Dreaming In Darkness Read online

  DREAMING IN DARKNESS

  Compiled by John Prescott

  ISBN: 978-0-9848931-1-7-1

  Published June 2013 by John Prescott

  Copyright © to the individual authors within:

  Aaron French, Adrian Chamberlin, Jonathan Green, & John Prescott

  Front Cover Illustration by Nebezial

  Color Interior Illustrations by James Powell

  Cover and Book Design by John Prescott

  Ebook formatting by Adrian Chamberlin

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system, without the written permission of the authors and the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  This book contains a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors’ creation or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  FOREWORD

  THE ORDER – Aaron J French

  SHADRACH BESIEGED – Adrian Chamberlin

  THE SERPENT’S EGG – Jonathan Green

  NEW HEAVENS – John Prescott

  THE CONTRIBUTORS

  FOREWORD

  It's funny, but when I see things I mentally retain them; images especially. I remember seeing a painting by Mark Tedin a few years ago - a tall, blue-stone with symbols all over it. I loved that image, and with my overactive imagination the mental gears started turning. I most likely started on something else and let the image seep way down into my subconscious for safe keeping. It was so strong I knew it would resurface, given the right circumstances.

  Almost a year ago it did just that, when I saw the picture that now graces this lovely tome’s cover. Ideas sprung immediately, and then others clicked in, like finely-synchronized gears driving forward a powerful engine.

  The result of this crazy meshing of ideas is the book you now hold in your hands.

  I wanted to do a collection, but not of short stories. I wanted something longer; something you could really sink your teeth into and savor, not like a quick-eaten dessert that's gone in a couple of mouthfuls. I wanted the reader to experience the flavor, and enjoy the taste long after the meal has been eaten.

  I've worked with three other authors that contributed to this collection, and I chose them for my own, specific reasons. The main reason is that all three of them share a special love for Lovecraft and the Mythos, as I do myself. To me he still stands as the greatest author of cosmic horror and arrived way ahead of his time, and the Elder God/Mythos stories are my favorite works by Lovecraft.

  I want to thank Aaron, Adrian, and Jonathan for contributing their time and effort to this self-started project.

  I also want to thank you, the reader, for buying this idea of mine and the stories and efforts of the others. I hope it entertains you and keeps you on the edge of your seat, and I hope you get so full the thought of dessert slips your mind…

  Best,

  John Prescott

  June 28, 2013

  THE ORDER – Aaron J French

  Carl Sanford stood in front of the crime scene, hands in his trousers. The metallic, faintly acrid stench of death permeated the building. Long time since he’d experienced that smell. It would take more digits than the human body possessed to count the number of dead bodies he’d seen in his lifetime. And yet seeing one after four years of retirement was like seeing it again for the first time. He wondered if he could cope.

  We’ll soon find out.

  Denis appeared, with his short blond hair tossing as he moved. He looked tired, but even exhaustion couldn’t dim his youthfulness. Carl had always admired that about him. Denis proved full of good humor and vitality, traits that were taking him far in the department.

  He clapped Carl on the shoulder, and the sudden human contact startled him. A parade of scene-of-crime officers funneled by looking like Law and Order cast members. Carl glanced at the man’s pale blue eyes. Denis was smiling.

  “Aren’t you glad I dragged you out of bed this morning?” he said.

  Carl chuckled.

  “You still with me?”

  Carl cleared his throat. “Sorry. Traveled back a ways. Thought I’d gotten over this stuff.”

  “I don’t think you ever get over it,” Denis said. “For the past four years you’ve been sitting on your ass reading issues of American History Magazine and working on the book. Time weakens your armor. You ever decide on that title?”

  “You messin’ with me?”

  Denis feigned offense. “I seriously want to know.”

  “It’s American History and the Occult, and for your information it’s almost complete. I’ve just the final chapters to finish.”

  “Are you looking for a publisher?”

  “No. Barely started hunting after an agent.” He turned from Denis and his eyes found the dangling body. He heaved a weary sigh. “Far cry from all this.”

  Denis shoulder-clapped him again. “I appreciate you agreeing to help me. I wouldn’t have called on you if I didn’t think it was necessary. You love this occult stuff. And you’re the best. The best is what we need. Hell, you taught me a thing or two.”

  Carl grinned. “Taught you everything, bozo-head. Come on now, fill me in. I’m over my scare. Let’s grab a smoke. I hear that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the last bastions of indoor smoking this side of the Atlantic.”

  He fished in his coat pocket, withdrawing a crumpled pack of Camels. He lit a cigarette, pulling smoke through the filter. His lungs made a sharp, hollow rasp.

  Denis looked at him. “I gave them up.”

  “What?”

  “Aren’t you going on sixty-five?”

  “Sixty-one, asshole.”

  “’Bout time you quit, too.”

  Carl glanced at the Camel’s glowing tip and flipped the ash. “I’m working on it.”

