The back door of the cabin was open, casting a rectangular swatch of light like the negative of a shadow onto the dark ground. Howard drew his pistol and ran in, his boots thundering on the wood floor.
The first thing he saw was Glory’s silhouette at the table, leaning over the source of the blinding light, whose blue tinge caused her hair to glow an unearthly violet color.
On the table, the pages of the Necronomicon fluttered wildly, behaving as if some frantic invisible hand were thumbing back and forth through it looking for a particular passage. Howard watched, bewildered, as the book flattened down, just as abruptly, its tattered pages open to an arcane diagram. Now Glory raised her arms high, the sleeves of her blouse falling to her shoulders, her skin pale blue, and a voice, clearly hers and yet not hers, whispered, “Cthulhu.”
“No!”
Instantly, Glory spun in her chair and faced him. Her face was damp, her eyes oddly reddish, her hair tangled. She had opened the buttons of her blouse and pulled the fabric down and back, exposing her breasts and her belly. Howard couldn’t help but stare. He tried to hold the pistol steady. “No!” he said again.
Glory smiled a wicked and lascivious smile that distorted the natural beauty of her features. “Put down the gun, Bobby,” she said, reaching toward him.
Howard took a step backward and pulled the hammer back. “Miss McKenna,” he said, “stop it.”
Glory tilted her head back and laughed, then she stared into Howard’s eyes and said, “Look at me, Bobby. Look at me.” She arched her back and preened for him.
Howard couldn’t take his eyes off her body. He thrust the pistol forward, but even to him it no longer felt like a threat. He took a step toward her, pistol still extended, and she reached for the barrel, smiling.
“I’ll shoot you, I swear,” said Howard.
“Oh, Bobby, you’re so brave.”
Glory was about to rise from the seat and take the pistol when Smith barged in carrying a lamp, Lovecraft on his heels. “Stop!” cried Smith.
Howard turned his head, momentarily distracted, and in that instant, Glory leaped up and swatted the .45 from his hand, sending it flying into the darkness of the adjoining room. The blow stunned Howard, and he responded with a boxer’s instinct, dropping his weight at the knees and swinging. His left hook caught Glory behind the ear, and it might have killed her had he not opened his hand and turned the punch into a mighty slap, which spun her all the way around and left her in a heap on the floor.
Suddenly the light from the table died down into a muted blue glow. “The Artifact!” cried Lovecraft. “She took it from me!” He did a foolish thing and reached for it, only to burn his fingers on the intense cold that issued from its face on the table.
Smith lifted Glory to her feet and sat her up in a chair, kneeling in front of her to support her. He took her jaw in one hand and turned her head this way and that. “Are you all right, Glory?”
“I’m fine,” she said, her eyes still closed. “What’s going on?”
“I’m afraid you might be possessed by a demon,” said Smith. He pulled her blouse around her and began to button it up. “I hope that doesn’t sound as absurd to you as it does to me. A demon.”
“Yes, a demon,” murmured Lovecraft. “One that haunts one’s’ dreams and hides like an assassin between one and one’s sleep. In my dreams I heard its whispering in my brain, and I woke to see the shadow of wings and the eyes of a serpent.”
A pall fell over the men in the kitchen. Glory, still in the chair in front of them, made noises of pain and pleasure and what sounded like alien words, and then she laughed loudly, with a guttural edge in her voice.
“A demon is still riding her,” said Lovecraft.
Smith silenced him with a gesture, and was about to speak, when Howard said, “My God, she’s makin’ an animal noise-like a loco coyote. Have we done somethin’ to get her mad?”
Lovecraft furrowed his brow in concern. He well knew that after their recent escape from the odd men the Artifact was alerting the servants of Cthulhu of their whereabouts. Smith’s deep brown eyes glanced up, and he glared at Howard as if wondering whether to take the question as sarcasm or lack of awareness. Howard began to flush, but the attentive Lovecraft leaned toward his friend and tapped him on his shoulder.
“Look at her!” Lovecraft pointed at Glory, who was laughing even more strangely than a moment before.
