The Lovecraft Squad: Dreaming Page 8

  Jack laughed and clapped his brother on the shoulder. “That’s a promise.”

  IX

  He feels something different in the Dreamscape tonight. Something powerful, something that rumbles through dimensions like a mallet on steel. He doesn’t understand why this day—November 11—should somehow be special, but it is.

  In the city of spires, the mad hordes shimmy and gyrate in the streets. In the heavens, orbs and spheres twirl, as if outlining figures he can’t read. Through it all, that sense of some impending arrival reverberates.

  This night may determine the future of more worlds than just his own.

  The November 11 stakeouts were a bust.

  Regardless of the date, nothing happened anywhere. The League had agents stationed in Arkham, Innsmouth, Red Hook, Dunwich, and Providence. Elwood, following a hunch, had stayed in Washington, D.C., positioning himself at L Street NW and 16th Street NW, a location that some believed was at the center of a pentagram that formed the city’s dark heart. Elwood walked, sat in his car, checked in with his team, but no one had anything to report, not even so much as an errant drunk. At just after 1:00 A.M., Elwood had called it off and sent his men home. A few minutes later, he was in his own car, driving toward the White House as he headed for his apartment.

  The city was quiet, and seemed somehow darker than usual. It was early on a Tuesday morning, long before the morning crush of commuters.

  Elwood had almost passed the White House when he glimpsed motion—from overhead. He risked a look up, craning his neck to peer through the windshield.

  Lightning crackled, the jagged forks illuminating a titanic shape in the fuliginous sky.

  Slamming on the brakes, Elwood brought the car to a squealing halt and leapt out from behind the wheel, looking up. A form was taking shape over Washington, limned by lighting and defined by the blackness of the sky between the stars—a gigantic form with a face surrounded by tentacles, nascent wings on the bent back, talon claws on fingers and toes. The Washington Monument barely came to its knees as the thing squatted slightly.

  Elwood had never seen the dread Cthulhu in person, but he knew this was what he gazed upon now, a Great Old One taking shape in the night sky above America’s capital. He stared, and as he stared—and as the shape gained more corporeality—he felt parts of his mind tugging at their moorings, like a ship that begs to be lost at sea. They’d been stupid to think they could fight this thing, this impossible eldritch thing that would destroy them, scatter like ants that which it did not consume, ending everything, everything, everything, everything . . .

  Elwood tore his gaze away from the thing towering above him, shutting his eyes tightly. The after-image beat on his retinas with those giant clawed fists; he felt himself staggering, then doubled over, vomiting into the city street as he fell to his knees. The world spun, and Frank Elwood Jr. spun with it, scrabbling at any hold, for anything that would save him . . .

  Kennedy. The president. He had to warn him.

  Duty brought sanity, and Elwood rose to his knees, still shaky but keeping his eyes down, away from the roiling sky. The car . . . he had to return to the car . . .

  He stumbled down the street, trying to focus on his feet, on the asphalt, on anything but the vast horror blotting out the sky, and so he didn’t immediately notice the man moving toward him. He stopped when he saw him: a robed figure, holding something in his arms. No, not robed like the cultists, but in shimmering white . . .

  It was John F. Kennedy. And he was walking toward Elwood.

  Elwood stared, at first wondering if his sanity had fled, but then he realized he felt calm, restored. Kennedy smiled as he neared; he wore a white bathrobe over pajamas, his feet bare. When he stopped walking, just a few feet away, the robe floated and waved as if stirred by an invisible breeze, but the night air was still.

  “Hello,” Kennedy said, carefully cradling something Elwood couldn’t see yet, “do I know you?”

  “Yes . . . ,” Elwood started to say, but his voice was hoarse. He swallowed, and tried again. “Yes, sir. Agent Frank Elwood Jr. of the Human Protection League.” Elwood glanced up into the sky above and now saw nothing but stars, stars in the correct patterns and places.

