There were stone stairs going up. I flipped my lighter on. It would do. I got the Fed up the first flight, turned a corner and let him slump down.
I held the flame close to his face. There was blood on it. The guy was a real mess. But I couldn’t tell if mâché-man had drawn more blood or spread what was leaking from the gunshot wound.
“Can you hear me?”
His eyes opened, blinking tears, and he nodded.
“Pal, you have to talk to me,” I snapped. “What in hell is going on here?”
As if suddenly coming round to our position, he jerked upright. “Where is it? That thing—”
“Gone up in a blaze of glory,” I told him, waving the lighter.
“There may be more—”
“Not from the alley. It’ll take a fleet of fire wagons to clear it. So what was it? Tell me I’m not going nuts.”
“He sent it. Zeitsheim. He has very strange connections,” the Fed gasped, wincing as more agony lanced through his arm. “He’s protected. For the love of Mike, don’t try going after him, Stone. He’s in this warehouse. But you’ve seen what he can do.”
“So he’s some kind of magician?”
“He has equally dangerous enemies. You work for them. I doubt if you know who they really are.”
“While you obviously do. Explain. You ain’t going nowhere. We’re stuck here. Once that smoke gets in, we have to enter the warehouse. So talk to me. Tell me about what’s happening down at Innsmouth.”
It was a long shot, but it hit home. “You know about Innsmouth?”
“Enough.”
“Damn diseased place,” he coughed. “Zeitsheim is one of its progeny. There are other enclaves in Europe. He’s on his way back from there. We have to get to him before he gets back to Innsmouth. It’s too far for even one of his kind to swim.”
“So the FBI wants him alive?”
“Yeah. Your employers are his own kind. They don’t want us to get hold of him. Not outside Innsmouth. Down there, he’d be safe enough. They have ways of protecting the community you wouldn’t believe. On his own, here, he’s vulnerable. So rather than let him fall into our hands, they want him dead.”
“Incinerated,” I corrected.
“What?”
“Incinerated. If Zeitsheim burns like that paper zombie out there, there’ll be no more than a small pile of ash to interrogate. That was my job. What I was paid to do, anyhow. Which is why, I assume, you guys wanted to remove me. And why a friend of mine ended up bleeding to death on the sidewalk.”
The Fed grimaced, but I won’t say it was remorse. “You seemed determined not to take a hint.”
“So, what did you mean when you said that Zeitsheim sent that thing?”
“You won’t believe it—”
“After what I saw out there, at least try me.”
“Not all of his kind want him dead. Others want to help get him back to Innsmouth. Whatever transpired in Europe, they want to know about it. So they send him help when he calls for it. Did you notice the wind? How freakish it was?”
“Sure.” The wind that had sculpted the garbage man.
“Does the name Ithaqua mean anything to you? Or the Wendigo?”
I nodded at the latter. “Indian spirit.” I was combing my mental files for a reference. “Walker on the winds.” Ah, illumination, of a sort.
“That’s it, Mr. Stone,” the Fed grunted. “The winds. But it was around long before the Indians called it the Wendigo. Zeitsheim and his kind call it Ithaqua. They worship it and other very strange gods. Gods that have been around longer than the solar system.”
“They wouldn’t be gods otherwise,” I said flippantly.
“Doesn’t pay to laugh at them.”
“No. I wasn’t laughing when that thing came at me. So you’re telling me that Zeitsheim summoned the wind—the wind-walker? And it moulded the garbage thing?” But I’d seen it, goddam it. It had happened right in front of me. That was no illusion. For the moment I was going to have to go along with all this bullshit.
The Fed started coughing and I noticed the air getting thick. The damn smoke was seeping in fast. We had to get up into the warehouse. I dragged the Fed to his feet, pulled his gun out of my pocket and stuck it into his left hand.
“You may need this. But forget about taking me out of the equation, pal. Next time I shoot at you, it’ll be here.” And I tapped him lightly between the eyes. He knew I wasn’t kidding.