The men were drawing away from her apprehensively. She did not look at them, or seem to notice them. She tossed her red hair and her loud laugh resounded in the kitchen. Her pale breasts heaved up and down, her sleeves opened and fell downward again as she raised up her pale arms. Her green eyes shone with a wild spark, her lips twisted with her unnatural sounds.
“The hand of Cthulhu is on her,” Lovecraft grumbled uneasily. “Glory!” Smith called sharply.
The only reply was another burst of manic laughter, but then she cried out, hoarsely, “Gnish’ton nog’na p’sto r’fomem olat f’gni!” Her voice rose into an inhuman pitch, and leaping from her seat, she stood behind the table, a knife in her hand. Lovecraft and Smith cried out and scrambled quickly out of her reach. But it was at Howard that Glory rushed, her pale face a mask of rage. Howard caught her wrist, and even the supernatural strength of her madness was futile against his solid muscles. He flung her from him, down onto the paper-strewn floor, where she lay in a moaning heap, the knife driven into the table as she collapsed again.
THEIR TENUOUS COMPOSURE, which had been so suddenly shattered, resumed again as the men lifted Glory’s arms and legs and hoisted her onto the table. Howard disappeared into the other room. and, returning with his .45, pushed it in under his belt.
“Calm down,” said Smith. “Let’s not allow this unexpected complication to discourage us in our work. Spirit possession is common enough.”
Howard nodded indecisively. “Ya know, I’m worried about Glory and us. I’m holdin’ on to my pistole.”
“I believe her fit is over,” said Smith.
As Lovecraft grumbled in pain and retreated to examine his hand,
Glory turned her head and blinked at them, her eyes and expression now quite normal. “What am I doing up here?” she asked.
Smith helped her sit up. “Don’t you remember?”
“Remember what? Where are we?”
“In my kitchen,” said Smith. “I’m afraid we have some bad news for you.”
Glory stood up, feeling her face and looking puzzled. She turned her back to the men to tuck her blouse in, and while they were preoccupied with decorum, she quietly retrieved another large kitchen knife from a countertop knife holder. She matter-of-factly turned back around and stretched her arm over the ancient book with the intention, it seemed, of slashing her wrist.
Howard reacted instantly. He leaped toward Glory and tried to grab the knife before she could harm herself, only to receive a slash across the top of his hand. Part in reflex and partly in desperation, he swatted her across her face again, his blood spraying across the open book and the glowing Artifact. Smith and Lovecraft caught Glory as she staggered, then collapsed into a chair, mumbling in a strange tongue. In a moment she was quiet. Her eyes seemed to clear, and she looked at them as if she had just woken.
Smith was the first to see it. Where the blood from Howard’s hand had soaked into the vellum like surface of the page, a jaundice-colored script was beginning to form in the space between the printed lines. “My God,” said Smith. He moved the lamp closer.
Lovecraft and Howard stared in amazement as Smith frantically smeared the blood across the page, revealing more of the formerly invisible text. “Quick!” said Smith. Before Howard knew what was happening, Smith grabbed his injured hand and squeezed, extracting a large gout of blood that splashed across the facing page.
Howard grimaced in pain, momentarily stunned. “What the-!”
For a split second it was unclear whether he understood Smith’s impulsive act, but then his eyes Hashed with a deepe
r anger that suggested he was reacting with a willful violence. He drew back and slammed his good fist into Smith’s jaw.
And now it was Smith’s turn to be stunned. He reeled against the desk, then fell to the floor semiconscious. Lovecraft understood the urgency of Smith’s act. As he groaned on the kitchen floor, rubbing his sore jaw, Lovecraft quickly stepped forward with a butter knife and proceeded to spread the blood evenly across the surface of the two facing pages. Slowly, numerals began to appear, the jaundice turning into a deep purple color against the dark red that now completely blotted out the original text.
Smith rose unsteadily to his feet. “It’s a palimpsest,” he explained, massaging his jaw to determine if it was still properly attached. “I’m sorry, Bob, but it had to be done quickly in case there was a limited time for the catalysis.”
