The Lovecraft Squad: Dreaming

by Stephen Jones

  “The boy?”

  “Howard, of course.”

  “Howard Phillips Lovecraft has been dead for decades. He died at the age of forty-six of intestinal cancer.” Only once the information is out does Randolph think he might well have delivered it in better style. Kindred’s expression is stricken, disbelieving.

  “It’s not possible. Howard was destined to . . .” Kindred’s words trickle to a halt. He pulls himself together with a visible effort. “But there will be time later to find the truth of this. For now, the Queens await and tempus fugit even as we speak. Come along, Mr. Carter.”

  “Where are we, if I may ask?”

  “We are on the Isle of Oriab, for the moment.”

  “This is not Baharna?” Randolph looks around, strains for a sight of the city walls, but finds only foliage and hints at an expanse of water.

  “No, indeed. Too easy to be found there. The Queens are partial to a more fluid environment. We are on the shores of Lake Yath.”

  “Then this . . .”

  “. . . The ruins of the Nameless City.”

  “That explains the presence of the wamps.”

  “As I said, we have a truce for the moment—all the creatures of the Dreamlands, Mr. Carter, are nervous. We are in a precarious position; even the meanest, ugliest beastie wishes to survive. Come along.” He gestures behind him to a cluster of large green leaves. Randolph squints and notices in the gaps something gray—stones, cut and set together carefully, masterfully. There is a structure hidden there, a door which opens with a groan and a crunch to show a shadowy maw into which Ward Kindred strolls as if taking his Sunday afternoon constitutional around Central Park. Randolph has no choice but to follow.

  The ruins dig deep into the earth. Randolph wonders if he goes down far enough might he reach the Underworld as once before. The wondering is idle—it was an experience he has no wish to repeat. The walls are gray, covered in green and black moss in places. When they reach the required level, he finds there is water, several inches deep; it floods his shoes, soaks the cuffs of his sharply pleated trousers. Behind him, there seems to be a secretive sound, something low to the ground splashing through in their wake. There’s a smell as well—dank, mildewed, stagnant. The liquid has lain for some time untroubled by flooding or an incursion of fresher water from elsewhere, other tributaries. There are no torches here, but a purple glow emanates from the walls, and it is enough to see by.

  “How do you cope?” he asks. “With the damp?”

  “I find I’m prone to rheumatism, but the Queens’ needs come before mine.”

  “Why am I here, Mr. Kindred, truly?”

  His companion sighs, slows until Randolph catches up with him, then they walk side by side. “There was a battle. A great battle, no real winner, I’m afraid, or not an easily picked one. Nyarlathotep attacked his progenitor, Azathoth. Azathoth is the father of the Outer Gods, as you will be aware, and he cannot be allowed to die. He is also the father of this place, all the worlds of the Dreamscape. If he were to die . . . a complete collapse would occur.”

  “And yet . . .”

  “The Crawling Chaos is not called such for nothing. Nyarlathotep thought his father replaceable. Believed he could become the next blind god, the next king, But even as he began to gain the upper hand, the walls of the worlds began to tremble. Our reality began so quickly to give up the ghost—which was why we locked the Gates, to shore up our surroundings. It was why Kuranes gave his life, to stop Nyarlathotep. He succeeded, but at a terrible cost. Yet he has bought us the time we need.”

  “To do what?”

  “Heal Azathoth, to rebuild Kadath.”

  “Rebuild the city? But how long—”

  “Only as long as a dream.” Kindred smiles as he pauses, pulls aside a curtain of vines and gestures Randolph to pass through. “It took you but a thought last time you did it, Agent Carter.”

  “But . . . healing Azathoth . . . I am no physician.”

  “No, but you are a dreamer. Kuranes said you would eclipse him one day. Today must be that day, Special Agent Carter.”