We made our way up the stairs. The stairwell was filling with smoke now. I guessed the fire outside had really got going. Maybe the whole block would end up in flames. Well, it’s what my employers wanted, assuming Zeitsheim ended up on the pyre. We went through some doors onto a floor of the warehouse.
My night vision isn’t bad, but I wouldn’t have seen anything if it hadn’t been for the fire below in the alley. Waving red light danced on the walls opposite, so that we could see around us. The place was lit in dull, wavering orange, the deserted spaces like an alien landscape. Which was appropriate, I guess.
“How do you know Zeitsheim is still here?” I said softly.
The Fed leaned on one of the iron columns. “We’ve got all the exits covered. Cellars are shut down. He can’t walk through walls.”
“Sewers? Seems to me if a guy stinks like he does, a little excrement isn’t going to make a lot of difference.”
“He couldn’t get into the system. Sealed a while ago for safety.”
I nodded. “He knows you’re after him and he knows his mock suicide didn’t work. How did he do that, by the way? The word is, he was dead. Down at the morgue, they do know a dead body when they see one.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Oh, but I do. One more impossibility isn’t going to spoil my day.”
“All right. Can’t do any harm to tell you. No one would believe you. He’s not human. Not completely. None of them are in that damn seaport. They spend most of their lives in the sea, god damn it. The sea!”
A momentary reflection came to me, something I’d read in the papers I’d been researching. “Isn’t there some kind of reef?”
“Devil’s Reef? Yeah, you’ve been doing your homework, Mr. Stone.”
“Your mob torpedoed it some seventy-five-odd years ago. I guess they didn’t finish the job.”
He shook his head. “Guess you’re right. They’ve spawned anew. And we can’t just go in, guns blazing. We’ve sent investigative bodies in to Innsmouth, but they cover themselves. We have nothing to go on. No shred of evidence that would hold up in court. But if we could take Zeitsheim…” He suddenly gripped my arm, his face knotted in pain. “Stone, I’m going to need medical attention soon. Lost a lot of blood. Listen to me. You have to keep away from Zeitsheim. You have to let our men take him. Never mind what you’re being paid. We’ll treble it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just stay cool. But I think I know where our man will be.”
He looked as if he was going to slip into unconsciousness, but he managed to nod. I let him down, resting his back against the column. His lap was full of blood. He’d be lucky if his arm survived this. But he was luckier than Shivers had been.
I left him there and went back to the stairs. But they were thick with smoke. Instead I crossed the huge, empty floor and found another stair. If Zeitsheim could talk to the wind, the best place to do it would be up on the roof. I went up after him, though I had no concrete plan.
The roof was several flights up, beyond a half-dozen empty floors that offered no hint as to where Zeitsheim was. I went up the last steps very slowly. There was still enough of a glow from below to show me the terrain here. Beyond it, opposite where the fire was, the dark waters of the Hudson stretched on either side.
Zeitsheim could have been hiding behind any number of vents up here. The fire was roaring away noisily below and I could hear sirens. This whole block was in danger of going up if they didn’t control it soon. But the wind had died down, back to what it had been during the day.
<
br /> I ducked and weaved between vents, using the shadows to cover me. Then I found what I was looking for, or rather, my nose did. It was that stench again, the one I’d first encountered at the morgue. And sure enough, the green slime. I picked up a length of wood that had come away from the vent housing and dipped the end of it in the slime, holding it up before me. It was no illusion. Whatever it was, it was real. Like the viscous oozing of a snail, only a human-size one.
The slime trail led to another opening in the roof and more stairs. Carefully I peered down and, as I did so, I heard shots—several of them—a few floors below. It could only be the Fed. Dammit, Zeitsheim had conned me. He’s gone back down after him. Divide and conquer.
I hurtled down the stairs, practically breaking my neck in the process. When I reached the floor where I’d left the Fed, the whole area was lit up by the bonfire below. I could see the slumped form of the Fed. But Zeitsheim had made himself scarce again. My guess now was that he’d be making for the water. The Fed said these people had an affinity for the sea, so maybe that was where Zeitsheim would have to end up.
