The Hungering God Read online

  The footman did not look around, but just nodded once and stood to one side. Dr. Fields’s mouth twitched as if at a subtle joke it would have been ill-mannered to laugh at, then he nodded to the footman and stepped across the threshold. His eyes glided around the hallway, taking in the varied marble busts staring down at him from niches in the white walls, and the brass five-pointed star inlaid into the marble floor. He nodded to himself as if he had made a satisfactory comparison against a clear memory.

  “Lyman.”

  The voice came from behind Dr. Fields, and he could hear the ring of falsity to its welcome. He turned to face the speaker with unhurried slowness. He did not want to be here, but like so much else, it was necessary. The man that faced him was smiling, his open hand stretched out in greeting. He was almost the same age as Dr. Fields, but a taut energy flowed from him, and at a glance most people would have said he was the younger by at least a decade. Dr. Fields looked at the man’s proffered hand, and folded his own fingers on the top of his cane.

  “You always were too familiar, Mortimore.”

  Mortimore’s eyes flickered, their green irises contracting around hard pupils. His hand dropped to his side and the smile dropped from his lips. His mouth matched his eyes now.

  “You should not have come here,” Mortimore’s voice was low.

  “One must always pay debts. That is the honorable thing to do. Would you not agree?”

  Mortimore’s lip curled into a sneer and his face hardened. He came forward suddenly, his hands rising as if he meant to seize Dr. Fields by his collar.

  “Ul’gnthar’hsh’al’lk.” The syllables came from Dr. Fields’s mouth like the cracking of a whip. Mortimore froze, and then stumbled to his knees, hands still raised. The light had dimmed in the hallway, and a thick burnt cinnamon stench rolled through the charged air.

  Unable to hold himself upright, Mortimore curled into a ball on the floor whimpering, his arms wrapped around his torso and his legs drawn up beneath him.

  Dr. Fields looked down at the figure shuddering at his feet, shadows seeming to pool in the creases of his face. Fields dabbed blood away from his lips with a white handkerchief. There was sorrow in his eyes.

  Mortimore moaned, sucking heavy breaths of air. When he looked up, his eyes were bloodshot and his skin was the grey of cold ashes.

  “You dare such a thing here?” Mortimore hissed through clenched teeth. “In our house? You will—”

  Dr. Fields laughed. It was a soft laugh, the laugh of a kind man not wanting to hurt the feelings of the teller of a particularly poor joke.

  “Daniel,” he said with mocking familiarity, “your arrogance and self-righteousness is equaled only by your ignorance.” Dr. Fields stepped away, the tip of his cane clicking on the floor as he glanced over to where the footman was also crumpled in the corner, a pool of vomit spreading from his downturned face. “Do you remember saying that when I last was here, when I came as a friend?” he continued.

  “You will never leave here,” gasped Mortimore as he tried to rise, only to collapse as his body twitched and pain twisted his face.

  Dr. Fields stopped, a frown creasing his face as he shook his head. “It is all right, I am not here for revenge, or to settle some imagined challenge.” He frowned, and sorrow seemed to crease his face. When he spoke again his voice was low. “You are a weak thing, Daniel. Your concern for yourself blinds you. You do not see clearly, you do not see your place in things. You are limited in ways you don’t even suspect.” Mortimore looked up into the cold blue eyes in the kind old face. “I pity you, Daniel.”

  Mortimore snarled futilely in reply, and tried to lunge to his feet. Dr. Fields’s cane pushed him back to the floor with ease.

  “Please allow him to stand, Dr. Fields.” The voice was deep and resonant and seemed to fill the hallway though it was no louder than someone speaking to a friend across a table. Fields looked up to see the figure standing by an open door, the speaker’s hand resting on the handle. The man’s face was round, and the grey eyes set under the smooth scalp were like the dead eyes of a statue. Silver buttons gleamed down the front of his deep blue waistcoat, and jewels gleamed from every finger of his hand.

  The man’s name was Carl Sanford and the house of secrets in which they stood was his. Fields met the gaze of the master of the Silver Twilight Lodge, and for a second, everything in the hallway became still as if time itself waited to see on which face the coin of fate would land.

