“How much coffee have you had this morning?”
“I’m not paranoid.”
“Yeah. That’s what you said after nine-eleven when you were on the computer all the time. And there’s no getting your money back from this guy. You know that, right?”
“I don’t care about the money.”
“Has anyone been hurt or killed by any of these accidents you’re talking about?”
“I… I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Then chill out. Right now the book is loose, it isn’t bound by any of the defensive wards I’m going to put on it as soon as it gets here. Just let me take care of it. It’ll be okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“I have to get back to work.”
Wednesday morning arrived without a dawn, just a lightening of the grey water-world outside. Lily had the little TV on in the kitchen when Peter came in. Looking up from the toast she was cutting into strips she said, “They’re predicting flooding. If it’s anything like last time, we’re screwed. Would you check the basement before you go to work? Get the pump set up if you have time?”
“Sure.” He kissed her temple, and poured a coffee.
He was less than halfway down the basement steps when he realized he would be calling in to work. It was an idea he had entertained anyway so that he could be home when the package arrived. Now he had a legitimate excuse. The basement was already flooded with what looked liked six inches of water. As he stood there surveying it, the lights dimmed for a second, then returned to full brightness. He trotted up the stairs, plucked his cell phone from the charger, and called his boss.
After setting up the pump and digging out flashlights, candles and batteries, he sat down at the computer. In theory he could work a little from home as long as the power held out, but the first thing he did was log onto the tracking page.
The Necronomicon had reached the shores of America. There was an arrival scan in Boston and a departure scan immediately following. He was once again grimly impressed with the company’s ability to keep things moving. Their fucking tenacity. He was definitely getting his seventy-five bucks worth of International Priority. Still, maybe now that it was on the ground, the weather would keep it away for one more day. It certainly couldn’t be delivered if the local roads were closed.
He turned the TV on and caught a news brief in progress. A reporter holding an umbrella was standing in front of an animal shelter in Lawrence according to the text bar. She said that four dogs were dead and several others were in veterinary care after a fight erupted in an outdoor kennel that morning. They cut to a clip of a woman at a reception desk responding to an interview question. The text identified her as Denise Norton, Manager. “I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve worked here for twelve years,” she said, still visibly shaken. “They were out in the run to do their business this morning and they just turned on each other. I didn’t see it myself, I was signing for a package at the time. But the handler who was with them said it came out of nowhere. They just went berserk. He’s in the hospital over to Beverly now.”
I was signing for a package at the time. Peter turned off the TV and looked at docile old Sophie curled up on the couch. He didn’t need anyone to tell him which carrier was delivering the package Denise Norton had signed for. He was pretty sure there was another box on the same truck with his name on it.
The doorbell rang and set his heart hammering at double its resting rate in less than a second. Sophie barked her territorial alarm, but Peter found it hard to get up. The chime came again, and it was the sight of Robbie toddling toward the door that got him moving. He scooped Robbie up and deposited him in the pack-and-play in the corner of the room.
He peered through the curtain, looking for a white truck with the familiar logo, but couldn’t see it. His hands felt wet as he gripped the knob, took a breath, and swung the door open with the hurried determination of a man jumping into a cold pool before he has time to think about it.
Eric stood on the porch in a charcoal grey hoodie with a shoulder bag slung across his body. He smiled his wolfish, bearded grin and said, “Took you long enough. It’s raining, if you haven’t noticed.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Saw your car and figured you took the day off.”
“Yeah, the basement’s flooding.”
“The whole road will probably go under in the next couple of hours, depending on the tide and the moon and all that shit.”
“Come on in. What’s in the bag, dare I ask?”
“You know, equipment.”
Peter lifted Robbie under the arms and set him down on the carpet. The boy beamed up and said, “Ehwik!”
“Hey little man.” Eric tousled Robbie’s shaggy hair. His smile faded when he looked at Peter and said, “We should have sent it to my place. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I thought you’d feel better about getting it directly, since you… fronted the funds. Lily home?”