I reached the Fed. He gazed up at me like a beached fish, his gun hanging from limp fingers.
“It was here. I emptied the gun into it,” he croaked.
“Looks like you missed.”
He shook his head weakly. “Bullets don’t hurt them.”
“Crap. You missed him.”
He shook his head more emphatically. “No, Stone. That’s the point. They’ve been working on something. Their breeding program. Zeitsheim is back from Europe. The enclave over there must be more advanced. They’ve had years to develop, hidden away deep in the Eastern bloc. They morph. From their true form. At best I may have wounded it, but it’s still alive.”
“Heading for the river?”
“It’ll dive in. It’ll have to swim out to sea. Try for another ship to get it up to Innsmouth. It’s desperate to get there, to pass on what it can do. Leave me here. Find it. Stop it. If it gets to Innsmouth and starts breeding—”
“Tell me again why my employers want it incinerated? Don’t they want its secrets themselves?”
“They are terrified of the possibility of us taking Zeitsheim alive. Nothing is worth that risk to them. And, God help us, Stone, there will be others coming over. They have been patient. Time means nothing to these creatures. Zeitsheim is just the forerunner.” He sank back, exhausted.
I left him again, making for the far side of the warehouse and steps that would lead down to the wharf-side. I was being cautious about my descent but even so, I nearly slipped and went headlong. More slime, so I was on the right track. I could just make out the ground floor below me. There was a door, which must lead out on to the wharf.
I kept very still. If Zeitsheim was there, he would have heard me. I had one last card I could play. I held the Beretta tightly, even though the Fed had told me its bullets would be useless.
“Zeitsheim!” I hissed. I repeated the name a couple of times. “I’m from BoBo. He told me you’d be here. You hear me? I’m from BoBo.”
I inched my way down the slippery stair. The light below was very poor, but something shifted in the shadows. I called him again. Then at last I saw him, though he was no more than a blur. He was on the next landing down, halfway between me and the floor!
“Zeitsheim. That you? I’m from BoBo. You can’t stay here. We gotta find you another bolt-hole until the ship for Innsmouth is ready.”
He eased out from cover. From here, he looked human enough, though I couldn’t see his face properly. I kept my gun out of sight.
“The Feds are lookin’ for you,” I told him, easing down another step. “Can’t stay here, pal. BoBo has a better place.”
He didn’t look hostile, so maybe he was buying it. But I wasn’t about to find out. The outside door opened, letting in a pale shaft of streetlight. Zeitsheim swung round and over his massive shoulder I saw a figure slide into the building only to take immediate cover in the pitch darkness behind the door.
“Don’t move up there!” barked a voice. “NYPD! I have a gun trained on you. One move and I will shoot. You hear me. I will shoot. Now, come down the stairs very slowly with your hands on your head.”
The cop edged forward and I could just make him out. He had his weapon held in both hands, trained like he said on Zeitsheim.
Impasse. What the hell was I supposed to do now?
But Zeitsheim made up my mind for me. He swung round and hauled himself up the stairs, his shape blurring for a moment as he did so. Like I said, the light was very poor, the whole place one mass of shadows. But Zeitsheim was changing. His trunk thickened, his neck disappearing. In that darkness, he was just like a single mass rising up the stairs. And he meant to burst past me. Or over me.
Down below, the cop opened fire. I was too mesmerized to turn and make a bolt for it. I took out my own gun and let the Zeitsheim-thing have it. I didn’t miss and I guess the cop’s bullets found their mark, too. At any rate, the combined force of the bullets achieved something, because the shape crashed into the steel rail at one side of the stair, snapped it clean off like it was made of balsa wood and then went tumbling out into space.
It landed with a sickening smack on the cement floor, making a sound like a huge sack of eggs bursting. I was grateful for the darkness, because the thing exploded. It’s the only word for it.
And the shafts of light from the open door picked out the details in appalling, gory splendor. Like a bathful of slime. One very big bathful.