  After a long moment, Carl Sanford gestured with an open palm at the figure of Mortimore curled on the floor. “This is not how I wish to proceed.”

  “I mean you no harm,” said Dr. Fields, and this time it was Sanford’s mouth which twitched in amusement.

  “That you do not wish it will not stop you from using it if it serves your ends.” Sanford cocked his head. “That is right, isn’t it?”

  Fields said nothing, but removed the tip of his cane from Mortimore’s chest. Sanford nodded as Mortimore got to his feet and limped to Sanford’s side.

  “You are a man of unforgiving conviction, Dr. Fields.” Sanford smiled again, eyes and teeth glinting as insincere humor creased the soft flesh of his face. “I am pleased you have found yourself since we last met.”

  “You know why I have come,” said Fields as if Sanford had said nothing.

  “For the same reason you came to us before; you wish for our help.”

  Fields nodded once, his eyes never leaving Sanford’s, as if the man was a tiger waiting only for a glance away to pounce.

  “The fragments…the Kingsport fragments, I must have them,” said Fields, and let the words hang in the air. Sanford shook his head slowly.

  “You have come a long way, Dr. Lyman Fields, son of Bartholomew, but I say to that even with the truth you have found, you do not understand the path you tread.” Fields opened his mouth, but Sanford spoke again. “The fragments are beyond my reach and I will not help you to find them. It is a madness in which we will have no part.” He glanced at Mortimore who was leaning against the door frame by his side, breathing hard. “You are a dangerous man—perhaps even to us. But understand that I do not misunderstand what you intend, nor what you are. You are alone in this, you and the broken souls that you keep at your heels. But not alone in your search.”

  Fields closed his mouth and looked down at the single ring on the forefinger of his right hand, a loop of silver fashioned into a chain of clasped hands. For a second something raw and angry drifted under the skin of his expression. Controlling himself with visible effort, he looked up and nodded to Sanford before stepping toward the door.

  “Dr. Fields.” Sanford’s voice stopped him with his hand on the door. Dr. Fields looked back. “Do not come back here and do not bring your troubles to my door again.” Fields held his gaze for a second and then pulled the door open and stepped out into the pale light of day.

  When the door clicked shut, Sanford looked at Mortimore. “I look for you to see the future security of this house,” said Sanford.

  Mortimore shivered where he stood and tried to straighten up more under his master’s gaze, failing miserably.

  “You will see to it that no other unwarranted intrusions occur, from now on our doors are barred, do you understand?”

  Mortimore nodded shakily.

  “You have questions,” Sanford pronounced. “Ask them.”

  “Why did you allow him to go?” Mortimore asked hoarsely.

  Sanford smiled coldly. “He is right, you know, Daniel. Your vision is limited.” Sanford turned his wide head to look at the closed door through which Dr. Fields had left. “Despite that little display of stolen power, Fields is no true threat to us; and if he was, we could simply expend the force needed to crush him and his followers, and then scrape the remains from our boots, be certain of that. He is still only human after all.” Sanford paused and the pupils in his eyes seem to have grown so that his eyes were wholly black. “But what he seeks, what is coming because of it, is a force that
we cannot face and survive.” Sanford paused and ran a ringed hand over the bare skin of his scalp as if suddenly exhausted. “It cannot be avoided now. The signs cannot be doubted, the future circles a vortex of oblivion, and its coming stirs that which should not be disturbed in this place we have come to call home. We, the Silver Twilight Lodge, must endure no matter what comes to pass.”

  Daniel Mortimore nodded his assent, and on seeing this, Sanford continued, “I will watch Fields and his ilk while you and the rest of the inner circle seek to secure our defenses further. There are others coming, both willing and ignorant, and some perhaps are already here. They are circling, drawn in like buzzards to a banquet of carrion.

  “Our Dr. Fields will draw them out; he cannot help it. He is strong now, but he is as naive as he always was. Let him be our lightning rod so we can see where the storm will strike, our Judas goat for the beasts to smell blood on. Let those from outside feast on his entrails, not on ours.”

  “And what then?”

  “Stay outside of the fray, Daniel; we must not call attention to ourselves. We stand aside, let them destroy each other, and ensure that we remain when all is done—or at least may escape the worst of the carnage, if we can.”

