Red Right Hand Page 7
The taste in my mouth intensified, curdling. I tried to swallow, to force it down, but it stuck to the back of my throat like a cold. Even with the taste choking me, I didn’t want that gum. I didn’t trust it not to be a trick.
“It is not a trick, Acolyte. It is simply what you wished for. What advantage could I receive from giving you a stick of gum? You can trust that no harm will come to you,” he purred, his voice tickling along the inside of me.
He’d read my mind again. It made me want the gum even less, although my mouth tasted so bad I felt sick to my stomach.
Trust him? I didn’t think so.
Daniel reached out and took the stick of gum. Unwrapping it, he let the foil flutter to the ground at his feet. Pulling the end off, he popped it in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. He stood for a moment as we both watched him. After a long second he held the rest of the gum out to me. “It’s safe, Charlie.”
I took the gum. I still didn’t trust the Man in Black, but Daniel had taken a chance on my behalf, and that obligated me.
And my mouth still tasted like death.
The spearmint cut through like a winter breeze the second it hit my tongue. The queasiness broke, fading with each chew. I looked at the Man in Black. “I still don’t want you reading my mind. It creeps me the hell out.”
He shrugged, his coat’s flaps waving on their own. “It matters not what you want, Acolyte. The Mark you bear connects us; it is what will allow us to use Ashtoreth’s gift and complete the mission set before us.”
The second he mentioned it, I became aware again of the circle around my throat. It lay on my collarbones, bruising and heavy, making them sore underneath it. I wanted it off me. I wanted Nyarlathotep out of my life. I wanted this night to be over.
Something moved on the edge of the parking lot, drawing my attention.
A low, long shape moved next to the bushes that edged the asphalt lot. Its four-legged gait herked and jerked, all hackles and low-slung spine. The creature glistened in the sodium lights above us, one baleful yellow eye staring at me as it slipped into a shadow, the other a black hole in its skull. I stared at it, and it stared right back from the darkness.
“What the hell is that?” Daniel’s voice sounded too loud, shocking me.
The Man in Black answered. “It is a skinhound. It will hunt her until the one who sent it is defeated.”
Daniel stepped in front of me, hands curled into fists. “Then let’s kill it before it can hurt her.”
“He will send more if that one is destroyed.” Nyarlathotep put his normal hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “That one will remain at bay while I am here, but the only way for my Acolyte to be safe is if we complete our mission.”
I hate it when people talk about me and not to me.
“What do we do, then? How does this…” I searched for the right word. “… collar work?”
“Your magick is intuitive. It is a part of you, the same as the mechanism that allows you to breathe or your heart to beat is a part of you.”
I held up my hand. The Mark across my palm was red and raw and scabbed over. “I thought this was where the magick came from.”
“That merely activated what already lay inside you waiting to be born.”
I could feel the magick inside me. “What do I do?”
“Close your eyes.”
“Why do I have to close my eyes?”
Thin lips pulled back to show gritted shark teeth. “Do you have to question everything, Acolyte?”
“I’m not the trusting kind. I used to be, but I learned my lesson the hard way.”
He sighed. “You have to use your Sight to find the one we seek. It is easier if you shut off your vision of this plane.”
“That’s all you had to say.” I closed my eyes.
The Man in Black’s voice vibrated through me. I could feel it in my bones: a low, deep thrum. “Open your mind. The elder gods are out there. You now have the ability to feel the desires of others. The ones we seek desire to enter this plane of reality. Their lust for this world will call to you like a siren song.”
As he spoke, my mind loosened. It slipped like a dislocated joint, popping out of its socket and stretching. It hurt in a long, slow ache. From the edges of my mindspace came little pinpricks, swirly white spots that sparked and flared in my cerebral cortex. Emotions connected to impressions swept through me, quick as mosquito bites.
A woman lusting after a bottle.
A man lusting after a woman.
A child lusting after a meal.
A woman lusting after a girl’s youth.
A psychopath lusting after human flesh.
The pinpricks jabbed at my brain, stabbing quicker and quicker, each one crowding into a fuzz of white noise. They blanketed my mind like maggots on a corpse, my own thoughts covered like a child who’d fallen through the ice.
Two bursts of desire came in peals of thunder, rolling over all the ones before them, echoing each other.
They were vast.
Alien.
Other.
Crying out:
MUST
BE
FREE
My mind unfolded in a topographical map. I could See all the wants like a landscape. Towering over them were the two thunderous alien desires, standing like mountains, one much closer than the other.
My voice sounded hollow, tinny when I spoke. “I have them. There are two.”
Nyarlathotep’s voice was clear, vibrating through me, shaking the map in my mindsight. “Good, Acolyte. Now take our hands and complete the circle.”
I cracked one eye. The world swam for a split second as it invaded my vision, but I held onto the map in my skull. The Man in Black and Daniel were in front of me, hands clasped; they both reached out to me with their free ones. My right hand took Daniel’s left, a sharp, raw rub across the incisions on my palm as his skin touched mine. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything.
The Man in Black held out his hand. His red right hand.
I hesitated.
The map in my head slid a little, breaking along the edges.
