Arkham Detective Agency: A Lovecraftian-Noir Tribute to C. J. Henderson

by C. J. Henderson

  My phone rang. Monica, I hoped, but no, it was an unidentified number. I knew exactly who it was.

  “Yes?”

  “Update.”

  “Still waiting on primary to show.”

  “And the secondaries?”

  “All accounted for at the location.” I said, then I had a thought. “Should I recon the primary’s home and take care of matters there if opportunity presents itself?”

  There was a brief pause and then my handler said, “Okay, do it. Should things get messy, we’ll clean it up.”

  “Roger,” I said and brought the handheld microphone into the car.

  “Before you leave, take care of the others.”

  I paused and I’m sure my handler noticed it. “The primary is Chang, these others—”

  “Are to be taken care of, too.” The caller interrupted. It was so easy to be inhuman when your finger wasn’t on the trigger. “All of them, including the Garret woman.”

  God damn it. Monica.

  The bastards knew. Even though I had not mentioned what had happened on the beach in my report, of course they had known. In this line of work the watchers had watchers.

  When I didn’t reply the voice said, “Is that a problem?”

  I felt my teeth grinding. “No problem.”

  “All eight of the targets?”

  Fucker.

  “Yes, all of them.”

  “Good. Do it and then get on task for primary.”

  I put the phone down, picked up the detonator, and tried to think of ways to get out of what I had to do. As it turned out, fate in the form of a large, aging, overweight man stepped in and stopped me by knocking on the door to the CtAC building.

  I saw a shadow peek out of window blinds to see who the unknown visitor was, but no move was made to answer the door. So he knocked again, louder, and bellowed out, “Come on, you’re not fooling anyone, I know you’re in there.”

  And then I recognized him.

  Aw, shit, it was Frank Nardi.

  I told you Arkham had a history with government watchdogs, right? Well before heading out, I was given a file on certain people I was supposed to avoid while in town, and while not at the top of the list, Franklin Nardi had made the cut for the top ten. He was a retired cop from New York who had come to Arkham to set up his own shop with a P.I. firm. Nothing too uncommon about that; a lot of ex-police did similar things. Only this guy specialized in the weird and strange, like I did. His Arkham Detective Agency didn’t bill themselves as out-and-out ghostbusters, but they had a reputation of messing with the supernatural and being discreet about it. My guess was that he and his pals were most likely con men, milking old folks out of their pension checks to make their houses stop bumping in the night. But the file I read suggested that Nardi might be legit, and regardless, he and his crew were considered off-limits. Somewhere, somehow, they had friends. Normally I hate people I can’t kill. Not that I’m a psycho. Okay, not that I am a full-blown psycho, but often the easiest way to eliminate problems in my line of work is to eliminate people. The off-limits people were always a pain in the ass. But this time …

  I looked at the detonator and back at Nardi, now banging on the door hard enough to just about break the glass.

  “Well, I can’t eliminate an untouchable; guess my hands are tied.” I smiled. I don’t get to smile enough in my life; it felt good.

  I once again retrieved the mic and pointed it at the big P.I. as the door was finally answered by Mike Hollis. “Yes?”

  Nardi bulled right past him, causing Mike to say, “Hey, wait a minute!”

  To which Frank grumbled, “Stow it; where’s Derek Bannon?”

  Derek was the youngest member of the Clear the Air cabal, being a freshman at Miskatonic University. The only reason he was even invited in was because his daddy was a megabucks businessman, and it’s always good to have someone around to pay for things. Well, other than Daniel Chang, who paid for everything, but there were always gas, pizza, and beer costs that had to be covered, and that’s where Derek came in.

  Of course no one told Derek that.

  As the two went deeper into the building, I turned the mic’s laser back to the widow where the rest of the CtAC commandos were, and sure enough I heard Frank bellow, “Derek, there you are. Come on, I’m getting you out of here.”

  “Huh, what? Who are you?” A bewildered, and probably more than a little high, Derek said.

