“Bingo,” the waitress said. “The curse is defined by bloodline, so we need a vessel that suits it.”
“It’s a dead body,” said Joe. He felt like it was a reasonable point to make. The idea of digging up some poor sap was already a less than pleasant one. He wanted to be damn sure it would actually work before they went through with it.
Agnes cleared her throat. “Yeah. That’s the tricky part. The transfer has to be from like to like. Living essence can’t go into a dead body. So we’re gonna have to finesse it up a little if we want the Devourer to take the bait.”
“Dress it up how?” Joe asked.
Agnes mumbled a response, lost in the clamor.
“What was that?” he asked.
The waitress scrunched up her face. “We have to breathe a little life back into it too.”
Joe’s head snapped to face her fully. “What?”
“I told you you weren’t going to like it!”
“We had that covered with the digging it up part! I was already there!” Joe snapped.
“Watch the road!” Agnes said. She sighed. “Look, the piece of essence we have to take from Nadia is going to carry some energy with it anyway. All I have to do is breathe on those sparks a bit! The Devourer Below will sense that something is tampering with the curse, it will come to claim its due and snatch the body. The body seems alive, so the essence transfers. Then the Old One devours it, and she’s safe.”
“Something’s wrong,” Nadia said. There was a lot of tension in her voice, verging on fear.
“You got that right, kid,” Joe said. He shook his head vigorously. “There has to be a better way, Agnes.”
“We’re meddling with dangerous stuff here, Joe! It’s not gonna be safe, clean, or pretty, no matter how you slice it.”
Nadia pushed up between them from the back. “Something is wrong!”
“Yeah, we–”
“No!” the student snapped. “Look around!”
Joe had become so focused on arguing with Agnes that the drive had faded into the background. He glanced around hastily. Something was indeed wrong. The surrounding town had vanished.
An all-encompassing darkness pressed in on all sides of the car. The headlights flickered pitifully in the face of it, unable to even illuminate the road ahead. Unreasoning terror welled up in him, yammered in his ears. Joe did his best to shove it aside and slammed on the brakes. They squealed, but the sound faded to a whisper and was gone. The darkness brought with it a terrible cold like an arctic wind. Frost was already forming on the outer parts of the car. His heart pounded as he stared at the spreading crystalline patches.
“This isn’t natural,” Agnes warned.
“Yeah, I got that part,” Joe snapped.
Something struck the vehicle with terrific force. It rocked, and glass splintered. Someone screamed. Joe was slung forward against the wheel. His already-wounded chest exploded with pain. The world narrowed to soundless starbursts. All he could do was wheeze.
Joe!
He breathed in, breathed out. The world spun dizzily. It was as if that shattered glass had settled below his throat and filled up his torso. He cradled an arm across his chest, gasping.
“Joe!”
The scream punched through the daze he was in. It was Agnes. She was half out of her seat, draped into the back of the vehicle. He turned around to see for himself. The waitress had a desperate hold on Nadia’s legs. The student was being dragged out of the vehicle, inhuman hands snagging her around the canopy and yanking on her.
Joe’s chest was still afire with agony. He ignored it. He clambered up onto his own seat and leaned around the canopy. A horror waited there to meet him. In shape, it wasn’t altogether inhuman. Its skin shone with an oily black sheen. Great wings spread from its back, buffeting the night air soundlessly.
The face was what struck Joe the most, though. There wasn’t one. There was only a terrible blankness instead. It was as if whatever misbegotten deity had made this thing had gotten that far before giving up. The emptiness did not stop it from sensing them. Its head turned towards Joe, and a barbed tail lashed at him.
He threw his left arm up just in time. The stinger slashed against his coat and carved straight through it to the flesh underneath. Joe nearly fell back but kept his wits about him. He wanted to scream. Instead, he went into his pocket with his other hand and came up with a 1911. He brought it to bear and squeezed the trigger.
