Then he was gone, up the stovepipe and then theoretically out of the chimney on the roof, a grotesque reverse Santa Claus.
April stumbled across the room, and then collapsed into my lap. She lifted my chin so she could look into my swollen, aching eyes.
“You forgot about me, didn’t you, Preston?”
She let it hang there for a moment, and then she leaned her forehead against my chest. Her arms snaked around my waist, and I felt the cold brass of the scissors brush against my wrists. I held my breath. A snipping sound, and then my hands were miraculously free.
“How did you…?”
“Holly. Told me where to find you.”
Of course. The scissors. I remembered Holly using them to trim a dead plant in front of the Estates a day or two earlier – and I also recalled how Madeleine Diem lost her eyes, so many years before, at the Diem family home. I wondered if this particular pair had originally belonged to one of the Diem sisters, passed on from Holly to April as...who knew. A joke? A game?
“Fix this, Preston.” April commanded, the scissors slipping from her fingers to the tile, strands of her damp hair in my mouth. “Fix it all.”
“Of course.” I moved my limbs experimentally, calculating damage. My eyes and brain felt bleached and scalded, and my stomach and hip throbbed, but I was surprisingly intact, otherwise. “What do you want me to do?”
“They hurt Sumire.” I folded my arms around her, to protect her from falling. Between the rents and tears in her clothing, I could see smeared marker and sweat-marred sigils. Her eyes fluttered as she fought to stay awake long enough to whisper to me. “Hurt them for it. Hurt everyone.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean it!” April seized my arm, nails digging painfully into my skin. “You-know-who included. Make them all sorry.”
Momentary hesitation on my part. Did she notice?
“Okay.”
“Make them understand, Preston.” Her voice was little more than a whisper, her eyes closed and twitching behind lids smeared with marker, her body slack and slippery in my arms. “I need to take a nap, now.”
I really felt a lot better, with clear instructions.
13. New Forms of Thirty-Six Ghosts
The finality of dreaming.
It is extremely difficult to find a cab in the Nameless City. With bloodstained attire and an unconscious girl in my arms wearing torn clothes, it became an impossible task. My phone was long lost, but I found April phone in the ruins of her jacket.
The log recorded only incoming calls, all from my number, Sumire’s number, and another that I didn’t recognize. The directory was empty, as were the text logs and browsing history. There were no stored photos or contact information. I felt a little surge of pride in April’s tradecraft.
I started with Sumire, whose number rang unto infinity.
It took a feat of memory to recall any of my neighbor’s phone numbers. I started with Holly, and got a sultry voicemail greeting after four rings. I debated the wisdom of leaving a message, then hung up, still uncertain how much to trust the morally ambiguous owner of the Estates. Dawes went to voicemail. Short on options, it took me four tries to remember her phone number, but she picked up on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Yael, I need help,” I said, not realizing how bad I sounded until I heard an echo of my voice on her end. “April needs help. We’re in Iram.”
“So am I.” Yael sounded worried. “Where are you?”
The Nameless City isn’t big on street signs, and GPS is always “Processing.” I slung April over my shoulders, fireman style, ignoring increasingly agitated chatter from the pedestrians we passed. I’m a pretty big guy, and circumstances conspired to make my look even less friendly, but eventually someone would work up the courage to intervene – or even manage the impossible, and find a cop in the Nameless City.
“Near the central pillars,” I said, breathing hard beneath April’s forty-odd kilos. The cold air stung my exposed gums every time I opened my mouth. “Not far from the river. A main street. Providence, maybe?”
“Stay on the line,” Yael commanded. “I’m coming to you. Keep an eye out for Sumire or me. The Cats, too.”
“Cats?”
“Ulthar. Called in some favors. Everyone is out hunting for you. Even Jenny Frost promised to look.”
“Wait, what?”
“I know, I know. Jenny isn’t as bad as everyone thinks, you know.”
Oh, I knew. Jenny was much worse than anyone suspected.
I adjusted April on my back, and shot an evil glare at a loud guy in a suit who trailed me for the last couple of blocks, yelling into his cell phone. I had a head full of angles, calculating for maximum advantage.