  “Yeah, who the fuck are you, old man?” George Crossman said, playing it tough, no doubt in an attempt to impress Monica.

  “Shut up, Crossman,” Nardi growled and I could imagine George melting away like the little nothing he was. And that one comment showed that Frank knew exactly who he was dealing with. “I’m Frank Nardi, P.I. and my detective agency was hired by Derek’s parents to get him out of this little ‘cult.’”

  “What?” Three or four people said in unison, so I couldn’t identify their voices.

  “Let’s just say that Derek’s rich daddy has right-leaning political ambitions, and his left-leaning son is giving him fits.”

  “Now wait a minute, this is crazy. We’re not a cult; no one brainwashed Derek or anything. He’s here because he wants to be here, and he has every right to be here, so, Mr. Nardi, I think you had better leave.” Mike Hollis said.

  “I don’t think you have the authority to make that call, Mike.” Nardi said. “So tell me, where’s your boss?”

  “What?”

  “Chang. How come he’s not at this little powwow of yours?”

  “Uhm …”

  “I’ll tell you: he’s not here because he’s making a run for it. He’s blowing town, and I bet he didn’t tell any of you that, did he?”

  Again, the chorus of “What?” sounded.

  “Yeah, when we’re on the case, we watch everyone. So I know that Chang transferred all of his U.S. funds to China. I know that he had two buddies from his homeland fly in today, and the three of them have been in his house all day, packing, and he’s booked a one-way ticket, first class, of course, back to China.”

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  “So, Derek, whatever is going on here, it’s bad. Maybe the cops know about your extra-curricular activities in demolition?

  “Oh no,” Monica whispered.

  “Fuck,” George whined.

  “Now I don’t care about that; all I care about is what I was paid to do, and that’s get you, Derek, the hell out of here before this ship of fools sinks. The waiting-for-a-good-time-to-do-it bit is through, it has to be now. So for once in your life, make the right decision and come—”

  I flipped off the mic, turned the key in the car’s ignition, and set off. Chang was rabbiting, he was the primary, he was the only one that mattered. And besides, since Nardi was still with the others when I learned this vital piece of intel, I couldn’t blow up the building with him in it. Frank Nardi was too damn important.

  Yeah, that caused me to smile again.

  - - -

  Chang’s spacious house was thirty minutes outside the city. A mansion by any other name, I had never been to it, but had heard all about the place from Mike Hollis. I parked past the closed gate that blocked the driveway, and had to admit that the place lived up to the stories. Daniel Chang was a socially conscious tech mogul looking to use some of his billions to save the world. But this Bill Gates wannabe wasn’t all that he seemed, as the CIA could only trace his background back twenty-some years. Before that, Mr. Chang didn’t seem to exist at all. And that, right there, was the sum total of what I knew about the man, even after a half-dozen social gatherings and meetings with the other CtAC members.

  I got out of the car and reached under the driver’s seat for my shoulder holster. Slipping it on, I took a moment to check the suppressed SOCOM .45 it held. I wish I had something more beefy with me, but all I was expecting to do tonight was press a button, so I was lucky to have this. Always be prepared, and all that.

  I climbed the stone wall that marked C
hang’s property, and a hundred yard dash later I was at the house, which I circled until I found a patio door that on this warm summer night was open, save for the screen. A flick of a knife, a slit screen door, and I was inside the darkened house. I drew my automatic, thumbed off the safety but kept my trigger discipline, and listened. Noise, upstairs, and voices. Yep, Chang wasn’t alone.

  I crept forward and found the stairs in a matter of moments. I ascended, treading on the inside of the steps next to the wall to minimize sound. The second-floor hall light was on, robbing me of concealment. At the other end of the hallway a door was open. More lights were on in the room beyond, and a voice could be heard speaking Mandarin. Luckily for me, in addition to my gift of cold-blooded sociopathy, I also had a head for languages. And while my Mandarin wasn’t pretty to listen to—I was once told that I sounded like an American with a mouth full of mush when I spoke it—I could understand it just fine.