“What the Sam Hill are ya talkin’ about?” Howard nursed his bloody hand. “That hurt like hell.”
“Likewise, I’m sure.”
“What’s a palimpsest?”
“Most commonly a holy text,” said Lovecraft. “In the days when paper and parchment were rare, it was customary to write over a preexisting document. Some, of course, were created on purpose to give symbolic meaning to the layering of text upon text.”
“In this case, the surface gives instructions for how to reveal what’s underneath,” said Smith. “I’m sorry we didn’t figure out the meaning of iron fluid’ until it happened to fall on the page.”
“What?” said Howard.
“Iron fluid. Blood. Blood is red because of its high iron content.”
“It’s a damn shame you eggheads and monkish types don’t have any thin’ better to do,” Howard grumbled, turning to give the text a look.
The numerals had become more defined, filling out a series of what appeared to be coordinates. Hermetic and alchemical symbols, runes, and a hideous, unrecognizable text began to appear, including what appeared to be a webbed letter H and an ominous seven-pointed star that bore the same image as the Artifact.
“These numerical tables look like astronomical charts,” said Lovecraft. “Clark, do you have any astrological books in your library?”
“You can take your pick,” said Smith.
Lovecraft lifted the book, still open to the same page spread. “Bob, Clark and I will retire into the study to attempt a deciphering of these familiar figures. Would you be averse to guarding Glory during that time?”
“No, I don’t mind,” said Howard. “But how about givin’ me some rope or somethin’, Clark? I don’t reckon she’ll take too kindly to bein’ clobbered again.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” said Glory.
“I’m sorry. Terribly sorry. It ain’t in my nature to hit a lady.”
“I’m hardly a lady, Bob. At least not by your standards.”
“At least not when a demon is riding you,” said Smith, putting a coiled length of utility rope on the table. “I’m glad I didn’t try to take that knife from you.” He handed Howard a towel for his bleeding hand. “You might Want to dress that wound now. There’s water over here. Medical supplies here.”
“I can take care of myself,” said Howard. “You two go on ahead.”
“Call if you require assistance,” said Lovecraft.
“Yeah.”
Smith and Lovecraft retired into the study with the Necronomicon, leaving Howard and Glory alone in the kitchen, illuminated by a single lamp.
“Let me help you with that hand,” said Glory. “I’m really sorry Bob. I don’t know what came over me, and I don’t remember a thing.”, “Well, then you don’t recall my hittin’ YOU?”
Glory shook her head. “But I feel like shit, if that helps.”
Howard grimaced at her language.
“No, the demon didn’t make me say that.” She approached him, and while he considered her with suspicion, she washed his hand in a water basin and then painted it with iodine. Howard hissed through his teeth and then whistled a few bars as she applied a salve and dressed the cut with gauze and a clean cloth.
“How do you feel?” asked Howard. “A normal person woulda had a busted lip or some bruisin’ from how I hit you.”
“My face feels a little numb, but I’m all right.”
“Musta been the demon protectin’ ya.”
“Either that, or your right hook isn’t what it used to be.”
“I’m sorry,” said Howard. “I was just reactin’, ya understand?”
“Maybe I would a done different if I thought it through.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Glory. “It’s a good thing I don’t remember. I don’t have it to hold against you.”
“You don’t remember nothin’?” Howard said, blushing.
“Nothing.”
“Well, that’s good then, ‘cause I don’t reckon Novalyne woulda approved.”
“Approved of what? Who’s Novalyne?” Glory poured the blood tinged water out into the rigged sink and placed the iodine back on the shelf.
“Oh, nothin’,” Howard said with a laugh. “Novalyne’s my girl friend. Wonderful gal.”
“Why, I’m surprised, Bob.”
“Huh? You surprised I got a girlfriend?”
“No, it was your tone of voice. You sounded so romantic and wistful.”
“Yeah, I suppose.” Howard was quiet for a moment. “It’s too bad Ma don’t approve of her. Can’t figure women, you know.”
“Maybe she feels threatened.”
“Huh? Why would she feel threatened?”
