It was a strange coin: big as a silver dollar and forged of meteoric iron, its surface pitted and engraved with a tentacled head encircled by tiny sigils and a phrase the musician couldn’t read, an inscription in tribute to the High Priest who would one day rise from his dreaming in the deep on wings of dark song.
The singer’s name was Tristan Furlong. The pharaoh plucked it from his mind as Tristan plucked the coin from the case. A snowflake touched the metal and melted. The coin was as hot as if plucked from desert sand, and it felt good in his cold fingers. It brought feeling back to them. And as he absorbed the heat of the strange coin, he absorbed something more—something red-robed and regal, austere and ancient, fierce, furious, and older than death.
He could feel his throat opening up the way it did after vocal warm-ups, and then passing beyond comfort into a range of sudden pain, the very bone and cartilage of his voice box reconfiguring, excruciating, but only for a moment.
The pharaoh stood and stretched. He liked his new garment. Tristan Furlong’s body was young, strong, and handsome. Clothed in this form, he would make a fine Pied Piper, leading the Children of the Voice in a song to raise R’lyeh.
He slid the coin into the tight pocket of his black jeans and spat a phlegmy dollop of blood at the ground. The pharaoh blazed; a diamond of consciousness wrapped in rags of humanity, born from a ray of Yog Sothoth, praise to the congress of spheres. Stronger than he had been in ages; strong enough to mold the clay of his host.
He set the guitar in its case, fastened the clasps and tried to remember where he’d parked his rusty car. It was time to pack up and point north. Time to make for the mountains. There was new music to learn, old work to be done.
Chapter 21
Becca came down with a raging fever the morning after the Wade House burned to the ground, as if the house had transferred some of its heat to her in its collapse. In actuality, she knew it was the time she’d spent soaking wet in the cold that had done her in. They treated her with antibiotics at Base Camp, and in three days she was on her feet again. Django never left her side, and Brooks and Nina checked in often, bringing her National Geographic magazines and vegetable curry soup.
The few possessions she had that weren’t in storage in her mentor Neil Hafner’s attic in Brookline were barely enough to fill her canvas shoulder bag when she packed, and most of those were water damaged. She threw out a pocket notebook of camera settings, field notes, and random thoughts when she realized the bloated pages would never come unstuck from each other without ripping. Her smart phone was dead, but who did she have to call, anyway? In the end, the only things of real value she had were her camera and the broken gold scarab. Even shattered and lacking the magic gem, the scarab was still a family heirloom. She reluctantly turned it over to SPECTRA’s occult scholars and technicians for study, and, she hoped, repair. She tried to remind herself that it was better than bringing it to some jeweler on Newbury Street. She gave them the phone, too, on the off chance they could extract her snapshots from it.
* * *
On February 2, Becca rode her father’s motorcycle to his funeral in Arkham. She had spent a few days learning to drive it in the quiet wooded hills surrounding the scorched timbers of the Wade House. She quickly got the hang of it and figured the lessons he’d given her as a child on an old secondhand moped they’d owned for a while were to thank for the knack. She took it slow, scanning the road for patches of black ice, and getting a feel for the balance of the bike.
She knew it was reckless for a beginner to take up motorcycle driving in the dead of winter, but no more reckless than most of the things she had done in recent years. And it made her feel close to him, which mattered a whole lot more to her now that he was truly gone, the years she might’ve spent learning to forgive him stolen. Becca knew now that there was no more forgiveness to excavate from her heart; it had all come flooding up when he’d whispered the Hebrew words for let there be light with his dying breath.
Now here she was, coming into Arkham, winding up the lane and through the gates of Christchurch Cemetery beneath the stark maple trees, past the mourners come to honor other dead, aware of the noise of the motorcycle and yet not quite giving a fuck because the noise itself was a tribute to Luke Philips. The day was cold and overcast, but bright.
She had a feeling of déjà vu as she put down the kickstand, killed the engine, and walked away from the bike, thighs still humming, glancing over her shoulder and seeing it where she had once desperately wanted to find it at her grandmother’s funeral.
Had that only been two years ago? It felt like so much longer. So much had happened since. She’d been wearing a dress on that day when they gathered to put Catherine in the ground, the only one she owned. Today, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, she felt more herself than she had then, even though she was still plagued by the same old handicaps, haunted by the same old ghosts. She didn’t know if there was an afterlife — although she’d seen evidence of many things that were far stranger—but her father had haunted her for years while he was alive, and now she knew he would continue to haunt her in the company of the other dead she had loved: her mother, her grandparents, and Rafael.
She walked to the grave slowly, her legs getting a feel for the ground under boots after the long ride. She knew she’d have to buy a car eventually if she was going to stay in New England. The expense wouldn’t be a problem, not with the compensation SPECTRA owed her for her first job with them. She expected that would go a pretty long way, even though she had no idea what to call it on her taxes. Freelance videography? Consulting? Brooks or Northrup would have some advice. Anyway, she thought she would likely stay in New England for a while, and when spring came, maybe she’d even buy a motorcycle sidecar for Django.
“What are you smiling at? It’s a funeral.” Brooks looked pretty dapper in a suit and tie under his black trench coat.
