There’s flesh enough inside such small vessels to satisfy it until the summoner comes—
A kayaker-eating spy camera was not cool. Sean opened his eyes wide and was back in front of the bathroom mirror. Okay, but what good did that do? The camera was still running, still thinking about having a snack, even though the cameraman wasn’t looking through the lenses. Sean squeezed his eyes shut tight, was in the river, flung out thought. Leave the boats alone. Stay down on the bottom.
The Servitor writhes, roiling the riverbed on which it lies. A sparkling cloud of silt rises around it. If the summoner won’t let it hunt, when will he come and feed it?
Feed it, like he’d promised in his dream. I’m not sure.
Maybe the summoner doesn’t mean to come.
No! I’ll come soon. Wait.
The summoner must come to the river, to the stone building where there were bones, though only dust remains. If the summoner will give his blood, it will tell him secrets.
I will. Stay there until I do.
Its hunger burns. It twitches among the water weeds, still watching the floating vessels.
In the mirror Sean saw beads of sweat on his forehead and upper lip. He wiped his face with a hand towel. Hungry? He was hungry now like when Mom had died, when people had brought food to the house, but it had been the wrong food. Nobody brought the salad with red lettuce and green peppers, like Mom liked, and the lasagna had sausages, which Mom hated, and none of the cakes was chocolate with vanilla frosting, which was what she had on her birthday. It would be bad to eat what Mom didn’t like now that she was dead. It would be mean, like she didn’t matter anymore.
Grandpa Stewie and Uncle Joe, when Sean told them how mean it would be, they made a lasagna with spinach and mushrooms, and the red and green salad, and the chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. Then Sean ate, and Dad ate, too. Dad cried, sitting at the table, eating. They ate because they were so hungry and finally there were the right things to eat.
“I’m going crazy.” Confirmation: Sean said it out loud to his reflection, which was sweating again. Soon he’d stink like a pig, but he wasn’t taking another shower. The water running over him would be like lying in the river with the thing that had decided it would rather not feed itself, either, unless it got exactly what it wanted. Plus he’d have to close his eyes and closing his eyes was no longer a great idea. Coffee. Lots of coffee.
The phone rang. He was halfway downstairs when Gus yelled, “Sean! Your father.”
He ran the rest of the way to the kitchen and snagged the phone. “Dad, are you guys okay?”
“Fine. What about you?”
How much of the truth should he tell? It depended on what they’d been able to do in Arkham. So he tried a neutral answer: “Not bad. You guys get into Geldman’s?”
“Helen did. She talked to him and to Orne, too, over a magical typewriter. I guess you had to be there.”
Dad sounded up for the first time in days. Sean gripped the receiver. He put his other hand over his stomach, which was unsure whether to growl at the proximity of Eddy’s omelet or to clench into upchuck mode. “What did they say?”
“Orne told Helen how to read the blotted passages. They’ve got to be read in the real book, so we’re going to the library.”
Relief, sudden and draining, made Sean close his eyes. Instantly he was in the river. He popped his eyes open. “That’s great! Can we do the spell tonight?”
“I guess so. You stay in the house until we come, understand?”
“Right. I will, Dad.”
“Wait a second.”
A pause while the phone switched hands, because now Helen spoke. “Sean, how are you feeling?”
He knew what she was really asking, but what good would the truth do? She and Dad were already doing as much as they could. “I’m okay,” Sean said. “Eating like a pig.”
“Did you read the printouts I left?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you had any feeling, awake, that you’re connected to the Servitor?”
Again, when it came down to it, he couldn’t lie to her. “A little, I guess.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Well, if I close my eyes, I can get into its head. But that’s good. I can tell it’s just lying around in the river. I can tell it to stay there.”
There was a long silence on the line. Had Helen covered her mouthpiece to relay the news to Dad?
“Sean.”
Helen’s voice, in his ear. He almost jumped. “Yeah?”
“Mr. Geldman gave me a drug—a potion—that should help you. He says it’ll strengthen your mind against the Servitor.”
“That’s good. If you trust him.”