  Mortimore slumped off, swaying almost drunkenly from his ordeal and Sanford watched him go impassively. Alone again in the corridor Sanford began to retreat again to the inner sanctum of the Lodge when he caught himself in the mirror and paused. His eyes swept back and forth, reassuring himself that he was unwatched, and confirming that he was so, he studied himself in the mirror, turning this way and that as a man might in a set of new clothes in a tailor’s fitting room. Satisfied, it seemed, by what he saw, a strange, twisted grin transformed his face for an instant and was gone, like a cloud skidding across the sun. Carl Sanford crossed his be-ringed hands in the small of his back, as aloof and imperious as ever, and walked on.

  Chapter Three

  Arkham

  November 22, 1929

  Wyatt Meeks?” the young man asked, offering a hand in greeting.

  “That’s Mr. Meeks to you, or Marshal will do. You’re Sykes, I take it?” he replied, looking down at the young prohibition agent, who nodded diffidently at the great slab of a man who loomed up over him, glowering.

  To Sykes the older man looked as if he’d been roughly carved from a great block of wood, all six and a half feet of him. Like somebody dressed a tobacco store Indian chief in a funeral suit and it came to life! Sykes thought suddenly.

  Meeks for his part had an even less favorable impression of the younger man as he folded Sykes’s hand in his, covering it as he might a child’s. The prohibition agent to him seemed altogether too narrow shouldered and too vainly well-dressed for a government employee at the sharp end of law enforcement, and his grey-blue eyes were as watery as his grip.

  Graft was the word that went through Meeks’s mind, graft and petty corruption, but then again it was what he’d come to expect from the agents of the Bureau of Prohibition over the years, particularly out in the sticks.

  “Any word on Banks?” he demanded without prelude.

  “What?” Sykes stammered in reply, his prepared speech already faltering into a disorganized mess in his mind now he was in the presence of the U.S. Marshal whose grim and bloody reputation had preceded him.

  “Federal Agent Roland Banks, the man who was originally supposed to be in charge here,” Meeks replied grinding his teeth audibly.

  “Oh, no, nobody’s seen him for days. I left another message with his office in Boston this morning, but they were none the wiser. According to them, he’s still in Arkham somewhere, I just don’t know where.” Sykes shrugged and gave a hollow smile that Meeks assumed was meant to seem charming in a don’t blame the messenger sort of way.

  Meeks grunted in reply. Finding and debriefing Banks on the frankly insane reports he’d handed in about recent events in the Miskatonic Valley was just one part of the hangman’s noose of an assignment Meeks had been given by the Department of Justice; one of the parts that Sykes didn’t need to know too much about.

  “I need to eat,” Meeks said. “Then you can tell me about tomorrow night’s raid.” It wasn’t a request.

  “There’s Velma’s Diner, that’s still open and the grub’s pretty good. It’s just around the block,” Sykes offered, happy with a question he could answer, and some fifteen minutes later they were both seated in a booth table that had clearly seen better days. It was quiet for an early evening crowd, and the few other patrons were determinedly not looking in their direction while Sykes chatted with amiable familiarity with a freckle-cheeked waitress as he ordered two of the specials and coffee.

  Meeks ate in silence, having made it clear without actually having said as much out loud that he didn’t want a word out of his companion until he was finished.

  As he mechanically worked his way through some sparse but admittedly well-cooked pork chops and green beans, he took in Sykes and what he’d seen of Arkham so far since he’d arrived that morning—well in advance of the time he’d told Sykes to meet him—and didn’t particularly like any of it.

  Meeks had been a U.S. Marshal for getting on to fourteen years, and for six years before that he’d cut his teeth as a town deputy in a dead-end coal-dust Missouri burg where life was cheaper than fresh-baked bread. He’d long ago learned to let the way he looked make people’s minds up about him—big, mean, and stupid, he liked it better that way, particularly as the first two were true, and the third most definitely wasn’t.

  He’d seen towns strangled by fear more than once before, from Texas border stops caught up in bloody wars for smuggling routes, to Alaskan mining camps turned tyrant’s kingdoms, but none of them had anything on the feel of this place, this Arkham.

