He Who Walks in Shadow

by Brett J. Talley

  For the great god Azathoth.

  For 30,000 years we have waited. For 30,000 years we have shed our own blood so that Azathoth might wake from his eternal slumber. And finally the time of his return is upon us.

  But for him to rise, first must come the harbinger.

  I am writing you this letter, Inspector, in the hopes that you can bring an end to that which I have helped set in motion. In the hopes that you can stop our order before it is too late. Even now, they search beneath your feet, digging into the earth, scouring the land of the dead for a grave. Not one of man, but of legend—of the eye of truth and the staff.

  You have seen our work, how we opened the gate. You have seen the price we must pay. I cannot live with the cost.

  You see, Inspector, it was I who bled her dry. It was I who sliced her open. It was I who cut out her eyes. It was I who tore out her still-beating heart, till the screams of my first-born daughter died away in my ears. Till her voice was silenced forever.

  It was I who made the way for the return of He Who Walks in Shadow.

  The letter ended there, as too, I believe, did the life of the fiend who wrote it. Whatever madness possessed him is not his alone, I fear. And so I must search the city of the dead that lies beneath this, the city of the living. I pray I find the answer to this riddle before more lives are lost, before more innocents are sacrificed.

  Chapter 26

  Journal of Carter Weston

  July 26, 1933

  Under the cover of night, we followed Nassim out of the nameless café, each of us clutching a knapsack containing canteens of water and two electric lanterns.

  “The first man to explore the catacombs,” Nassim had told us, “died of thirst after searching the dark for an escape for days on end after he lost his light. They found his body not ten meters from an exit. The catacombs are the city of the dead, and they will add to their kingdom from the ranks of the unwary.”

  We would be better prepared.

  Entrances to the catacombs were many, but we were going to one that was little known and little used—better to avoid any unwanted confrontations. It was located in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, in an abandoned crypt. The theory put into practice by its creators was simple in its cold logic. How better to shuttle the dead into their new grave than through a tunnel in the midst of the cemetery? Untold multitudes were dug up and cast into that pit. It had been bricked up when the morbid task was complete, but Nassim and his fellow cataphiles had broken through and now used it for their nightly activities. We would be following in their footsteps.

  It was a strange thing, creeping through Paris at night. Oh, how different a city feels when it is lit by the moon instead of the sun. How different when the night rules instead of the day. When Guillaume began to speak, I was happy to have something to break the tension. But then his words made me wish for silence.

  “So Rachel’s husband…”

  His voice trailed away.

  “He died,” I said. “It’s hard to say more than that.”

  “You know you weren’t responsible, even if you did pull the trigger. Even in the short time that I have been with you, I have learned enough to understand that.”

  “I know that,” I snapped. I was immediately embarrassed. I had not meant it as an attack, but I knew that was how it sounded. Or worse, as a defense. I sighed, and in the silence of a Parisian night, the magnitude of my sins seemed to overshadow all. “But Rachel feels differently. And maybe she’s right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s so much about this world we don’t understand,” I said. “But one thing we know for sure is this—there is power in sacrifice. When it happened, when William died, well, we needed that power. We needed it for reasons far more important than ourselves. We had to decide. And what is the life of one man put against the fate of the world?”

  Guillaume didn’t answer me, and I found that even I was appalled at what I had just said. For many years, I had told myself that I had done what I must on that icy Russian steppe. That I had no choice. But now even I wondered if all those years ago I had seen it not as a necessity, but as an opportunity. If I had welcomed the chance to sacrifice the man my daughter loved, to harness the power of his death against my adversary. That was the thought that weighed upon me as we walked.

  The streets were all but deserted, and few honest citizens ventured out. In fact, we met only two others—a man and his dog. As they passed us, the dog stopped, gazing up to study us. I caught the beast’s eyes and had an uncanny feeling of recognition. But it was only for a second, before the gentleman said, “Come, Snuff,” and they were gone.

  All the while Nassim continued his steady pace. If he heard our conversation or noticed the others, if he even cared, he never showed it. His focus was on our destination, which we soon reached.

  The gates of the cemetery were closed and locked, but there would be no midnight ascent up and over the walls. Nassim had a key, a benefit of keeping a close—if somewhat financially costly—relationship with the groundskeeper.

  Upon our entrance, seemingly limitless lines of tombstones met our eyes. The granite sentinels shone white in the moonlight, keeping watch over the dead. Between the rows we crept, and even though the chance of capture or interference by the authorities was negligible, we stayed silent and we stayed low.

  An abandoned crypt lay at the heart of the graveyard, and to any of those who passed it unawares, there was nothing that bespoke its sinister purpose, this gateway to the land of the dead, the empire of the shade. Only the name above the portal—or should I say the lack thereof—provided a clue. Whatever family crest had once graced that slab of stone had long since worn away, and I wondered what extinct line of French nobility had built this monument to last forever, to trumpet the glory of their name until the end of time.

  Nassim pressed another key into the lock, and the great iron doors opened with a sound of metal grinding against metal that made the fillings in my teeth hurt. A black maw opened before us, a cold rush of air chilling me despite the warm night.