  Randolph steps into what proves to be a large, water-carpeted chamber. There’s the noise of a thin piping, a general thrum of humming. In the middle of the chamber is a structure that must have started as something man-made, but is now just a mound of rather magnificent rubble. There are still some straight lines, carefully carved, but mostly the edges have been eroded—almost as though they’ve been gnawed on—so they look organically decayed. Three figures are sitting there, on the broken rocks, regal as if they perch upon thrones. Randolph is put in mind of the woman in the carpet on Miracle Brady’s office floor—Dr. Vivienne Croftmarsh, wife of dead Cthulhu who sleeps in drowned R’lyeh.

  Around them are ranks of other creatures, not like them entirely, but not unlike them either. Green-gray with round heads; on spines and shoulders, hips and flanks are fins, rather sharp-looking, as if they might be used for self-defense. Randolph notes, without surprise, as they pass the legions of lesser things, that there’s webbing between fingers and toes, and that their wide mouths are what’s emitting the frog-like thrumming.

  His attention returns to the Queens on their nighted thrones—wide protuberant eyes, pouting lips, flattened noses, hair like liquid ebony; weirdly beautiful, pitiless, terrifying. In front of them, Randolph realizes, is a kind of bier.

  On the bier is a body, a withered form, curled into the fetal position, wearing nothing but a ragged loincloth and a filthy rag across where the eyes should be. Around the vulnerable figure is a dome of purple-silver light. As they approach, the light intensifies, and Randolph feels himself actively pushed away.

  “A protection?”

  Kindred nods. “This is Azathoth, father of the Outer Gods. As long as he remains, so does the Dreamscape and the primal lands within it.”

  “And you think I can heal him?”

  “I know you can, Randolph, I know you can dream him hale and hearty once again.”

  “And if I do not?”

  “Then we all fall, my friend. Then we are done for—the walls will close in on us and crush us to a nothingness, and what was once contained within our spheres will be set loose upon your world.”

  “Then I have no choice.”

  Kindred merely smiles. “Are you ready?”

  Randolph nods. Kindred glances toward the Queens, speaks to them in some language that defies Carter’s ears. The Queens incline their heads as one, a regimented movement as if they share a mind, a muscle reflex. Kindred nods in return, then smiles again at Randolph.

  “Then we are ready. For the god, then Kadath.” He raises one hand, utters a series of words that come out as green-yellow spatters against the air.

  Randolph is not sure what he is meant to do, but instinctively he closes his eyes as the dome of light around Azathoth begins to shrivel beneath the acid effect of Kindred’s spell. He holds his hands out, palms up, stands with his feet firmly planted in the water, against the stony ground beneath his expensive shoes. At home, he must sleep to cross over; here he is already asleep, he is already dreaming, therefore, it stands to reason, he does not need to fall asleep when his Dreamlands wakefulness is already slumber.

  Randolph imagines a healthy man, tall and muscular, not young, but in his prime. He does not imagine him sighted, is concerned that he might remake the god too entirely. He dreams health for the man, wishes for his powers to be returned to him, wishes for him to have some extra insight into treachery—for Randolph feels this might well help in the war that is yet to come. In addition, he hopes for the Dreamscape to strengthen the god in turn. He thinks of the fairy tales, of all the wishes good fairies wish for newborns, and he adds them to the mix too—grace, wisdom, beauty, kindness, intelligence . . .

  Just as he feels he has done all he can, there is a ruckus.

  He opens his eyes.

  Before him lies the god, newly remade, a fine figure of a man, but slumbering still for he will take some time to
wake, to recover from both injury and healing. Ward Kindred is staring past Randolph, his mouth set in a terrible angry line. Randolph follows the direction of the Vizier’s gaze and sees . . .

  And sees . . .

  A rat, a brown thing, fat as a barrel, ugly with the wizened face of a malign old man. It gallops across the watery ground, leaping impossibly high, bounding, swelling larger and larger as it approaches. None of the Queen’s legions move at all. The rat’s eyes are not on them, he realizes, but on Azathoth . . . and those eyes are red with hatred.

  “Brown Jenkin,” he breathes, for he recognizes old Keziah Mason’s hideous familiar from Lovecraft’s description. Brown Jenkin, an avatar of Nyarlathotep, which he used to pass into the real world at will.

