by Aratare, X.
Nothing. Gabriel dug his fingernails into his palms. He felt the pull of the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. The webbing made him think of Mers and his Mer blood. He concentrated on that feeling and called again. Suddenly, there was the softest response.
Gabriel? What is wrong?
Gabriel let out a bark of pleased, watery laughter. Aemrys!
Yes, yes, I am here. His ancestor’s alarm was loud and clear now, as was his mind voice. What is wrong? I can sense something is terrible has happened.
Gabriel swallowed. Casillus …
Is Casillus injured? Aemrys jumped to the logical conclusion.
Gabriel still could not reach Casillus’ mind. He sensed only black currents and guessed that the Mer was still being held in deep unconsciousness by the drug in the dart. Gabriel curled forward and wrapped his arms around his legs, hanging in a fetal position in the water again. But he forced himself to get out, He’s been captured by Johnson Tims! Oh, you don’t know who that is --
Of course I do. You know so I know. You have just shared this with me, Aemrys’ interrupted him.
Gabriel blinked. I -- I didn’t realize I had done that.
I can see all you wish me to know now. The plan to get the statue. Casillus’ capture. Johnson’s attempted kidnapping of you, Aemrys said.
That’s handy, I guess.
Do not worry. Your secrets are safe with me. This a gift of blood. You and I are closely connected, Aemrys explained. The silver cord you envisioned when you sought me out? That is real. No other Mer could know your thoughts as I do … except for Casillus.
Oh …
There is nothing to fear, my heir, Aemrys responded soothingly.
I’m sorry. I’m thinking about things that don’t matter, Gabriel said, shaking himself.
Of course they matter, but rescuing Casillus and your friends is more pressing. His ancestor was quiet for long moments, likely thinking on all that Gabriel had passed to him. When he did speak, he was not hysterical or angry like Gabriel had feared. He was quite controlled and gentle. So Johnson Tims seeks madness and death.
If he only was going to hurt himself I wouldn’t care, but he wants to take Casillus, Corey and the others with him! Gabriel cried.
Only if he does not get what he wants, his ancestor corrected.
He can’t have what he wants! There’s no way of giving him what he wants and not destroying everyone on the Eastern Seaboard, including Casillus and my friends. Gabriel’s voice was high and tight. He knew he was panicking. He rested his forehead against his knees and tried to keep a hold of himself.
Do not be so sure. Aemrys was so calm. There was no sense of panic from him at all. Gabriel wasn’t certain what to make of that.
After 5,000 years, maybe Aemrys couldn’t understand haste and the terrible pressure of present danger. He knew that it couldn’t be disinterest in Johnson’s intended victims that led his ancestor to be so cool. Aemrys cared about Casillus very much.
Reading his thoughts, Aemrys chuckled softly. Oh, no, Gabriel, I feel these things very acutely. Tabatha taught me a painful lesson about human haste and the failure to act in time. And Casillus is very dear to me, especially as he is to be my son-in-law. I am not as calm as I seem.
But you’re not panicked! I mean—that sounds stupid. I should be glad you’re not. I should be glad that one of us is thinking clearly, Gabriel clarified. The more he thought about his lover and friends’ positions the worse his unease became.
Though I am far from sanguine about their fates, I see something you do not yet. I see that Johnson can be stopped, Aemrys said. I see that you can and will do it.
For one moment, Cthulhu’s words rustled again through Gabriel’s mind. You will change your mind.
How? By bringing Cth—IT to land? No, I can’t do that! Gabriel bit his lip hard until he tasted the copper heat of blood on his tongue. I love Casillus and Corey more than anyone. But to kill millions … They would no longer love me if I did that, and would wish with all they are that I had let them die instead.
Johnson wants to face Cthulhu. He thinks that this can only happen on land, at the settlement, but that is not true. You are a Caller, Gabriel. Cthulhu will come to you wherever you are, Aemrys replied.