The cop staggered back against the door, pretty shaken up, his gun hanging at his side. He hardly noticed me as I began a slow climb down.
But the fun was only just beginning. As I looked down at the widespread remains of Zeitsheim, I realized that they were moving. Rippling, to be precise. The extremities of that slick pool were beginning to flow towards the door. And gradually the whole mass started to shiver and edge forward, like fluid running off toward a drain.
The sea! That was it. This damn thing was flowing back to the water beyond the wharf outside the door, no more than a few yards away.
The cop was just gaping, rigid as stone.
“Shut the door!” I yelled. “For Chrissake, shut the door!”
It snapped him awake, but panic swept over him and he blasted away with his last couple of rounds. The bullets whanged off the floor and walls, powerless against the moving slime. But one of them clanged into a pile of oil drums that had been stacked beyond the shadows. Faintly I could hear the glug, glug of oil that had been released.
I flicked on my lighter and held it up. Sure enough, oil was leaking out over the floor, running thickly to the edge of the pool of moving slime.
I had my instructions.
I tossed the lighter floor-ward. It bounced and came to a halt in the widening oil slick. For a moment I thought nothing would happen. But the oil caught. And I had my second blaze of the night.
Without another glance, I raced down the last of the stairs. The oil had really caught now and fingers of flame were reaching out across the floor. The cop didn’t know which way to look, like a man in a dream.
Almost beside us, the slime suddenly rose up, seemingly in an attempt to reshape itself into a human form, the fire engulfing its base as though the slime were as combustible as the oil. A wild, wide mouth formed somewhere where the head was supposed to be and a dreadful hissing, an agonized shriek, emerged.
“What the—?” gasped the cop.
“Don’t ask,” I told him, gripping him by the elbow and marshalling him to the door. Behind us, Zeitsheim was swaying to and fro, his shape completely distorted now, like someone trying to break its way out of a thick cellophane shroud. But the flames just roared into it. It would be over in seconds.
I pushed the cop out on to the wharf, which was easy enough given his stupefaction, and dragged the door shut behind me. I turned round—to find myself looking into the mouths of three more guns.
“FBI,” said one of the g
unmen, holding up a badge briefly.
I’d already put my empty Beretta away out of sight. “You better go quickly if you want to pull your buddy out,” I told them, jerking my thumb up at the warehouse. “He’s gonna need medical help.”
The first of them swore, speaking urgently into his mobile phone.
“What about Zeitsheim?” another of them growled, almost in my ear.
I looked down. A smear of something dark had oozed out from under the door. I was about to comment, when a small tongue of fire licked out and covered it possessively. There was a brief crackle, like fat on a fire, then it was over.
“He’s all yours,” I told them.
They were far too interested in their quarry to pay the cop and me any more attention. So we simply walked away.
The Feds had parked their car along the wharf. Just behind it, another cop was leaning against the bonnet of a patrol car. “What’s all the fuss, sarge?” he said to the cop beside me. “I heard shooting, but the Feds told me to keep my nose out of it.” It didn’t look like it had bothered him.
The cop with me just shook his head, like a man in a dream.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just leave you boys to it,” I drawled, making a move to do just that.
But the cop beside me finally came to. “Hold it, pal. You’re not going anywhere until we’ve cleared this mess up. We have arson—two fires, dammit—we have Feds crawlin’ about the place—we have that… thing in there. There’s a whole lot of questions that need answering, down at the precinct.”
I shrugged in resignation. It was going to be a long night.
* * *
The cop looked out again at the river, shaking his head. “I know what I saw, Ed. It’s just like Stone says on the tape. He didn’t make that up. Not the last bit anyway. Damn, I saw it!”
“We can’t hold him forever. We have to charge him, or let him go.”
“What about the Feds?”
“If they found any trace of this illegal immigrant, they’re saying nothing. And they’re not filing any charges against Stone for shooting up their pal. And by the time that fire’s finally done with, there’ll be nothing left of that warehouse worth sifting through.”
Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth Page 13