovered, unknown identity. A lost and fractured aspect of Lorne. He had vague half forgotten memories. He half remembered this thing. He half-believed this thing to be the first of its kind; the oldest of its kind. But no sooner did this thought surface than Nyarlathotep corrected his theory.

  It was the scion of Azothoth. And before she could question what Azothoth was did its image present itself. A bubbling, star-sized blasphemy at the centre of infinity, outside the ordered universe, beyond the confines of time and space. Mindless, thoughtless, boundless. A blind God. The Daemon Sultan. A God of Chaos, Creation, and Madness.

  “Tamara!” It was the voice of the Remnant-Marie. She spoke through the extra-dimensional window Tamara had summoned. “Dante is in grave danger. You must shield him.

  “Dante,” she called out to the boy.

  The mummified husk laughed. The dry rasp echoed sickly through the dripping cave. “ تجاهل لها. انها ليست سوى أشباح. ذاكرة جوفاء“

  “Ignore her. She is nothing but a ghost. A hollow memory!” it sneered in their minds in mockery.

  Dante's knee buckled, his eyes half-shuttered. Tamara – still linked to his mind – could feel the Life ebbing out of him; Nyarlathotep greedily drinking.

  She could sense, could feel the unnatural perversion the mummified thing was. Her fear morphed into disgust and then outrage at the abomination against Nature. The gold and green flecks in Tamara's eyes sparkled with a light of their own as she levitated off the damp stone floor, the psychic energy of the cavern falling into her and charging.

  Tamara's eyes burst into beacons of light as the dynamo of energy reached critical mass and exploded in a telekinetic concussion wave! Its thundering wake was deafening. The moths were obliterated into wet smears. Dante was knocked free of Nyarlathotep's grasp and the mummified thing broke!

  Its legs sheared off at their stony stumps, partial shreds of desiccated flesh and bone torn free from their millennial resting place. His fossilized arm shattered, and what little remained – blackened and leather-like, tumbled and skid across the floor, howling in pain and anger!

  Tamara could sense Dante now. She had broke him out of his stupor.

  She picked up that other energy field too. The one she sensed when they first arrived on the island. It was powerful and influenced everything living in its field. It was subtle and passive but permeated everything living on the island, even themselves. It was absolutely alien and somehow artificial and created – built? It was specific, like a pin point. It had a central source. It had a location. It emanated from that amulet. That queer gem was its source.

  Nyarlathotep was chanting now. She could still hear his thoughts. He was calling someone; something. Summoning something from below.

  “Tekeli-li, tekeli-li!” She heard it first. From the stalactite and stalagmite covered drainage tunnel. The occasional green light would show itself, passing like a wild flashlight. Dante had recovered enough to pay attention to the sound as well. A low deep rumbling, like the sound of a distant freight train.

  The Ghost-Marie shouted to the children. “Dante, open the Gatesphere! Tamara, open the Gateway! Now! You must hurry!”

  The children remained frozen, staring at the drainage tunnel as the green lights became more intense and near frantic in their chaotic wavering. “Tekeli-li, tekeli-li!” its cry became louder.

  The natural formed portcullis of stalactite, stalagmite, and columns exploded in a raining debris of shattered stone and water as something hammered through!

  Protoplasmic, amorphous, it was difficult to tell whether it launched itself into the cavern air, or flew, or hovered; whether it had wings or inflatable gasbags... it was shapeless and absolute nightmare. Its momentum had propelled it into the air. Its protoplasmic mass flattened out into an aerofoil as it hovered and half-fell in slow-motion to the floor, its multiple mouths and eyes gurgling into itself. Pustules grew and erupted across its entire surface. Some forming mouths and faintly self-luminous eyes, while constantly reabsorbing them, only to spew out more boils and puss filled blisters.

  “ الاميبا حمض الأسود“

  “Shoggoth!” Nyarlathotep voice gurgled with glee.

  Chapter 11: The Doom that Came to Nyarlathotep

  Leaman knew the flare-gun wouldn't do much if any damage. He was surprised it fired at all after all these years. But it was enough to stop the crazed women in her tracks; it was enough to frighten the anger out of her.

  A trained CSIS agent, his training hadn't abandoned him. He knew the older Asian man was trying to upset him, hoping to aggravate him into making a mistake, leaving himself open, giving him an opportunity. In all likelihood an opportunity to attack. All this Leaman anticipated as he fired the flare-gun.

  Leaman drew his knife with his right hand as he pivoted counterclockwise on his heel. As he came out of his spin, as he had anticipated, the older Asian man thought he was taking advantage and closed the distance, throwing a high kick to the head.

  Too old, too slow, Leaman thought as he blocked the high kick with his left forearm and drove the knife hilt-deep through the man's ribs.

