Lying on the bed, watching late-night television consisting of lengthy info-mercials, ads for 1-900 phone-sex and sitcom reruns sprinkled with a dusting of bad reception, Solomon wished he had bought a bottle to bring back to his room; his flask was long since drained. He was afraid to go to sleep knowing that the thing in the oven was still there and maybe knew he was there too. Who was the kid and how did he get involved with the thing; moreover, just what kind of ghastly deal had been made between the two? A good-sized part of him wanted to just get out as fast as possible and to hell with whatever was going on in that abandoned factory. But another part wondered how many more would be sacrificed by the boy? Did the thing in there see him leave? Did it know who he was? And the building was still intended for the wrecker's ball. What might happen if the building were destroyed? What might be lurking there when a new one was erected? All of these questions lay heavily on Solomon's mind as he tried to find something to distract himself.
He drifted in and out of troubled sleep when he was startled awake by the bedside telephone. He stared at it as thought it were a venomous reptile. Who knew he was here? His boss sure wouldn't be calling at this time. Could it be the kid? He reached for the handset, unable to ignore the lifelong ingrained reaction to a telephone's ringing.
"Hello?" he said in a tremulous voice.
"Solomon? It's Carpenter. Get dressed. I'm at the front desk and I've got a cab waiting outside."
Solomon sat on the bed, blinking and running his hand through his thinning hair.
"I'm on my way," he replied and hung up the receiver. He yawned and then proceeded to dress as though for any normal day on the job. He washed his face, slipped on his jacket and closed the door behind him.
Solomon walked the short distance from his door to the downstairs office of the motel. The glaring fluorescent sign above the door held court over a swirling cloud of winged insects and he saw Carpenter standing by the idling taxi.
"C'mon, Solomon. Let's get going. I seriously doubt my courage is going to last any longer than yours. Let's see what we can do about this before we both run away screaming."
"Carpenter, what's all this about. I thought you were out of this line of work. What do you think you can do about this?"
Carpenter smiled thinly.
"Just show me where the foundry is. Then you can take off."
"The cabby will know that," Solomon tried to haggle.
"He won't have a key to get into the place like you have. Now c'mon. I want a look at this thing before we can plan any further."
"Then why not use my car? Why pay a taxi?"
"Is that your car over there?" Carpenter asked mildly. Solomon turned to look.
"Yeah, the green Pontiac -- what the Hell?" Solomon's voice cracked.
The car he had parked so carefully in the corner of the lot to protect it from view from the street now sat on four grey cement blocks, minus its wheels. The trunk and hood both gaped open, suggesting missing components and the side windows smashed.
"That was a company car . . .," Solomon gasped as he took in the horror of the stripped auto. "I'm in deep shit, now," he murmured.
"Solomon, I sympathize. But there's not much time and I need your help. Now, please, get in the cab."
Solomon entered the cab without any further words and the vehicle drove off amidst a cloud of oily, blue exhaust.
Inside the cab both men were silent. Solomon was still clearing his head from sleep and trying to assemble a story his boss would believe or at least not fire him over. Who would have known, he thought, that a day after he was bitching to himself about being passed over for promotion he would now be ready to beg to keep what he had. He closed his eyes and felt like crying.
Carpenter pulled a small, blunt pistol out of his coat pocket and proceeded to open the weapon and clean it. He broke the gun down to smaller units and laid the pieces upon a square of oiled leather in his lap. He cleaned each component with oil and reassembled the firearm expertly. His last step was to fit four heavy calibre bullets into the breech of the gun before snapping it closed with a solid, heavy click. He noticed Solomon looking on apprehensively.
"I didn't sell off everything I owned. Some things are just too sentimental to give up," he said with a sad smile, pocketing the weapon.
The hulk of the foundry loomed up ahead of them and the gibbous globe of the moon was nearly set when the taxi pulled into the dusty driveway of the complex.
"Pay the man," Carpenter suggested to Solomon as the cabby turned to face them in the back seat.
"Cabby, I want you back here in exactly an half an hour. You got it? Jess, give the man something to show we're in earnest."
Solomon shrugged and tossed another twenty dollar bill at the man. The cabby snatched it out of the air like a trained dolphin at Seaworld and smiled.