“I do. So hang tight. We should be back before dark.”
The line went dead before Sean could thank her—they were in a hurry. Good. He handed the receiver back to Gus, who was studying him, maybe to make sure sympathetic tentacles weren’t sprouting from his chin. Eddy was staring, too.
Sean summarized the call for them.
“Ms. Arkwright rules,” Eddy said.
“Yeah. Is there any coffee?”
“I’m going to make some,” Gus said.
“I’ll do it.”
Like Joe-Jack, Gus indulged in fresh-roasted beans from the Coffee Exchange. Sean picked the seriously caffeinated Kid from Brooklyn blend, and he leaned over the grinder, trying to breathe in some jolt from the fumes. One way or another, he was going to stay bug-eyed awake until Dad and Helen got home.
21
On the sunniest day, the stained-glass windows in Special Collections drowned the reading room in submarine gloom; today, under storm clouds, the principal illumination came from the tabletop lamps under which patrons hunched, so many divers after doubtful pearls. “You could wait out here,” Helen whispered to Jeremy. “Come up with a plan to make these damn windows less dreary.”
Jeremy didn’t even glance at them. “Forget it. This time I’m tagging along.”
Part of her was annoyed by his persistence, but a bigger part was relieved. “I’ll have to sign you in.”
“Sign away.”
Luckily, Matt Bridgeman was on duty rather than Mrs. Wolff, who deplored the admission of “tourists” into the Archives. When Helen said Jeremy was a visiting scholar, Matt didn’t eye his jeans and demand credentials. He simply countersigned the guest log and buzzed them through the door behind the desk.
They entered a vaulted room the size of a gymnasium. It had open stacks in the middle and conservation labs and special security rooms around the perimeter. The Arcane Studies Archives were in the east corner, behind a steel door with both a dead bolt and an electronic lock. Helen had always smiled at the extra safeguard, new technology to protect dusty lore. Now as she punched the entry code and slotted her key, she wondered why the safeguards weren’t stronger.
Even with air filtration and dehumidifiers, the Archives smelled of decomposition only tenuously arrested. There were no windows, and the overhead lights were dim, leaving much of the long room in shadow. Metal shelving held the newer books, closed cabinets the older and more fragile. A single table occupied the no-man’s-land between the two storage camps, low-UV lamps on its stainless-steel top and aluminum chairs around it. A glass door opposite the entry led to the microfilm and digital media room. They wouldn’t need to go in there. Today they were after the genuine article.
“I expected a stuffed crocodile at least,” Jeremy said.
“A stuffed croc would reek pollutants. We’re state-of-the-art conservation here. Very expensive, but Arcane Studies has gotten a lot of private funding over the years.”
“From whom?”
“Most of the donors are anonymous, which I used to think was odd. Not anymore. Grab a seat.”
Going through her book-handling routine soothed Helen, and she omitted no detail. First she spread a blotter on the table and centered on it a Plexiglas book cradle. Beside the cradle went book weights and notepaper and penc
ils. A microspatula for turning pages. Acid-free bookmarks. Finally, cotton gloves for them both.
“You should put those on now,” she told Jeremy. “In case you have to handle the book.”
He obeyed without comment. Notwithstanding his joke about the crocodile, he understood fragility. Old glass, old paper, both brittle, as fleeting as life but precious enough for immortality. Fleeting as life, that was a comforting thought. Evidently it didn’t apply to people like Orne.
But, as Geldman had implied, it could apply only too aptly to Sean.
Helen went to the largest of the metal cabinets. Like the entry, it had both a keyed lock and an electronic one. She opened them and hefted out the archival box that contained the Necronomicon. It settled heavily against her breastbone. Funny, this was the first time she’d touched the greatest treasure under her care. That couldn’t bode well for her paramagical aptitude—shouldn’t the thing have drawn her? Or, if she was a good little parawitch, shouldn’t it repulse her now? Instead its bulk was just a weight she was relieved to shift onto the table.
“That’s the infamous tome?” Jeremy said. He sounded unimpressed.