  Taking aside the whole derelict, mist-shrouded unpleasantness of the place itself, the freshly boarded-up shop fronts, the shuttered windows, the absence of children playing in the street, he’d seen it all before. The people too—the hopeless, hunted looks on the faces of the men and the bleak resignation on the faces of women. The watchfulness, the eyes that wouldn’t meet yours, but bored into your back from across empty streets, these Meeks knew as well, but there was something else at work here, something worse—the way people jumped at the slightest odd noise, the way they kept looking over their shoulders, just like the forced laughter and strained flirting of the waitress that was so much at odds with the barely restrained and strangely directionless panic in her eyes. Somebody had put the fear into these people like he’d never seen, and it had eaten right into them.

  Meeks pushed his empty plate away and pulled the coffee cup close.

  “Tonight, tell me about it.”

  “Everything’s in place. We’re a dozen strong and mounted up in two trucks; we’ve got two locals leading us in.”

  “Locals? Isn’t that a risk?”

  “I don’t think so. The Dunwich folk and the Sheldon Gang, well they don’t get along, shall we say. I think the Dunwich lot will be as glad to see the back of the Sheldons as anybody else around here.”

  “You don’t sound too sure, Sykes.”

  “Agent Banks, it was his plan, eh…originally. He found a source prepared to name the location of the Sheldon Gang’s main still—outside of Arkham in a backwoods place the locals call Cold Spring Glen, not far from Dunwich—and it was he got the help from the Dunwich people on the quiet. Tomorrow night was…is the night. The rumor is that the gang’s going to pick up a big shipment…or so the tip-off goes. Agent Banks’s plan was to bust them when it was being loaded, get everyone at once: the bootleggers, paymaster, the money, the hooch, the drivers and wagons, all of it, scoop it all up. But Agent Banks, well…”

  “Disappeared,” Meeks finished for him.

  “Yes, about a week and a half ago.”

  “So you telegraphed Boston and called the raid off?”

  “Well, yes, when it looked like Banks wasn’t coming back. But then they wired back that you were coming to con
duct the raid…and take charge.”

  Meeks’s nodded, his expression unreadable. “Tell me about the Sheldon Gang.”

  “A bad lot, a worse bunch of ’shiners you couldn’t hope to meet,” Sykes began, lowering his voice. “They’re backwoods types mostly, but not stupid. Vicious within, killers every one, hooked in with gangs and bootleggers in Boston, Maine, and New Hampshire as well, from what we’ve been able to find out. We’ve taken down a few of their stills before, busted a few of their customers, put a few of them in jail, but we’ve never been able to touch the family itself. People are too afraid of them to testify in court and if you ask me, they’re too well-connected hereabouts for the local law to do more than look the other way unless they have to; too scared, all of them.”

  “So that’s Arkham’s big problem, eh, the Sheldon Gang? That’s what’s been layin’ this town low?”

  Sykes fidgeted nervously in his seat. “I don’t know what you mean, Marshal.”

  Meeks fixed him with his dark eyes and spoke quietly but with force enough to all but pin the younger man in his seat. “Arkham, Sykes, Arkham. You’ve been here how long?”

  “I don’t know, a year and some, in the area,” Sykes said, a lump in his throat.

  “One year, three months, and six days, barring leave, you have been attached to the Miskatonic Valley task force of the Bureau of Prohibition. During that time you have personally made exactly sixteen arrests and participated in three raids in the Arkham vicinity, and as far as I can tell never fired a shot in anger. I’ve read your file.”

  “But, sir, you don’t—”

  “Sixteen, Sykes! In more than a year! And yet somehow you’re still on the payroll.”

  The color had drained from Sykes’s face. “I perform a lot of duties, sir,” he mumbled, “processing paperwork, visiting important people in the area on behalf of the Bureau, coordinating with local—”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt it, Sykes, not least of all covering up for the inadequacies of your colleagues being principle among them. Oh, and I know how you’ve gotten away with it, too; your entire task force here is like some bad joke. You have the worst record for arrests, sickness, and outright desertion and dereliction of duty I have ever seen, and yet the Bureau, the Department of Justice, the district attorney’s office, all of it, looks the other way and says exactly…nothing. Now that, I don’t know why.”