Necropolis: Book 5: R'lyeh

by Michel Weatherall

  Madness had arrived.

  Krulgh began hearing the faint screams echoing through the ship's metal corridors. If it had a face it would have smiled, deliciously feeding off the escalating madness that these simple creatures were so easily driven to.

  Chapter 14: To Die First?

  The Pagan Temple

  beneath La Mosquée vide

  (The Hollow Mosque),

  la cinquième château,

  1930

  “Why do you want to go forward with this? We have researched the same books. The Music of the Spheres will release Nyarlathotep! You hope to create a Symbiotcyst. But why? A new species? Something you can control? Some new form of human evolution?” Donita argued.

  “Evolution?!” Ezra returned, “Your delusions and refusal to see the truth has long since stopped that. Your self-importance has always amazed me. You can't imagine a world in which you don't feature center-stage, can you? Evolution? No, the human species has evolved as far as it is ever going to. You have evolved from tribes to feudalism to Monarchy, and now to this new age of Dictatorship and Democracy with its all too human leaders! Gone are the blue-bloods! Nobody believes in Royalty anymore! Monarchy belongs in humanity's infancy. It's a fallacy you have outgrown!”

  Donita looked confused. Ezra was jumping topics. “Why do you say that? We still have royalty? King George V still sits on the English throne and his son will rule after him.”

  “Remnants of a bygone age! Figureheads! That age has passed! Rule by divine right? Nobody believes that. Its theology has been proven a lie! You were never more than a deluded species!” Ezra's voice was rising.

  “The Black Plague was the final nail in that theological coffin.” Alia spoke slowly and calmly in her Parisian-Arabic accent. “Royalty and Blue-bloods and clergy and Commoners alike all fell – the Great Equalizer. We were all the same degenerate species.”

  “You speak to me of a degenerate species?” Siad was speaking directly to Ezra. “You half-breed! You backwater cultist! You and your kind waste away, hiding in your coastal decrepit towns, waiting... waiting for extinction! Oh yes! I know what you are!”

  Ezra's toothy smile was terrifying. “Waiting for the return of our Gods! The new age will dawn! Great Cthulhu will wipe your species from the face of the planet! When the stars are right, my kind will inherit the Earth and we will rebuild it over your corpses!” Ezra turned away from Siad and faced Donita. “Your sister, Alia has seen this truth. Your family has seen this truth!”

  “Your kind!?” Donita exclaimed. “What?! You're American inbred hillbillies?! Is that 'your kind'?”

  “Shut up, bitch!” Ezra was beyond emotional now. “Yous, yous killed my brother, Jebediah!”

  “That simpleton? That half-wit?!” She was deliberately aggravating him now. “I should have killed you too in Egypt!”

  “Shuddup! He was a prophet to my people! He could hear The Call of Great Cthulhu! He could commune with Dagon! No hollow idols! No silent gods!” Ezra's voice roared.

  “What are you talking about, your people?!”

  The calm voice of reason entered the heated conversation as Alia spoke. “Oh Ezra is not human. Not completely. He and his brother are from Innsmouth. Well, off the coast of Innsmouth. They have Deep-One's blood in them. They might actually see the rise of the new world.”

  “There is but one God.” Siad reiterated, changing the subject. He wanted to rile Ezra up even more. He wanted to hear more from his mistress, Alia Moubayed.

  Ezra, now drooling with his anger snapped his attention onto the Sikh. “God's divine Representative on Earth? Do you still desperately cling onto that fable? Oh they knew the truth in their dark ages. A King's infant child lay sick and dying. The priests and the Church pray day and night, but still the child dies! They all knew there could only ever be two outcomes. Your God doesn't answer prayers – not even to his chosen King. Or it was God's will that the divine heir should die! Which was unacceptable!”

  “Your apologetics are deplorable,” Siad confronted Ezra calmly. “You may wish to work on your debating skills. That is a straw-man argument-”

  “Shut your mouth, you Muhammadan dog!” Ezra shouted, his voice echoing in the great pagan hall.

  “Sikh,” Siad quietly corrected. He wasn't insulted. He knew he was getting under Ezra's skin.

  Alia voiced in. “Mr. Siad Abdullah, do you know what the straw-man Medieval King's solution was - their answer to this theological conundrum?”

  Siad faced Alia. He knew the answer. He knew it was a rhetorical question.

  “A theological cop-out. Mystery. 'God works in mysterious ways',” Alia's voice changed ever so slightly, mocking the quote. “'No one may know the mind or will of God'. Anything but the truth! Humanity thrives and wallows in delusions!

  “From les Châteaux de Etienne-de-Lafontaine estate our family has watched humanity's rise and fall of power through history! Its lies and deceits and delusions. It's not even about money, it's about resources.