"You got a deal, gentlemen. Half an hour. Be here or be queer," he chortled to himself.
The two men got out of the taxi and walked towards the brooding silhouette of the building. The car swung around and vanished into the night. Solomon reached with cold fingers for the bunch of keys still clipped to his belt. Carpenter held a small flashlight with unsteady hands as the key was sought after and when it was found, the two men looked each other in the eye.
"You can come with me or wait for the cab out here. You've lived up to your end of the deal. You don't have to come any further."
"I know, but . . . I need to know what's going on, too. God help me, but I'm as curious as I am scared."
"Me, too. Always have been. My curiosity just gets the better of my fear."
With that, Solomon unlocked the door and opened it with a loud scraping noise. There was no way it couldn't be heard if someone was within. Carpenter swallowed and led the way in, his flashlight beam sliding over the thickly layered dust of the floor. He smiled just a little at the thought that this was the most truly alive he had felt for years. He gripped the handle of the trusty derringer that he had relied on for so many years and thought about where he had gotten it. It was Mathew. Matthew O'Brien, his driver, bodyguard and friend who had given him the weapon for Christmas, of all things, over ten years ago. Matthew, who had been killed on his last mission along with all the others. Now, all that was left to remember them by was this blunt, ugly pistol.
"Nice place. So this is what you do? You check out abandoned buildings and put your seal of approval on them for demolition? The Demolition Man?" Carpenter whispered.
"The job stinks. What happened here today just proved it to me. I gotta find a new line of work," Solomon hissed back.
"Well, if this little expedition goes all right, I could use a partner," Carpenter grinned.
"If this expedition goes all right, I'm going to need a shrink." Solomon nearly grinned himself.
They passed through the outer chambers, with their unidentifiable machinery and peeling walls, and soon they were confronted by the entrance to the vast interior, shrouded with gloom and filled with the peculiar but unmistakable odor of urban decay.
Solomon stiffened suddenly.
"This is it. This is the place."
His whisper carried the stutter of panic and Carpenter had to calm him.
"Ok, pal. You've gone far enough. Just point out the oven in question and I'll take a quick look and then we're out of here."
"What do you think you'll find out with a quick look?" Solomon almost laughed out loud.
"Maybe I know what to look for. I used to make a living doing this." Carpenter began to slip into the shadow-wreathed, moonlight-streaked industrial cavern. "You just stay put and if anything happens . . . you won't need me to tell you."
Solomon winced at the possibility and was almost angered at the thought that Carpenter was almost certainly smiling when he said it.
What happened next was a surprise even to Carpenter.
"Welcome to the all-night diner of the gods, gentlemen," a hoarse voice spoke, not loud, but of such a low timbre that it carried far and was felt in the bones despite its soft delivery.
Suddenly, light glowed everywhere, not from fixtures or the smeared windows, but from the floor, the walls, the corroded machinery. It was as though all the surfaces of the room's massive interior had been coated with an exceptionally radiant brand of luminous paint.
Carpenter stood many yards into the room and was motionless as the light increased in intensity. Near the ceiling of the great chamber, suspended in midair, a vast globe manifested itself, winking open like some titan eyeball. Greenish-yellow light poured forth from its ghostly orb and shone back and forth like the beam of some colossal searchlight. Solomon didn't like the comparison to a searchlight; it implied that something was being searched for.
"Don't be shy, boys. I knew that someone might be curious about this place," the voice ground on.
Solomon was suddenly reminded of a game his little sister once had. He couldn't remember what it was called, but it consisted of a cardboard haunted house and a bunch of little plastic ghosts that glowed in the dark. The game was meant to be played in the dark and you moved the little ghosts around a game board or the haunted house, Solomon couldn't remember which. He did recall with guilty pleasure how he would scare his little sister by putting all the little ghosts in his mouth and entering her bedroom in the dark while she was asleep. He'd nudge her awake and then open his mouth to reveal the glowing mass within. To her sleepy eyes it was like a great glowing eye opening in the dark and she would scream in justified terror at the apparition. He got into a lot of trouble for that stunt but he did it several times over the course of years and it always had the same effect. Now he had a very clear idea how it felt to be on the receiving end of that trick, only this time it wouldn't end with a hearty laugh, the lights turned on and a modest scolding from mom. Solomon froze, fear rooting him to the concrete as sure as iron fetters.
