The Amulet (25 page)

I felt a hand push me in the back. "Help him!" Fiona said before returning to her song, and I staggered, off balance, into the robed group. I was among them before they realized it, and I got halfway towards Dunlop before they thought of stopping me.

A large figure blocked my path. I shoved him to one side, but he grabbed my arm and partly turned me around. I threw a punch, but only succeeded in dislodging the cowl, which fell back, revealing Durban's craggy face. I struggled to regain my balance when his fist slammed into my jaw, knocking me backward towards the left-hand side of the altar.

The blow wasn't hard, but it was enough to make me lose my balance again. As I fell I heard a tearing in the air behind me. I put my hand out to steady myself and hit the edge of the altar. Immediately a tentacle made a grab for my wrist. I just managed to pull my hand away but was unable to retain balance. There was a further tearing noise, like a piece of paper being slowly ripped.

A wind rose, first tugging gently, but as I fell backwards it turned into a raging, roaring gale. The blackness sucked me in like a fly into a vacuum cleaner.

I think I screamed but the wind in my ears drowned out all other noise. I could see only inky blackness as I fell and fell and fell, the darkness tugging at me, the wind ruffling my hair.

My muscles tensed, expecting a landing, ready for impact, but the wind began to die down. It felt like I was slowing. I waved my arms around my head, but could feel nothing except the thick blackness. The air was heavy, almost the consistency of water, but I could still breathe, as I slowed even further. Finally, I stopped, floated in darkness, no idea of up or down

I rolled over onto my back, and there, an unimaginable distance away, was a small blue light, twinkling like a star.

From somewhere far beneath I could hear the distant sound of manic piping, but it sounded further away that it had when I was in the chamber. Apart from that there was no other noise, no other light. The air moved sluggishly around me, tasteless and odorless. I almost felt calm.

I discovered that I could propel myself by using swimming actions and began to make my way towards the light, slowly at first, but ever accelerating as my body got into the rhythm of the actions.

It was heavy going and at first I didn't seem to be making much headway, but then the light seemed to pulse brighter, the hole growing, and I began to move even faster towards it. In the distance I could hear Fiona singing, her voice still strong, still pure, leading me back to the light.

Then, from the corner of my eye, I caught a flicker of light, like a stray moonbeam in a cloudy sky. And I heard it, the soft cry, the voice I had heard in my dreams.

"Help me,"
it said, and I had no doubt that it came from Doug. "
Help me!"
it shouted again, and this time the voice rose to a scream, a scream full of pain and despair. I had one last, longing, look at the blue dancing light before turning away towards the sound of my friend.

The going got tough, like swimming through treacle, but I was getting there, even though it was now like swimming through thick oil. The piping was getting noticeably louder and more frantic as I got closer, and the drums beat louder, pounding into my head and reverberating in my chest cavity until my heart was beating along in time.

Doug lay in a pool of light, curled up into a fetal ball, hugging his knees so hard that I could see the whiteness at his knuckles. I quickly checked his body for punctures, but there was only one obvious wound-a weeping hole in his cheek.

There was something else there, though, very close to him, a deeper cloud of blackness that seemed to be the source of the piping, but I didn't have time to study it further-my only thought was for Doug.

He still had his back to me. I pulled myself forward and touched his arm. His body unfolded and he turned to face me, already screaming.

"Help me!"

I had a sudden flash of my dream, of the tentacles bursting from him, but his eyes looked so full of fear and panic that I was unable to refuse. I took his hand, pulling him towards me, trying not to look at the festering hole in his cheek. He grabbed me, tight, and hugged me so hard that I began to worry about broken ribs. Suddenly I heard Fiona's singing again, and it got colder, so cold that small ice crystals formed in the air around us.

The piping rose in intensity and I sensed a movement behind me, at the same time noticing that the blue star seemed to be speeding towards us, growing as it came. There was a crackling, and I could feel static run over my body, and my hair stood on end. I turned, and saw that the blackness behind me had also grown and expanded. Things moved in it, black amorphous shapes that struggled and pushed as if against a plastic membrane, trying to break through.