  “It goes beyond power that your hoarded resources brings. Even that isn't enough. The power must be used to inflict suffering. We don't just hoard our wealth and resources! We make damn sure others lack them. That is the truest exercise of power, to inflict suffering!”

  Ezra picked up the conversation, “Yous wars are all about yous Resources and who owns them. But there is a war on the horizon that will show yous who own them all. True power that will inflict terrible suffering! Your species has always suffered from some form of idolatry. Yous deluded species prays to empty idols and false gods. That is why they never answer!

  “Nyarlathotep is the Messenger of the Great Old Ones. The Crawling Chaos will be the first to walk this Earth. Nyarlathotep will usher in the new age over the extinction of Man!” Ezra cocked the hammer on his pistol pointing it at Donita's belly. “Otto, you will play the Music.”

  “You're mad!” Donita called out to her sister, Alia. “Do you believe you will somehow be spared?”

  “No,” Alia answered calmly and flatly.

  “Do you believe 'Great Cthulhu' will elevate you above the common human rabble destined for extinction? Are these the lies Ezra tells you?”

  “No,” Alia answered impassively again. Ezra smiled.

  “This miscreant speaks of idols and false gods and delusions and lies. What lie has he convinced you of? What place in this new world has he convinced you you'll find?! What hope is there?”

  Alia slowly shook her head, her long brunette locks brushing across her back, an ever so slight smile curling the edge of he lips. “No. I can see clearly. I do not suffer delusion. The most merciful thing in the world is the inability of the human mind to correlate its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance amidst black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. Unfortunately, I have voyaged far. I cannot unlearn the truths I have seen. The Great Old One's return is inevitable. Their reclamation of the Universe – their Universe – cannot be stopped. Hope? Simply being human damns us. There is no hope. The hope I have is a quick and swift death. My reward for releasing Nyarlathotep is I will be the first to die. I will not suffer.”

  Erza's smile was both gleeful and malicious.

  “You're insane!” Donita barked at her sister.

  “Donita, please, hear the truth,” Alia's tone changed, showing emotion for the first time. “Our entire family, the whole of les Châteaux de Etienne-de-Lafontaine estate, all of our wealth and resources, have been dedicated for decades to this research! We have long standing ties and connections with the foremost Occult authorities and organizations from around the world. Its outcome is inevitable -”

  “Cults!” Donita spat the word out! “You sold us out to cults!”

  Alia stood tall. Her piercing blue eyes looking down her nose at her bound and pregnant sister. “No. Not I. Papa. It was his inspiration to build les Châteaux de Etienne-de-Lafontaine estate from the beginning. When he met and married Mama, he was introduced to this same inspira
tion, desire and forbidden knowledge from the Middle Eastern world. They realized they were not alone, but part of a much larger body of people -”

  “Degenerates!” Donita screamed at her sister.

  “The Châteaux de Etienne-de-Lafontaine estate created an interconnected web of knowledge,” Alia finished. “The Hollow Mosque was build upon this pagan temple to hide and protect it.”

  Donita began weeping through her rage. The entire world as she understood it crumbling. “...you betrayed us all...” she whispered.

  “Play the Music!” Ezra shouted at Otto.

  Siad moved forward. The half-breed Ezra quickly turned the gun on him. “Ah, ah, ah. Yous stand with Alia. Get away.” And turning his attention back onto Otto, “Play the Music you German piece of shit.”

  Otto sat and placed the cello violin between his knees.

  “Otto,” Donita had abandoned her steely resolve and openly wept, her hope draining by the second, tears rolling down her cheeks. “...please... don't play the Music...” she whispered.

  Otto fortified his will as he looked down at his love. He spoke slowly. “I won't let anything foul happen to you or the baby. You will be safe.” Otto finished while drawing the instrument's bow.

  Ezra laughed. “Delusional! How typica-”

  Otto cut him off: “I promise you one thing,” Otto combed his hair back through is fingers. His emerald eyes burned fiercely into Ezra's. Ezra stopped laughing and leaned forward, listening intently.

  Otto began tuning the cello, string by string.

  An A-note rang from the cello.

  “We may release Nyarlathotep...”

  The cello sang a d-note.

  “We may even usher in your new world...”

  The cello hummed a deeper G-note.

  “But Alia won't be the first to die.”

  The cello's deepest C-note reverberated through the instrument's body.

  “I will kill you with my own hands first.”

  “Big words,” Ezra stammered. “Big words for a, a musician.” His response was too long in the coming. He backed away from Otto.

  For just the briefest moment Otto looked down at Donita. He knew he had to see her one last time. He hid the pain he felt seeing her cry. He flashed his best charming smile and winked at her. As he raised his gaze a lone tear streaked from his eye. He faced Alia and Siad as he began playing the Music.