Yael had no idea how Elijah nabbed me, or that Jenny was working for…someone else. Madeleine, probably? Or his shadowy benefactor – the Yellow King, was it? Either way, she wasn’t involved out of charity or malice. Jenny Frost had an agenda.
There were all sorts of implications to that, assuming I could avoid a spontaneous lynching. The crowd noise behind me was angry, and growing more confident.
“Where did you go running off to, anyway?”
“Sorry about that,” Yael said, her voice thin across the noisy connection. “I thought I saw Elijah…or his mask, anyway.”
“I think maybe you did.”
I took a moment to bring Yael up to speed. She took it rather well, all things considered.
“Elijah…tortured you? With paintings?”
“With etchings.”
“How awful.” Yael sounded thoughtful. “Professor Dawes mentioned something like that, once – art that becomes a window onto something awful – or, worse, a door.”
“Yeah, he said something about the Yellow King doing him a favor…”
“The King in Yellow,” Yael corrected tersely. “Such very bad news. Any luck on the street names?”
“I don’t fu…I don’t know. Everything looks the same. These big sandstone pillars everywhere; jewelry stores, watch stores, nice cars, a mob on my heels…”
There, on the other end of the block, beyond a shopping mall with a rotating door and dizzying array of mirrored neon light fixtures. She dragged her sneakers along the pavement as she walked. The mockery of a dog at her heels was monstrous and emaciated, a full set of ribs on either side complementing a mouthful of scraggly yellow teeth. Jenny saw me and grimaced, shook her head, and then approached me grudgingly, hands buried in her ragged red hoodie.
On the other end of the line, Yael made interrogative noises, but I hung up before she could hear anything.
This would have to be fast.
“Hey, Preston.” Jenny popped her gum and ran her dirty fingers through her filthy hair, while Fenrir growled and eyed me hungrily. “Yael has everybody looking for you…”
“I bet. Who are you working for?”
She tried on a surprised expression. It fit Jenny as badly as everything else did.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you kicked the shit out of me! Again!”
“Aha.” Jenny shrugged. “You’re pissed.”
“Just a little. Now be straight with me. Who put you up to this?”
“I dunno,” she said, with a grimace. “Maybe I blacked out, or something. Don’t remember.”
“Look, Jenny,” I sighed. “In a minute your little friend Yael is going to call back. I have to tell her something. So try not to be a bitch for five minutes, okay? You jumped me at Elijah Pickman’s behest. Why?”
Jenny’s eyes darted about like those of a cornered animal.
“It wasn’t a big thing,” she said, eyes downcast and cagey. “Just an opportunity. I don’t like you, Preston.”
“I know it. Why work for Elijah, though? He need a homicidal vagrant, and see your ad online?”
“I don’t need a reason when it comes to you, Preston.” Jenny worked her jaw from side to side. “Even if I did – Elijah paid in advance.
”
“How do you even know Elijah?”
“Remember Neil?” Jenny sneered. “Lots of the kids at Carter take ADD meds. Competitive environment, or what-fucking-ever.”
“What about Yael? You weren’t worried about betraying your noble-minded friend?”
“For fuck’s sake, Preston,” Jenny whined. “I had no idea she was involved when Elijah hired me. I don’t ask for references, asshole.”
“Language, remember?” I wanted to laugh, despite everything, but it seemed like a bad time. “When Elijah came to you to arrange my abduction, though, you knew that I was working with Yael…”
“Damn it!” Jenny punched the shop wall, barely wincing as her knuckles bounced off the concrete. “Elijah and his creepy aunt promised they’d leave Yael out of it, if I helped them out with you, okay?”
I had suspected something like that – even as I wondered if it were actually true. Not that it mattered.
“You did it to protect Yael, then?”
“Sorta.” Jenny shrugged and looked away. “I mean, they paid me. Obviously.”
I attempted to size her up. Even if it was the truth, I figured it was less than the whole truth. My phone was already buzzing in my back pocket, though, so I didn’t have time for any more questions.