Carpenter didn't seem to fare any better as he stood rigid, fixed in his spot like Solomon.
"I don't know who you are, but you've arrived right on time for the 4:00 a.m. feeding. You've relieved me of the necessity of ordering in."
The laughter that sounded after this statement made Solomon think of the sound his father made when he coughed out his cancer-riddled lungs. The eye opened further and its beam fell on Solomon.
"Oh, Christ-Jesus, help me . . .," he whispered, nearly sobbing in fear.
"That one has no business here . . . don't insult your host by invoking pagan deities. Tsathoggua, the Immortal Leech, may allow you to join us in our quest for the Juices, the sweet juices that make us live and breathe and spawn. I once craved the solitude of this Holy Shrine, but I was given inspiration by one who freely gave his juices to my Master. Let them come, he said. Let them all come and give of themselves, that they may be among the blessed. Blessed are those who are called to his supper and blessed is the fruit of his womb . . ."
The coarse, phlegmy laughter barked forth again and the beam of sickly light swiveled away from the quivering Solomon to fix upon Carpenter.
But Carpenter was not there.
For a moment the beam of rancid light wavered, then began to search. Unlike a beam of normal light, this one seemed to creep over and around and behind objects like pillars and the massive rectangles of rusted iron like a questing octopus.
Solomon did have the presence of mind to slip out the doorway when the light no longer rested on him. He ducked behind a bank of dented filing cabinets and hoped the probing beam couldn't reach this far. He closed his eyes and desperately wished he was in a plain, dully decorated motel room again, watching an intriguing and entertaining info-mercial on a delightfully staticky television.
Carpenter breathed a little easier when he saw that Solomon had taken advantage of the diversion to escape. He hoped he made it out of the building. In the meantime, he had to find a way out of here and figure out just what he was dealing with. Or who was dealing with him. That thought didn't improve his outlook.
"Where are you, little men . . . Don't be shy. My master would like to . . . converse with you."
Carpenter smiled a little. Whoever this guy was, he sounded like he was being scripted by a comic-book writer, he thought wryly.
"A bad comic-book writer," he whispered. He froze then, seeing the ominous ellipse of green light sliding close to him. He frowned and reached into his jacket pocket, drawing out a small silver cylinder. He held it in both hands, in the manner of a water-skier's towrope handle, and twisted it hard just as the deadly circle approached over a hump of rusty pipe. A translucent, white mist gushed out of the cylinder, fully enveloping Carpenter in its billowing clouds, just as the sinister circle of light struck. It wavered for a brief moment, sliding over and around the amorphous vapour, then slid away to continue its search. Within the protective cocoon of opaque gas, Carpenter breathed a genuine sigh of relief.
"I'm glad I didn't pawn you, sweetheart," he kissed the now empty cylinder. At least he had bought a little more time. But what to do with that time?
"Why do you hide so? There is no escape from Tsathoggua. Of all the places on this wormy, crumb of rock and dirt, Mighty Tsathoggua has chosen this place, holiest of all holies, to reign supreme over all flesh and bone and skin. Welcome the embrace as I have. Soon, all will belong to Tsathoggua and all will be as it should be, as it was in the beginning now and forever. Amen." The voice droned and seemed to be babbling. The eyeball entity began to fade also.
"That's both good and bad," Carpenter spoke softly to himself. "Good that it's getting tired; bad that it's probably getting hungry." He shifted his position, watching the glowing entity fade, growing dimmer and dimmer with each passing second. Carpenter looked out feverishly. Whoever was speaking surely wasn't going to vanish as easily. If there were answers to be found here, then Tsathoggua's altar boy would have them. The darkness began to descend and the luminous quality of the surfaces around him began to fade with the waning apparition. Carpenter dug one more time into his jacket and pulled out what looked like a small telescope with a boxlike unit built into its middle. He snapped a switch and looked through the optical device, scanning the already shadow-filled recesses of the cavernous void.
"Where are you, sonny boy? I need to have a serious talk with you," he whispered as he swept the dusky interior with the device. "This damn army surplus infrared scope better come through or -- aha! There you are, my traitorous little lad. Let me get a fix on you."
