Still, it hurt like hell.
Ignoring the pain of her blow, I managed to pull the knife from her hand and brought it up against her throat. Another second and she would have been able to turn the situation to her advantage, but the battle favored me this time.
“Yield,” I said, holding the knife steady at the base of her throat, “or die.”
No sooner had I done so than I found myself going over her shoulder with the knife pulled from my grip. A second later, I was on the ground with the weapon once more in Katryn’s hands. She had it pressed against the tip of my Adam’s apple, a single motion ready to slit my throat at the slightest movement.
“Well,” I coughed out, stunned by my defeat. “It seems my reflexes have dulled somewhat.”
Katryn let out a tinkle of melodic laughter, a great contrast to her normal seriousness. “Perhaps I have merely grown faster.”
“That you have.”
Katryn snorted and assumed a combat-ready position a couple of feet away, apparently ready to continue our battle. “You’re skilled enough for me to believe you’re still a worthy ally. The care you show to your subordinate makes you soft, though. I do not know why warriors from your homeland are so sentimental. It is a weakness.”
Realizing this contest was now a friendly one, I went to the guest-room door and shut it tightly before locking it. The chance to spar with Katryn was a rare opportunity.
“I’ve been accused of many things, but being sentimental is not one of them,” I said. “Even so, most of my fellow soldiers don’t feel as I do. Surely, you’ve learned that from your lover.”
“My lover?” She seemed genuinely surprised by my words.
“Peter,” I said, letting a hint of jealousy taint my words as I entered into a combat-ready pose. It was an affectation since I couldn’t help but feel only trauma recalling our time together, but I had to let her think otherwise. I needed her help to take down Ward and that required her thinking she had a hold on me. No matter how disgusted I was by all this.
Katryn stared at me for a moment, her eyes seemingly searching me for some hint of irony. After a second, she let forth a torrent of stunned laughter.
“Is something funny?” I asked, already suspecting the truth.
“I’d sooner bed a Deep One.” Katryn delivered a playful series of blows toward my face, ones I blocked one after the other. The combat had become slower paced, more like a practice session than genuine combat. “He is an oath-breaker, one who has no honor.”
“You accused me of that, too.” I would never regret the fact I’d chosen to flee Dunwych territory, it had been for my family after all, but I’d always feel a bit of sadness over doing so.
“You are an oath-keeper, John, even when circumstances prevent you from fulfilling the letter of them. You left me because you still loved your wife and children. I suspect you left the Remnant because you love your squadron. I see how their absence tortures you now.” Katryn’s voice took on a sympathetic tone.
I loved my children but I’d been a horrible father to them and an even worse husband to my wife. I’d left because I loathed the Dunwych. What Katryn was saying was nothing more than the product of her mind trying to rationalize my departure. I needed her to play on her justifications. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“Spare me the sentimentality, John. You may need it but I do not,” Katryn said as her next kick went a little high and I was able to easily dodge it. She continued to talk as I watched her motions closely, trying to guess her next move. “Blasphemer or not, I might be able to forgive you. Peter, on the other hand, left my people as soon as you did. He started selling his services to the highest bidder, serving everyone from Kingsport’s gangsters to Arizonian slavers.”
“He’s a slaver?” That shocked me. Desertion was one thing, slavery was another. I could no more work with a slaver than I could a cannibal or child-murderer.
“Peter came as close as humanly possible without actually becoming one himself. He guarded their caravans, directed them to villages willing to sell their members, and killed those who would strike out against them. Only recently has he returned, claiming to have seen the light.” The suspicion in her voice spoke volumes about her opinion of the man.
The Dunwych were brutal and efficient conquerors but they had their own set of ethics. Like the Remnant, it seemed they could look down on slavery as long as they didn’t call it that. “Why accept him as a member of your tribe, then?”
“We need every warrior we can get. The Necromancer grows stronger every day,” Katryn explained, right before I managed to successfully toss her onto the ground. She smiled, pleased at my getting the best of her even temporarily.
“Who is he to you?” I decided to hold on to what I knew for the time being. I knew of Alan Ward’s identity a decade ago but not what he’d been doing since.
“A wizard, a priest, a scientist, a warlord, and everything in between. Rumors attest he wandered in from the desert like you have been described doing. Boiling down corpses to their essential salts, he raised them from the dead. He also displayed other powers, like healing and making crops grow.”
“I take it his benevolence had a darker side?”
The two of us began practicing other holds, close ones. It burned me to have Katryn so near and not wrap my arms around her in more intimate ways. I should have been thinking about the Necromancer, but as we grappled with one another, my mind wandered to other things. The stress of everything I had endured longed for a release, a release which could only come from the union of a man with his lover.
Katryn pulled my arm around my back, shifting her weight as she put me into a painful wristlock, an action which momentarily dulled my emerging feelings. “Soon, reports of corpses stolen in the night were whispered. Women were sent to him and their bodies were found elsewhere, drained of blood. His followers were joined by Deep Ones and those who worship Kaithooloo. Whole villages were enslaved or exterminated at his command, their children taken away for some evil purpose. One of the Dunwych’s outlying villages was amongst them. We don’t have a name for him, though, if he has one.”