Dammit.
I took that skinless hand and closed my eye.
Power thrummed through me. It felt as though I’d been plugged into a circuit. My body hummed through my bones and my joints.
Daniel’s voice came from my right. “Whoa.”
I guess he could feel it too.
The map sharpened, becoming brighter in my mind’s eye. “What now?”
The Man in Black purred, “Pick one and simply wish to be there.”
“It can’t be that easy.”
“Acolyte…”
I took a deep breath, focused on the mountain of desire closest to us, and wished.
Dear God, please don’t let this hurt.
He didn’t listen.
14
AT FIRST IT felt like a warm shower. Soft, fat droplets peppering my skin in a massage, caressing, nearly tickling. The sensation was nice. Relaxing. A relief after the horror I’d been through.
Then the sensation turned.
The droplets came harder.
Sharper.
Striking every inch of me like diamond-cut thorns even through the safety of my clothes. It felt like being scrubbed down with a cheese grater.
I fell to my knees, banging them on a hard surface. My eyes were open, but I couldn’t see anything, the world washed all in red. My skin pulsed with my heartbeat, each thud of it against my breastbone washing me with a wave of raw, abraded pain. I fought to catch my breath, jerking air into my lungs. Even they were sore, as though they had been flash-burned from the inside out.
This must be what a hot dog feels like in the microwave.
The world swam to focus in waves, the pain receding with each pulse until I could sit up again, a concrete walkway hard under my knees. In front of me a building made of faux marble and brick soared into the night. The overly large but tastefully subdued sign over the swoosh-swoosh automatic entrance read
SAINT YOGASHURA MEDICAL CENTER.
What the hell?
Noise made me look over. Daniel was on his knees about fifteen feet away, in the grass between the walkway and the building. He retched, throwing up all over the lawn in front of him. The smell of it rode the night breeze over to me, and I could see it, orange-brown on the perfectly manicured Fescue. Whatever had just happened had been rough, but it seemed to be fading fast.
Is he okay? Why is he sick?
Immediately I felt guilty at the thought. I’d been sick not even thirty minutes ago.
The air swished behind me, and I turned. The Man in Black stood there, looking exactly as he had before whatever happened had happened. Still tall, dark, and sinister.
I climbed to my feet. My skin prickled, but less and less each second, fading away with every heartbeat.
“What was that?” I started walking to where Daniel knelt on the grass. He leaned back over his feet, still kneeling. His head hung low to his chest. He looked absolutely exhausted.
The Man in Black walked with me. “Your term for it would be transdimensional teleportation. Ashtoreth’s gift allowed you to step through the void between Time and Space, the narrow gap between the skin and the muscle of the universe, and to take us with you.”
Why does he have to use the most disturbing imagery when answering a question?
By the time I reached Daniel’s side, the pain from teleporting had faded almost completely.
For me at least.
Daniel looked terrible. Sweat ran in rivulets down his face, his skin waxy and pale. I’d seen him nearly every day since he’d started working with me, early in the morning for an eight AM shift and after all night shifts when he worked for someone else. I’d never seen him look so washed out. The hollows under his eyes were smudged black and sunken in. He sucked air in long, deep breaths as though he had just run ten miles. Squatting beside him, I put my hand on his face.
He was ice cold.
His eyes cracked open, the lids puffy and only half raised, and he turned into my hand. A tiny smile made his cheek twitch under my palm. His voice came out low, hoarse from being sick. “Hey, hey, Charlie. That was pretty rough.” His hand reached for mine. “Are you okay?”
He’s asking about me? He’s the one who looks like hell.
His concern touched me. I spoke gently and quietly. “I’m okay.”
“Good.” He nodded, his eyes closing again. “Good. I was worried about you.”
“I’m all right. I can take care of myself. Are you going to be okay?” A thought struck me. “We’re at a hospital. Do you need me to get a doctor?”
“We are not here for that, Acolyte.” The Man in Black loomed over us. His coat rustled, stretching as it brushed softly against my hip and caressed Daniel’s thighs.
Anger sparked, hot and bright. “Look, he’s not okay. Something about what just happened hurt him, and if he needs a doctor then, by God, we are going to get him one.”
The coat pulled away, reacting to my anger. Its wearer simply looked down at me with glittering black eyes. He didn’t speak, just stared at me. I stared back in defiance, locking my gaze with his. The symbol cut into my hand began to tingle and burn. I shoved it out of my mind, forcing myself to keep staring, to keep looking, to hold that gaze as long as possible. My eyes burned in their sockets. I rode my anger until it started to crumble underneath me. I held on, staring at those sinister midnight eyes as long as I could.
Blinking back tears, I broke and turned away.
Nyarlathotep’s voice fell on me like the striking of a midnight bell. “There is only one god you need be concerned with, Acolyte. Now stand up. Both of you.”
I hated him as I got to my feet. Hated him deep inside my heart. I helped Daniel up hating this nightmare of a night.
And I hated the Man in Black.
Daniel swayed on his feet. The Dark God stepped in front of him. “Daniel Alexander Langford, you will stand strong. You will follow me.”