  Chapter 15: Fear

  When Tamara appeared on the USS Curtis Wilbur she immediately slipped and fell forward. The deck of the crippled warship was slippery and angled, Tamara's tumbling arrested by the gunwale. She could no longer see any crew on deck.

  “Dante!” she hollered. She couldn't hear her own voice, even when she screamed his name again! “Dante!”

  All sound was drowned out by the ship's white pill-domed Gatling cannon. It fired incessantly, its stream of tungsten projectiles racing a mile out, converging with the USS John S. McCain's two roaring Phalanx guns. The focus of the three Gatling cannons obliterated and obscured from view. Tamara knew Krulgh was the center of that ballistic hell.

  * * *

  Moshe was of a divided mind. The young daughter of the Ghost-of-Sheol had fled with the monster Krulgh in tow! He had abandoned the young blond boy aboard the other ship. And now, Moshe was faced with.... the dead!

  Exposed on the open helipad of the Yamayuki he had no place to run. He side stepped the grasping claws of the first undead thing as it lunged at him, driving his staff across its back. Moshe reached out his mind, searching for the young boy, his telepathy picking up... nothing!

  That's impossible! Moshe thought as a second dead thing, its red skull fleeced of flesh, assaulted him. This time he was less placid. He held the thing at bay on the end of his staff as his other hand made a subtle pushing motion, a physical manifestation of his telekinetic attack. The invisible force tore the thing apart, breaking its chest cavity open, its guts splashing across the deck as the empty sacks of its flesh were propelled overboard.

  * * *

  Tamara reached out, expanded her mind, searching for Dante... Nothing.

  She scanned the warped ocean around the warship. It was dotted with inflatable lifeboats, many men had successfully abandoned ship!

  “...Tamara...” her mother whispered. The black inter-dimensional window staying close to the young girl. “Tamara... I can't... I'm sorry...” her sorrow was inundating.

  “No!” Tamara shouted, tears flowing from her eyes. “No! He's not... he can't be...” She couldn't even bring herself to say the word. “No, mama,” she pleaded, pressing her hand against the dimensional barrier, desperately searching for any consolation possible.

  The enshrouding shadows parted revealing Marie's beautiful Asian face, her fingers pushing, trying to hold her weeping daughter's hand.

  The automatic Gatling cannons had all stopped, depleting their ammo. Tamara wiped the tears from her eyes as she watched the residue of the alien Star-Spawn sickeningly reassemble itself.

  “No...” she whispered in denial.

  “Baby, leave it...” her mother whispered.

  Krulgh was difficult to focus on a mile out. Then it shifted, its perspective momentarily lost. Next moment, it was aboard the other warship two miles port. She could feel its perverse mind infecting, penetrating, inserting itself into the crews' mind. The survivors and lifeboats were all heading towards the USS John S. McCain – towards It!

  “No!” Tamara's voice was stern, her sorrow vanquished. A rage brewed within her; an outrage. Krulgh was an insult to Nature! A blight to her world! An abomination to this sane planet!

  “No!” she screamed.

  “Tamara, don't!” the Remnant-Marie pleaded.

  “NO!!” Tamara's teeth were clenched, her tiny hands in white-knuckled fists. She could not suffer Krulgh's continued existence. “Never!!”

  The next moment she was gone!

  * * *

  Moshe attempted to contact the young girl with his telepathy. He could sense her. He knew she was there.... somewhere. She was just incredibly difficult to pinpoint. Jumping and teleporting from location to location. Every time Moshe found her, a moment later she was gone. More concerning still was Krulgh's mental miasma. It was blanketing the psychic ether again!

  Moshe was running out of patience with these reanimated slaves of the alien Star-Spawn. His strange middle-eastern robes whirled as he stuck one across its lacerated head with his staff, its skull crushing, while with his other extended hand created a gravity-well at another's feet. The dead thing's bones snapped and crackled as it was reduced to a gory pulp.

  The boy couldn't be gone. He released a mild concussion wave, just enough to knock back the remaining three dead things – to give him just a second to focus. He dropped all defenses and reached out his metaphysical mind again.

  There! He could sense the boy. Faint. Weak. But he was there. Somewhere between the two warships, on the open waters.... There! On a lifeboat. Moshe could see Dante in his mind's eye. He was dying.

  As Moshe's strange eyes opened, the green and gold flecks raged with power. He released a brutal concussion wave, the three undead things exploding like insects against a windshield, the remaining windows of the Yamayuki shattering with its residue power. Moshe teleported.

  * * *

  The panic and worry had long since subsided. The emotional distress and exhaustion had taken its toll and passed. Veronica sat placidly on the beach, watching. There was nothing else to do. She had raced and scoured the island searching for the children; searching for her precious Dante. They were simply not to be found.