  “I’m very glad to find you here, Agent Elwood. Perhaps you can help me with something.” Kennedy held out his burden, and Elwood realized it was an infant, so small, no more than a few weeks old. “I took this little one from a ritual tonight, and I’d appreciate it if you can deliver it to the proper authorities.”

  Elwood stepped forward and took the child. It slept peacefully, a tiny human with skin the rich color of black coffee and a full head of curling ebony hair. Elwood was struck with wonder at its serenity, its very humanness. “You can count on me, Mr. President.”

  “Good man.” Kennedy nodded at him and then turned to go.

  “Mr. President,” Elwood called after him.

  Kennedy turned back. “Yes, Agent Elwood?”

  “How did you do it, sir? How did you turn that—that thing back?”

  Kennedy looked at Elwood for several seconds, considering his answer. “I’m not entirely sure myself. Good night, Agent Elwood.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  Kennedy strode away until he was lost in darkness. Elwood was startled when his young charge stretched, yawned, gurgled, opened its eyes. It looked up at him, and Elwood saw curiosity and trust there. He was startled by a surge that rose up from deep within him, a rush of care and affection.

  “Let’s see if we can find your folks,” he said to the small, wondrous face that somehow reignited hope in him.

  Twelve days later that hope died as Elwood stared numbly at the front-page of The Washington Post: PRESIDENT KENNEDY SHOT DEAD; LYNDON B. JOHNSON IS SWORN IN announced the headline.

  Camelot had fallen.

  X

  Date: November 23, 1963

  To: All agents

  From: John Edgar Hoover, FBI Director

  Subject: SHOOTING IN TEXAS

  I called the Attorney General at his home this morning and told him I thought we had the man who killed the President down in Dallas at the present time. I stated the man’s name is Lee Harvey Oswald, that he was working in the building from which the shots were fired that hit the President and the Governor; that apparently he left the building and a block or two away ran into two police officers and, thinking they were going to arrest him, shot at them and killed one of them with a side arm; that the rifle had been left in the building.

  I told the Attorney General that we have had a case on Oswald as he has been involved in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. I stated the Dallas police have him down at headquarters and I have our Agents there.

  The Attorney General asked if Oswald is a Communist. I said that he is not a Communist but has Communist leanings. I related that Oswald went to Russia and stayed three years; came back to the United States in June 1962, and went to Cuba on several occasions but would not tell us what he went to Cuba for. I stated he is a very mean-minded individual; that it is entirely possible he may have some Communist sympathies but, so far as we know, is not a member of the Communist Party.

  I told the Attorney General that, since the Secret Service is tied up, I thought we should move into the case.

  On Monday morning, November 25, Elwood took a seat in Hoover’s office. The director barely looked up from a stack of paperwork on his desk. “What can I do for you, Agent Elwood? I’m extremely busy at the moment.”

  Elwood put a new sheet atop Hoover’s stack. “Sorry to add to your workload, sir, but as you can see, I’m tendering my resignation from the Human Protection League.”

  Frowning, Hoover scanned the typed letter before looking up at Elwood. “I’m very sorry to hear this. May I inquire as to the reason?”

  “I no longer believe the HPL can stand against the forces of the Armies of the Night.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Hoover asked, “Did you believe that at some point?”

&nbs
p; “Yes, sir . . . up until last Friday afternoon.”

  “Agent Elwood,” Hoover said, apparently weighing his words carefully, “what if I told you that I had irrefutable proof that our late president had been collaborating with the enemy?”

  Elwood’s heart skipped a beat. “What kind of proof, sir?”

  With just the barest hint of a smile, Hoover answered, “I’d only be able to share that with you if you agreed to stay on.”