The weapon spoke, flash and thunder somehow muffled by the enshrouding darkness. At this range he couldn’t miss. The .45 ACP round tore through the thing’s chest in a gout of glistening black blood. It fell away, shriveling in on itself like a dying spider. Revulsion and horror warred in him as he kicked it off.
Nadia’s terrified face stared up at him from under the canopy.
“Agnes, can we–” Joe started.
Prehensile paws seized him under the arms and snatched him skyward. The ground lurched away from him in a terrifying surge. It tore a choked-off yelp of terror from him. Great dark wings beat around him: another of the creatures. It had him. He kicked his legs wildly, and one foot caught under the side mirror. It was all that stopped him from being hauled bodily into the dark. Metal creaked and bent, an insufficient anchor against an uncertain fate.
There were screams from below. Joe had his hands too full to worry about that. Terror made for quite a distraction. He flailed wildly, desperately managed to hook a foot into the car’s canopy. It stabilized him just a little, but there was no countering the thing’s inexorable pull. He aimed his 1911 over his shoulder and fired blind. All it got him was dazzled eyes and a deafened ear. A barbed tail struck and smacked the gun from his grasp. It fell away into the shadows.
Fear ignited into anger, the desperate urge to fight back. Joe struck backwards with his elbows. He connected with something, but the substance of the thing seemed all wrong. It was like trying to fistfight with a curtain, too gauzy and insubstantial to find purchase. Another beat of powerful wings, and the mirror broke away under his left foot.
His other slid inch by inch towards coming loose. Joe grasped desperately for his other gun. His hand hit something metal, and he pulled it out. It wasn’t the second 1911, but instead the knife he’d gotten from the cultist earlier. There was no time to be picky. There was a sick certainty in his stomach that if the monster dragged him into the sky that would be the end of him. He cut at one of the arms holding him, and oily liquid sprayed. That hand fell away, but the other still had him. He hung painfully, caught between one foot and his shoulder, between the ground and the sky.
Agnes had climbed onto the top of the car. Joe grabbed at her frantically. She ignored him. Instead, she stood her full height, one hand held over her head. Something glinted silver in her grasp.
She spoke a single Word.
Light flared. It had a physical presence, hitting like a wave on the ocean. It tore the surrounding shadows asunder and bleached the world bone white for a single eternal moment. Heat came in its wake, a wash of hot wind that flung Joe’s trench coat up and outward.
Somehow, without a mouth, the thing holding him screamed.
It was gone.
Joe fell. His heart lurched into his mouth. He barely managed to get his hands under him before he struck the cobblestones. The impact was still enough to leave him dazed. He laid there on the ground for a few seconds, coughing. His one leg was still caught behind him, sticking into the car. He yanked it loose and staggered to his feet, as unsteady as a drunkard.
They were in the middle of an Arkham street. The car was parked in the middle of the road at an angle, black marks behind it showing the sudden braking. Lights were coming on in the buildings all around them. Joe could hear raised voices in some. Their assailants had left no trace, not even a few spatters of dark blood to show they had ever existed. All he could do was laugh in disbelief.
The sound had an unhinged edge to it that made him choke it off hastily.
Agnes was crouched on top of the car. Her face was drawn with effort, head down and eyes closed. Nadia was sprawled on the back seat, shaking uncontrollably. Her arms were crossed over her face.
“Arghu.” His voice came out strangled. Joe coughed and tried again. “Are you alright?”
The student slowly lowered her arms and stared at him with wide, white eyes.
“Right,” he said. It had been a stupid question. He raised his eyes to the top of the car. “Agnes?”
The waitress blinked her eyes open. “Yeah,” she rasped.
There were sirens in the distance. There was no way to explain any of this, no evidence that would begin to suffice. Stories like this one were how people ended up in sanitariums behind locked doors.
“We gotta go.”
“Right.”
Agnes nodded once, then again more firmly. She clambered back down off the top of the car and climbed into the passenger side. Joe saw his pistol lying nearby and stooped to pick it up. He returned it to the holster, then tucked the knife back into a pocket too. He climbed back into the driver seat.