  “I hope you’re ready,” Nassim said. He reached within his bag and pulled out an electric lantern, turning it on and shining its feeble beam into the tomb. Where once the sarcophagus would have sat was the beginning of a crude stone stairway descending into the depths.

  “A week ago I was in a beer hall in Berlin. And now this,” said Guillaume.

  “It always ends up like that,” I said. “You hunt your quarry where it lives. And this particular beast resides in the dark places of the world.” I thought back to all the times I had found myself in this position, standing on the precipice of some great descent, or preparing to wander off into a forbidden desert, or set to climb a shunned peak on a demon-haunted steppe. If it weren’t so serious, it would almost be comical.

  “Stay close,” said Nassim. I had no intention of letting him get away. Everyone is afraid of something. For me, ironically perhaps, it was the dark.

  Like Dante of old, we began our descent, down into a deep place where the sun was silent. The roof above us was one of rough-hewn granite, and even in the pale light of the lantern I could see the dark stains left by burning torches from a century before. What brave men those must have been, walking into shadow with nothing but a flickering flame for comfort.

  The air was still and cold, growing more so with every step we took. Before long, the outside world was but a memory. We were entombed, encased in a coffin of stone.

  The stairwell ended in a low archway. We ducked underneath and into a larger chamber that ran off in two directions, one to our right and the other our left.

  “This is the first of the old granite quarries,” Nassim said. “There are hundreds of miles of tunnels down here. If you take the tunnel to the left, you hit the vaults, larger spaces where the Parisian youth like to go and drink absinthe. We go to the right.”

  I could not help but wish we were going left.

  Nassim led on. In that dark, da
nk underworld, minutes seemed to stretch on for hours. One turn followed upon its brother, and we passed from one unremarkable corridor to another. Were it not for Nassim, we would have been hopelessly lost, doomed to wander until we fell dead of dehydration.

  It was after one of a seemingly hundred turns that we first saw them. They filled the corridor, piled to the ceiling. Yellowing bones, moldering. How many thousands of souls did they represent? How many lives lived and lost, laid to rest only to be wrenched from the earth and piled like trash to be left behind forever?

  “Come,” Nassim said. “Our path takes us through there.”

  It was foul business. Again Nassim went first, crawling on his hands and knees over the bones, femurs rattling off the pile like stones as we went. More than once my hand sank to the elbow into the crumbling remains. Forward we slithered, my back scraping against the roof of the tunnel. I was as a man buried alive, a hundred feet below the streets, living what would have been most men’s nightmares. But it was when I came to the end that I made a horrendous mistake.

  The worst was over, and the pile of bones began to drop away. But as I was making my way, haste overtook me. I lost my balance and tumbled to the stone floor. A crack rang through the corridor. It was not a broken bone—either my own or one of the many others. It was almost worse; my lantern was shattered.

  Nassim cursed in a language I didn’t understand, but I joined him in the sentiment.

  “You two stay close,” Nassim said. “And be careful. The darkness is thick here already.”

  And he was right. With only two lanterns, it seemed that the shadows had become living beings that might swallow us whole. As we walked, it only worsened. I was beginning to suspect we might wander forever when Nassim came to a dead stop. Before I could ask why, he turned to us and put a finger to his lips. He leaned forward and whispered in my ear.

  “I smell freshly turned earth.”

  He turned off his lantern. Then he gestured for us to do likewise. In Guillaume’s eyes, I saw the same fear that was surely reflected in my own. That narrow beam of light was a life-preserver for my sanity. To imagine it shuttered was almost too much to bear. Nassim gestured again, and Guillaume hit the switch.

  I have been in the dark places of the world before, and I have heard tales of men plunged into a Stygian night just as black as that which descended down upon us. But I had never experienced it myself. Never experienced the utter madness of the abyss. Not until then. I nearly screamed when I felt a hand on my own, and I prayed to the God above that it was Nassim.

  He pulled us gently ahead, and I could feel rather than see Guillaume moving beside me. We tried to stay silent, even as we stumbled awkwardly forward. It was obvious, of course, that he wanted to make sure our lanterns didn’t give us away to whoever was ahead. Still, I hated every moment of it. So when his light flashed on once again, it was like a thunderclap.

  We were standing in a vaulted chamber. A dozen open holes were before us, the dirt having been recently turned. Tools, shovels, other equipment lay around the room, abandoned.

  “It appears your speculations were correct,” Nassim said. “Someone was digging for lost treasure.”

  Guillaume reached down and picked up a shovel. “And whoever it was left quickly. Wait, look at this?”

  He held up an object that glimmered in the light of Nassim’s lantern. It was a shell-casing. The light from my lantern glinted off a dozen more spread around the room. And then patches of earth, darker than the rest.

  “Looks like whoever it was didn’t go down without a fight.”

  “The Germans?”

  “Actually, we were just about to ask you the same thing.”

  A half-dozen or more lanterns illuminated at once, and even before the blinding flash had cleared I had drawn my pistol, with Nassim and Guillaume doing the same. The sight of our weapons only made the grin on Zann’s face grow wider. He gestured to the men who stood beside him, every one of whom was holding a sub-machine gun.