  Elwood thought it through: he knew virtually every single agent in the Lovecraft Squad, and he knew they all shared his opinion of Kennedy. Even Randolph Carter had viewed the president’s night work in a favorable light. However, the agents had whispered about how Hoover was secretly pleased with the transition—Johnson, the new president, held Hoover in much higher regard than Kennedy ever had. Whether Hoover was lying about his proof, or—much more likely—had simply chosen to apply his own interpretation to the facts, everything seemed to have worked out just how he wanted it to.

  “Share them with Agent Jefferson, sir. He’s a good man and deserves promotion.”

  “Not as good as you, though.”

  Elwood remembered that Bobby Kennedy had been the one who had gotten Jefferson hired, not the FBI’s director. Without another word, Elwood rose to go.

  Hoover let him make it all the way to the office door before he said, “Mr. Elwood . . .”

  Elwood felt the use of “Mr.” as the pointed barb that Hoover had certainly intended, but he nonetheless stopped and turned back, waiting.

  The Director continued, “You are aware, of course, that you possess extraordinary knowledge that is strictly confidential. Agents rarely resign from the Human Protection League, so we haven’t had to institute certain processes regarding classified information, but be aware that we will be reviewing this situation very carefully.”

  There it was. Elwood knew then that he would be watched for the rest of his life—if he was allowed to live, that is. A man who may have been involved with the assassination of a president of the United States would surely have no qualms about eliminating a minor agent. And if he wasn’t eliminated, he would exist knowing that his every move was under surveillance, his phone tapped, his loved ones followed, his life constantly monitored.

  It was worth it. He had plans: the FBI had had no success locating the parents of the infant Kennedy had handed him, and he planned to apply to adopt the child. Once that was approved (and he had friends who could assure that it would be), he would take his new son—whom he would name John—and move to the other side of the country, away from Washington and villages of inbred fish people and eldritch evil. He’d find a new home, where he could work in private security and support the two of them, and he would never say a single word about what he’d seen in the Lovecraft Squad, not even to John.

  He would tell John that he’d adopted him because he wanted love and family in his life, and it would be the truth. And if the League was no longer successful in holding back the things that wanted to break through into this world, the things that could be held back by one man who was gone now, then he would be there to protect John to his dying breath.

  He made no reply to Hoover as he left the office for good.

  TWO

  Weird Shadows Over Innsbruck

  NOTHING EVER LOOKED AS small and vulnerable on the ground as it did from the sky, not even a city of more than a hundred thousand souls. Down below, in the streets, it would all look so comfortingly solid and big. From any side, Ambras Castle would be as majestic as when it was built during the Renaissance. The green copper roofs crowning the cathedral’s dome and the cupolas of its bell towers would rise ever out of reach, that much closer to the heavens.

  But from her window seat on the plane, banking in toward Kranebitten Airport, Luna thought the city looked small and lonely. In its valley between mountain chains to the north and south, Innsbruck looked like an array of tidbits served up on a platter, with a river to wash away the crumbs. It was entirely at the mercy of the Alps and the elements.

  It was also at the mercy of whatever had come to call them home.

  Back in Virginia, Director Brady had warned her about the landing. The mountains did dangerous and unpredictable things to the winds here, and sometimes planes had to land by circling in a downward spiral while gradually cutting speed. This was a particularly bumpy descent, turbulence knocking at the plane like a fist trying to batter its way inside.

  If she could’ve told her seatmate why she was really here, and if he’d asked what she was most afraid of—crashing, or facing whatever was waiting once they were down—she wouldn’t have had to think about it. Easy.

  Neither, she would’ve said. Failing. That’s the only thing I’m afraid of. Failure. None of the rest comes close.

  Claude had flown into Austria a couple days ahead of her, within hours of the third corpse turning up, while back at Quantico they fast-tracked her through some final basic training before shoving her onto a plane of her own. He was there to meet her on arrival in the lobby of the lodge, where it seemed as if everybody else was carrying skis except for her.

  You look good—it didn’t matter who said it first. One of them was going to.

  So do you—and with that out of the way, maybe the rest would be a little less awkward.