He tried to start the car. The engine sputtered. It wasn’t until the third try that it caught, and they could set off again. They raced down the road towards the cemetery.
Joe’s face felt raw. He touched it and winced. It was like he’d been sunburned.
“That was a hell of a thing,” he said.
“Yeah,” Agnes said.
Nadia nodded wordlessly.
“How did you–”
“Joe,” Agnes cut him off. “Shut up and drive.”
“Right,” he said. “You got it.”
•••
They arrived in French Hill, one of the richest neighborhoods in Arkham. The elevated terrain was covered by decaying mansions and old money estates. Joe had to hope that would throw the cops off their trail; not many people ran for the upscale part of town. The graveyard was located near the foot of the eponymous landmark. It was a site rich in history; they said some tombstones dated all the way back to the original colonists of the seventeenth century.
Joe didn’t know if that was true. All he knew was that it wasn’t the kind of place he’d hoped to spend a night. He climbed out of the Model T and winced as his chest throbbed.
“Ma’s going to murder you,” Agnes noted.
Joe glanced at the vehicle. The canopy was bent inwards. The back windows had been shattered. The side mirror, of course, was gone completely. He pursed his lips a moment. It was hard to argue with the assessment.
“If we actually make it to daybreak, I’ll be delighted to let her have her chance.”
Nadia got out of the car on shaky legs. “I have a question.”
Joe went around to the rear of the vehicle. He dragged the bag of supplies out and opened it to take stock. He’d started putting the kit together after that one insane night. Enough people around town owed him favors that not much was really beyond his grasp. He hauled a shotgun from within and loaded it with practiced movements. Then he snagged a few sticks of dynamite for good measure.
“What’s on your mind?” Agnes asked.
“Is this normal for you people?” Nadia demanded.
“This isn’t normal for anybody,” Joe said wearily. He didn’t know what else to say. She must feel like her world had gone insane, and she was right to.
He stepped up to the fence that surrounded the graveyard. The place was shrouded in mist. Tombstones and mausoleums stood out in silhouette. Great trees grew among them, branches stretching forth like bony fingers against the night sky. The wrought iron gates were locked.
Joe turned back to the two. “Anyone want a hand up over the fence?” He offered laced hands as a step.
“Such a gentleman,” Agnes said.
She stepped into his grip and climbed up and over. Nadia followed suit. Joe handed them his stuff through the bars, and then with some huffing and puffing managed to haul himself over as well.
“So how do we find the grave we need?” he asked.
“That is why we stopped in at City Hall,” Agnes said cheerfully. She held the manila folder up triumphantly.
Joe gave her a flat look.
She ignored it, busily examining the documents. She pointed off ahead to the right. “That way. It’s the same shadow that clings to Nadia, faded but lingering. Must be where the body is.”
“Are we sure I’m not just going crazy?” Nadia asked. “That seems more and more preferable as we go.”
“We are not the best judges of that,” Joe replied.
The mist swirled around them as they headed inwards towards the grave they needed. The whole place had a deep stillness about it. Joe couldn’t place if it was the sanctity of sacred ground, or just the calm before the storm. Either way it made him feel uneasy, like an intruder.
They passed a grave only half dug. Shovels had been left to finish the work later. Joe snagged three of them and handed them out. Faces were grim all around. No one wanted to think about what they were shortly going to be using the tools for.
“So, this thing, this… Devourer.” Nadia’s voice seemed loud against the quiet of the grove. She must have felt it too because she spoke quieter as she continued. “It takes people, right?”
“Sort of. Last group of cultists we ran into were feeding it bodies. Things got ugly when they decided to supplement with the freshly murdered.” Joe shrugged. “This group seems to try for food that’s a bit more fresh.”
“Food. Right,” the student muttered. “Anyway, so why didn’t it take my… you know. My relative’s body.”
“I’ve been wondering that myself,” Agnes said. “I do have a theory.”