  It was over before it began. The Asian man had a shocked look of disbelief on his face as he began to slump to the ground.

  Leaman held him by the back of his neck and gently lowered him to the ground. He wasn't right-handed so his aim wasn't accurate. As he pulled the knife out, he quickly assessed the damage. The knife had entered the man's upper left rib cage, piercing his lung and heart. He gagged and choked, coughing up blood.

  Leaman knew he couldn't die. Not here. Maybe they'd listen to him now. Maybe they wouldn't think him mad.

  * * *

  The flare felt like a hot punch when it hit Veronica's shoulder. It hit hard enough at this close range to turn her around and knock her to the ground. The flare ricocheted off her and landed harmlessly on the floor, burning brightly.

  As she raised her head, half stunned, she saw Leaman pulling a knife out of Hiromitsu. He lay prone on the ground gagging on blood. Veronica's senses were rattled enough to simply watch Hiromitsu's draining blood. He was bleeding profusely, the dark liquid thickly spreading over the stone. It followed the lines of the carving of the squid face on the floor. Where the carving might have laid half-obscured beneath the dust and dirt before, now it stood out in bold contrast to the gray stone. The horrible visage of The Whisperer seeming almost sentient.

  * * *

  Composed of the substance of proto-life, there was little it couldn't be. It formed pseudopods and lashed out at the child.

  Pain. It recognized pain as every pseudopod it formed was consumed, disintegrated, destroyed by some invisible barrier around the child. Its solution was simple: attack more.

  Tamara was frightened – terrified! If not for her Symbiot-hybrid instincts, she would have been dissolved in the creature's acid touch; digested alive. Caustic mental shields had instinctively erected themselves around the young Japanese girl, the thing's tentacles exploding into smoking stumps.

  The Remnant-Marie's voice was unrecognizable as she howled and screamed in panic and fear. Her shadowy form abandoning any sort of human-like form; just a rag-like cloth frantically pounding and beating itself against the inter-dimensional barrier.

  The Shoggoth allowed Tamara no reprieve, its massive amoeba-like bulk sloughing over her domed shield, suffocating out all light.

  Tamara fell to her knees trembling, her face hidden in her hands. Her throat was constricted, her chest so tight she wasn't even breathing. But as the horror began to paralyze her, she realized she needed Clear Mind; to subdue the panic; to push down the terror.

  * * *

  Dante rolled and sprang to his feet. The torn mummy lay on the ground, only feet away, laughing and cackling in delight.

  Dante saw the mo
nstrous thing rise up and bury Tamara beneath its train-sized bulk! He instinctively reached out and linked his mind with hers. “You're not alone!”

  She was breathing. Pushing down her fear. Calming her swirling mind.

  Dante began to focus on creating a Gatesphere, as the Ghost-Marie had said. He didn't know what it was. He didn't need to. He could feel it. Some innate part of him simply knew.

  * * *

  Tamara sat on her calves in darkness, her back and head straight, her hands on her lap.

  Gawking, puss-filled eyes leered and numerous mouths babbled their infective madness all around her, pressed against the protective shield, like kindergarten children gawking and pawing at a fishbowl.

  She was calm now, her mind clear. She could see clearly. When her eyes opened they simmered with power. She became aware of the island's strange energy field, its microscopic gravity fluctuations, its fractions of time curling and uncurling, and it all became clear to her. It was a giant battery; an immense psychic energy source, just waiting to be tapped into.

  She allowed it to flow into her, but it was like opening a floodgate! The energy poured in! As she stood, her eyes burned bright as two stars! The energy channeling into her palms so concentrated, so cogent, it became visible, like luminescent water dripping off her hands!

  * * *

  The black Gatesphere rushed past Dante as it expanded, enclosing the two children, the shredded mummy and the shapeless thing.

  Dante could feel the strange gravity curvatures eating at the outer edge of the Gatesphere, attempting to force its collapse, but he maintained his concentration; held the anomalous pocket-universe open. He knew he couldn't open the Gateway as well. The stain was just too great. He needed help.

  “Tamara!” he called out both with his mind and voice.

  Pharaoh Nyarlathotep grasped onto the boy's ankle with its only remaining hand.

  “ يتم فقدان كل أمل“

  “All hope is lost!” it laughed.

  “ وسوف تستهلك لها لأول مرة، بعد ذلك سوف يأكلك“

  “It will consume her first, then it will eat you!”

  The Remnant-Marie futilely pounded and thrashed against the inter-dimensional window.

  Dante kicked the blackened mummified hand off his ankle, “Tamara!” he screamed.

