Smoke and Dagger

by Douglas Wynne

  She forced her eyes from it and scanned the circle. The shot had disturbed the chant, but the old woman picked up again. The flailing man suspended above their heads had managed to twist his body around and free his wrist so that his weapon hand was restrained by a single tentacle fastened around his elbow. He struggled to aim the gun at Salome. The star of this infernal choir, she stood stock still across the circle from Catherine, her features placid, her eyes closed, her voice pouring into the creature’s mouth like a transfusion of blood or molten lava. A red tentacle unfurled and coiled around the gun, heating the metal to an orange glow until the agent dropped it to the desert floor where a layer of skin from his hand burned off the handle in a thin scrim of smoke.

  Jack’s nails bit into Catherine’s wrist and she thought the glass of her watch would crack under the pressure. “Sing!” he screamed into her face, then repeated the command to the others “Sing, goddammit!”

  The song swelled again, granting mass to the monster. Catherine moved her lips in the shape of the chant and closed her eyes. She couldn’t watch. The man was a fly caught in a web and the spider was about to feed. Where was LeBlanc? This poor soul had to be his partner. She knew he wasn’t innocent. He had tortured Abdelmalek. She could only guess what else such a man might have done. But did he deserve this?

  Abdelmalek appeared beneath the body. He pressed the point of the silver dagger into the base of the man’s throat, drawing a bead of blood that ran upward across the man’s waxen cheek before it fell away skyward into the gnashing vortex, sending a ripple through the air on contact.

  Azothoth came into grotesque focus as if reality itself had been adjusted like a lens. Abdelmalek spun away to the edge of the circle with the grace of a dancer. He raised the dagger above his head, holding it with both hands, and stabbed it through the wavering membrane of light. As he dragged the blade down, the Mojave was revealed through the gash, as if he were slicing through the screen in a movie theater to reveal a backstage world; the place they had come from and to which they would return. And if Abdelmalek had his way, a world that would never be the same again under the power of a new pantheon.

  Catherine dropped to one knee and drew the revolver from her stocking. She had never fired a weapon before, never considered killing anyone. How had this fallen to her? Jack looked down at her, his hand still clutching her wrist as she came up with the gun in her hand. His eyes flared at the sight. He pulled her in close, grappling for the weapon, but she flung her right arm out and aimed across the circle at Salome. The man in the air was screaming.

  “No!” Jack yelled.

  Salome opened her eyes.

  Catherine pulled the trigger twice. Salome jerked backward, blood erupting from a ragged hole in her black dress. She staggered a few steps toward Catherine and crumpled to the dusty ground. The atmosphere snapped like a guitar string and the agent came crashing down on his back in the center of the circle. The dome, the creature, and the alien panorama winked out of existence with the severing of the song. The silent desert stretched to the horizon around them beneath familiar stars, marred only by the headlights of a car spilling over the ground and a tall, thin man silhouetted against the glare.

  LeBlanc. Catherine scrambled toward him, straining against Jack’s grip. She had dropped the gun after firing it. One of the men bent to pick it up, but the agent who had crashed to the earth was already on his feet. He kicked the gun and sent it skittering out of the circle and into the brush, then brought his foot up and kicked the cultist under the chin before turning and throwing a haymaker at Jack that sent him sprawling to the ground. Free of his grip at last, Catherine ran for the light.

  LeBlanc shoved her into the back of the car, then braced his forearms on the doorframe and squeezed off a shot at a cultist who had retrieved the revolver from the brush and was aiming it at the car. The engine was already running. A moment later, he was in the driver’s seat, fumbling with the gearshift. Catherine sat up and stared out at the scene framed like a diorama in the windshield. Jack held the other agent’s gun—now cooled—and fired at the tires, kicking up plumes of dust. Abdelmalek shifted side to side in a low, expectant stance, waving the blade in a restless arc beneath a feral grimace, his dark hair a sweaty curtain over his eyes. Beyond him, the old woman knelt over Salome’s body. Catherine went cold at the sight, as if it were her own blood draining out into the cracked earth. She rubbed her wrist and found her watch missing, the chain broken in the struggle.