“A delightful one, I’m sure,” Joe remarked. “Feel free to share with the class.”
Agnes hesitated. “You’ve been tormented by visions and such, right, Nadia?”
The student nodded. “Awful ones. Dark presences. Voices in the night. They would say things…” She trailed off, shook her head.
“Well, I’d guess he got desperate. Didn’t see a way out.” The waitress left the rest of the thought unsaid. “They’ll still come for the body eventually, I’d imagine. Just less urgently.”
“I remember some notes on the file,” Joe said softly. “He was an indigent. A drifter. Who knows how long this madness had been chasing him from place to place, never finding rest.”
They continued in silence for a way.
“My mother…” Nadia said.
Joe looked over at her. “You said she vanished.”
“She did. ‘Ran off.’ You can imagine all the things people said.” She shook her head. “Greece has not been a peaceful place. It is easy for people to become lost.”
Joe nodded. What could he say to that? To the weight of sorrow it represented?
“I’ve been thinking about it, though. She was tormented too, I believe. I remember arguments. Sleepless nights. I wonder now if she ran to try to protect us. To protect me.” The young woman hugged her arms around herself. “No one would have understood.”
“This isn’t going to go like that,” Joe said firmly. She had every right to be shaken, but he couldn’t let her follow that dark line of thought here and now.
Nadia managed a smile. “Thank you. Even just not having to face this alone is… I’m grateful to both of you. No matter how this turns out.”
Agnes rested a comforting hand on Nadia’s shoulder. She motioned with the other hand towards a grave up ahead. It still looked fairly fresh; new grass had yet to grow on the churned soil.
“That’s it.”
The three of them gathered around it and looked down. They had moved beyond the cemetery proper into Arkham’s potter’s field, where the unclaimed dead were buried. There was no tombston
e, only a simple wooden cross staked into the dirt. A pauper’s grave. Joe shook his head with weary sadness.
“There’s no fairness to any of this. I hope you know that, Nadia. You don’t deserve what’s happening, and neither did this fellow.” Joe crouched and rested the shotgun against his shoulder. This freed a hand to pat the soil. “Wish I’d known. I’d have done what I could for him, too.”
“You can only do what you can do,” Agnes said somberly. “He’s beyond our help now. And we have someone here tonight that we can still change things for.”
Joe nodded. He pulled off his trench coat and set it aside, propping the shotgun against a nearby grave marker. Then he rolled up his sleeves and picked up one of the shovels.
“Let’s get to work.”
The shovel bit deep into the dirt. The other two joined in, and they worked without talking. The only sound was the labor itself. It was hard work; all of them were soon sweating and panting. The mound of dirt next to the grave grew steadily and the pit grew deeper and deeper.
The work set all of Joe’s injuries to aching anew. His chest was a sharp suffering that wouldn’t go away anymore. His eyebrow and lip stung where sweat ran into the cuts. He paused once to wipe his face on his sleeves and left a streak of red in his wake; the scab had broken, and the cut was bleeding fresh.
“The university… has not… prepared me… for this,” Nadia wheezed.
Agnes gave an exhausted laugh. “Maybe graverobbing is in a later class.”
“If we could not call this graverobbing, that would help my peace of mind a lot,” Joe said.
His shovel clunked against something hard. The trio’s eyes met. Joe pushed the earth aside to reveal the top of a coffin. It wasn’t terribly deep. The poor rarely got a proper six feet. It was cheap pine too, the better to save the city money. He could see where it had been nailed shut around the edges.
“You both might want to climb out. Body’s been in here for several days. It’s not going to be pretty.”
“As opposed to everything else we deal with, which is such a sensory delight,” muttered Agnes.
Nevertheless, she scrambled out of the grave and offered Nadia a hand up as well. Both looked on with drawn faces. Joe wedged the tip of the shovel into the edge of the coffin lid and began to lever with all his strength. On the third heave it tore away with a crunch and a creak, wood splintering around the nails.
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