Through the scope, Carpenter could see the bright, man-shaped blob slowly climbing up a tall ladder that was fixed into the far wall of the Oven-chamber. He sprang from where he was crouching and quietly trod to the base of the ladder. He shook his head and took a deep breath as he tested his grip on the ladder's rusted rungs.
"Carpenter! What the hell are you doing?" whispered an incredulous voice from behind him.
"What? Solomon? What are you still doing here?" Carpenter couldn't help but feel a measure of relief at Solomon's unexpected appearance.
"Give me a little credit for loyalty, Carpenter. What are you doing?"
"No time for talking now, Solomon. Our answers may come if we can catch the fellow whose escaping above us. I hate to ask, but you're about twenty years younger than I am, and much more likely to reach the top of this ladder."
Solomon grinned a little at the older man's peevish request, but stopped abruptly when Carpenter thrust the derringer into his reluctant hand.
"Go! Get moving. He wasn't climbing that quickly, but we can't afford to lose him."
"I agree, but climbing blindly up this ladder isn't the way to get him."
Carpenter frowned and sounded almost truculent. "Solomon, are you trying to tell me my job?" he snapped.
"Nope, but remember, I'm familiar with this building. I studied the plans of this place before I was sent here to confirm its status as condemned. So I know that this ladder will lead our man onto the secondary roof, which will lead to the ground level warehouse roof which is just around from where we entered the building."
Carpenter looked at Solomon silently for a moment and then grinned sheepishly.
"Lay on, Mac Duff," he urged.
"I think that's supposed to be, 'Lead on'."
The two men quickly made for the doorway.
They arrived outside just as the lights of the cab came into view.
"Jess! Give me my gun. You flash whatever greenbacks it takes to keep that cabby here. I'm going after our man."
Solomon frowned, but tossed the derringer to Carpenter and then turned to face the oncoming taxi. Carpenter snatched it out of the air and vanished behind the grass-choked side of the complex.
Carpenter moved stealthily, stopping to listen every few seconds. Sure enough, what Solomon had said about the layout of the place rang the cherries. He could hear rough scrabbling coming from above, where the bent, rusted roof sheeting started, ten feet overhead. Carpenter leaned against the wall, his hand dry on the rubber grip of the pistol. Soon, flakes of rust began to drop and a pair of lanky, jean-clad legs lowered slowly and painfully. A cracking sound rent the cold, pre-dawn air, followed by a coughing yelp and a body crashed down onto the discarded planks and rusty lengths of scaffold piping. Carpenter watched with caution for a few seconds, but, when it was obvious that the figure was totally unconscious, he relaxed and slid the still-unused pistol back into its pocket. He bent over and grasped the thin ankles of the comatose figure and proceeded to drag the supine body back to the waiting taxi.
An hour later, three men occupied a dingy, colourless room in a sagging apartment block on a street so dismal and grey that the saffron-yellow brushstrokes of the dawn sun seemed to run off the pavement and siphon down leaf-clogged drains.
The boy, as he turned out to be, was sitting upright in a hard, wooden kitchen chair, handcuffs and leg-irons bonding him securely. The chair was in the middle of a kitchen floor, linoleum cracked with curled corners and loose tiles lying roughly where they had separated. Flattened cigarette butts competed with mashed cockroach husks for numerical supremacy over this yellowing field of honour.
"Carpenter, are you sure it's necessary to chain this kid up like this? He doesn't look fit to stay awake, much less harm us or anyone."
Carpenter sighed.
"Did I say I was looking for a partner? Forget I said anything. You seem to think we're only dealing with a kid. After what you've seen, I'm amazed and a little disappointed to see how naive you still are."
He slapped the boy's face a few times to rouse him. "Isn't that right, lad? We know better, though, don't we? Oh, you're in league with a sly one. I suppose he promised all the usual stuff. Eternal youth, mastery over all who made your life hell, all the girls you could bed and a quarry full of loot to top it off."
The boy opened his eyes suddenly and his mouth gaped, leaking saliva and foam.
"I'll feast on your roasted carcass, old man!" the boy spat.
"Is that the best you can do? That crappy monster-movie guy, Romero, could come up with better dialogue than that." Carpenter smiled congenially. "See, Jess? These lesser servants of the Bad Boys always get the second-rate dialogue."