  Then the scene through the windshield was eclipsed by the other agent’s bulk. He landed in the passenger seat, rocking the car on its shocks and bumping Catherine’s head against the ceiling. Bullets punched through the fenders and pinged off the engine block. Before the big man could pull the door shut behind him, it lurched away as LeBlanc floored the gas pedal, cranked the wheel, and spun the car around in a wide, squealing arc that threw grit at the cultists before leaving them in the dark.

  15

  Catherine stood at the terminal window and watched the tanker truck pull up to the Boeing Stratoliner, her Western Airlines ticket trembling in her hand. LeBlanc touched her wrist gently and she flinched, reminded of how Jack had gripped it in a claw that she thought would never let go.

  “I know it looks impossibly big, but trust me, it’s the newest, safest plane you can fly.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not flying jitters.” Though she did find the notion that the behemoth sitting on the tarmac could get up into the sky and stay there all the way to New York International a little absurd, she had certainly seen more flagrant violations of natural law in the past twenty-four hours. And no threat of bodily harm bothered her in the aftermath of what she’d done in the desert. She wasn’t a religious person, but that didn’t prevent her from feeling a self-inflicted spiritual wound as she grappled with the knowledge she had taken the life of a pregnant woman.

  “What is it, then?”

  She looked at him, incredulous, until he looked away at the hazy Los Angeles skyline. “You did what you had to,” he said. “And I have no doubt you saved lives. You’ll never know how many mothers and children are alive in that city today because of what you prevented.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “I do.”

  “Your partner, Whittaker…does he?”

  LeBlanc checked his wristwatch.

  “He was horrified that you gave me a gun.”

  “He came around by the time we filed our report. You don’t have to worry about him.”

  “Do I have to worry that the FBI will come knocking on my door?”

  “No. It’s taken care of. You’ll read about it in tomorrow’s paper.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Relax. An unnamed college girl was abducted by a cult. She was meant to be used as a human sacrifice in Petroglyph Park near China Lake, but authorities intervened. They’d been conducting surveillance on the cult for un-American activities. They swooped in and saved the girl. One cultist was killed in the raid.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. It won’t follow you home.”

  She knew what he meant. But in her heart there would be no outrunning what she’d done. “There was no time to think,” she said. “I just acted. And we don’t even know if it was worth it, if I prevented anything. They might have failed anyway. You said Salome didn’t even have the full voice.”

  He took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Whittaker is alive because of you. And I know this isn’t easy to hear, but the older woman? She’s the oracle Abdelmalek took Salome to see about the baby. We know what she told them. If Salome gave birth, the child would have been born with a larynx capable of bringing every incantation to life.”

  Catherine recoiled. “You’re telling me the government is willing to accept killing a baby to prevent a prophecy?” Her voice rose in anger and disgust. He shushed her, put a hand on her shoulder, and led her toward the door to the tarmac, where a stair was being wheeled into place beside the pla
ne.

  “Outrage is a luxury for the ignorant, Catherine. I’ve seen things that give me no reservations or regrets. So have you. You prevented an apocalypse. I don’t know if it would have come yesterday or decades from now. But you prevented it. Tell that to your mentor in the Golden Bough.”

  Over the intercom, the desk attendant announced boarding for New York. LeBlanc picked up Catherine’s suitcase and led the way.

  “There’s one more thing I need to ask you,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “You came out here to spy on the Starry Wisdom for the Golden Bough. Was there a specific question they wanted you to answer?”

  “Like you, they wanted to know if Jack was close to a breakthrough.” She paused, unsure of how much detail she wanted to share with a government agent who had spied on both sides of the occult war she’d been drawn into. But then, maybe he could tell her if she’d been pursuing a dead end all along. “I was also tasked with finding out if the Starry Wisdom has possession of an amulet that might serve as a weapon against the Great Old Ones, should they return.”