Helen lifted the lid of the archive box. There was no burst of noxious green light, no ectoplasmic hand darting for her throat. Just cracked and gnawed leather. The binding of the Necronomicon was calfskin, not human hide; analysis had proven that. Still, she didn’t like the give of the leather when she removed the book to the cradle. It felt like there was flesh beneath it. And blood: The Necronomicon fell open, releasing a tang of damp iron.
“Nice,” Jeremy said, wrinkling his nose.
“It’s in good condition, actually, given its age.” The text block was intact, though the book looked much perused. Helen stripped off her gloves. “I’m going out to take the potion.”
“You’re sure about this?”
“As sure as I’m going to be.”
Jeremy stepped between her and the door. “All the warnings Geldman gave you. Eyes bleeding, going blind. You shouldn’t have to be the one to risk that.”
She couldn’t deal with another wrangle like the one they’d had on the way to the library. “Jeremy, I’m the paramagician.”
“Maybe you are, maybe not. I’m Sean’s father. That’s fact. I should take the potion.”
“Geldman gave it to me. I’m taking it.”
“Helen.”
She ducked around him, into the neighboring washroom. Even the brief delay at the door had planted dread in her gut, where it instantly took fresh root. Damn Jeremy for making sense when sense was what she had to give up.
Helen fished the tiny brown vial out of her breast pocket and twisted its cork to break the seal. “Bishop’s #5” sounded like the name of a perfume, but the only perfume it smelled like was one that had sat on milady’s vanity for too many years after her demise, rotting with her. Acrid vapor stung Helen’s nostrils as she lifted the bottle. Quickly, before she could chicken out, she poured thick liquid into her mouth. It was the nastiest thing she’d ever tasted, tongue-scaldingly bitter. Somehow she swallowed and somehow withstood the urge to retch. Though not retching might be a mistake. What if the “potion” was poison, a way for Orne and Geldman to get rid of her? Good job, Helen, realizing that now.
Bishop’s #5 burned all the way to her stomach.
She grabbed a paper cup from the dispenser, filled it to slopping over, and drank. Would the water dilute the potion? Who knew, but washing the taste out of her mouth was not optional.
“Helen?” Jeremy, outside the washroom.
She straightened from the sink, coughing. “God, that was filthy stuff.”
“Can I—”
“Wait.”
After pocketing the empty vial (in case the coroner wanted to analyze the dregs), she came out. Jeremy blatantly scrutinized her face. “Better now?” he asked.
“I think so. Let’s get to it.”
By the time they were seated at the library table, Helen actually did feel better. The sting in her mouth had changed to a pleasant tingle, like the aftertaste of a strong liquor, and, speaking of liquor, she was two drinks buzzed, or three.
“Is anything happening?”
She put on her gloves, picked up the microspatula, and started turning pages in the Necronomicon. The most extensive of the blotted marginalia were toward the middle of the book, on two pages facing each other. “I’m feeling tipsy.”
“No supervision?”
Pages 548 and 549: The outer margins were solid columns of black. Helen adjusted a table lamp over the book. “Not yet. Did you ever see this old horror movie with Ray Milland?”
“The Man with X-ray Eyes?”
“Right. He saw so much he gouged his eyes out, didn’t he?”
Jeremy laughed, but he moved his chair beside hers and he took charge of the pencils.
“I was kidding,” Helen said.
“I know. But if you find something, you can dictate. Save time.”
Fine. She didn’t mind him sitting closer. That made it easier for her to study the fabric of his T-shirt. She hadn’t noticed how complex its color was, blue and yellow, both fully present despite their simultaneous merging into green. There were even more colors in the skin of his forearm, tans and browns, creams and reds and venous blues. As for his gloves, and hers, they were rainbows. Naturally. White light contained all the wave lengths.
“I think the potion’s working,” she said. “It’s not like X-ray. More like I can see a wider range of light.” The Necronomicon, too. Its pages vibrated with colors separating and shimmering back together, not only the rainbow spectrum but what she supposed were the normally invisible wavelengths, ultraviolet, infrared. The blotted Bishop marginalia stayed black, but there was a subsurface pulse to them, as if beetles were tunneling up through the smothering obscurity.