Gabriel’s mind was a complete blank for a moment, not understanding what other place there could be for the standoff, and then he realized what Aemrys meant and felt like a complete fool. You mean give Johnson his standoff, but not on land—
But on water, Aemrys finished. The humans have ships. Take Johnson to Cthulhu.
Would he agree to that?
I think his mind is so riddled with foul desire that he would do almost anything, Aemrys said.
Where should this happen? What part of the ocean? Really far out? I don’t want to risk anyone else being hurt, Gabriel said.
I think you should take Johnson to where Cthulhu is now. That is far enough offshore that you will not risk anyone else, but close enough to the temple that Johnson will wrongfully think he has the upper hand, Aemrys said with a quiet certainty. There was something in his voice that was urging Gabriel to figure it out.
Where is that? I mean I suppose I could ask it—
You know where Cthulhu is, Gabriel, Aemrys said firmly but gently.
I … And then Gabriel did know. Cthulhu was where it had been the day his parents died. Waiting there just for him. Of course it would be there.
Yes, I am afraid so. It has a sense of … fate, destiny … or black humor, perhaps, Aemrys said.
Johnson can’t really hurt it, can he? I mean there’s no chance he could succeed in this? Gabriel asked.
He will succeed only in destroying himself and those who follow him. He has been touched by Cthulhu, so death may be his real goal now in any event, even if he does not realize it, Aemrys assured him.
Gabriel thought of Henry then, of how the young man didn’t care about his deteriorating health, instead wishing for just one moment more with Cthulhu. Aemrys’ view of Johnson was likely correct. The irony that the ex-soldier was working for the enemy while he thought he was working against it was the saddest thing Gabriel could imagine. Suddenly, Gabriel realized that he could sense Aemrys’ location.
You’re not that far away, Gabriel said with a start.
I will be with you before the sun rises tomorrow, Aemrys said.
Keep away until I deal with Johnson, Gabriel said. I don’t want you anywhere near danger.
I sense that it will all be over by the time I arrive. Aemrys’ voice was filled with confidence, confidence in Gabriel.
Gabriel was quiet for a moment and then said, How do you know so much about Cthu -- it?
We have had many Callers in our House, Gabriel. It is lore that is passed down, Aemrys said.
When I see you I’ll ask a million questions about it, Gabriel said.
And I will answer all I can, his ancestor assured him.
All right, well, I guess I need to get working on this, Gabriel said, and a shiver went through him. Would this plan succeed? So far their plans had been zero for one. He couldn’t fail again.
You will not fail. This was how it had to be. How it has always been meant to be, I think, Aemrys said.
You will change your mind. Cthulhu’s whisper was in Gabriel’s head, but this time it didn’t seem like a memory.
He was changing his mind. He was going to call Cthulhu and he would see it in the flesh again exactly where he had seen it last: at his parents’ graves.
6
LAST CHANCE
The temple pulled at Gabriel, reeled him in on a string that seemed to connect him and the statue of Cthulhu, which still resided inside the temple’s walls despite his friends’ best efforts. He didn’t have to see the land to know that he was going in the right direction. The string thrummed and his own new sense of direction led him unerringly to it. He swam under the water the whole way and only surfaced when the sandbar finally rose to meet his feet. The temple glowed ahead of hi
m like a silvery blue beacon.
A beacon of death, Gabriel thought, and it didn’t seem like hyperbole looking at the evilly glittering building. The temple was meant to draw one in with its unearthly beauty, and then madness and death lay inside. Just like what happened to Henry and now Johnson.
Two of Johnson’s goons who were patrolling the beach saw him rise up from the waves. They stiffened and their guns, which looked like AK-47s to Gabriel’s untrained eye, swung towards him. He heard their guttural commands to stop and identify himself. Fear skittered up his spine, but he remained calm, on the outside at least. The surf was gentle that night and the undertow weak. Gabriel hardly felt the suck of sand from beneath his heels as he stood still to address them.
“Tell Johnson Tims that Gabriel Braven is here,” Gabriel said, raising his voice slightly so that he could be heard over the shush and crash of the waves.