“Yeah, she’s in the bathroom doing the laundry.”
“Well, I thought I should be here when it arrives, since you’re kind of, you know, worried about it. But in this weather it might not get here at all today.” Eric sounded disappointed.
“Yeah. We’ll see. You want some coffee?”
“Love a cup.”
In the kitchen Peter took a Bic lighter from the junk drawer and tucked it into the front pocket of his jeans before returning to the living room. He set the mugs down and asked Eric what he meant by ‘equipment,’ nodding at the black bag.
“A banishing dagger. I wasn’t sure if you still had one. And a lead box that I hope is big enough.”
“A lead box?”
“I made it at friend’s metal shop a few years ago when I was experimenting with the Lesser Key spirits. Remember King Solomon was said to have kept them imprisoned in a brass vessel with a lead seal? I thought, why just a seal? Why not make the whole damned thing out of lead?”
“Too bad you didn’t have the book shipped in it. Then we might know if it helps or not.”
Eric chuckled, “This bitch is heavy. Would have cost a fortune to send it back and forth, and we’d have the FBI up our asses right now for trying to move a box that can’t be x-rayed in and out of the Middle East.”
Peter watched Robbie playing with his trucks on the floor under the coffee table and considered these precautions. It was tempting to think that Eric had it all worked out. It was a temptation he didn’t trust.
Peter checked the basement again. The water level had climbed higher in spite of his electric pump, and the bottom step was now submerged. He wondered if it could possibly reach the electrical outlets if it kept up. Maybe he should get the hip waders on and slosh through it to the breaker box, turn everything off down there. The thought was interrupted by an explosive outburst of barking from Sophie, a rapid, followed by the clacking of her claws across the floor above. Peter bounded up the stairs, taking them in twos before the doorbell even rang. When he got to the living room and saw Eric stepping away from the curtained window, reaching for the doorknob, Peter yelled, “Wait!”
Eric turned to look at him.
“The dog,” Peter said, “Get her out of here while I sign for it. Put her in the mudroom.”
“She always barks at strangers. She’s fine,” Eric said, squeezing the knob in his hand.
Peter scooped Robbie up and set him in the playpen, all the while keeping his eyes locked on Eric’s. “Do it,” he said, “It’s not a suggestion, Eric, I’m telling you, get her out of here. Now.”
“Alright,” Eric said with a raised eyebrow. He gently plucked a handful of fur at the scruff of the dog’s neck and nudged her side with his knee, “Come on girl, come.” She went with him, but maintained a low growl and a sidelong stare at the door.
Peter waited until they were out of the room, and then opened the door on a scruffy young man dressed in a navy blue shirt and matching shorts with a white box in one h
and, and an electronic signature pad in the other. The guy looked okay, not like someone who had seen nameless horrors. So that was good.
Standing in the shelter of his covered porch, Peter scribbled something that didn’t render anything like his name in the little gray LCD bar, then felt the box thrust into his sternum. He watched the driver sprint through the pelting rain and wondered if his was the first electronic signature in history to bind a covenant with chthonic forces.
Moving fast, he found the cardboard tab and ripped the box open along the seam, thrust his hand inside and withdrew the bubble-wrapped book. He unwound the plastic shroud and let it blow away on the wind. Now he held the book in his hands: sand blasted leather bulging with vellum leaves tied in by a rough hemp cord. There was no title on the cover, which seemed to thrum with magnetic resonance in the bones of his hands. He opened it. On the first page was a complex sigil in cracked and tarnished gold leaf. On the second page dense and beautiful Arabic script began to flow.
Peter took the lighter from his jeans pocket and flicked it. The wheel was slow and stubborn after lying inert for so long in the kitchen drawer. He tried again. On the third strike a flame bloomed and wavered in the wind. Cupping the flame in his hand for shelter, he held it to the edge of a stiff vellum sheet that protruded a little farther out from the edge than its brethren. The page caught, drawing up the flame and curling inward. He bent over the book, like a pilgrim doing prostrations, acutely aware of Eric’s imminent return. He blew on the orange line of consumption to help it along. When it reached the writing the ink appeared to be far more flammable than the paper. It sucked up the scintillating terminus from the vanishing edge of the page and drew it along into a living blue flame that traveled to infuse every detail of the flowing script, as if the ancient ink were made of some black fuel.