“Alan Ward.”
“You encountered him, encountered him and survived.” Katryn let go of her wrist hold.
“Yes.” I took a deep breath. “I just can’t remember how.”
“We will find out,” Katryn said, walking close to me. She took my face into her hands and pressed her lips against mine.
Pulling away, I said, “We shouldn’t.”
I pretended to be reluctant because I knew it would drive her to desire me more. I hated the thought of her touching me, though. “I need you sharp and alert, John,” Katryn said. “You are a warrior in distress and we still made oaths to be with one another. It is my right.”
“I …” I trailed off. “Alright.”
Chapter Thirteen
The sex was joyless but passionate, pushing me past the limits of my endurance. I had to think of Jessica, my wife, and even Mercury to finish, but if Katryn suspected I was in any way reluctant, she gave no sign of it and seemed responsive enough. Afterward, Katryn rested her head on my shoulder as if our past differences mattered not at all. I fell asleep against my will.
In my dreams, I saw an ancient cluster of worlds in a distant galaxy. Eventually, its sun died and the star system’s impossibly old, advanced races traveled from their homes in forms not quite physical and not quite intangible. Whether these were Cthulhu and his ilk, I could not say, but they settled down upon this Earth and merged with its soil. They warped the existing primordial life repeatedly, destroying and rebuilding what was evolving until they could place the consciousness of their offspring in their frames. This had gone to create races like the Deep Ones, ghouls, Earthmovers, shoggoths, and yes, humanity. I saw one ancient thing take the form of a man and lie with my mother.
No. It was not true.
Just a dream.
My revulsion carried me to more recent memories that I had suppres
sed. I was naked and strapped to a table in the Black Cathedral’s upper levels. There, Alan Ward, the Necromancer, stood above me. He looked no older than twenty-six—the same age he’d looked when he’d taught me, despite being over forty, yet he was all the more terrifying for his essential youth and beauty. Platinum-haired, tall, slender, pale, and delicate of feature, he looked like a human from the Pre-Rising days.
A closer look at his face showed his appearance was slightly “off” in subtle and profound ways. There were a few extra rows of teeth in his smile and his grin was a little too wide. Both sides of his face were identical, possessing none of the distinctiveness normal people possessed. Even Ward’s lily-white skin was cursed, being not just pale but dry and papery. It was as if he was an exceptionally well-preserved corpse.
Only his eyes were fully human, human but mad. A madness born from researching too long into things man was not meant to know. Walking around the table wearing a stylish business suit from the early 20th century, a fashion so ridiculously anachronistic it only added to his settling presence, he began speaking. “You are the beginning, John.”
“Leave me alone. Please.” My voice was unable to rise above a whisper. I was helpless as a newborn babe, my body unresponsive to my commands to it. I could neither flee nor fight, just lie there in paralyzed agony.
Ward ignored my pleas. “You and Jessica are the beginning of a new humanity. For that, however, you must both be purged—through pain.”
Ward lifted his fingers and poured forth a torrent of black unnatural lightning. It was not composed of electricity, however. Instead, the lightning was made of literal cracks in the fabric of reality. Each of these cracks tore into my flesh with a fury fiercer than any attack I’d ever endured, biting and sucking away my life with every strike.
I screamed.
The bolts felt akin to hot hooks tearing away bits of my flesh. It only grew worse over time. I saw other things as I relived the suffering of my torture, something I knew to be a memory now rather than a hallucination. I saw a vast gladiator arena where I was forced to do battle with abominations of sorcery, a golden pair of revolvers I used to shoot into the folds of a terrible amorphous multiform horror, and the sight of children in cages stacked one on top of the other as if for storage. In my dreams, I remembered it all.
I found I could think in my dream, struggling to grasp at the memories that were so close to the surface of my thoughts. Endure, dammit, endure! Just a few seconds and I’d remember everything. I could regain all of my memories and know what terrible things had been done to me and my squadron. I’d know where to find Ward and what weaknesses he had.
“John!” A shout woke me up from my slumber with a start.
I sat up from where I lay, a cold sweat covering my body. By my side was the sleeping form of Katryn, looking content from our lovemaking. Knocking at the door was Richard, his unnatural strength making even light rapping sound like a great pounding.
“Dammit, just a little while longer and I wouldn’t have needed that stupid ritual,” I grunted.
My hands shook from the memory of my torment. You weren’t supposed to feel pain in a dream, yet the experience I’d relived in the dream was every bit as horrible as the real thing. I took some small comfort in the fact Ward had been forced to torture me and I hadn’t willingly assisted him in any way, but the fact I’d been so helpless before him galled me.
“I’ll kill him, I swear,” I coughed, in between ragged breaths. “No matter how long it takes, no matter who I have to kill to do it.”
“John, I mean it.” Richard’s voice carried through the door. “I’ve gone through a lot of shit to get this weird-ass stuff. If you’re trying to stiff me, I’m going to sell it to the next half-insane soldier who wanders in from the desert.”
“I’m coming.” I got up from the bed and opened the door, not bothering to dress.