The goons stiffened again when he said Johnson’s name and then his own. He was who they were looking for, after all. He was who they were hunting for. But they had not expected him to give himself up to them willingly. One of them tilted his head to the side in order to speak into a walkie-talkie clipped to the shoulder strap of his bulletproof vest. There was a burst of crackly static and then Johnson’s voice, slightly garbled, squawked over the line.
“What?” Johnson asked, his voice clipped.
“We’ve got a kid here that says he’s Gabriel Braven, sir,” the goon said. “He looks like the picture you showed us of the boy.”
There was only the slightest hesitation before Johnson responded, “Bring him to me.”
The eagerness Gabriel heard from the ex-military man’s voice had him swallowing bile. Johnson no longer had to hide his true desires. Where before he had to pretend to be merely a concerned friend, now his obsession with Cthulhu and the Mers, especially Gabriel, was revealed. For his part, Gabriel no longer had to pretend either. He wasn’t human. He was Mer. And he didn’t have to fake politeness with Johnson this time around.
“Walk slowly towards us,” the goon on his right ordered.
“I’m unarmed,” Gabriel said as he lifted his arms into the air to show them that his hands were empty. His wet shirt clung to his sides and his gills fluttered.
Could the goons see the strange movement beneath the nearly see-thru material? The moon was high and bright. The temple cast its own glow as well, reaching the edge of the waterline. Johnson had told them what he wasn’t human. Emerging from the sea like he had might have given them a clue anyways. But neither of them looked away from his face.
“Keep your hands up,” the other goon said.
“What do you think I’m going to do to you? What did you think a group of college students was going to do to you?” Gabriel challenged. He recognized these two as the ones that had run after Casillus and shot him with a tranquilizer dart like they were hunting for sport. Gabriel’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “Do you like hurting unarmed people?”
“Be quiet!” the first goon said. His voice was steady. His eyes though were narrowed.
“Has Johnson told you that we are the enemy? That I am an enemy?” Gabriel asked. The water was ankle deep now and Gabriel nearly laughed at the fact that he desperately wanted to go back into the ocean at that moment. Leaving it felt like he was leaving home and safety. The irony ran deep.
“Are you saying you’re not?” The goon who asked was about six foot two and heavily built. He had closely cropped blond hair and a pleasant, angular face.
“Don’t engage,” the other goon hissed in warning. He was dark-haired and weak-jawed. “You know what Johnson said—”
“Johnson is wrong,” Gabriel interrupted. “Even now, he’s in the temple, isn’t he? Staring at that statue? I’m sure that’s what he’s doing. You must feel how strange he’s become. He’s going mad. He is mad.”
The goons stirred uneasily, and it confirmed what Gabriel already guessed. More than guessed, Gabriel realized that he could sense Johnson’s mind in the temple. He sensed, too, the dark, oily threads of Cthulhu’s influence on the ex-military man, though Johnson himself was not aware of it. Gabriel realized that he likely felt Johnson’s mind over Casillus, Corey, Greta or Roger’s because of that influence. He was Cthulhu’s Caller and Johnson was Cthulhu’s victim. That meant that there was a connection between them. And there was nothing that Gabriel could do about it.
Johnson wants this confrontation. I can try to talk him out of it, but I already know it won’t work. But what about these guys? Do they have to die, too? Is it too late to save them?
“Shut it,” the dark-haired goon snarled. “Get out of that water now. We’re taking you to Johnson.”
The muzzles of the goons’ guns did not waver from the center of his chest as Gabriel finally stepped out onto the beach. Gravity fully reasserted itself with a vengeance and Gabriel felt heavy and ungainly again, so unlike the sleek graceful being he had been in the water moments before. Dry sand dusted his feet like powdered sugar. The grains were cool now that the sun had long since gone down. Gabriel shivered slightly as a breeze flattened his wet clothes against his skin. He yearned for the warmth of the water and its silky embrace, but Casillus and Corey, not to mention Greta and Roger, were in the temple and he had to save them.