Peter watched with dread as the edge of the page ceased to burn and the line of flame jumped from page to page across the entire book until cold blue light spilled from the spaces between the leaves.
“What did you do?” Eric’s voice came from over his shoulder, calm and close.
“I tried to burn it,” Peter said looking up at him.
“It looks hungry for the fire.” Eric said.
“What’s happening to it?”
“I think setting the words alight might have the same effect as chanting them. Jesus, maybe that’s how it survived the inquisition. A black book that can’t be burned.” Eric whispered with awe.
A wild fit of snarling and barking that didn’t sound at all like Sophie echoed through the house as they watched the book not burn but illuminate, neither of them moving, neither knowing what to do, when a shadow moved into the doorway behind them eclipsing the warm yellow light from the house. It was a strange double-headed figure, but Peter quickly fit it into its place in the mundane world: Lily holding Robbie.
When she spoke, she sounded frightened, a tone that didn’t suit her at all. She didn’t ask what they were doing kneeling huddled over something on the porch in a storm, or why Sophie was locked in the mudroom, she just said, “Peter, there’s something in the basement, like a… I don’t know, a big animal or something.”
“Don’t go down there,” Peter and Eric said in near unison.
“Like hell I would. What is it? Is that what Sophie’s going psycho about? You know about it, don’t you?”
“No,” Peter said, standing up beside Eric, trying to hide the book from view with his body. “We’ll check it out. Listen, Lil, we might have to go to your parents’ house if this flooding keeps up. You should pack some things, maybe get Robbie in the car before the roads go under, okay?”
She nodded agreement but kept her eyes fixed on his lower body as if she were looking through him at whatever they were hiding. When she raised her eyes to meet his, she said, “What did you two do? Did you make this weather? I know you’re into some weird shit together, I hear things when you’ve had a few drinks between you.”
Peter smiled weakly and said, “We had nothing to do with the storm. That’s crazy.”
The dog’s maniac barking filled the space that hung between them. Then a sound of thrashing water erupted from below, followed by the crash of a shelving rack being knocked over. Lily stared at her husband.
“We’ll check it out,” Peter said. “Pack some things.”
She shook her head in disgust and turned without another word. When she was gone, Peter closed the book, surprised to find it cool to the touch. Shutting the cover reduced the strange fire to a dim blue glow along the edges.
At the top of the basement stairs, Eric lifted the flap of his shoulder bag and withdrew a ceremonial dagger with double crescent moons on the hand-guard. The light in the stairwell flickered as they descended. Little waves of dark water splashed over the bottom steps, sent forth by whatever was stirring down there. Eric went first with the point of the dagger held out before him. Peter followed, holding the book in both hands, feeling it vibrate the bones in his fingers.
Peter said, “We didn’t even call anything up. How did something come through?”
Eric cocked his head to be heard over his shoulder and said, “You should have waited for me. When you put fire to the words… it’s the same as if you chanted them, somehow.”
On high shelves that spanned the room, family-sized boxes of crackers, jumbo bags of cheese curls and cases of soda flashed their garish colors as the light swelled and faded. The boxes and cans on the shelves that lined the bottom of the stairwell were now wet with filmy floodwater where the creature had splashed them. The air was infused with a fetid stench that thickened the mucous membranes in Peter’s throat, leaving him with a sense of physical violation.
He scanned the sloshing surface of the dark water but could find no physical thing to account for its disturbance. What if it was lurking around the corner behind the stairs? The thought chilled him and he glanced down at his shoes expecting some blasphemous sinewy anatomy to seize his ankle through the gap between the planks.