The boy screamed in rage, his scrawny arms straining against the handcuffs until blood welled up around the biting edges of the metal. Cords popped out in high relief on the boy's neck and his face was transfigured by animal rage.
"I AM NO LESSER SERVANT!!! I AM HIS HIGH PRIEST!!! YOU ARE ALL DOOMED FOR LAYING UNCLEAN HANDS UPON THE CHOSEN ONE OF TSATHOGGUA! YOU WILL ALL DIE, DIE, DIE! ALL WILL GIVE UP THEIR JUICES FOR --"
The boy stiffened suddenly as Carpenter pushed home the plunger of a hypodermic needle deeply embedded in the trapezius muscle of his shoulder. Very quickly, the boy relaxed, his gravelly shouts reduced to a mere incoherent whisper. The burly ex-priest carefully extracted the needle and replaced it in a black, red-velvet lined box.
"What did you give him?" Solomon looked concerned.
"Scopolamine. It'll keep him quiet, but responsive to questions. We can't have raving lunatics bellowing and disrupting the place. We have to show some consideration for the neighbors."
Solomon nearly laughed out loud. "By the way," he said, eyeing the surroundings, "nice place you have here."
"Really? Want to move in? I have an extra room."
"Not a chance," Solomon snorted, not too unkindly.
"The drug should have taken effect by now. Let's see what this fellow has to tell us." Carpenter moved his chair closer to the drooling, nearly unconscious youth. "Boy, tell me your name. Your name. Tell me."
" . . .," the boy burbled something inaudible.
"Say it louder, boy. Tell me your name. Louder."
"Willis. . . Willis Frohickey . . .," the boy stammered louder. His eyes were closed and a continuous stream of saliva oozed from the boy's drooping lower lip.
"Ok, Willis. We're your friends here. Me and Jess are your buddies and we want to help you. You want help, don't you?"
"Help me . . . help. So tired . . . nearly used up . . ." The boy breathed deeply but seemed unable to take in enough air.
"Willis, this is very important. What is Tsathoggua? Why are you doing its bidding? Why is it here?" Carpenter didn't want to tax the weakening lad with too many questions, but there were so many that needed answers.
"Tsathoggua . . . the crawling chaos . . . I'm . . . high priest . . . he's found a door . . . and wants to come in." Willis moaned in a piteous voice, a voice that knew it was damned. "He needs the juices to . . . make the door bigger. He thirsts for the precious juices." Willis' head lolled and his words became more incoherent as he drifted into oblivion.
"Juices? What's he talking about?" Solomon looked puzzled.
"Bodily fluids; blood, lymph, semen, mucous . . . everything. The life essence, basically. It's not uncommon. Frankly, I'm surprised its needs are that simple." Carpenter wrapped a blanket around the snoring boy as he pondered. "There are all sorts of entities that drain human life fluids. That's where the whole vampire mythos came from. What we have to do now is find a way to stop up that doorway Willis was so kind to tell us about."
Solomon looked alarmed.
"You saw what we're dealing with. What do you think you're going to do to stop it?"
Both men were suddenly distracted by the liquid sound of gurgling coming from the unconscious boy.
"Heeellllppppp meeeeeee . . .," the unearthly voice bubbled. It sounded like it was coming up from the depths of a barrel of viscous oil. Then, a nauseous stench burst within the room and the boy began to melt, purulent black fluid streaming from every orifice to form a loathsome spreading puddle of detestable putrescence on the floor.
Solomon staggered, aghast at the sight and stench and choked out a steaming volume of bilious vomit.
Carpenter stared with grim, slitted eyes at the grotesque spectacle, his teeth gritted in revulsion.
"Well, Jess, my lad, looks like you just passed the initiation. Welcome to the club."
Solomon looked at him wordlessly, wiping his mouth with his crumpled, sweat-stained handkerchief and felt he knew what Roy Scheider's character, Chief Brody, must have felt when that big shark popped up to say hi and thanks for all the fish, in that movie, Jaws.
"We're definitely going to need a bigger boat," he whispered to himself as Carpenter handed him a glass of water.
"Get used to it." He shook his head wearily.
"C'mon. We have to go."