  Randolph is startled from his stupor by Kindred’s shouting, terribly loud: “Now!”

  And the chamber is suddenly full of cats.

  All shapes, all colors, all uniformly unnaturally large, their yellow eyes gleaming as their bodies converge on the rodent and pin the screeching creature to the watery ground. Randolph watches as the beasts tear Brown Jenkin apart. Soon every Cat of UIthar has had one mouthful at least, and there’s no more than a rapidly dissipating smear of blackish-red in the water.

  Ward Kindred turns toward the Queens and bows low. They make a noise that’s almost a purring, or perhaps that’s simply the Cats and their contentedness as they disappear back into the shadows as quickly as they came. Kindred then turns his gaze toward the blind god, nods his satisfaction. “Wonderful work, Randolph. Kuranes would be proud. Are you ready for Kadath now? Your journey will be long, but it’s not one you’ve not made before. The night-gaunts will be here by dawn.”

  “But . . . Brown Jenkin . . .”

  “It was Nyarlathotep. I knew he couldn’t resist a final chance at Azathoth—his madness would not allow it. After his battle with Kuranes he was badly wounded, his body failed him, so he passed into the nearest avatar. He’s always been fond of the rat.” Kindred’s face twists with distaste. “Many years ago he slipped through to your world—time, as you know, passes differently there—before we were able to close the Gates. In fact it was one of your colleagues, an Agent Elwood I believe, who unknowingly brought Brown Jenkin back with him when he visited the site of the witch’s house in Arkham. We needed to draw him out.”

  “I was bait?”

  “Not you, Azathoth. But your actions gave us a good cover for exposing the god.”

  “And is Nyarlathotep gone now? Forever?”

  “Ah, I wish. It’s terribly hard to kill a god forever, Randolph. As the old saying goes, ‘that is not dead which can eternal lie.’” Kindred smiles, then shrugs, a weary gesture. “But he will be out of action for a very long time, passing through the digestive tracts of so very many cats.”

  Randolph has more questions, but files them away. He will have plenty of time to ask on the journey to Kadath.

  “Are you ready, then, for the Sunset City?” asks Kindred.

  Randolph nods.

  “Excellent. The Lady Atalal will be here the moment I leave. She will be your guide. The Queens can speak English but prefer not to, they consider it inelegant.”

  “But where are you going?”

  Kindred looks sadly at Randolph, and shakes his head. “You are my end of the bargain, Mr. Carter. I’m terribly sorry. I promised them a dreamer, and they promised they would let me go back. I’m sorry, Randolph, if you feel ill-used, but I truly must go home.”

  Kindred pauses, weighing his words. “Randolph, Howard Lovecraft was different. He’s not entirely human, nor entirely Other . . . but somewhere in between, and this makes him highly attuned to the vibrations of both worlds, of what is coming. He’s a clarion, a sage, a seer . . . I must return, especially now, if as you say, Howard is . . .”

  “Mr. Kindred . . .”

  “You will prosper here, Special Agent Carter. How many years have you longed to make this place your true home? How long since the other world has felt utterly foreign? This very flesh you now wear is so much more you than that monstrous shape ever was.” Kindred’s smile falters. “However, one day, you must return to that world. You will have no choice. When the stars are right.”

  Secretly Randolph is doubtful, thinking of the lives he’s consumed to feed his appetites. Ward Kindred offers his hand and, after only the smallest hesitation, Randolph takes it. The man is, after all, quite correct—the Dreamlands are all Randolph has wanted for many, many years. His only regret is that he will not get to bid a proper farewell to Orme Appleton, or look upon Miracle Brady’s marvelous face one last time.

  And yet perhaps, he thinks to himself, in an uncertain future the time may come when I will see them both again . . .

  But for now, Kadath awaited.

  SEVEN

  Water Gate

  “We may have on our hands here a man who will pull down the temple with him.”

  —U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, 1971

  I

  “I WOULDN’T VOTE FOR that asshole Nixon if you put my balls in a vice and told me I’d be singing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ as a goddamn soprano.”