  They pushed through the SOC team members who were rushing here and there, chatting on cell phones, taking digital photos, swabbing for fingerprints, collecting samples, taping off the crime scene, and doing grid-work. City of New York police badges were displayed proudly, and several men in business suits spoke amongst themselves in the far corner of the museum lobby. Carl wondered if they were federal agents. He realized he’d been out of the game long enough now to recover certain fears and doubts about his instincts. Apparently even one’s intuition could atrophy.

  “Meet Detective Gawain,” Denis said, tapping a pretty brunette kneeling by the perimeter of a giant red geometric shape. “She recently joined the Bureau from Boston, and she’s heading up this investigation. She was the highest-ranking detective in her department.”

  The brunette turned, looked at them, then stood. She was all height, pantsuit, long curly hair, and eyeglasses. Attractive, smelling of perfume, with darting brown eyes. Carl would’ve liked to sleep with her once upon a time.

  Detective Gawain offered them a distracted smile and stuck out her hand.

  “This is—” Dennis began.

  “I know who he is,” she cut in. “I research my employer.” She shook with Carl, giving him a professional grip. But her touch felt cold—too cold.

  “Please to meet you, Mr. Sanford. I’m Jennifer Gawain. You have left something of a legacy behind at the Bureau. Your track record’s one of the best. And not to mention Roaring Rolf—”

  “Don’t start on that,” Carl said, holding up his
hands. “The last thing I want to talk about is Rolf Adler.”

  She retracted demurely, but kept her solid foundation. “It’s all very impressive, is what I’m getting at.”

  “It’s not that impressive,” he said, and meant it. What was his career in the light of guys like Padauk and Greenberg, who were still racking up cases at sixty and wouldn’t be leaving the force until sixty-five? Carl had retired early, but goddamn it, after Rolf fucking Adler, he’d had enough.

  Denis said, “Carl’s living the high life of retirement now: getting up at the crack of noon, taking long walks in the park, traveling in Europe.”

  “Am not.” Carl flipped his ash.

  “He’s also writing a historical book on Freemasonry and secret orders in the government, and corporate execs with their hands in old money who want to buy their way into public office.”

  “That I am doing.”

  Jennifer’s eyes glimmered behind her glasses, but whether from surprise or suspicion, Carl couldn’t say.

  “I’m a huge fan of The Da Vinci Code,” she said. “I’ve read all of that guy’s books. I’d love to read yours.”

  “It’s not a thriller. It’s nonfiction.”

  “I’d still like to read it.”

  You’d probably hate it. Carl suddenly felt like he was drowning. He spotted an ashtray near the museum’s front entrance and said, “Would you excuse me?”

  As he plunged his smoke into the fine sand, his fingertips shook. He slipped into the men’s room, the light flickering to life on a motion sensor. He used one of the urinals then stood before the row of reflective glass. His eyes looked tired, his appearance old. Beneath his close-cropped graying hair his face seemed haunted, almost distorted.

  Who am I kidding?

  He was deep enough in his research now to know that everything the conspiracy theorists propounded regarding Masonic and Rosicrucian infiltration in the government was true. However, he still didn’t feel like he truly understood what was happening, even with his background in occult studies. He didn’t feel like a real part of it, merely an informed spectator. He had spent much of his life compiling intellectual evidence on occult orders, yet it remained just that: intellectual. It never became experiential.

  So what’s going to happen when they discover I wrote a book about them? Scary thought. This kind of stuff was kept secret for a reason. Sometimes people were forced into silence. Even killed.

  The other two detectives were discussing the crime when he returned. “Bathroom break,” he told them.

  Denis smiled. “Detective Gawain is bringing me up to speed.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “His name is Adam Francis,” she said. “He’s the main security officer for the museum. There are a couple of others, but he was the one in charge of their unit. They customarily assign at least one officer to patrol the museum, twenty-four-seven, relieving one another at eight hour intervals. Mr. Francis’s shift was last night. When another officer came in to relieve him this morning, he found this, and called us.”

  She indicated the dangling dead body. “His throat’s been cut and the murder weapon is here”—she pointed to a large serpentine dagger lying by a bloody mirror—“at least, we suspect it is the murder weapon. Seemingly discarded by the killer—although it appears more deliberate than accidental. We’ll run it for prints.”

  Carl bit back nausea as he surveyed the murdered security guard. Mr. Francis was completely naked except for a pair of leather gloves. The poor fellow had been strung upright with a thick rope that traveled from the floor of the art museum, then up through the overhead trusses, back down again toward the geometric shape painted on the tiles. He hung by his left leg, his right crossed at the knee, arms hanging, neck slit, with blood spilling across the mirror below.

  “Could he have slit his own throat?” Denis asked.

  Jennifer shrugged. “It’s possible. Bit unlikely, though. But so is leaving the murder weapon at the scene of the crime. The whole thing is kinky, and we haven’t even gotten to the weird stuff yet.”