Something stirred in the water, sending out a wake, and Peter had the distinct impression that this sort of cleaving of the water’s surface could not be caused from below.
“Is it invisible?” he asked.
“Yes,” Eric whispered. “Look at the droplets falling. They’re not dripping from the ceiling.”
The roiling wake sped toward the stairs. Peter retreated two steps and almost tripped. Eric raised the dagger, slashing the air in geometric forms and bellowing the solar invocation he had prepared against whatever native of the darkness this was.
“A ka dua tuf ur biu! Bi a'a chefu! Dudu nur af an nuteru!” His voice crackled into a high, panic fraught register at the end of the phrase.
The thing responded with a sound that arose first from the depths of Peter’s own mind, unfurling into physical manifestation until the pressure of the sound pressed his skull from both within and without. It would have been impossible to know if the sound was in the air at all if not for the visible vibration of the water and the resonant buzz among the cans on the shelves. He wondered if those cans of beans and soup would explode like grenades as the syllables hummed and snapped like whipping power lines, droned and gurgled like the rotting plumbing in some hive of hell, punctuated by the clacking of mandibles and the slimy sibilance of an alien tongue. Amid the wreckage of primordial language he could hear the foreshadows of words forming in his brain stem, “YOG! FTHNAGGA! CTHUN... ZAZAZ CTHUN!”
Peter’s knees gave out. He collapsed in a tangle on the stairs, one foot caught between the planks. Eric stabbed the dagger thrice at a space in front of him where a shimmering haze like a heat mirage, stirred the air. With each thrust of the blade, he roared a syllable, “Yah! Ra! Shammash!”
There was an almost ultrasonic squeal in return, rising and merging into quivering harmonic union with a high howl of pain from the dog upstairs as it passed out of human range. Peter put the Necronomicon down on a step to try to free his foot from the stairs. The blue light playi
ng along the brittle page edges appeared to be burning out. He dislodged his foot, almost losing his balance in the act, and shouted at Eric over the din of psychic interference ricocheting around in his skull, “THE BOX! GIVE ME THE BOX!”
Eric shrugged his shoulder to free the strap of his bag, catching it when it slid down his arm and handing it back to Peter without ever taking his eyes from the boiling air in front of him. Peter opened the bag’s flap and removed the lead box. Eric drew the dagger and the flat palm of his other hand up beside his ears, then shot both hands forward with a roar, “HEKAS, HEKAS, ESTE BEBELOI!”
The cacophony that rebounded upon them from this attack sounded more like fury than pain. Peter was lashed across the face with stinging droplets of water. He couldn’t see the limb that had just whipped past him, but he could see Eric’s shirt wrinkling and twisting where something was wrapping around his back and constricting.
Eric screamed and dropped the dagger. It tumbled through the stairs and plunked into the water. Eyes watering, jaw agape in horror and pain, he strained to turn his face away from something neither of them could see.
From the top of the stairs there came a rapping on the door and a cry of distress, “Daddy, Daddy!”
Peter scrambled upward, knocking items off the stairwell shelves with his elbow. “Get away, Robbie,” he yelled in his sternest voice. “Go find Mommy. Go.”
He grabbed at the railing and spilled a little row of baby powder bottles from the nearest shelf. Watching them tumble around his feet, he remembered something he had once read about shamans blowing corn flour into the faces of demons to see them. Without thinking he seized a canister, cranked off the cap and tossed the white powder over Eric’s shoulder at the invisible predator.
In the days and years that followed Peter would experiment with all varieties of sleeping aids and anti-anxiety drugs to erase the image that formed in that white cloud from his dreams. Partly arachnid—perhaps from a dimension in which great spiders made their nests in ocean caverns, catching some mutant species of shark in their nets—it also resembled an octopus in the way that pulses of light flowed along its oddly jointed limbs toward a nexus where concentric rings of teeth chattered with mechanical speed. And the elephantine eye, roaming and blinking through a putrid membrane… there was no correlation to the geometry of Earth in the corona of that eye.
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