  Nathan Brady looked back at me, amused. “You might want to watch the profanity around the old man, Special Agent Rooks. But your position is duly noted.”

  I gazed out of the car window over at the anonymous-looking house: 4936 Thirtieth Place NW. Home of the first, and current, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Me and the boss had a personal after-hours invite to come and speak with the old man. Lovecraft Squad business.

  These days Hoover liked to keep his clandestine agency at an arm’s length, well away from the daily grind of the bureau. We were his dirty little secret—well, one of them, anyway. Mostly what the old man didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing, but when it came to League business, he never wanted to know too much. Maybe he’d seen what knowing too much had done to some of our agents over the years. Because what they never tell you about the HPL is exactly how many of our people choose to eat their gun long before they get to enjoy a peaceful retirement. Or wind up writing their memoirs on the walls of a padded cell.

  Even those who stay the course often end up reliant on pills and booze to keep the shakes and the nightmares at bay. Christ knows religion won’t do it, not after you’ve seen what we’ve seen. This shit, it eats away at you, mind and body.

  But not Brady. I glance across at him now, and he doesn’t seem much different from the man who’d visited me in the Naval Hospital in San Diego and inducted me into the Human Protection League some twenty-seven years ago. A bit more careworn, perhaps. But nothing unusual for a man who’d lived and worked a full life. Certainly not the face of someone who’d witnessed unspeakable horrors, who’d stared into the void, who understood that the meaning of the universe was that there was no meaning—nothing beyond vast indifference and endless, freezing cold darkness.

  Me, I try not to sleep much anymore. Last night I’d awoken from the same dream I’d been having since 1945. The taste of copper and brine in my mouth. Blood, slick on the surface of the Pacific. Men screaming with delirium and terror. White-tipped fins slicing the red ocean like scalpels through flesh. And the clutching hands, cold and scaly, reaching up from the black depths below. Luckily, I’d had enough bourbon left to make it through till dawn.

  Brady knew I was a wreck. There was no hiding the baggage under my eyes, the roadmap of burst blood vessels tracing a slow route to oblivion across my face. But he also knew I was a card-carrying Nixon hater, and that seemed to be enough. For this particular job, anyway.

  He continued: “The director informs me that this investigation will involve looking underneath some very big rocks, Special Agent Rooks. He’s worried that some of your fellow agents might have conflicted loyalties, depending on exactly which rocks they are expected to turn over in the course of the investigation. I assured him we would have no such problem with you.”

  I looked over at the house again. The window
s were dark, save for a light burning in the upstairs. A plumber’s van was parked outside. “And what does the director expect us to find underneath these rocks, sir?”

  Brady glanced down at his wristwatch. “It’s 8:00 P.M. Why don’t we go and ask him?”

  “Water Gate.”

  We were sitting in the director’s basement hideaway—a cluttered, chintzy space that seemed entirely at odds with the public image of the man sitting before me. Not least in the array of erotic artifacts dotted around the room. Sex and Hoover were two words that didn’t usually go together. Sex and Hoover were two words you didn’t even want to think about together, not if you liked your job.

  The director picked up a crystal tumbler of bourbon and daintily sipped at it, his red-rimmed eyes peering at me over the edge of the glass. He looked like an old bulldog, one that slept all day but would still bite if you got too close. “Water . . . Gate. That mean anything to you, to either of you?”

  He put the tumbler down. I tried not to stare at it, every lousy goddamn cell in my body crying out for a drink. I’d refused the offer of one because I was worried Hoover might see my hand shaking when I lifted the glass.

  I cleared my throat and met the old man’s gaze. “Just the Watergate complex, sir. The hotel, the office building. The Democratic National Committee have their headquarters on the 6th floor, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

  “Of course I’m aware. Do you think I need some kind of half-assed tour guide to the District?” He glared at me, evidently trying to decide whether I was a born-and-bred idiot or just a complete burnout.

  Brady finally spoke up. “So far as I am aware, we currently have no information pertaining to a ‘Water Gate,’ sir. Do you have anything more?”