Dead Jack and the Old Gods, page 6
“The Necronomicon came to me in a dream. It called to me from the abyss.”
You call to the abyss, the abyss calls to you, I thought.
“You’re a dust head.”
“I’ve never taken dust in my life. I’m no junkie.”
“He took Black Powder,” Mort said.
The werewolf’s head twitched and jerked. The knife in his hand jumped. I had read about these Black Powder fiends going on rampages and jumping off buildings. But I had never heard of them receiving specific messages or orders.
“Did you dream of Harbinger? What did he look like?”
“Your friend in the chair is going to look like chopped meat when I’m through with him, and then I’m going to work on you.”
“You’re under the influence of Black Powder. You’re not in your right mind. You don’t want to do this.”
“But I do. I really do. I don’t even need the Necronomicon. I’ll just carve you all up for fun.”
The werewolf threw back his head and let out a howl. Ahhh-ewwwwww! “You have no idea what you’re all in for. What’s coming from beyond the stars. The slithering, crawling chaos of the eternal. They are waiting at the gates. We need only to push them open. Their appearance in this graveyard of a world is eventual. Why fight it? Rejoice! We are blessed to be here at this glorious moment.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
The drugged-up wolf moved toward Mort, and I advanced. He looked at me with crazy swimming eyes and backed off. That’s right, Wolfie. I’m not messing around. Zombies can take a good stabbing. It was a drunken wolf who put the hole in my cheek, and I put a hole in his neck. Actually, several holes. The problem with werewolves is that they’re animals at heart—dumb but vicious.
Oswald sat back, quiet as a mouse. I was surprised. Maybe he was finally listening to me. Still, I hadn’t forgiven him for his betrayal at Dr. Noctua’s office and his meddling in the Witch House.
I spotted the kitty on a file cabinet behind the werewolf. She sat on her haunches looking up at a shelf full of books, no doubt calculating the distance from the cabinet to the shelf. Then she launched herself into the air and silently landed on top of the books above the werewolf’s head.
“Mort says he doesn’t have the book. So why don’t you leave? I won’t even pull your hair out. Promise.”
The cat got behind a book the size of a cinder block and began to nudge it with her paws. Smart kitty. Very smart.
I just had to keep our wolf friend talking.
“It’s here. I dreamt about it.”
“And then you’re going to deliver it to Harbinger? Do his dirty work? What does he want the book for?”
The cat got the book moving, and centimeter by centimeter, it advanced to the shelf’s edge.
“You’re a fool. But you won’t live long enough to witness the glory of Harbinger—”
The werewolf caught me looking up at the cat and he turned toward the shelf—but it was too late. The massive book came tumbling off the shelf, dropping like a brick, directly on the wolf man’s face. He fell back against Mort’s desk, the blade dropping from his hand and clattering to the floor. Oswald scooped it up as I leapt at the werewolf. I hammered my fist on top of his skull. He let out a whimper like a dog who stepped on a rock, and rolled onto the floor.
I went after the werewolf, but the bastard grabbed me by the ankles and sent me into the file cabinet. He scrambled out of the office on all fours and slammed the door behind him. I got to my feet as quickly as I could and ran for the door, but the damn thing was stuck.
“Yeah, it sticks,” Mort said. “Funny because I usually can’t open this door and the front one never stays locked.”
“Great, Mort. That’s great.”
By the time I got the door open and rushed through the bookstore, the wolf was long gone. I made sure the front door was locked and went back into the office.
Oswald had untied the gnome, who was dabbing his head with a tissue. The cat slunk over to him and rubbed against his leg. Mort lifted the cat and put his mouth to his ear. This time I heard him muttering something to her. From the sound of it, he was thanking her.
“You told her to bring us back, didn’t you?” I said.
“Yes. The werewolf told me to get rid of you two.”
“Why didn’t you just leave with us?”
“He was going to burn down the bookstore if I didn’t get rid of you and return. This store is my life.”
I picked up the book the cat had dropped on the wolf’s head. It must have weighed ten pounds. “Do you really not know where the Necronomicon is?” I placed the book back on the shelf.
The book gnome laughed at me like I was Groucho Marx. “You just placed it on the shelf.”
I gave the book a better look. It didn’t look like the others. It was thick and black and scarred. The spine had odd markings. Nothing I could read or decipher. I was afraid to pick it back up. “Shouldn’t you have had this in a more secure place, Mort, like in a safe?”
“If it was in a safe, he would have had it already. The first place he’d have looked is a safe.”
“Good point.”
“You can touch it. It’s okay.”
I cautiously picked it up. The cover had more of those strange markings. I was disappointed that it didn’t say “Necronomicon.” I decided not to open it.
“If you had it, why didn’t you give it to him?” Oswald asked.
“I’m not in the habit of giving books away.”
“We really shouldn’t be sticking around,” I said. “He’ll be back.”
“Probably with Harbinger,” Oswald said.
“Did he say anything about Harbinger?” I asked.
“He talked about a prophet,” Mort said. “A great man who would lead us all to salvation and doom. I think in his mind they were the same thing.”