Richard was on the other side, wearing the same clothes as earlier but now covered in cavern dust. A number of strange arcane artifacts were in his hands: candles, bags of powder, stone tablets, dolls, and objects I couldn’t even begin to identify. I had no idea where he’d gone, though the most likely answer was the deep network of caverns the ghouls had dug underneath the Earth’s surface.
The ghoul took one look at my form and averted his eyes. “Dammit, John, could you put some pants on?”
“You asked me to open the door,” I said. “Next time you should be more specific.”
Richard snorted and sniffed the air, looking over at Katryn’s naked form. She was waking up.
Richard snorted and said, “A word of advice, John, when you’re a guest in someone else’s house, it’s polite not to leave their rooms hot and sticky.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” I said, uninterested in dealing with the ghoul’s prejudices. “You have the materials necessary to perform your spell?”
“Yeah,” Richard juggled the pile in his arms a bit. “I got your whatzits.”
Katryn stretched her arms and slid out of bed, walking up behind me without bothering to get dressed either. “Dream-Walker, I would like to review your preparations. I know something of the eldritch arts myself.”
Richard stared, gazing up and down her naked form. “Okay, forget everything about what I said. You can do whatever you like in my place, whenever you want.”
“Avert your eyes, ghoul, or lose them,” Katryn said, tossing her hair behind her head.
Richard turned around, looking as embarrassed as a half-man/half-canine could. “Hey, it’s not my fault. You stick that in front of me I’m going to look. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had sex? Ages! I’m telling you, ghoul women give new meaning to the word dog-faced.”
Against my will, I smiled. “You are a true friend, Richard. However, I’d avert your eyes for your sake.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, turning his head.
“Thank you.” I could never repay him for what he’d done. “Thank you for all of this. You are the greatest man I have ever known.”
Richard seemed bothered by my statement, not speaking for several seconds. Finally, giving a halfhearted smile, he said, “It’s been a long time since a human has said that to me. Now put some frigging clothes on!”
Needing no further encouragement, I picked up my clothes off the floor and slipped on my undergarments before doing the same with the dusky black-and-gray clothes I was forced to wear. I would have to barter or borrow a change of clothes before I left Scrapyard. I didn’t intend to travel all the way to Kingsport looking like I was from the Remnant.
Katryn retrieved her own clothes as well, quicker than I expected. She was usually less modest, caring little if individuals admired her body. Then again, most individuals weren’t Richard. He was more polite than I expected during the process, only sneaking a few peeks as she did so.
Once Katryn and I were dressed, the three of us exited into the workshop outside. Jackie was sitting in the driver’s seat of a strangely beautiful midnight-blue car without a top. A convertible, I believed they were called. It was unlike any other vehicle I’d ever seen.
When I’d first arrived, the vehicle had been covered with a dusky-gray sheet, but it was now revealed in all its glory. Richard had affixed the automobile’s trunk with solar panels and a number of spare batteries, but the vehicle otherwise looked identical to what it must have resembled when first built, probably in the 1960s or so.
God, Richard must have spent decades restoring the thing. I’d never before seen a car that wasn’t a composite or a crude reconstruction. This was the first original, or at least semi-original, I’d viewed outside of a history tape or yellow-paged magazine. I was so entranced by the machine I barely noticed Peter Goodhill was leaning up against it. Staring directly at Katryn then me, he asked, “I take it you two had a good time while I was gone?”
Katryn had said she and Peter weren’t together, but I wondered if Peter knew that. Putting my arm over her shoulder, I said, “Yes. Yes, we did.”
>
Jackie smiled, honking the horn of the vehicle. “This is great! I’ve never been in a real car before! Well, one that works.”
Richard put all of the various bits of occult paraphernalia on the back of the trunk, before sticking his used cigarette from earlier back in his mouth. “I call it the Blue Meanie. Don’t ask me to explain, it’s before your time. I figured if you were going to give me a look at the Necronomicon, assuming it proves to be legit, the least I could do was give you a way to get to Kingsport.”
“What?” I blinked, unable to believe what I was hearing.
Richard just shrugged. “It’s got a fully charged set of batteries and some weapons in the trunk. Decent ones, not that cobbled-together crap you use in the Remnant.”
I blinked, stunned by the generosity of my friend. “Richard, this is a princely gift.”
Taking my arm off Katryn’s shoulders, I stepped to the car’s side and ran my fingers along the edge of its frame. I’d never owned anything like this in my entire life.
“Yeah, I’m a regular Prince Charming. Only Sleeping Beauty would have woken up screaming if I’d kissed her.” Richard coughed violently then lit another cigarette.
“You know, those things can kill you,” I said, not bothering to look up from the car.
“Two hundred years and no cancer,” Richard said, puffing. “I’ll take my chances.”
I turned around the shop, looking for any sign of Mercury. I didn’t see her amongst the group assembled.
“Where’s Doctor Takahashi?”
“She took off,” Richard answered.
“What?” I asked, my eyes widening.
Richard raised a reassuring hand, seeing my immediate distress. “I think she’s over at the bar getting drunk on the local mud beer. She finished up with Jessica and walked out in a huff as soon as I came back. Were you two involved?”
“No,” I said firmly.
Cthulhu Armageddon Page 11