  “The Fire of Cairo.” LeBlanc shook the suitcase with a grin. “Did you find it?”

  “I’m afraid not. I don’t suppose you’d tell me if you knew its location?”

  “I hate to disappoint a pretty lady before parting, but if it still exists, it’s probably not in America.”

  “Considering how close they came, that’s unfortunate.”

  They had reached the line of passengers forming at the boarding stairs. Looking up at the plane, Catherine rued the prospect of the eighteen-hour transcontinental flight. LeBlanc studied her, still holding the suitcase. “Jack brought you into his confidence for a time. Did you learn anything from him about the scarab?”

  Catherine thought of the Minox pocket camera tucked into a rolled up pair of stockings in the powder blue suitcase in his hand. She thought of the photos she’d taken by candlelight of Abdelmalek’s grimoire pages. She hoped they would be legible. “I’m afraid not.”

  If he knew it was a lie, his face didn’t betray it. He placed the suitcase on the tarmac at her feet.

  “What will happen to Jack now?” she asked. “Will he be in the papers and lose his job again?”

  “No. It’s a delicate game we’re playing and you’ve only seen the opening round. For now, the decree from on high is that, despite the danger he poses, his work should be allowed to continue.”

  This came as a shock and she made no effort to hide it. “But…you said we prevented…how can they…they want to use him, don’t they? Like the Manhattan Project. They want to weaponize his work.” The idea sent fingers of frost through her nerves. When the sensation passed, she felt a new and profound gratitude for the maneuvers LeBlanc had performed to secure her a seat on a flight to New York rather than a cell in a secret facility where those who knew too much were kept with their secrets. Though she didn’t doubt SPEAR would be keeping tabs on her for the rest of a career she’d hardly begun.

  “Thank you, Jeremy.” She pecked him on the cheek and watched him blush. “Thank you for seeing me home. Be careful. You seem caught between dangerous people on both sides.”

  He nodded and touched the brim of his hat. “You do the same, Catherine. Safe travels.”

  16

  On a hot day in August, Catherine Littlefield sat before the Willamette meteorite in the entry hall of the Hayden Planetarium, imagining that every person who passed her was a star, each moving in its own orbit, and all revolving around her. Catherine was a woman with a secret. She had been for some time, but today she finally knew what it was. She had developed the photos and spent the morning deciphering the pages they documented. Both the photos and the notes were in a manila envelope tied with red string in the handbag that rested on the bench at her side. And now here he was—Hildebrand, in a tweed jacket and starched shirt, settling down on the other side of the bag and joining her in meditation on the iron rock.

  She could feel its humming in her bones. It reminded her of power lines in the desert.

  “I got your note,” Hildebrand said. “You had me worried. When did you get back?”

  “Three days ago.” She touched the envelope jutting out of her bag. “I wanted to be sure of what I had before I brought it to you.”

  He nodded, but did not reach for the envelope. She wondered if he knew about SPEAR, if he was aware they might be watching. “Would you join me for a walk in the park?” she asked.

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  The last time Catherine had walked these paths with Hildebrand, there had been snow on the ground and not a soul in sight. Now the park bustled with children, couples, and dogs. Her companion didn’t ask where they were going, though he had probably guessed after the first couple of turns. At length, the weathered stone of Cleopatra’s Needle rose from the green canopy of trees at the crest of the hill.

  The monument had attracted only a handful of visitors to its benches. If Whittaker and LeBlanc were characteristic of the breed, none of them appeared to be SPEAR agents. Nonetheless, she linked arms with Hildebrand and spoke in a low voice as they circled the obelisk.

  “I didn’t find the book. If they have a complete copy of the Mortiferum Indicium, they’re keeping it hidden. It’s possible that the church doesn’t trust Abdelmalek with it because of how much he’s shared with Jack. The pages I photographed were already copies, probably made on a machine at Caltech. I doubt they have the full text.”