“I won’t say a word to anyone,” I lied, while she helped me lean April up against a wall. “I won’t say anything to Yael, about you. About us. Any of it.”
The bitterness on Jenny’s face almost made the whole day worth it.
“What’s got you in such a fucking generous mood? What do you want from me in return?”
Jenny spat the words out like spoiled milk.
“A truce. An even score, okay? You lay off April and me, permanently.”
She chomped on her gum and weighed my offer.
“Sure.”
“Good.” I gestured at April, and the buzzing crowd gathering around us. The addition of a woman to the situation partially mollified the onlookers, and the seemingly rabid dog encouraged them to keep their distance, but it was a precarious situation. “How do we get out of here?”
Jenny sneered, and then stepped out into the street, disregarding the oncoming traffic. She glanced up and down the street, until she located a taxi, about a block away. She put two fingers in her mouth, emitting a shrill whistle, jarring the cab out of his left turn. Jenny waved him down impatiently.
Defying all logic and common sense, he headed right over.
“See?” Jenny returned to the sidewalk, as my phone lit up with Yael’s number. “How hard was that?”
I carried April to the backseat, and then got in the other side; her head snuggled against my leg, snoring quietly. The taxi driver watched nervously as I bled on his upholstery, but Jenny swung into the passenger seat and shushed his objections. She proceeded to kick Fenrir viciously in the ribs when he tried to follow.
“Get moving, asshole.” It wasn’t clear whether she was talking to the cab driver or the dog, but they both obeyed. “The Empty District, Kadath Estates. We gotta pick up one more on the way, though. She’s a couple blocks over. I’ll point her out.”
Fenrir disappeared into an alleyway, bloodshot eyes burning like an infection. The cab lurched out into traffic, apparently more frightened of Jenny than collision. I sympathized.
The back seat became crowded when Yael joined us a few minutes later, her windbreaker damp from a sudden burst of rain. She refused an offer to sit in Jenny’s lap with a blush and a short remark; examined April and myself with a practical sort of sympathy; and produced a first aid kit from her bag, bless her uptight little heart.
I swallowed aspirin gratefully while Yael applied bandages to April’s feet. Jenny fiddled with the radio, which naturally produced nothing but cultist ranting, while the cab driver looked as if he wished he were anywhere else. It was a thirty-minute drive in evening traffic, but the weighty silence in the cab made it seem longer.
The moon sat atop the Empty District in open defiance of the hour, fat as a pig and twice as smug. The cab driver babbled in an archaic Romance language, pleading with us to get out of the cab. Jenny refused with a laugh, while Yael was gentler, urging him softly to continue. Neither approach bore fruit, as he came to a stop at the top of Leng Street. Jenny reached calmly across him, releasing his seatbelt, and then opening the door before he could object. He lunged for the handle, while she hit him with her shoulder, forcing him out of the car and onto the pavement of Leng Street. Jenny slid over into the driver’s seat; slammed the door twice, the first time on the cabbie’s fingers, as he attempted to reclaim his car; and then shifted back into drive and continued down Leng Street.
“Jenny! What are you doing?”
Yael lectured her the entire way; so pissed, she was practically vibrating in her seat. Jenny absorbed it with silent bad humor.
“Hey,” Jenny said, pointing at the roof of the Estates as we approached it. “What is that shit?”
Yael offered no correction.
On the roof, Sumire was in a defensive crouch, waiting patiently, surrounded on all sides by the amoebic beings generally called Toads. A black-sailed airship hung ten meters above the building, a Toad wriggling bodily down a glistening cord as thin as fishing line, while another airship departed heading east for the water, two blocks away and picking up speed.
We came to a screeching halt in front of the tarnished silver gates of the Estates as a wave of Toads surged forward. Sumire met them with open arms, sending the first smoothly over her hip and off the side of the roof. The Toad collided with the pavement beside the car like a balloon filled with gelatin. We abandoned the taxi in the middle of Leng Street and made for the gate. My shoes squelched over the splattered remains of the Toad, and I felt the goo squirm and flex, busily reconstituting itself. Yael unlocked the gates and charged for the stairs, as another Toad plummeted down the breezeway, bouncing off two walls before splattering against the courtyard.