Suddenly we were bathed in blue, crackling light, and space ripped around us as the two holes converged and met. There was a blinding flash and when my eyes adjusted we were lying beneath the altar, back in the chamber.

I looked up, and could not believe what I saw.

Above me Dunlop was held in the tentacles of the pumpkin head, five of them around his waist alone, a multitude of small puncture marks covering his body, blood pulsing slowly from each of them. But the creature wasn't getting it all its own way. Four tentacles lay limp against the head, their ends looking oddly twisted and charred.

Dazzling blue flame shot from the wand in his hand and the smell of charred flesh rose from the red, bulbous head. The history of Dunlop's attack was there-the head was furrowed by four canyons of burnt, steaming flesh, the smell of cooking meat heavy in the air.

Dunlop tried to reach the amulet that was still being held above the head, but now by only one tentacle.

I raised my eyes to the tentacle, and was almost riven through in shock. Beyond the amulet the ceiling was a mass of writhing blackness.

Imagine a black plastic bin bag filled with writhing snakes, and you'll have some idea of what I saw. Some idea, but nothing could really describe the overwhelming sense of dread I felt as I looked at it.

The veil was thin and stretched in places-whatever was behind striving hard to break through, it didn't look like it would be too long before it succeeded.

Somewhere behind me Fiona still sang, but I couldn't turn to look, blocked by Doug who lay whimpering in my arms. I moved sideways, lowering him gently to the floor, and tried to stand. Dunlop shouted at me.

"Derek!"

His voice was strained, and I couldn't even begin to imagine the kind of pain he must have been in, but he was still lucid, and he still fought.

I looked up. Several of the tentacles burrowed into his body, the blood gushing in torrents at his waist and shoulders. But there was little trace of pain in his voice as he spoke again.

"Get Fiona out of here! And don't take no for an answer!"

That was all he had time for. By speaking to me he had given the tentacles an opening, and one of them attached itself to his left hand, chewing its way through fingers, spattering fine droplets of blood onto my face.

I got to my feet and looked around. Durban lay on the ground, not six feet from me, dead eyes staring roofward. His hand clutched at his chest, at a gaping, smoking hole. I guessed that he had got in Dunlop's way.

There was no sign of the rest of the coven. Fiona stood where I had left her. She still sang strongly, but tears glistened in her eyes and ran unfettered down her cheeks as she watched what happened to her husband.

At my feet Doug tried to get up, his eyes wild and deranged as he stared around the room. There was madness in his eyes, and a terrible fear. He clawed at me as I helped him to his feet, clinging to me as the only recognizable thing in the hell that his life had become.

"Get out of here!" I shouted at him, twice before he understood me. He nodded his head as I pushed him away, directing him towards the exit before heading for Fiona.

"Come on!" I shouted, trying to make myself heard above the cacophony of fluting that echoed through the chamber. I grabbed her by the shoulders but she shrugged me off easily.

"We've got to get away from here. It's over," I said, gently, but with some fervor. I was as eager as Doug to get as far away from this place as possible. She shook her head without breaking her singing and began to move towards the altar. I really had no choice but to follow her, but I was stopped in my tracks by the sight that met me when I turned.

Two more tentacles pierced Dunlop's body, and thick red blood poured in a river from his mouth. At first I feared he was already dead, but his eyes were still alive as he lifted the wand above his head. There was another blinding flash of blue light and the amulet fell to the ground, a writhing piece of tentacle still attached.

At the same moment there was a rending in the blackness. I had a glimpse of a purple sky above as a split appeared in the membrane.

I can't describe some of the things I saw there-they seemed to defy the eye, to melt and flow like molten mercury. There was something solid amid the fluidity-a leathery, barrel-shaped body with a five-pointed star where its head should be and huge, gossamer, veined wings.

Then the horde behind the veil parted and something huge and black began to make its way forward. I have an impression of tentacles of an immense size, but my memory of the true shape of the creature has gone, burned for the sake of my sanity. I can only say that it was huge, it was old, and it was hell-bent on coming through.