She bent closer to the musty pages. The pulsing points were paler than the ink, as if they were not so much bugs as goldfish rising to the surface of dark water. The points were in groups. The groups looked like words, sentences, paragraphs. Helen laughed. “Yeah. It’s definitely doing something.”
“I’m ready,” Jeremy said. His voice sounded the same, so the potion must only be affecting her eyes. Helen fixed them on the marginalia.
That the words floated upward was an illusion. Instead her vision grew more piercing, like a double-pointed stake that penetrated both the marginal ink and her own head. She felt pressure at temples and brow, above both ears, at the back and the top of her skull. So that made the penetrating sensation less like one stake and more like she was wearing a cap lined with many dull spikes. The cap slowly shrank, and every time it contracted, the spikes sank a little deeper into her skin.
She had to ignore the discomfort. Words in an archaic hand wavered white in the first blot, and yes, she could read them. About the airy and the fleshly Servitors, I have took Counsell with the Blacke Man, who has given me words in plaine English better than any of the Arab. For Summoning, it were best to wait until the Triangle of August is high and the Moone is darke. Prepare then the Powders of Zeph and Agaar.…
“I’ve got the summoning ritual.”
“Great job! What about the dismissing?”
“I’m hoping Bishop wrote them together.” She skimmed onward; her still-sharpening vision made it easy, and the constriction of the spiked cap didn’t deter her. To You, Lord Azathoth, Springheade of All that is. To You I offer Obeisance, and to your Soule, Nyarlathotep. Yes! That was the incantation Sean had used.
She skipped to the next block of lucid black: To dismiss Servitors, it can be done under any Starres, but beste to return to the same Summoning Ground.
She put a gloved fingertip under the words. Her hand was shaking, but she wasn’t afraid. The tremor came from excitement. “Here,” she said.
“Okay, I’m ready. Dictate away.”
Helen read the start of the dismissing ritual. Then she paused, flush with her new perceptions. The world radiated a perfect, a crystalline re
ality. Jeremy’s right hand moved as he wrote, yet the movement was as gradual as the turning of a plant toward light. Was she seeing quicker than he could move? When he told her to continue, his lips formed the words much more slowly than she heard them. Her own hand, reaching toward the microspatula, looked like it reached forever even though she felt the cool handle in her fingers seconds later.
“I’ve got that, Helen. Keep going.”
She read on, while Jeremy wrote with vegetable lethargy. “‘Make the pentacle, but now the banishing one, so that Spirit points to the wizard. Then let him send the Servitor to the center, to be constrained by the Elder Sign as before.’”
She paused again. The cap of spikes grew too tight—the dull points dug into her scalp, breaking her concentration. Her eyes roamed the gaudy-glorious room. Was she getting dizzy? Was that why the crystalline world began flaking away in places? The air distorted, distended, cracked into rifts in which vigorous life stirred. And there, not three feet from the table, an air-rift gave birth to a lean translucence with dozens of appendages, some of which seemed to be limbs, because it crawled on them up the air, then down the air, then onto the table. On the more bulbous end that seemed to be its head, feathery stalks behaved like antennae, stretching toward her with avid curiosity.
“What’s next?” Jeremy said.
The creature on the table wasn’t the only one in the room. More wriggled out of rifts to coil in the air. More crawled over the ceiling and floor, the cabinets and shelves. Had they all burst into her dimension at once, or worse, had they always come and gone, unseen?
“Helen?”
Oh holy God, one was on her back—she glimpsed the filmy substance of its feelers over her shoulder. Helen jumped out of her chair, which fell in slow motion until, immediately, she heard it crash. Gossamer creatures scuttled out from under it. She backed away from the table, which receded at a glacial pace. Jeremy, too, moved like a glacier, though his hand was on her arm before her yell trailed into silence.
A wall was at her back. She ground into it, to crush the gossamer. But it didn’t crush. Instead it oozed whole through her chest and relaunched itself unharmed.
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