I’m really more Mer than human now, Gabriel realized as his gills fluttered at his sides.
“You should leave here,” Gabriel said to the goons. “You really should leave here. Bad things are going to happen. And I can’t save you. Johnson can’t save you. His actions are going to kill you.”
“Johnson is going to stop you and your kind,” the blond goon said, his earlier doubts seemingly gone.
“My kind? What he’s after isn’t my kind. It isn’t anyone’s kind,” Gabriel said.
“Enough! You’re going to Johnson. Marko, you keep watch,” the dark-haired goon said.
“Are you sure, Jax, I—”
“He’s just a kid,” Jax scoffed. “And he’s unarmed. Besides, he wants to go see Johnson, don’t you?”
The last was addressed to Gabriel. He smiled thinly at Jax. “That’s why I’m here.”
That, and to save Casillus and my friends and the Eastern Seaboard.
Jax gestured with the muzzle of the gun for Gabriel to walk ahead of him. The goon followed closely behind him. When Gabriel glanced back, he realized that Jax had his gun pointed at the middle of his back. Marko remained on the beach, probably to guard against any other swimmers that might emerge from the deep. He needn’t have bothered. No one else was coming here. Cthulhu awaited out in the ocean. Gabriel could feel its amusement and slight eagerness to face the “forlorn soldier,” as it called Johnson.
Is this going to work? Will Johnson really agree to go in a boat to meet it? Won’t he recognize the danger?
But really, what was the difference between meeting Cthulhu on land or on water? Other than the possibility of it pulling the boat beneath the waves? Yet those tentacles could just as easily pull them into the surf even if they were standing on the beach. There were all kinds of reasons why it hardly mattered where they met Cthulhu. Madness and death would follow. Yet Gabriel’s earlier confidence started to pour out of him with every step towards the temple. He had to somehow convince Johnson that he would only get his showdown away from land.
Gabriel had just reached the bottom of the steps that led up to the temple’s entrance when Johnson appeared in the open doorway, a large black silhouette. Golden light limned him. Gabriel guessed that Johnson and his goons had set up large spotlights lights inside the temple to add to the illumination cast by the temple’s glowing blocks. He peered around Johnson’s bulky form, but couldn’t see Casillus or the others. His heart lurched sickly. They had to be okay.
“Gabriel! I’m so glad you’re here,” Johnson said. “I feared that you would stay away.”
“Like I had a choice?” Gabriel asked as he climbed the steps. He felt his lungs straining from the effort, but he managed t
o walk and talk at the same time. “You are holding my friends hostage.”
“They aren’t hostages. We’re just keeping them out of harm’s way. Well, the humans aren’t hostages at any rate,” Johnson said. He then spoke to the goon. “Jax, go back to your station. I’ll radio you when it’s time to move.”
“But, sir—”
“Gabriel doesn’t intend to harm me. He has no weapons. But I do.” Johnson patted the powerful looking handgun that was in a holster under his left arm.
“Yes, sir,” Jax said and saluted. He then turned on his heel and returned the way he had come.
Gabriel stepped up onto the platform before the temple’s doors. The internal glow of the stones flared brighter with every step he took. The temple knew who and what he was. He was Cthulhu’s Caller and this was Cthulhu’s temple. Yet for all the strength that should have given him, Gabriel had to rest for a moment when he reached the top of the steps as his lungs literally ached.
Definitely more Mer than man now, Gabriel thought with an hysterical chuckle.
Gabriel rested his hands on the tops of his thighs and focused on breathing. When he finally straightened up, he realized that Johnson was just five feet away from him. A stirring of unease ran through Gabriel. The ex-military man was looking more like a current military man. Johnson was dressed in black and gray fatigue pants, a black, tight T-shirt and a bulletproof vest. When Gabriel tried to speak, but was too winded to do so, Johnson suddenly moved to his side as if to assist him. Gabriel reared back from the man, warding off Johnson’s touch. His gaze met Johnson’s.