The Mysteries of Holly Diem (Unknown Kadath Estates Book 2) (4 page)

“Morning, Prest...Oh! I can’t believe it, Sumire! You
did it!”

April howled with laughter, while Yael’s eyes widened comically.
Sumire burst into hysterics again while I stood there, helpless and vulnerable,
clutching four plates of cooling eggs, draped in a ridiculous novelty apron.

“None of this is improving your chances of hosting
future sleep-overs, April,” I warned, setting the plates carefully down on the
coffee table. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Don’t be grumpy,” April scolded, standing on tiptoes
to rub the top of my head like an obedient dog. “It’s too early.”

“It’s nearly noon,” I objected, struggling to untie
the knot at the small of my back, much to the amusement of the three girls.
Sumire eventually came to my rescue, and I took a seat on the floor beside
April. “Some of us have been up for hours.”

“Thanks for breakfast!” Sumire shouted, picking up her
fork, completely oblivious to my complaints. “I’m starving.”

That was a sentiment I shared, having bolted eight
cupcakes loaded with pink frosting for dinner after the girls settled in last
night. Sumire and I made short work of our meals. I was mopping up egg yolk
with the crust of my toast before April made a dent in her meal. Yael split the
difference, displaying excellent table manners. After she finished, I collected
all the plates except April’s, leaving Sumire in charge of cajoling April into
finishing at least part of her breakfast.

The drying rack was full and I had just finished
adding instant coffee to a microwaved cup of water when April came into the
kitchen, walking slowly and holding her plate with excessive care. I surveyed
the plate as I took it, impressed that Sumire had convinced her to finish most
of the toast. April shifted and refused to meet my eyes as if she wanted
something, so I sipped awful black coffee and waited for her to verbalize it.

“I need to go to campus,” she blurted, toying with the
hem of her nightdress anxiously. Kim Ai, our landlady, is obsessed with buying
April clothing appropriate for a life-sized doll, heavy on lace and bows.
“Sumire borrowed books from Professor Dawes, and she needs to return them.”

“Sumire can return her own books. Why do you need to
go?”

“I want to borrow a book,” April explained, sticking
out her small pink tongue at me. “I’m working on something.”

I set my coffee aside carefully, which was probably a
good move, because I could already feel the sour twinges of heartburn.

“What are you working on?”

I kept the question casual, but I wasn’t pulling
anything over April. She shook her head violently.

“You wouldn’t understand. Can we go?”

“Yeah, Preston,” Sumire added, putting her arm around
April from behind and resting her chin on the crown of April’s head. “Can we?”

I nodded, pouring the acidic remains of the coffee
down the drain.

I decided to tag along. I didn’t know what she was up
to, but I wasn’t going to leave April to do it unsupervised, even if she was
right – I probably wouldn’t understand.

***

 “Can I be honest?”

“Aren’t you always?”

“I try.”

“Admirable. Go ahead. Be as honest as you like. I
won’t tell.”

I smiled. She didn’t.

“Sometimes I question your motivations, Mr. Tauschen.”

Yael shrugged apologetically, her hands buried in the
front pocket of her scuffed grey windbreaker. I crossed my arms and did my best
to look distracted, and we had ourselves a showdown.

She was dressed casually, pajama bottoms and grey
sneakers, windbreaker zipped to the chest, a slate-colored flannel top peeking
out from beneath. There were dark smears beneath her eyes from yesterday’s
makeup, and purple streaks in her shoulder-length brown hair thanks to April’s
hair chalk. Circular bruises discolored the skin of her lower neck and upper
chest, bluish-yellow and oddly regular. She wore her hair down this morning, which
looked unusually girly.

“What does that mean?”

“Why are you walking us to school?” Yael smiled
demurely, but did nothing to disguise the seriousness of her inquiry. “April
walks to school three times a week without your assistance.”

I glanced at the gate to the Estates. Sumire had
volunteered to help April dress and comb her hair, a process submitted to
reluctantly and at cost. It could take a while.

“Today has nothing to do with April,” I lied. “I have
business of my own with Professor Dawes.”

Technically, it was Holly’s business that I wanted to
ask about, but Yael didn’t need to know that.

“Hmm.”

Yael didn’t seem impressed.

“I could ask you the same thing,” I said, scrambling
for conversational position. “Why are you going along on Sumire and April’s
errands?”