“If this guy wants this book so bad,” I said, “let’s destroy the book then. End this thing now.”
“I don’t know any grimoires that are easy to destroy. You could probably use a flamethrower on it and it wouldn’t even brown.”
“Let’s take the book and get out of here,” Oswald said.
“I’m not leaving my store.”
“You can’t stay here,” I said. “Even if the werewolf doesn’t come back, some other nutjob with bad dreams will.”
The book gnome opened a desk drawer and pulled out a thick book. “I’m prepared now.”
“You’re going to read him a bedtime story?”
Mort opened the book. The pages had been scooped out. A magical gun with a barrel as big as my fist sat inside.
“If you don’t mind, then,” I said, “we’re going to take it.”
“It’s all yours,” Mort said.
I dropped the Necronomicon into my inner jacket pocket, which conveniently holds a small pocket universe, so its size was no problem.
“Before you go,” the book gnome said, “be careful with that book. Never recite its passages out loud.”
“Why not?”
“I had a clerk. A nice kid but a little naive and slow. He took an interest in the book. He ended up reading it aloud.”
“What happened?”
“He now lives in the Home for the Cosmically Insane.”
“I want to talk to your former clerk. He might be the only one who knows what this book’s capable of.”
“I don’t think you’ll get much out of Herbert. He’s pretty far gone.”
“Crazy people are my specialty.” I hooked a thumb toward Oswald.
15
Oswald’s Journal
Another terrible dream.
This time, I wasn’t in the underwater city. I was in the Five Cities of Pandemonium. And this time, someone wasn’t following me. I was following him.
A tall, thin man. Though I was behind him, I could see his face in my mind. But I couldn’t tell you what he looked like. Shadows covered his face. It was as if he had no face. But no one he passed on the street gave him a second look. They didn’t see him. But I did.
I followed the strange man from ShadowShade to Witch End, where he stood before teeming crowds and gave high-flung, passionate speeches. The gatherings would begin quiet and sedate, by over time the audience would get increasingly more agitated until they were shouting and jumping, whipped into a great frenzy. Sometimes fights would break out among the ranks. Blood would be spilled. It was as if the gatherers had gone feral. The tall man would keep speaking and continue to fill the air with his electrified speech that seemed to jolt the audience with every word.
The speeches would go on for hours and even days. I always watched from a distance, never among the crowd, taking it all, being enrapt by the tall man’s words but also aware of what was happening to me, the horrible effect.
Then we gathered in an unfamiliar city. As usual, I stood away from the crowd.
As the tall man pushed the crowd to the now-familiar frenzy, he looked directly at me, never pausing his speech. He kept his dreadful eyes on me. With each passing second, the heat of his gaze burned my body, reached down to my core and churned my insides.
I was found out! I had thought I was invisible, that my presence was anonymous. But now the great god saw me, knew me, and that was the most terrifying moment I ever experienced. I wished to burst into a thousand pieces and cease to exist.
An inexorable force dragged me onto the stage, my body heaving, my mind racing. The crowd, which had spread as far as the horizon, watched me like a cat watches a trapped mouse.
Finally, I understood the voice of the God With a Thousand Faces, and I just realized that I had never comprehended a word he had uttered before. He told the gathered, in a voice more ancient than the first star, that I would bring doom to the universe, that I was destined to usher in Armageddon. He said that I had almost done it twice before, but the third time it would be done.
In the blink of an eye, I was transported to the top of a mountain, where I looked down at the Five Cities and watched it burn. Massive columns of fire erupted from every city. Creatures of unimaginable size patrolled the sky or sat perched atop skyscrapers as the citizens fell into giant pits.
I don’t know how I knew the tall man was called the God With a Thousand Faces. When I awoke, I wanted to research the name, but I was afraid of repeating it. In a dream, I have learned that uttering the name of a thing conjures it.
16
The Sound of Daggers
“Do you think you can really go crazy just from reading a book?” Oswald asked, stupidly, when we got outside.
“Sure, if it’s got pictures of Betty Grable.”
“Who?”
Things in my inner pocket don’t weigh me down. It’s as if nothing’s in there. Not this time. I felt something hard and heavy near my chest. I felt the book’s weight. It had to be my imagination. Regardless, I didn’t like carrying the damn thing. We needed to find this Herbert so he could help us secure the book, or possibly destroy it, and the sooner the better.
Chit-chit-chit... The sound of daggers stabbing cement. I turned in the direction of the strange noise. A horde of alien critters scuttled down the side of a bakery, a stream of shiny black crabs sliding toward us. There had to be a hundred of the buggers. A woman spotted them and began screaming.
Me and Oswald dashed into the street, barely avoiding the sedan that rolled through, the driver watching the beetles instead of the road. I was pretty sure those things were after us. My thigh banged the back bumper as I shambled across the street. I could hear the buggers hitting the sidewalk, one by one, chit-chit-chit, and their stiletto legs stabbing the ground as they pursued us.
One of the crabs launched itself into the air and landed in the middle of my back. His sharp claws, like knitting needles, drove into my skin. I tried to reach around and grab him, but he was positioned just beyond my fingertips.
Oswald wasn’t faring any better. A bugger nipped at his heels.