“Nothing. Just thinking of getting a sidecar for that thing.”
“For Django?” Brooks laughed.
“Did he behave himself on the ride up?”
“Yeah, he’s a perfect co-pilot. You better go say hello to him though, or he’s not gonna settle down.”
Becca could hear the familiar whimpering, and looked around for Brooks’ car. The window was cracked a few inches and glazed with slobber, Django’s rubbery black nose poking out of the gap. She ambled over with soothing words, and offered her fingers for him to lick before heading back to the graveside.
The arrangements had fallen to Becca. Her uncle Alan had stated flat out that he had no interest in attending his prodigal brother’s funeral, that Luke had never been there for his nieces, and they had said their goodbyes long ago. He didn’t even want to know the circumstance of Luke’s death. Angry at first, Becca had started to push back, but ultimately realized the impossibility of telling the story in a way that would make any sense to him. Even if she could do so without violating the national security oath she’d signed, she could hardly tell anything close to the truth without violating the accepted laws of nature. In the end, she gave up and told the funeral director to forgo a wake and prepare a closed coffin affair at the graveside with no preacher. After all, what could a preacher know about the worlds Luke Philips had seen, or the demons he had wrestled?
Neil—whom she had always considered more of an uncle than Alan—did show up. She was grateful for his presence at the cemetery, but when he offered to say a few words, she politely declined. Instead, they observed a moment of silence beside the coffin suspended over the grave. Neil looked older and more weathered than she thought he should. Scarcely two years had passed since she’d last seen him, but maybe living through the Boston crisis with her had made the slope steeper for him.
“I wish I knew how to play a song,” Becca said. “That would fit him better than a sermon.”
“I have his guitar in the trunk,” Brooks said. “Do you play?” he asked Neil.
“No. Sorry. I wish.”
“I don’t e
ven know which one he’d like,” Becca said.
Neil handed her a single rose he’d brought along and she laid it on the coffin. It reminded her of the ones on her solitary dress. It was all too much, too familiar, and she wanted to go. She was too tired to cry.
She nodded at the lift operator, and he pressed the switch. There was a low hum and the coffin descended, revealing the modest headstone.
LUKE ROBERT PHILIPS
Nov 14, 1970 - Jan 26, 2021
“That’s a nice touch,” Brooks said. “How’s the real thing?”
Becca dipped a finger under the collar of her plaid shirt and the golden scarab emerged on its chain. It still bore deep scratches and the bezel in the pincers was empty, but the shell and wings had been repaired, and the tarnish polished off enough to make it shine in the muted sunlight.
Brooks scrunched his chin and nodded, impressed. “Those artifacts geeks did a good job.”
“Yeah,” Becca said. “It feels good to wear it, but I don’t know if it’ll ever fly again.”
“Maybe not,” Brooks said. “But hey, let’s hope it never needs to.”
Neil looked back and forth between the two with naked curiosity.
“Do you think the drone still has the gem?” Becca asked. “On the other side?”
A thorough sifting of the Wade House ashes hadn’t turned up the dragonfly or the ruby, and the remote had lost contact. The piano had been reduced to cinders and blackened metal, and no signs of other portals were uncovered in the wreckage. The pool in the cellar, cracked and drained, led nowhere.
“I don’t know,” Brooks said. “Let’s hope it’s wreaking havoc over there.” He sighed. “I’d like to say maybe it’ll fly out and find you someday, but no. Let’s hope nothing ever gets out again.”
Becca nodded, tucked the scarab back inside her shirt, and buttoned it.
Chapter 22
When Becca called to let Walt Rogan, the proprietor of Birch Grove Cabins, know that her father had passed away suddenly, the old man claimed to remember her from her childhood vacations and said that Luke had talked about her often while doing maintenance chores in the hours when he wasn’t holed up with his guitar. Becca didn’t know if she believed either of those claims, but when Rogan was done offering his condolences she asked if she could collect Luke’s things and take over the rental for a while. He had readily agreed.
Becca arrived on the Harley in the late afternoon of Thursday, February 3, and claimed a key from Rogan at the rental office. Brooks trailed the bike to the White Mountains, arriving right behind her with Django riding shotgun and Luke’s guitar in the trunk of his government issue Ford.
The cabin smelled stale. Becca set the guitar case in the corner while Django sniffed around, probably detecting mice. She looked at the rumpled bedclothes and sighed. Her first thought was that she should find a laundromat and wash them. Her second was that maybe she wasn’t ready yet to wash the last lingering traces of him from the place where she would be sleeping for the foreseeable future while she figured out her next move.
“You gonna be okay?” Brooks asked from the doorway. She could tell he was hesitant to leave her, and she felt a flush of affection for the stoic ex-cop. They had been through a lot together now. He was starting to feel like the brother she’d never had.
Becca nodded. “Thanks for giving Django a ride.”
“Sure. You’ve got my number if you need anything. Oh, almost forgot.” He reached into his coat pocket and produced a new phone, two models up from the one she’d taken a swim with. “SPECTRA was able to recover your data. Transferred it to this. On the house.” He handed it to her.
“Cool. Thanks. It doesn’t come with a drone, huh?”