They traveled under a strangely tumultuous sky, filled with massive grey cloudbanks, frosted with warm, silver light from the still-rising sun. Patches of brilliant blue punctuated the extraordinary cloud pattern and sporadic outbursts of light rain fought with shafts of lambent light as the sun fenced with the cloud masses and occasionally ran them through. They rode another taxi to a different corner of town, pulling up in front of a large, ill-cared for, shabby-looking mansion. It may have once been a magnificent dwelling, tastefully appointed and well manicured in its heyday, but now it sagged, festooned with malignant ivy, its walls stained and discoloured with decades of neglect and wild vegetation ran rampant throughout its once immaculate gardens.
"This is the place. Hasn't changed a bit. C'mon, Jess. Pay the man. We haven't got all day." Carpenter got out and pushed open the gate, which reluctantly obeyed, faulty latch and rusty hinges doing their best to hinder entry.
"Who are we here to see?" Solomon caught up with Carpenter after frowning ruefully into his depleted wallet.
"Doctor Julia D'Archangelo. I consulted her in a case many years ago. She's been quite a trove of useful information; if you can catch her in a good mood, that is."
Solomon looked around in quizzical disgust. The grass grew tall and wild, and was hopping with bugs. Dandelions grew rank and thistles lined the flaking, decomposing planks that passed for a fence. They mounted the bent, crumbling stairs that led to the front door and Carpenter knocked loudly. There was no response after a minute's wait and Carpenter knocked again.
"Maybe you should have called first. Are you sure that she still lives here?"
"I'm sure, Jess. Julia is a little hard to distract if she's in the middle of something. Let me try again." He banged harder this time, with no result.
"Great. So now what? I'm running out of cab fare here. That reminds me; you look pretty spry for a guy who was practically crying on my shoulder in gratitude for a few shots of booze yesterday."
Carpenter laughed.
"Let's say I've been distracted from my usual vices."
Suddenly, the door opened and a woman with a shock of wild, grey-blonde hair appeared like an apparition. She wore tight, faded jeans, worn cowboy boots and an oversized, pale-grey sweatshirt. Her face was handsome, lined with as many laughs as frowns and had bright blue eyes.
"Carpenter! You old son of a bitch! C'mere, you." The woman seized Carpenter and kissed him hard on the mouth. "Blech! What the hell have you been smoking? Brush your teeth next time, will you?" She thrust him away with a grimace and looked him over.
"Jesus, you stink! When was the last time you had a bath, Preacher-man?" She spared Solomon a brief but appraising glance. "Who's the stiff?"
"Doctor D'Archangelo, this is my colleague, Mr. Solomon. We're involved in a case and we'd like to --"
"Cadge some free information? What else is new? C'mon in. You, too, Mr. Stiff."
"That's Solomon," he snorted.
"That's what I said," she replied, unimpressed.
They entered the shabby house and Solomon looked in amazement at the psychotic jumble that constituted the interior of the place. Nearly entire flocks of stuffed birds swayed from where they were suspended from the high, grubby ceiling and maps and charts of all kinds were tacked haphazardly on the wall above an enormous oak desk layered and festooned with books and papers. Balls of crumpled paper were heaped around and in a battered metal waste basket and the area was boxed in with shabby wooden filing cabinets. On top of the cabinets stood several telescopes on small tripods, a few cameras and a scattering of film canisters. All this was crammed into what must have been a spacious living room. The floors were taken up with copying machines, massive library-style bookshelves and, of all things, a weathered foosball table.
They filed past the barely controlled chaos to a doorway that led downwards. Sounds of small electrical motors and bubbling liquids indicated that this was where the current work was going on. They made their way down the creaky stairs and into the dimly lit basement laboratory below.
The lab was a place of wonders. Miles of glass tubing meshed and coiled around retort stands and flaming Bunsen burners, as beakers of bubbling fluid circulated and percolated through the myriad maze of Erlynmyer flasks, graduated cylinders and other exotic glassware.
On the other side of the cramped room, networks of wire and cable ensnared a forest of vacuum tubes encapsulating red-hot zinc plates. Oscilloscopes blipped and VandeGraaf generators crackled. Horizontal bands of arcing electricity climbed Jacob's ladders and the air was thick with ozone and the smell of scorched circuit boards. The walls were heavy with shelving supporting boxes of parts and spools of wire. Boxes of glass tubing and crates of clean, new test tubes were arranged below the work benches on further shelving. The entire room seemed alive with pulsating, crackling, humming artificial life. The one window set deep into the thick concrete of the wall revealed only grime and the green hue of well-overgrown grass.