  “I told you to hurry; we don’t have time to take that,” a voice said that I didn’t recognize.

  “These suits are by Desmond Merrion; if you think I am leaving them, you’re mad.” That voice was Chang’s.

  “Stupid fool,” said a third person I also didn’t know, “you have lived too long in the West; you have become decadent. You are the mad one, and not only for your insane theories about bees and cellphones.”

  “Tell me,” Chang said, anger rising in his tone, “when was the last time you heard the Call?”

  There was silence, so I stopped my slow, careful creep toward the open door and waited for the conversation to resume.

  I didn’t have to wait long, as Chang said, “Or what about you? When was the last time you heard it?”

  “There is no proof—” one of the visitors said, before being cut off by Chang.

  “They have stolen that from us!” Chang shouted. “The one thing we value most, the one thing we must hear, gone. The Ancient Masters are too damn ancient. Modern things are beyond them, so they choose ignorance instead of facts. That’s why they sent you to bring me home. But you are what, two hundred, two hundred and fifty years old?”

  Oh shit, I thought. You only got that old through magic, and I hated magic. I believed in it, respected it, feared it, didn’t understand it, but more than anything else, I fucking hated it.

  “You know how fast the world has changed just in your lifetime,” Chang went on as I continued my creeping. “Technology is their new religion, and it only makes sense that they would one day test their faith against ours.”

  “Time for debating is over—”

  “Yes, now is the time to act before it’s too late!” Chang said.

  “No, now is the time for you to listen to the Masters and come with us before the Americans find—”

  Then an Asian man looking to be in his mid-forties, well dressed and groomed, stepped in front of the door. He was obviously just crossing in front of the open portal, but in the corner of his eye he had seen me. His head turned in my direction, his eyes went wide with surprise, his lips formed an O, and I put a .45 hollow-point though the center of his forehead. As the back of his skull exploded out in a geyser, I rushed forward. Surprise was on my side, and I had to make the most of it.

  Stepping into the room, noting that it was a large bedroom, I saw a target move to my right. I raised my weapon, squeezed off a shot, and hit another unknown man dead center in his chest. Then there was the sound of splintering glass, I saw the image shatter, and I realized that in my haste I had just killed a reflection in a mirror. I was sure that seven years of bad luck would be the least of my worries tonight.

  More movement, this time to my left, and I saw a figure dash toward an open door; it was Chang. I squeezed off two shots, but he was too fast, or I was too slow, and I saw both rounds impact the wall next to the door. Then the owner of the reflection I had shot came rushing at me from across the room with a shout.

  You know, it’s a stupid stereotype that all Asians know kung fu, but this guy knew something. All I saw was feet and fists as he rushed at me, moving faster than I had ever seen anyone move before. There was something unnatural in it, almost blurry, but I didn’t have time to think about it, I just reacted. Thankfully for me, I finally caught a lucky break tonight. Remember when I said that this was a large bedroom? Well, that brief description didn’t do the room justice, Chang had billions and wasn’t afraid to flaunt them. And just as I had underestimated the size of the room, my attacker had misjudged how long it would take him to cross it, so I was able to spin and hip-fire at him as he reached a dangerously close distance. This time I hit the mark, and my round plowed into his chest. It stopped him dead in his tracks, and more importantly, stopped the fist he had sent hurtling toward my face a scant few inches from my nose.

  We both blinked in surprise.

  Then I shot him three more times, causing him to jitter as the hollow-points tore baseball-sized exit wounds out of his back. He hit the ground with a thud as I replaced the .45’s partially spent magazine with a fresh one, as it’s always better to be over-loaded than under. I then sprinted to the doorway Daniel Chang had run through, and with a quick peek inside, saw that it was a closet. A closet with an open secret door at its back and stairs leading down.

  “Great,” I whispered, and then descended after the target.