I laid April beside the mailboxes, and a mewling Lovecraft immediately took up residency, worrying over her and licking her hands. I petted the old cat gratefully and followed Yael upstairs. The stairs were murder on my tired legs, so the crowd had thinned out some by the time I burst onto the roof. There was still a significant infestation of Toads, glistening with mucous and making low croaking sounds. Voluminous robes and ornate headgear did little to hide their disquieting forms. Eyeless faces tracked my movements, purple appendages like tree roots extending from their mouths in great bundles, darting about and testing the air. Yael stood beside the stairwell, messing with some sort of mechanism. At the center of the roof, knee deep in the ruins of Holly’s succulents, Sumire stood her ground, sweaty and cheerful, egging on her opponents.
The Toads surged forward in unison. Sumire danced effortlessly between mandibles and pseudopods, tentacles and toxic sprays. She moved with the explosive grace of a gymnast, slipping attacks and parrying projectiles with her mechanical arm. She evaded a Toad’s prehensile tongue and countered, executing a snap shoulder throw that wrapped it around a chimney. She vaulted over the next Toad, planting a hand on its gelatinous head and using it as a springboard for a somersault that took her behind the crowd. Before the Toads could turn and face her, she charged into the crowd, hitting the nearest Toad with a lariat that nearly tore it in half. She tackled the next, mounting and bludgeoning it with strikes about the head.
I followed clumsily in her wake, getting up close and making short work of a disoriented Toad with the scalpel. Butter would have offered more resistance to the knife than the Toad’s flesh. Off-white fluid and bizarre organs spilled onto my shoes in a revolting miniature waterfall.
The next one was in better shape. I was busy dealing with the mess of tentacles writhing out of an orifice positioned like a mouth, and therefore failed to notice the pseudopod it extended from its back until it was poised to strike like a scorpion’s tail. There was no time to dodge or flee. I counterattacked instead, lunging at the Toad while attempting t
o slip the glistening tip of the pseudopod.
The scalpel punctured the Toad’s head with supernatural ease. The cruel edge of the pseudopod had little more trouble with my jacket and my abdomen beneath. Only a last second roll of the hips kept me from evisceration.
The Toad squirmed away, but there were a score waiting to take its place.
Yael tossed a small object underhand, like a softball, and it went tumbling end over end across the roof, coming to rest in the center of the knot of Toads.
The rooftop crowd flinched and froze, bracing themselves for a detonation. There was a gentle whir, and then a discordant tinkling of keys that gradually resolved into a rippling, haunting melody.
Yael had thrown a music box.
The effect of the music on the Toads was remarkable and immediate. They scattered to the edges of the roof, massing there shortly, desperate for escape. Then the Toads began to throw themselves from the roof. One wet impact followed another as the concrete pulverized them. I mean, they could put themselves back together eventually and everything, but it still very much looked as if it hurt.
We stood in silence, watching the Toads make like lemmings. The melody ran out thirty seconds or so after the roof cleared. I went to pick up the music box for Yael, but it had melted into a steaming pewter puddle.
“What was this?” I said, pointing the former music box. “Magic?”
“No,” Yael said. “Classical. The music of composer Erich Zann. Toads hate it.”
“Didn’t seem that bad to me.”
“It isn’t an issue of quality. It has a little to do with tuning, and much more to do with intervals…”
“Hey, guys!” Sumire approached, waving her goo splattered metal arm. “Thanks for the rescue! You’re a little late, though.”
“I know.” Yael frowned. “They took Holly?”
“Yeah.” Sumire’s smile disappeared. “I came as fast as I could, but they waited until she came up to water the plants, and then parked one of their damn ships right next to the roof. They had already pretty much finished dragging her off before I got up here.”
“Madeleine Diem is running us around in circles,” Yael said, shaking her head in frustration. “She probably has Holly halfway back to Innsmouth by now.”
The Mysteries of Holly Diem (Unknown Kadath Estates Book 2) Page 25