"The place hasn't changed a bit. How are you Julia?" Carpenter smiled a truly warm, almost-sad smile at the woman.
Solomon noticed that for all her gruff eccentricity, she was actually quite attractive in a Phyllis Dillerish sort of way. Solomon knew he was no genius, but he felt he could recognize it in others. He could see it in Carpenter's eyes, maybe as early as when he bought him his first drink. He could see that same fire in Dr. D'Archangelo's eyes now.
They entered an orderly room through a thick, plank door that yielded to a single massive skeleton-type key. Within, row upon row of neat, sturdy bookshelves lined the singularly uncluttered walls. Near the back of the large room were oak and glass cases protecting large but probably fragile ancient books and finally, a small spartan desk with a very new and very expensive computer array taking up most of its surface.
"I take it, this is the real lab; the one out there is to impress investors and bamboozle nosy parkers like me." Solomon smiled.
"Carpenter, your man here is a sharp one. I think I like him. Now tell me what brought you here."
She seated herself behind the console and touched the mouse. Immediately the screen saver winked off and the machine was ready to take commands.
"So, give. What can I do for you?" She cracked her knuckles and winked at Solomon.
Carpenter told her the whole story as it had happened and finally posed the question that needed answering more than anything.
"First of all, what is Tsathoggua? Second, what can we use to seal the doorway Tsathoggua is using to reach out into our world?"
Doctor D'Archangelo lit a small cigar with a wooden match on the seam of her jeans and frowned for a moment. Kicking off her worn boots to reveal tanned dainty feet with toe-rings and painted nails, she sat herself down on a large, old oak office chair that had been made more comfortable by the addition of a tasseled cushion. The woman crossed her legs under her and began to manipulate the keyboard with the urgent fluttering of keys.
"Have a seat, boys. This is going to take a little time here."
They obeyed her, sitting down on matching leather armchairs that faced the glass-walled case.
"Looks like some expensive books in there," Solomon tried to make conversation.
"Some of the rarest, to be sure. As for expensive?" Carpenter smiled grimly. "There are more than a handful of people in this city alone who would cheerfully kill to get them."
"Why am I not surprised?" Solomon shook his head.
Minutes passed and the clicking of the keyboard began to lull the men into sleep. An hour later, the two were slumped in their chairs and had just started to snore when the clicking stopped and the office chair squeaked loudly.
"C'mon, boys! Snap out of it! I've got something and it's big. This is a major league event, boys. I'm sure you knew that. I've been wondering how a being like that would manifest itself in a place like that abandoned foundry and I think if I examine the history of the building, I'll find the connection."
The two men yawned, their lack of sleep catching up to them. Carpenter, in particular was having a rough time. Years of booze and cigarettes had taken their toll on the ex-priest, and at this moment, suddenly woken from sleep, he looked a wreck, Solomon noticed. Carpenter rubbed his eyes, and scrubbed his face with his cupped hands. Solomon wasn't feeling too much better. He was younger than Carpenter and not subjected to the ravages of his vices, but he still had been robbed of sleep and was feeling the results of that. His clothes were hopelessly rumpled and he knew he stank of sweat and cigarettes.
"Ok, sweetheart, what have you got for me?"
He pulled the chair around to face her desk and she swiveled her monitor around to show them what she had gathered.
"Ok, your first question was 'What is Tsathoggua?' This is what I was able to dredge up." She clicked the keyboard again. "I'm printing all this out for you, but the gist of it is this: Tsathoggua is a god-being that was worshipped in Mesopotamia and early Babylon, but there's evidence that its religion predated those cultures. There are even rumours that some Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal excavation sites have yielded artifacts that bear inscriptions similar to ones found on the Ishtar Gate and other relics from Sumerian times. That would mean . . ."
"That would mean that this is a pre-human religion," Carpenter interrupted in a voice tinctured with awe.