  A trickle of white light carved through the Shoggoth, then widened as the protoplasmic monster was cut in two. And as Tamara, bathed in glowing white light, levitated upwards, the remains of the Shoggoth were torn asunder and splattered against the cavern's walls.

  A light pulsated like a shock-wave from her. It warped and bent the gravity around them. All the cavern's walls pulled with a new gravity all their own, the torn pieces of the Shoggoth rolling and tumbling.

  “You need to open the Gateway!” Dante shouted to Tamara.

  The shredded pieces of the Shoggoth began crawling back towards one another, reforming.

  Tamara's eyes burnt brighter still as the purple Gateway sparked into existence, blue neon-like plasma bolts dancing across its surface, the Gatesphere acting as an event-horizon between our universe and the prison-universe.

  Nyarlathotep roared with laughter. “ طفل أحمق لا يمكنك قتلي، ولا حتى هنا“

  “Foolish child! You cannot kill me. Not even here!”

  Tamara now realized how volatile this power-source was. She needed so precious little. She needed to control its intake. The palm of her right hand glowed dully as she reached for the Eye of Osiris, that queer alien gem in Pharaoh's amulet.

  The desiccated and mummified Nyarlathotep desperately tried to stop her with its single remaining arm. Tamara slapped it away as she grasped the amulet in her hand and released a concentrated gravity pulse.

  “You're already dead.”

  The Eye of Osiris made a dull crack and pop sound as it was pulverized to dust, its cursed magic extinguished. She could feel its radiant energy field collapse and dissipate.

  The half-fossilized and broken mummy was incapable of holding or maintaining any sort of natural life on its own. It simply stopped moving and died.

  * * *

  As a CSIS agent, Leaman had seen it many times in the field: a man die. The light in their eyes extinguish. It was unmistakable. Their life simply goes out. Some serial killers got a God-like high from it. It never got old to Leaman. It always bothered him.

  He couldn't believe what his senses were witnessing. The older Asian man died. The light in his eyes went out. But that was impossible. That was impossible here!

  Leaman felt the man's neck for a pulse... nothing. How could this be? Leaman's panic was rising. Had he killed the man? He knew he couldn't die! Not here! He hadn't died when he fell years ago and caved in his head. The bats couldn't die! Nyarlathotep had explained it to him! He had promised him! He had gifted them with immortality! All they had to do was stay near him! This was impossible!

  Leaman would never have knifed the older man had he known. He turned with an apologetic expression to the woman. He had to make her understand. He wasn't mad! He wasn't a murderer! But when he turned, she wasn't there!

  * * *

  When the amulet's magic died many of the meaty chunks of the torn Shoggoth stopped moving and died with it. Many, but not all. The remaining pieces reformed into a smaller but never-the-less massive Shoggoth. Its amoeba-like flesh instantly stitching itself back together and rising up behind Tamara.

  Again, Marie's beloved daughter was in mortal danger and again there was nothing she could do but watch! The Remnant beyond the extra-dimensional window reacted like a wild animal. Her ectoplasmic shape rotating through forms best restricted to nightmares. The visage, that of a ghoul, as boned clawed talons hammered and raked at the extraplanar window, but all for naught.

  Tamara was distracted, her attention still on Pharaoh. The Shoggoth rose up behind her. Dante had to do something! He was heavily taxed just concentrating on holding open the black surrounding Gatesphere against the strange gravity curvatures. There was little he could do. As he reached out his mind he instantly picked up the Shoggoth's primitive thoughts. It felt like a beacon; its mind virtually reaching out, begging for some sort of contact.

  Its basic thoughts were easy to read. It was a simple creature. It had been made to be simple. Long before the history of man the Shoggoths evolved an immunity to their master's mental hypnosis. Their emancipation had been their prehistory master's extinction.

  It had been made with a purpose. It had been bred to be a servant; a beast of burden; an engine of war; anything its eons extinct masters had desired it to be. And although its species had stumbled upon their freedom, the Shoggoths were never more than the sum of their parts. They were bred, created, built and made to serve. Its brain was hardwired to have a controller. The corridors of its mind were empty, like the inside of a sock puppet. They were built to be 'driven'.

  Dante's mind slipped into the Shoggoth's as naturally as a hand into a glove. He was preoccupied with maintaining the spherical Gatesphere so didn't have the luxury of issuing any specific commands. Just something basic, rudimentary, and simple: “Stop.”

  The Shoggoth, that towering heap of churning protoflesh, rose up behind Tamara. Its full height pressing itself against the cavern ceiling, forming a vile column of amoeboid flesh with gawking eyes and quietly gibbering and drooling mouths... and froze; became rigidly still.

  “Good boy,” thought Dante.

  Marie, her daughter no longer in danger, ceased her frantic pounding barrage against the window.