Fiona stood in front of the altar. I shouted at her, but she ignored me and bent to the floor. She picked up the amulet. It pulsed a sickly green in her hands.

Above her Dunlop still fired great gouts of flame at the creature that held him, but the flame no longer held its dazzling blue quality, and, although he still damaged the creature, the wounds he inflicted were no longer as deep or as penetrating.

Fiona held the amulet at arm's length, oblivious to the tentacle that hit her in the midriff and immediately began to burrow.

She looked at her husband, and I caught the slow nod of his head and the spreading smile on his face as she drew her arm back and the amulet sailed through the air. Despite the efforts of three tentacles to catch it, it disappeared into the gulf beyond the rift.

She turned to me, tentacles now writhing over her torso, and said just one word before reaching out to clasp her husband's hand.

"Go," she said. I moved towards them but was too late. The pumpkin head writhed and all the tentacles screamed in a chorus.

There was a flash, a blinding explosion that seared through my brain, knocking me almost senseless to the floor, a floor that shook and bucked as if in the throes of some diabolic birthing.

Dunlop lay limp in the creature's grasp, but Fiona was still alive, only just. She leaned forward to the creature's great head and thrust her hands into it, passing through the flesh as if it were plasticine. She jerked her hands, just once, and the creature screamed, a roar that shook the walls and dislodged small pieces of dust to hang in the air.

The veil bulged, swollen like a balloon filled with water, then burst in an explosion of rainbow light that forced me to close my eyes again. And when I opened them, Fiona, Dunlop and the creature were gone and there was no sign of the rift in space. I was left alone in silence, with Durban's dead body and the body of an ancient Arab lying across the altar, a body that was decomposing even as I watched.

Pieces of earth fell into the chamber as a jagged crack ran across the ceiling. I just managed to make it to the stairway before the roof collapsed in a flurry of rubble and masonry. I fled up the stairs as the walls swayed and the roof threatened to come down on me.

Doug lay in the hallway. At first I thought he was dead, and I panicked, shaking him hard and cradling him to my chest.

It took me several seconds to realize that he was still breathing. I hoisted him over my shoulder in a fireman's carry, almost bent double by his weight, and got out of the house as quickly as I could. The structure fell down around me and the floor heaved like the deck of a ship. I made it out of the door and into the garden, but I don't remember how.

I laid Doug down on the grass and turned back, in time to see the eyes of the house flare redly for one last time before collapsing in on itself in a storm of smoke, burying the crypt and all who laid in it under several hundred tons of stone.

And that's the end of it.

I visit Doug every week, and he's coming along fine, but there is still fear down deep in his eyes, and he sleeps with the light on.

As for me, I went back to the newspaper business.

The police never bothered me about Stan and Ollie. I reported finding the bodies-anonymously, of course-and just happened to mention how close they were to Durban's house. That must have been enough for the powers that be. The story never made the papers-I'm not sure anyone would have found it believable anyway.

The only evidence of anything untoward came in the obituary-Durban's, Fiona's and Dunlop's appeared on the same day, all having died
'suddenly, and at home'
. I visited their graves once, but there was no sense of any power there-how could there be, when their bodies are somewhere beyond this earth?

At least being back on the paper gives me the chance to check on any news of Arkham House. I shift pieces of paper, I interview local councilors, and I keep my eyes open for stories concerning lost cats.

I often find myself daydreaming of being back in my office above Byres Road, waiting for Fiona Dunlop to drop in, but all in all I'm contented-sometimes boredom is a much sought after condition.

At nights I dream, dreams in which something huge and black and monstrous tries to break trough a veil, a veil that gets thinner and thinner. And every night I wake up screaming.

But that's not quite the end of it. I haven't yet come to the reason I'm writing this story when it would have been better to forget it completely.

I found it in the
Times
three days ago-and I can't get it out of my mind. It was in the description of items coming up for sale at Sotheby's.