“I remember returning home to the news, but I also remember going to my club as soon as we disembarked, and finding my friends and colleagues transmogrified into hideous creatures. A hallucination obviously, but…”
“I know what you mean,” said Challenger. “I have had similar experiences. Almost like deja vu.”
Burton nodded. The pain of her disappearance was once again gnawing at his breast.
Challenger placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am glad our paths have crossed once more.”
“No one up there,” said Abberline, bounding down the stairs. He stopped next to Burton, staring up at the large man who had rescued them.
“Well? Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
“Fred, Professor Challenger. Professor, Chief Inspector Frederick George Abberline.”
Challenger gave the policeman a hateful sneer of a smile. “So you’re Mycroft’s lap dog, hey?”
“Nice to meet you, too,” said the policeman. “I’ve read about your South American expedition in the papers.”
“And what did you think?” asked Challenger.
“I think you’re a con artist,” said Abberline. “Or bollocks.”
Challenger stared down at him for a long moment before bellowing laughter. He clapped both men on the shoulder, and in another moment Burton and Abberline were laughing too, even though they had no idea why. It wasn’t an appropriate response after what they had just been through, but at this moment it felt like the most appropriate response in the world.
7. Moriarty
“You still haven’t explained how you infiltrated the cult,” Burton said when the laughter died.
“Same as you,” said Challenger. “And I had to listen to such blinking rot once I got in.”
“Give us the short version,” said Burton.
“What’s he planning?” asked Abberline
“This King in Yellow chap is in league with the Deep Ones,” said the zoologist. “I’ve seen them.”
“What’s a Deep One?” said Abberline.
“You don’t want to know,” said Burton.
“He also has shoggoths doing his dirtier business. Anyone who won’t pay him tribute gets a visit from them.”
“Human sacrifice,” said Burton.
Challenger raked a hand through his beard. “For starters. Some of his ‘great unwashed’ have already started mating with those undersea devils. It’s Innsmouth all over again.”
“Innsmouth?” Abberline looked from Burton to Challenger and back again. “The place you told Mr. Holmes about?”
Burton nodded. “They have already gone through what we are now up against, and if this King in Yellow succeeds…” He didn’t dare finish the sentence.
“London isn’t some quiet sea village,” said Challenger. “If that mad blighter succeeds, it’ll mean the end of the British Empire.”
They heard a low noise, as of something oily and slick were sliding toward them. It was an all too familiar sound to Burton, one he had hoped he would never hear again.
“Shoggoth,” Challenger whispered.
Burton nodded. His mouth had gone dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.
“What’s a shoggoth?” asked Abberline.
“That,” Professor Challenger said, pointing behind the policeman, iIs a shoggoth.”
The three men turned as a slimy, bulbous glob of iridescent goo congealed up the narrow hallway toward them. Burton’s lantern light illuminated a multitude of undulating pustules that blistered and popped along its heaving, jelly-like bulk. In the dim light Burton saw the skeletal remains of rats and other vermin suspended within the shoggoth’s mass. He had no interest in joining the poor creatures.
“Bloody hell,” swore Abberline.
“Run,” Challenger advised.
They ran.
Discovering a door, Abberline pushed through it and into the darkness outside. Burton came next, leading them with his lantern, moving away from the crumbling tenement as fast as their legs would carry them. Burton could feel the shoggoth behind them, closing fast.
They turned a corner and darted to the right, caring little for where they ended up. Their priority was to put as much distance between themselves and the protoplasmic thing as they could.
“Where are we?” Challenger heaved.
“Not sure,” said Abberline. Few, if any, gaslights, coupled with a lack of street signs made everything look the same. Black tenement houses leaned over the narrow cobblestone streets, threatening to topple over at the slightest provocation. The lantern bounced in Burton’s hand as he ran, sending strange shadows fleeing into the distance.
“We must…slow down,” Challenger panted. “My heart…will get me…before that…thing does.”
They rounded another corner, moved to the left, and then stopped, Burton shining the lantern in the direction they had come.
“Maybe…we lost it,” Abberline said, gasping.
In a moment they heard the telltale sliding sound, as the thing moved over the rough cobbles.
“No,” said Burton. “We did not. Move.”
Challenger spun around, raising both pistols from their holsters and firing into the dark.
“Professor,” said Burton. “It’s no use. Come on.”
Challenger snarled at the amorphous blob and joined them in their flight up the street.
“There’s a gaslight flickering up ahead,” said Abberline, pointing. “We can get our bearings at least.”
They ran toward the comforting light, the sounds of the shoggoth growing closer.
If we can just get to where there are people, Burton thought. From somewhere in the distance they heard a harlot’s laughter.
“Look,” said Challenger, pointing to the gaslight. Quivering in its glow was another shoggoth.
“There are two of them?” said Abberline.
“Come,” said Burton. “Up this alley. Move your feet, gentlemen.”
Burton led them up an alley so narrow they had to walk sideways to traverse it. At the other end was a rotting wooden fence that stymied their efforts to climb over it, so Challenger began kicking the impediment to smithereens. When this was done, they twisted right, then left, then emerged onto another street. But that feeling of being followed, being hunted, did not go away.
Burton glanced to the left or right at intervals, always with the feeling that there was something there following them from the shadows.
“They’re getting closer,” said Abberline. “This way!”
They passed a cross street, turned a corner and found themselves in the mouth of a blind alley.
“Bismillah, we’re trapped,” said Burton.
“They’ve been herding us,” said Challenger.
The three men turned and watched as the two shoggoths slithered into view and slid closer.
“Bloody hell” Abberline swore again, panic cracking his voice.
They heard the clop and neigh of horses as a pantechnicon—a carriage designed for moving furniture, only this one was black and heavily armored—moved across the mouth of the alley from a side street, pulled by two hulking drays stomping nervously. The black-garbed driver cast a wary eye toward the shoggoths, his gloved hands holding tightly to the reins. A panel in the side of the carriage slid open, and a voice cried, “Get on!”
Burton leapt onto the side of the strangely outfitted carriage, grabbing a brass handle bolted to the side, his feet finding narrow purchase on the ridges between sections of armor plate. Abberline and Challenger joined him, and in a moment the carriage rattled up a wide lane at great speed. Burton looked back to see the amorphous blobs of the shoggoths receding into the distance.