  She wasn’t just being kind. Claude looked . . . great, actually. Over the years they’d exchanged letters and sometimes phone calls, a few Polaroids, but it had been more than a decade since they’d seen each other face-to-face. Claude LeGoff had still been a boy then. Now he had ten years of manhood on him. His shoulders were broader, and so was his jaw. When she hugged him, the feeling was a lot like she remembered, only twice as solid.

  The wide sideburns made her snicker, a nice touch. Packed into a black turtleneck, with his hair combed down over his forehead, he looked downright Mod. Once they were back home, all he would have to do was shave the sideburns off and he’d be as clean-cut as a Kennedy again, with nothing for Hoover to complain about.

  He nodded at her hair. “This is new. Wow. You really hacked it back.”

  “Yeah. The Twiggy look.” Short, side-parted, and swept across her brow. Maybe Claude had never heard that it was practically a rite of passage for a woman to cut her hair after a divorce. “I thought it would work here.”

  With a glance about the lobby, she spotted no fewer than seven women sporting the same trendy bob. From all sides, she caught snippets of conversations in German and French and Norwegian, and in every English accent from the Beatles to the Queen. Everybody looked fit and healthy, half of them ruddy-faced from the slopes, and the only people who could possibly live from paycheck to paycheck were the staff.

  “Do we blend?” Luna said.

  “Get a little more windburn on our cheeks and we’ll be perfect.”

  Claude took the larger of her two suitcases and led the way to the room, a single for the both of them. Appearances and all. What they were doing here, it wasn’t undercover, exactly, but still, better to give the impression of being a couple than not. The couple they used to be, half their lives ago, now grown-up—it was an easy enough thing to pretend. Just imagine the intended future from their earlier lives.

  Claude pointed to a sofa facing the windows with a postcard-perfect view across the valley, of the Nordkette, a horizon-spanning panorama of snowy peaks and crags. “I can take the couch.”

  She looked at it, appalled. Swedish minimalist, it was more frame than cushion. “That can’t be comfortable.”

  “With enough brandy, who knows?”

  “You’re supposed to break your leg at a ski lodge, not your back, don’t you know anything?” she said, and they bickered amiably about it for a couple of rounds, and there, that was it—the closest feeling yet to who they used to be.

  There was a time when it felt as though they’d known each other forever, and always would. Small towns were like that, maybe small towns in Wisconsin more than most. Nothing in Mitford ever seemed to change, ev
en as the outside world did.

  They’d grown up taking for granted that there was always going to be a war somewhere. They’d been ten or eleven when the atomic bombs were dropped over Japan . . . and once the armies knew how to build the bombs, who could stop at two? Soon there were warheads mounted on ICBMs. One day, they’d probably have them on the Moon if they weren’t there already. So those drills at school—hey, those were new, that was a change. Remember, kids, when you see the flash and the mushroom cloud, be sure to duck and cover. Get under your desk and you’ll be okay.

  How could either of them have believed such a thing?

  Maybe because it was still the lesser among evils. By then, they already knew there were worse things in the world, and beyond.

  Claude checked his watch. “You’ve got ten whole minutes to freshen up, if you need to. The body count went up by one overnight. We should go have a look. And dress warm.”

  Luna thought she knew Innsbruck already, a little. Two years ago they’d hosted the Winter Olympics here, and with a fascination for skiing and a love for the beauty of figure skating, she’d tuned in on her Sylvania every moment she could spare. Most of ABC’s coverage came from the slopes and trails and arenas, but some of it had shown the city, as well.

  Seeing it in color now, instead of on a black-and-white TV . . . ? She hadn’t known Innsbruck at all.

  As the taxi ran them through the streets to the medical complex near the Inn River, Claude opened the leather folio he’d brought and slipped out a stack of photos.

  “This new body we’re going to see is the fourth that’s turned up. The shots from that haven’t been developed yet, but they won’t look much different.”