I watched Daniel steady himself, setting those wide shoulders in a line and straightening his spine. His skin was still pale, but he wasn’t shivering or sweating anymore. He took a deep breath, held it, and blew it out between his lips. He nodded at the Man in Black. “I will follow you to the ends of the earth, Master.”
The Man in Black turned in a swirl of coat and began walking toward the hospital. Daniel and I followed.
I still didn’t like the Master crap, but Daniel was able to move and seemed to be better, so I let it lie.
For now.
We caught up to the Man in Black at the entrance of the hospital. He stood, staring at the doorway, both hands deep in the pockets of his coat. We stopped just behind him.
I hate hospitals. I hate them with the hatred. They suck. I haven’t been to one since I got out of one. Just being on the sidewalk I could feel it, on the edge of my mind. A therapist once urged me to go to a hospital, just to try and deal with my phobia. “Face your fears; you’ll be stronger for it,” she used to say.
I found a new therapist.
Now I wished I had at least given her advice a chance. Already my chest felt tight, lungs stuffed with cotton like a cheap cigarette filter, hard to drag air through.
My hand clenched and unclenched. Pain twinged along the edges of the symbol cut into my palm, giving me something to focus on, something to help me stay outside my own head. I pushed away from my physical reaction and studied the waiting room on the other side of the doors. Empty.
Totally and completely empty, not one soul in sight.
Hospitals are never empty. Even at that time of night they had people. Patients, family members, nurses, orderlies, doctors all hustling and bustling, doing things and going places. The waiting rooms might not be full in the middle of the night, but they would never be empty.
The creeps climbed my spine.
“Where is everybody?” My voice shook. Just a little.
The Man in Black didn’t look at me, still studying the door like a raven studying a carcass. “They have probably been taken.”
“Taken? By what?”
“By the thing we have come here hunting.”
Cryptic much?
“You don’t know what we’re here to stop?”
“This place is warded. That is why Ashtoreth’s gift could only take us this far.” He leaned forward, tilting slightly at the waist. Dark eyes closed as he drew a long sniff through his bladed nose. He held it for a moment then snorted it out. His jaw opened, jagged shark teeth pulling apart in strings of saliva. That long, scabrous tongue rolled out between them, flopping against his chin, forked and too long. A jerk of his head lapped it up against the air.
It crackled black sparks as it brushed a barrier I couldn’t see.
That tongue zipped back into his mouth like a kid’s party favor. His throat worked, savoring the taste for a long moment. Dark eyes glittered when he looked down at me. “You are in for a treat tonight, Acolyte.”
I don’t like the sound of that.
“What does that mean?”
He smiled but didn’t answer.
Damn him.
His left hand came out of the pocket of his coat holding something. He held it out to me. “Here, Acolyte.”
It was a stick.
“What is that?”
“It is your weapon.”
I took it from him carefully, keeping my fingers away from his. The stick was twice as long as my hand and made of gnarled, rough-barked wood burned black to hard charcoal on one end. It was heavy, heavier than it looked. Heavier than it should have been.
“Ummm, am I going to be fighting leprechauns or pixies? This is a pretty dainty club.”
The Man in Black pulled his red right hand from his pocket. Reaching over, he touched the end of the stick with a skinless fingertip.
A gout of fire burst from the weapon.
Heat blasted my face, singing my eyebrows and scorching my cheeks.
I dropped the stick with a curse.
“What the hell!”
Amusement twitched the Man in Black’s eyebrow up. “That is the fire that Prometheus stole. You should be more careful with it.”
Daniel bent and picked up the stick, holding it carefully between his fingertips. He didn’t say anything, just held it out to me with a look on his face.
I waved it away. “I don’t want that. You keep it.” Heat throbbed under my fingertips where they’d been singed.
“I don’t think I can use it, Charlie.”
“He is right, Acolyte.”
I looked between the two of them. “Why not?”
Daniel shrugged. “I’m not magick.”
“Well, I’m not either.” I realized the thing I’d felt inside me earlier had quieted. Did it go away? Had I used it up?
“You just teleported us here from Motel Hell by wishing. If that doesn’t qualify you as magick, I don’t know what does.”
He had a point.
I took the stick. It wasn’t warm or tingly or anything; it just felt dead and heavy in my hand. A thin curl of smoke came off the charcoal end.
Nyarlathotep looked surprised.
“What?” I asked.
“You did not argue with him.”
“He made sense.” I shrugged. “And he’s not evil.”
“And you think I am?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I am the Crawling Chaos. Evil is a matter of perspective.”
“Is that supposed to comfort me?”
The Crawling Chaos simply smiled, saying nothing.
I didn’t think so.
He went back to staring at the air in front of him. It was discolored where his tongue had licked, like breathing fog on a window in winter. I shuddered, the image of his tongue bouncing around my brain.
Daniel spoke up. “How are we going to get inside, Master?”
“It will take a sacrifice of pain to open a way through the wards.”
“I’ll make that sacrifice for you.” He stepped up, moving closer to the Man in Black.
Grabbing his arm, I jerked him back. “What are you doing?”