  “Like this giant math problem painted on the floor,” Denis replied. It was a joke, but no one was laughing. Least of all Carl. The place was starting to creep under his skin. The longer he stood in the same room with this excruciatingly elaborate murder scene, the more he felt like a ball of wax melting in the sun.

  Murder cases such as this were seductive. They took over your life, absorbed your days, and plagued your sleep with nightmares. So why had he agreed? Simple. His life lacked purpose.

  Book or no book, without the mystery, intrigue, drama, and—hell, death—of this job, there was no Carl Sanford. Only an empty husk waiting, alone, for the culmination of a life. He’d hoped he had dealt with this when he retired, when he had paced the house for hours staring at the walls, picturing his ex-wife Lorraine there with him, not knowing what to do with himself.

  Now it was clear he hadn’t dealt with any of it; he had merely suppressed the truth: that law enforcement was the closest thing he had to a religion.

  “It’s a dodecahedron,” he said finally.

  They looked at him.

  “That’s right,” Jennifer said.

  Denis blinked. “What’s a dodecahedron?”

  “One of the Platonic solids,” Carl said. “A geometric shape with twelve flat faces. It also has philosophical connotations, representing the fifth element—that which is above and beyond the classical four elements. Plato said God used the dodecahedron as a model for the twelve divisions of the Zodiac.”

  Jennifer frowned. “What are you, like, some crime-fighting academic?”

  “You have no idea,” Denis muttered.

  Carl continued undaunted. “Aristotle postulated that the heavens were made of a fifth element called ether. It’s a shape continuously reproduced within occult circles, representing space and time, a model of the physical universe. The question is: What is it doing here?”

  “Seems you were right,” Jennifer told Denis, nudging his elbow. “He is the right man for the job.”

  “No doubt in my mind,” Denis agreed.

  “Nor mine,” Carl added.

  They all laughed.

  Jennifer led them around the yellow tape that spanned the perimeter of the dodecahedron. In addition to the mirror, dead body, and dagger lay the man’s security uniform in a crumpled pile. “The killer stripped Mr. Francis before stringing him up.”

  Or he disrobed before committing suicide, Carl thought. Sounded crazy, but there were lots of arrows pointing in that direction, such as the gloves and the presence of the murder weapon.

  The SOC team appeared to be waiting while a young man in a police uniform documented the scene with a digital camera, painstakingly aiming and clicking away, capturing every angle. It seemed they were annoyed or possibly just tired. Not an unusual disposition for people in their line of work.

  “Officer Reynolds is almost done,” Jennifer said, reading Carl’s mind. “He was one of the first on scene. He helped secure it.”

  Carl nodded.

  “What I want you to see is over here.” She led them to the rear of the dodecahedron, where the men in business suits were talking. Carl saw what she meant and knew exactly what it was. His blood turned to ice.

  “There,” she said, pointing.

  “A painting,” Denis said. “Did the killer remove it from another section of the museum?”

  “No. The curator claims it doesn’t belong to their collection. He says it doesn’t belong in this country.”

  “It belongs in Germany,” Carl said.

  They gave him shocked silence, but Carl’s attention was on the Hortus Palatinus painting. He stared at it across the yellow tape. Its large frame was propped on a wood chair, the oil canvas displaying the once beautiful gardens of Heidelberg Castle. To the best of his knowledge, the palace had often been devastated during its long history, but was partially rebuilt in later years. Now it was a major German tourist attraction.

 
“You recognize the painting?” Jennifer asked.

  Carl nodded. “I learned about it while doing my research for the book. It’s one of those Da Vinci Code places. The Hortus Palatinus. But it’s housed in the Kurpfälzisches museum in Heidelberg. It has no business being in Manhattan.”

  The young officer taking photographs whistled softly and waved to Detective Gawain. She nodded back at him. “Come on,” she said. “We can look now.”

  They bent under the yellow tape, and as Jennifer stepped over the boundary of the dodecahedron, Carl felt a sinking in his stomach. When he crossed over, the feeling intensified. This is like something right out of my research. He pondered over the secret societies who were the subject of his writing—Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Ordo Templi Orientis, Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission—and had to fight a fresh wave of fear. He didn’t think of himself as a conspiracy theorist, but a certain atmosphere of suspicion did surround these groups.

  “Tell me about the geometric construct,” Denis said. “How was it applied?”

  “With ordinary spray paint,” Jennifer answered. “We found two empty cans in the trash bin over there.”

  They gathered around the painting, silently observing it. The oil-based colors screamed out from the frame, vibrantly alive. It was a true work of art.

  The canvas depicted a lush green hillside viewed from above. A winding river spanned the frame—the Neckar River, Carl remembered. Heidelberg Palace nestled in the lush country forest, its high walls and domed towers dominating the center. The small town of Heidelberg sprawled out beneath it.