Brooks laughed. “Afraid not.”
“Damn. I was starting to get a feel for the thing.”
“Hey, take care of yourself, Becca.” He turned to go.
“Jason.” She pulled him into a tight hug and kissed him on the cheek. His stubble was rough, and before she’d let him go, he was blushing like only the Irish can.
Brooks patted her back, dropped into a squat and gave Django a vigorous scratching between the ears before stepping out onto the front steps of the little cabin, closing the flimsy door behind him, and heading for the black sedan without looking back.
Becca wondered when she would see him again.
She switched on the new phone. When the startup screen finished loading, she tapped on the photo icon to make sure her little archive was intact. Everything looked the same as it had, but she noticed one new video. It was the most recent item in the file grid, and the thumbnail was a picture of her father’s face.
She hadn’t taken any pictures of Luke. As an afterthought, she wished she had taken at least one, but she hadn’t. Nor had she shot any video of him. A tingle of unease passed through her and she noticed her breath had gone shallow. Her first instinct was to turn the phone off. She didn’t know if she was ready for whatever this was, this final message from the man she had lost once and then again.
So she waited. She sat on the bed with the phone in her lap and the dog curled up beside her and waited because she knew that as long as she didn’t watch it, there would be a piece of him in the world that wasn’t yet spent, that wasn’t yet discovered by her, and she could save that and savor it, and put it away for someday.
But then she turned the screen on again and stared at the thumbnail. Was the light haloing his long gray hair one of the track lights in the Quonset hut? She thought it was. He must have shot this while waiting in her bunk cubicle after SPECTRA brought him in on the helicopter, while she and Brooks were still driving back to Concord.
Her trembling finger hovered over the glass. She took a deep breath and tapped the PLAY arrow.
Luke Philips worked his jaw and cleared his throat. His ginger salt-and-pepper beard dominated the screen. His face, hovering over the lens at close range, looked nervous. His eyes darted side to side before he spoke, and when he did, his voice was little more than a whisper.
“Okay, so… they were nice enough to me in the helicopter, and after a little chat with the man in charge, I think I understand what they’re trying to do here. I don’t know if they have any chance of really stopping what’s been set in motion, but it’s worth a try and I’m willing to help. Like you’re helping. I admire what you’re trying to do, Becca, and I know your mother would’ve been proud of your bravery. Catherine too, the wiser part of her, would be proud. But baby… Don’t underestimate the forces at work here.
“I don’t know how much time we have. Don’t know if we’ll get a chance to talk before the shit hits the fan. They’re talking about going back into the house, to try and find the reverend that took the key and stop him before he can open the gate. I don’t know if you can trust these people, but I’m in because…who else do we have to trust?”
He glanced up toward the ceiling, then leaned in close to the microphone and whispered, “You know where I put the original score. The versions in my notebook are just fragments, pieces of the puzzle. I’ve rearranged them, tried to make them form a different picture. It’s hard to explain. It almost makes sense to me when I’m playing the music, or dreaming it. I used to think that if I rewrote it the right way, changed the melody, or the chord structures…I used to think if I inverted it, put the bass line in the upper register…I might realign the spheres, open up a door for angels instead of those monstrous gods. I thought there might be a utopia beyond the gate, if it was aligned to a different point on the cosmic compass.”
Luke laughed and the audio distorted. He breathed in deep through his nose and continued, “World peace through music. Isn’t that what the hippies wanted? I should know better. The house, the Invisible Symphony… It’s all a bad trip. There’s no redeeming any of it, so you listen: destroy it. It holds no secrets worth decoding. No amount of tinkering is going to take the cancer out of that music. If the wrong people get hold of it—game over. There’s a choral section at the end,
at the climax. It was written for mutants, for people with a different physiology, from an earlier time in human evolution. If people could sing it, could produce those notes the way they’re written… There are unwritten notes, invisible on the page that would resonate out of the ones that are written. Becca, that music must never find its voice.
“If you make it out of here and I don’t— get the scroll and make sure no one follows you. Burn it in the fire pit like I should’ve done but didn’t have the nerve to.
“Okay, honey. I love you. I made a shitty dad, but I always loved you.”
His finger loomed over the screen, and then the video froze and collapsed to just another thumbnail on the grid.
Becca set the phone down on a pillow, slid off of the bed and went to the door. She zipped her coat up with her father’s words ricocheting around in her head. Mutants. Different physiology. She descended the steps, and circled the cabin, scanning the trees, searching the shadows, looking for a glint of binocular glass, or the barrel of a parabolic microphone.
If people could sing it…
She searched the clouds for low flying aircraft, and cursed herself for not listening to the video through earbuds, but the chances that SPECTRA agents had already seen and archived it while transferring her data were high. Even if they hadn’t watched it yet, they had surely kept a copy that was right now slumbering on a classified server, waiting for someone to take notice.
She thought of Tom’s son, Noah, and his secret language and listened to the silent sky.
There were no black helicopters on the wind, circling Mt. Lincoln, no cultists closing in on the Birch Grove Cabins tonight, brandishing ritual daggers.
Black January: A SPECTRA Files Novel Page 22