"So it would seem," the doctor shrugged. "As for your second question, 'How do you seal the doorway to keep him out?' That's more difficult. This sort of thing needs big medicine. The kind of medicine you can't buy at Shoppers Drug Mart. I've downloaded all the pertinent news and historical information I could find on the Titan Foundry and I think this one event was the trigger. It seems that just before the place finally closed down, two workers were killed when an inexperienced operator pulled the wrong lever and a crucible filled with molten metal tipped over, spilling its contents directly on top of them. I think this might have been the first blood sacrifice that opened the gate, at least enough for Tsathoggua to make contact with our world. Then it waited until it could feed enough to finally break free. Of course, that does point a finger at the solution as well; this is going to need blood. Clean and freely given. Nothing short of a voluntarily sacrificed human life is going to close that door with any permanence. It was blood that opened it and let it out and it will have to be blood that closes it down. How big of a manifestation has occurred so far?"
"Pretty big. Maybe seventy percent complete, a tangible manifestation. A little more juice and it will be here to stay," Carpenter said gravely.
"Well, without its 'high priest' it will be a lot more difficult to lure victims close," Solomon reasoned.
"I was thinking about that," Carpenter said. "It seemed strange that it would allow its primary food lure to escape and self-destruct so needlessly. Unless . . ."
"Unless?" Solomon waited for the blow.
"Unless he wasn't needed any more; unless he had already accomplished what had been assigned to him," Carpenter deduced.
"And what would that be?" Solomon asked, his eyes widening.
"That's what we have to find out . . . before it's too late."
They rose to leave, but the doctor held up a slim hand.
"There's not a lot you will be able to do in your condition. Take a couple of hours and sleep. I mean proper sleep in a bed, with showers first. The both of you need a good scrubbing."
"I appreciate your help, Julia, but we have to get moving. There's so much at stake and --" Carpenter suddenly yawned cavernously and that set off Solomon soon after.
"That's what I mean, boys. You won't accomplish Jack-shit out there in your condition. Now off with those disgusting clothes and into the shower. Carpenter, you first. I don't know just where your current lifestyle's been leading you, but it sure hasn't been taking you anywhere near soap. Solomon, you next. Then you sleep for at least four hours or I'll personally anesthetize you."
The two men, suddenly rather sheepish, fumbled and hesitated.
"Oh, for crying out loud. Come on, follow me. She led them to a clean, spartan bathroom down the hallway from the computer room and directed them as to where they might find soap and shampoo. She handed each of the men a clean folded white bathrobe and instructed them to leave their clothing in the hallway. She returned with a plastic laundry basket and when the last of the grimy, aromatic garments were piled on the floor, she gathered them and dumped them into a large washing machine.
When Carpenter came out of the steamy bright washroom, the doctor showed him to a small bedroom next door.
"Look, this isn't really necessary, Julia."
"I'll be the judge of that, Carpenter. Now get some sleep. I'll have your clothes ready in a couple of hours." She nearly turned to leave, but at the last minute she hugged Carpenter close to her. "What happened to you? What have you been doing all these years?" She looked up at him and her eyes were bright with tears.
"Bad things, Julia. Bad things. But I got a message from an old friend and he showed me how to get back on track." He hugged her back, holding her close and trying not to cry himself. He let her go and silently went into the room and closed the door.
Soon after, Solomon came out, snapping off the light as he did.
"Oh, I sure needed that," he said to himself, grinning and scrubbing his head with a thick white towel.
"I'll say." The doctor stood leaning against the wall, waiting and smiling.
"Well, thank you for noticing. And thank you for your hospitality. I'm kind of coasting right now. This whole deal is beyond anything I've ever experienced and, frankly, I'm glad to have a chance to make it go away for awhile. Now, you said something about a bed?" Solomon smiled, finally relaxed in the midst of all the mystery and supernatural hoopla.
"I did indeed. Come this way."
He followed her past the doorway of her computer room and found himself in a bright, modestly large room with a double bed and copious frilled pillows. A mirrored dresser and a tall clothes closet of dark, polished wood made Solomon frown.
"Doctor, I hope you're not giving up your room for me." He heard her move behind him.
"I don't intend to, Jess. And, please, . . . call me Julia."
Solomon turned to find Doctor Julia D'Archangelo standing completely and prettily naked, her bright blue eyes now smoky with desire.
"Oh my," Solomon could only whisper as she slinked closer.
Created: August 17, 1999; Updated: August 9, 2004