I threw myself backwards on the hood of a DeSoto, crushing the crab. The green slime wet my back.
Oswald punted one of the creatures into a street lamp. The crab exploded on impact, showering slime into the street.
“Hurry,” I said, as the horde made a beeline for Oswald. “We can make it to the car.”
I power-shambled to the Studebaker, which was only a few yards away. I had reached the door handle when I turned and saw Oswald rolling down the street like a giant snowball. He slammed into the side of the Studebaker and immediately morphed back to his normal self.
“That wasn’t hoodoo,” he said, and ran around to the passenger side of the car.
I got inside, grabbed the door to pull it closed, but a bugger came flying at me. I slammed the door shut, catching the critter in the door, severing it. The top half of the creature’s body fell in my lap, dripping slime. Its pincers twitched once and died. I didn’t have time to move him. I started the Studebaker and stepped on the gas just as the critters swarmed the car. As I pulled away from the curb they had already covered half the car. By the time I reached the corner, they had blanketed the windshield. I turned on the wipers, but they barely moved. The critters had covered all the windows and now they tapped on the glass, trying to break through. I tried my best to navigate the streets by peeking between the creatures.
“I’m heading to Delancey Street,” I said. “There’s a car wash on the corner.”
“Good thinking. The Studebaker could use a wash.”
The car wash attendants shouted as they fled from the crab-infested Studebaker. The sedan bounced and bucked as I tried to navigate it into the bay. Then I felt the car right itself and we were swept into the wash. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard the whooshing and hissing of the machines. First, a thick foam dropped onto the Studebaker, and a few alien crabs slid off. Water showered over the creatures, taking more of the bastards. But dozens still clung stubbornly to the Studebaker.
From this viewpoint, I got a good look at our attackers. Their white underbellies were bumpy and looked soft. Their ten legs radiated out from a round core. The legs were thin and boney, and kept tapping at the windows. The brushes and rollers hit the Studebaker, shaking and pushing us. The giant crabs flew off the body of the car in droves or were crushed, covering the Studebaker in green slime, which was quickly swept away.
By the time jets of hot wax attacked the Studebaker, most of the critters were gone. The dryers got the more tenacious ones. We reached the other side of the car wash critter-free and with a clean Studebaker. I opened the window and tossed out the severed crab that had been sitting in my lap. I left the attendants two gold coins in their tip jar.
17
From The Daily Specter
Nightmares Up by More Than 70%
By Jennifer McBoggart
Having more bad dreams than usual? You’re not alone. We here at the Daily Specter have been getting letter upon letter detailing strange dreams. The Five Cities are not sleeping well these days, folks.
Dream expert Sylvia Starchild says she’s seen business increase dramatically over the past week. Sylvia believes it has to do with the heavens in the Other World. “Mercury is in retrograde,” she says. “But also Jupiter and Saturn are in conjunction with Aquarius, and Pluto is entering Capricorn. That wreaks havoc on the astral plane.” Sylvia, who recently published the bestseller Dreams Are Not Your Friend, adds, “Sometimes the stars are just right for these types of phenomena.”
Sounds to us like the stars are just wrong, but Sylvia’s the expert.
What she recommends is to drink unicorn milk, if you can get a hold of it, or the more widely available Minotaur tea, an hour before bed. Warm your beverage to 150 degrees and drink down the whole mug. Follow that up with a quick ice-cold bath. But be sure to sleep face down. This has proven to lessen the severity of dreaming and can even stop it altogether. If your bad dreams persist, see a scryer immediately.
18
Home for the Cosmically Insane
“Are you really going to stick to your no-hoodoo rule? Things are getting a bit hairy,” Oswald said as I drove uptown.
I kept the windshield wipers on full speed to clean off the remainder of critter juices and bits, but it was mostly just smearing the green gunk around and making a mess.
“No hoodoo means no hoodoo,” I said. “You probably would have gotten us both killed by now. You’re a ticking time bomb. Besides, what are you complaining about? We have the book and I got rid of those crabbies.”
“Aren’t you a little concerned that a whole mess of them attacked us? Which poses two questions: How did so many of them get through the vortex and why did they come after us?”
“Zara can’t catch all of those crabs, and I figure they’re attracted to the book. You should know more about what’s going on than me. You’ve been dreaming about these dunzies. Have you been taking Black Powder?”
“No, Jack. I’ve never taken any drugs. Thank you very much.”
“Just a coincidence then?”
“You think Black Powder has to do with all this?”
“Makes sense. It just showed up out of nowhere like this Harbinger and the drug makes you dream and that god Wally mentioned likes to dream, too. Maybe I should try this Black Powder. See what it’s all about. They say it has fairy dust in it.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“You want to keep the dreams all to yourself?”
“Trust me. You don’t want these dreams. They’re terrible. You know how you feel when you look in a mirror? It’s like that.”
“Funny.”
I drove alongside the Wood of Shadows. Gray fog and dead trees filled the park. Black shapes moved silently through the mist. Occasionally a light would appear and quickly disappear.
I parked at the northern edge of the ghost park, across from 95th Street.