“Oh, you know,” said Glory. “Mother is always the central woman in a man’s life. You’re always her baby, no matter how old you are. It’s natural for any mother to feel like her baby’s girlfriend is an intruder. After all, who’s going to take better care of her baby than she could?”
Howard tried moving his fingers under the dressing. “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he said. “These days it’s me takin’ care of Ma.”
“Then your girlfriend is interfering by taking up some of your attention, too.”
“Yeah.” He mumbled something under his breath. “Hey, how are ya feelin’? Any demons comin’ on?”
Glory laughed melodiously. “I’m okay now. Let’s make some tea.”
IT WAS MORE than an hour before Lovecraft emerged from Smith’s study with a satisfied smirk. “I see you haven’t had to hog-tie the lady,” he said to, Howard.
“She’s been behavin’ ladylike.”
“We have succeeded in decoding some coordinates,” said Lovecraft.
“Come, and we’ll show you.”
In Smith’s study, they had spread a chaotic array of maps and charts all across the large desktop. At each end, under the flickering lamps, there were piles of paper scrawled with figures in pencil. On the floor and in the corners were heaps of crumpled paper.
“We finally figured it out,” said Smith. “And here are the coordinates, which seem to indicate a rather remote place in New Mexico.”
“I’m tired and out of sorts,” said Glory, “but even without any scientific training, I can tell you that’s impossible.”
“We arrived at the coordinates with a method contrary to what you are assuming,” said Lovecraft.
“There couldn’t have been geographical coordinates in the book because they didn’t exist when it was supposed to have been written,” Glory continued. “And, in any case, the New World wasn’t even discovered by the Europeans until the end of the Thirteenth Century!”
Lovecraft gave a rather patronizing smile. “Quite observant,“he said. “But the numbers in the book were not geographical coordinates. They were numerals designating the ascension of a star called Shub Niggurath in a constellation that looks vaguely like a goat’s head. What took us all this time was to work in reverse to determine the spot from which the rising of the star would be visible at the date and time indicated. And thus this disarray of stellar charts and conversion tables.”
“Still,” Glory insisted, “they couldn’t
have known that the star would have been visible from the New World. How did the author know there would be land at that spot?”
“Irrelevant,” said Lovecraft. “The New World was not known by man, but who is to say that the Old Ones did not know the geography of the entire planet? This text comes down from them the way in which the Bible is said to be the divine word of God.”
“I guess I’ll accept that.” It took only a moment’s reflection for her to realize the absurdity of arguing with them after what she had been through. “It’s no less believable than any of the other things,” she concluded.
Smith touched Glory’s shoulder. “There’s another odd coincidence,” he said. “As you might know by now, HP’s Necronomicon was modeled on an ancient text called The Astronomica.”
Glory smiled. “Well, according to some people, the stars are the dead, aren’t they? It isn’t so remarkable a coincidence.”
“Touché,” said Smith.
Lovecraft frowned. “Well, Miss McKenna, despite what you might see as my derivative nature, I seem to have been an unconscious conduit of information unknowable to me. And since what has transpired in recent days appears to maintain a remarkable closeness to the details in my weird fiction, I suggest we continue to assume such parallels while they are useful.
“According to our calculations, we must now journey back the way we came to the state of New Mexico, to a place near the Carlsbad Caverns. On Klarkash-Ton’s map, we found an area labeled ‘Shadows Bend.’ The name causes me to shudder involuntarily, and I say that not simply out of a tendency toward hyperbole.”
“You’ve proved your point, I think,” said Howard.
Glory couldn’t help but giggle behind her hand at Lovecraft, but she straightened her face and apologized to him. “I must still be under the influence of the demon,” she said.
“Indeed, you must be,” Lovecraft replied. He turned to Smith. “Come with us, Klarkash-Ton. There’s plenty of room in the car, and God knows what manner of assistance we might require of you.”
“I’m sorry.” Smith gestured at the cabin around them. “I have all this to take care of, and my parents are both old and infirm, as you know. If I were a bachelor living on my own, I’d like nothing better, but I’m afraid I’ll have to bow out of this adventure. I shall send my best thoughts with you all.”
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