  “That’s unfortunate.”

  “The pages I was able to photograph contained additions to the original grimoire. The use of a cipher with direct English equivalents is a sure sign of that.”

  “You’ve translated this cypher?”

  She nodded. “I’ve been poring over the fragments for days.”

  “And what have you learned?”

  She took a deep breath. “I believe the copy of the Deadly Amulet in the possession of the Starry Wisdom was once the property of Henry Hurlbolt Gorringe. His notes about the Fire of Cairo—how to use it, where he hid it—were encoded in his copy of the book. He also made notes about another relic. A dagger that they already possess. I’ve seen it.”

  The color with which the walk had infused the man’s face blanched away at her words. “The Talon of Nyarlathotep.”

  “Yes. The photos and my translations are in an envelope I’ll leave with you. Deciphering the pages was easy, but I wanted to confirm what I found.”

  “Does the cipher reference the obelisk? The time capsule under the cornerstone?”

  “Not exactly. One of the scarab pages says: Kephra flees Karkinos at the Rising.”

  Hildebrand surveyed the scant crowd around them, then focused on the base of the obelisk. “Karkinos, Cancer, the crab.”

  Catherine walked around the monument to the northeast corner.

  Hildebrand followed. “I don’t understand. The records show that Gorringe buried a secret item in a lead box beneath the cornerstone, where it would be safe baring a cataclysmic event. What do the crabs have to do with it?”

  “I think he wanted people to believe the scarab was irretrievable. That’s why he didn’t just place a box in the time capsule, he also made sure it made the newspapers that he had. He knew that speculation about the contents would preserve the fact. And anyone who knew enough to trace the scarab to him would assume it was there, where no one could verify it, but where anyone would give up the search. He even had the foresight to use a lead box that couldn’t be penetrated by technologies like x-rays. Only in his private copy of the Mortiferum Indicium, the book containing the history of the amulet and instructions for its use, did he note the actual location, in cypher.”

  Understanding dawned in Hildebrand’s eyes. “Not so far from the red herring.” He backtracked around the obelisk far enough to look at the crab in the southeast corner, then returned to Catherine at the northeast. “The mouth cavity of this one is hollowed out. On the other, it’s just a carved outline.”
<
br />   Catherine smiled. “The crab that faces the rising sun,” she said. Her heart pounded in her chest as she climbed over the iron railing and stepped up onto the limestone base. She slid her fingers between the iron claws, into the crab’s mouth, and touched metal. A lose object on a chain. But as she withdrew it, she realized the shape was too familiar. It was a silver lady’s watch in an art deco style with a hairline crack in the glass face. She turned it over in her hand, as if any further proof were needed that it was hers, and found the engraving her parents had commissioned.

  For Catherine,

  Your time has come.

  17

  In another part of the city, a woman in a burka might have drawn attention, but not in Red Hook, where the streets bustled with immigrants. No heads turned as she made her way among the crumbling red brick tenements accompanied by a short, dark-haired man in a vest and shirtsleeves. Together, they moved silently beneath laundry lines, telephone wires, and burned out street lamps. If anyone noted their presence, it was the women smoking cigars on the fire escapes, and only then when the pair ascended the steps of the old stone church.

  The building, which had once served a congregation of the Dutch Reformed faith, had been converted into a dance-hall in the 1920s and had been a venue for basement lectures on eastern philosophy by a Professor Suydam for a time, before the police raided it following a string of child abductions amid rumors of black magic. Apparently the authorities broke up an illegal immigration and human trafficking ring that depended on subterranean waterways and a network of catacombs beneath the church. For a time, the building sat deserted and boarded up. The alleged tunnels were said to have been filled, but no one could attest to witnessing the trucks and work crews such an endeavor would have called for. Visitors were seldom seen. Lurid tales proliferated.