  What started off as man-made brickwork turned into a natural cavern somewhere around the fortieth step down. Thankfully, electric lights were strung along the walls on thick orange cables, I had been honestly expecting flickering torches on sconces. At the end of the stairway, the underground room widened out greatly, but again I was too busy to accurately gauge its dimensions. Not with the huge statue of some thing commanding all of my attention. Made of greenish stone, standing over twelve feet high and half that across, it was the stuff of fevered nightmares. It was a mashup of different beasts; by themselves tolerable, but somehow, in this configuration, completely captivating and repellent. It was carved to have the body of an obese man—well, mostly—and bat-like leathery wings on its back. The hands and feet of the horror were huge claws; it squatted on a pedestal covered in runes I had never seen before, and all around its hideous bulk were small, round things, that somehow I knew at a glance were human skulls, tiny in comparison to its enormity. The very worst aspect of the statue was its face; that was a mass of tentacles where a mouth should be, and baleful eyes. I knew the thing before me was just a statue, and yet I swore I saw its tentacles squirm and writhe, and its eyes, dear god, its eyes … I couldn’t count them. Couldn’t bear to meet them. But I felt them upon me. Looking at me. Through me. Seeing the real me deep inside that not even I could recognize anymore.

  “It’s just a damn statue,” I said aloud.

  “So I take it you’re not really named Lester Parker?” I heard Chang call out, in English, from … somewhere.

  “And you’re not Daniel Chang, right?” I asked, then shook my head, called myself an idiot, and looked for something to get behind. I wasn’t about to banter with the villain, like some James Bond movie. I was here to kill him. Period. I saw that there were columns on either side of me that I only just noticed, so captivated I had been by the huge statue at the center of the … shrine? Temple? Room somehow didn’t do this place justice. The columns were carved as masses of tentacles rising from the floor to hold the ceiling up. I dove behind one as I heard Chang laugh.

  “No, I am Daniel Chang. At least for the last forty-three years I have been. Before that, I was someone else, and before that another person. On and on it goes. I take it your government sent you to kill me?”

  This time I had gathered some of my wits back, and I wasn’t about to take the bait. I peeked around both sides of the column, trying to spot Chang, but saw only empty room.

  “Oh, come now; surely we can have a discussion like civilized people before the inevitable end of this game?”

  I said nothing.

  “Fine, have it your way. We surely can’t be friends; it seems not even fr
iendly, but I do have a gift for you.”

  Then Chang was there, at my side, touching me on the back of my head. I don’t know where he came from, how he had snuck up on me, but that didn’t matter. He muttered a few words, not in English or Mandarin, but in some horrible guttural language that sounded too thick for human lips, and then I saw …

  blood, water, eyes oh dear god the eyes, fire, the stars, flesh, ripping, a city of senseless angles, teeth, chants not heard but seen, sex, fucking, disintegration, gnashing, rot, ruins, runes, unrecognizable beasts, us

  I dropped my gun, gripped my head, and howled. Pain, not physical but psychic, assailed me. It tore through me as unwanted images and sensations were pushed into my mind, scouring and scourging at the folds of my brain. I hit the stone floor, felt my chin strike it, causing my teeth to clamp down on my tongue, almost severing it. My legs kicked, my heart beat to an arrhythmic tempo, my bladder let go. This was what it was like to go insane all at once.

  And yet through it all, I could see Daniel Chang, smiling down at me, and I heard his voice cut through the …

  revelry, abandonment, meat between my teeth, truth, debasement, drunkenness, debauchery, fearlessness, freedom, confinement, a slithering in my ear, orgasm, flesh underneath my fingernails, so much promised power

  “That is a gift you are receiving. Well, a false one, I must admit. It is a bit of phantasmal trickery, but it is based on a memory of truth. What you are witnessing, even though you are unworthy of it, is The Call, and I know it can be a bit much to the uninitiated. I have had it in my head from the moment I was born, centuries ago. It has been my constant companion, my guiding light, my comfort during the darkest of times, and most importantly, a promise of glories to come. It has always been a part of me; that is, until recently.”