  “I think, Herr Professor Weston, that you are outnumbered and out-gunned.”

  I pointed my pistol in his direction. “It only takes one, Dr. Zann.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said, with a wave of his hand as if to dismiss it. “I suppose that is correct.” Zann sauntered around the room, and we might well have been at an evening soiree, albeit one with guns trained on every participant. “But you would die, of course. And then what? What of your quest? Who would save the world, my dear Carter, if you were no longer around?”

  “I suppose that means we are at a standstill.”

  Even that was a stretch. The Germans with Zann—military men dressed in suits that didn’t fit them and did little to hide their true intent—were better trained and better armed. They would cut us down in a moment.

  “It’s a pity, really,” said Zann. “All your knowledge, all your experience. Wiped away, and for what? Just think what we could accomplish together.”

  It was an exultation I had heard from him time and again. I found it no more convincing here, beneath the streets of Paris, than I had beneath the streets of Berlin.

  “Does that mean you aren’t surrendering?”

  He barked out a laugh. “No, not quite. Just think, Carter,” and his voice took on a feverish tone, a desperation that did not befit him nor his position. “Together we could find the staff. And the stone. We could bring this threat to our world to heel. We could both have what we want.”

  “So I take it that means you haven’t found it then?”

  “No, not yet. But we will. Do you think you can say the same? Look at yourself, Carter. You, a student, and your Negro. What were you planning on doing? Where were you going to dig? What if the members of the cult had still been here? My companions and I are civilized men. You are fortunate we found you first. But that’s always been your way, hasn’t it, Dr. Weston? Throwing yourself headlong into things? Without a thought or a plan? Without any idea what you will do when the moment of crisis comes.”

  “It’s always worked before,” I said.

  Zann grinned. It was like a wolf showing his fangs.

  “But it seems your luck is changing, doesn’t it? It wasn’t with you that day in Siberia. And it is not with you now.”

  He reached behind him, and one of the soldiers handed him a book. But not any book. The book.

  “I suppose I should make it a habit of never letting this leave my sight,” he said, “lest someone take it from me.”

  He stepped forward, flipping through page after page. I considered shooting him dead then. If nothing else, it would conclude his part in this sad story. But I knew to do so would end only in tragedy. Another would simply take the book, and no one would be there to stop him from doing whatever foul deeds it desired of him.

  “Since you left me so unceremoniously before,” he began, rubbing his hand across the back of his head, “and with a nasty bump I might add.” He gestured toward Guillaume. “Was that your doing, young man?” Guillaume said nothing. “Pity, too. You were quite the student. In any event, I have been studying your old book, and I have learned quite a few things, things that I suppose I knew before and yet still did not quite understand. And one of those things is the power of sacrifice.”

  My face dropped, and Zann seized upon the expression. “Oh, yes,” he said. “I know you are quite experienced in that area.”

  He gestured at the same soldier who had bought him the tome. But this time the young man returned with something very different.

  She cried out as he dragged her into the chamber, even though her hands were bound and her mouth gagged. She had been weeping, as I suppose anyone would. For the briefest of moments, my heart sank into my stomach; I had thought it was Rachel. But no, she was someone else’s daughter.

  “My God, Zann…”

  The darkness seemed to ebb and flow like the roiling sea.

  “There is more than one god, Dr. Weston. You know that. Not all of them care for your sense of morality, but there is o
ne thing they do have in common. They all demand sacrifice, and there can be no sacrifice, no power, without the shedding of blood.”

  We should have acted then. We should have done something. But we were frozen in place, as if the wisps of black smoke that had begun to coil around us were iron chains.

  Zann opened the book, and the Incendium Maleficarum seemed to whisper to us all. In one hand he held the devil tome; in another, a knife. Words poured from his lips—German of course, for the book always took the language of its master—and the knife glowed with a pale luster.

  Lanterns dimmed. I felt weak and sick, and bile rose in my throat. It was as if the blade was draining the energy from the room—including, and perhaps most importantly, the life-force of us all.

  The blade went to the girl’s throat. Her eyes went wide. Zann wasted no time. Metal sliced through flesh. Blood arched from an artery, painting the ancient soil and polished granite of the catacomb floor, and the acrid smell and taste of copper filled our nostrils and our throats. It was over as quickly as it began. Zann’s man released her, and she slumped to the dirt, her life pooling in an expanding crimson circle.

  “You should have taken my offer, Dr. Weston. There is no limit to what we could have done together. But it does not matter, not in the end. You see, Carter, I don’t need you anymore. The book answers to its master, and that master is me.”

  Zann held out his hand, and we could sense the energy pulsating through the room. I felt suddenly empty inside—thin and hollow. But not simply empty. Emptied. Like I’d been carved out and poured onto the floor.

  The feeling rolled over us like a wave, and then we could see the cause of it. The air shimmered with an alien force. Zann flicked his wrist and a column of hot, putrid air roared by my face. Nassim stumbled backwards as if struck. I started to reach out to him, but when I saw his face, God help me, I recoiled. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. His ebony skin burned away, flaking off his skull like burning paper. It was a blessing when he fell to the ground, dead.