She shook her head and clicked her tongue, as if
disappointed by my response.

“You haven’t noticed?” Yael frowned. “I’m surprised.”

“Noticed what?”

“There have been some strange things happening around
Carter lately. Not just the murders. Talking shadows, faceless men, sightings
of horrors out of the Deep and Avici.” The boredom in her voice making it clear
she was relaying what she considered old news. “You really didn’t hear anything?”

“I don’t think so,” I admitted, wracking my brain for
evidence to otherwise. “What are you talking about?”

“The murders,” Yael said with a shrug. “Three girls,
all students from Carter, all walking to or from the school.”

“What?”

“I just explained.”

“First I’ve heard of it…”

“Really? No one has talked of anything else for days
now.”

“I…ah. Not really one for small talk.”

“Multiple murders count as small talk?”

“How long has this been happening?” I asked,
ratcheting up the intensity inadvertently. “Look, Yael, this is important...”

“It is, isn’t it?” Yael held her ground and neutral
expression. “You and April live like hunted animals. Sumire wants to help April
move beyond paranoia, but I assume survival mechanisms are best left alone. What
are you running from?”

“You’re a smart one.” My mouth was suddenly dry. It
took an effort to prevent my hands from straying to the thing I keep in my
front pocket, for emergencies. “You’re asking the wrong question, though.”

“Oh? What would be the right question?”

“Why are we so afraid to go back?” I shook my head to
dispel old ghosts. “C’mon, Yael. Level with me.”

Yael smiled and offered a half-wave to someone behind
me. I turned around, but Leng Street was empty as always, save for her mangy
orange cat, white-tipped tail swinging lazily from side to side as it watched
us.

“It started several weeks ago. No one was particularly
suspicious. They thought it was the standard cultist activity,” Yael admitted,
crouching down and cooing at the cat, who continued to watch me suspiciously.
“It was the cats who told me that something was wrong.”

“Oh, no. Don’t tell me you’re as nuts about cats as
everyone else at the Estates.”

Yael chose to ignore my complaint, focusing on her pet.

“What do you think, Dunwich?” Yael asked the cat, running
her fingernails along the cat’s spine. “Is our mystery killer lurking about
this morning?”

I intended to offer a retort, but the intensity in the
cat’s stare dissuaded me. The brass-toned eyes seemed to peer deep inside of
me, and then, finding my interior life wanting, lost interest. I was
dumbfounded and a little ashamed.

“Don’t want to discuss it in front of Preston, Dunwich?”
Yael scratched beneath the orange cat’s chin. “I don’t blame you.”

“Goddamn it, Yael...”

Yael’s eyes snapped to me, hot with indignation. She
stood, brushing fur from her hands, ignoring the mewling from the cat twining
between her calves.

“Mr. Tauschen,” she said flatly, looking me directly
in the eye, “I really do not care for that sort of language.”

“What?”

“I would appreciate it if, in the future,” Yael
continued icily, “you choose your words more carefully.”

She turned her back on me and stepped away, folding
her arms. I scratched my head and did my best to look hurt. I assumed we were
going to await April and Sumire in silence, but Yael surprised me again.

“Another thing, Mr. Tauschen...”

She gave me the kind of look a bad poker player gets,
when dealt a winning hand.

“...I speak fluent German.” My blood went thick and
sluggish; the air thinned spontaneously. The sound of Sumire joyfully chasing
April down the stairs was distant and tinny. “So I get it.”

“What?”

“Your name. Tauschen.” Impatience flashed in her eyes.
“Is it supposed to be a joke?”

I shrugged, and felt good about the nonchalance
involved. I’d had a lot of time to practice.

“It’s just a name.”

“April, too. Ersten. Those are fake names, aren’t
they?”

I didn’t say anything. I was waiting to see what Yael
did with her insight.

“Not the kind of fake names most people would pick,
though. It’s almost like you wanted them to find you, like you are winking at whoever
might peruse you.”

I let her say it. It sounded better, the way Yael told
it.

“I honestly can’t imagine you’re responsible,” Yael
admitted, with a frown, like that bothered her. “You don’t seem like the type
to play games.”

I just nodded. Yael was getting by without my help.

The secret kept from itself. An ache residing deep within
the infrastructure. The peculiar distress of bad signal and lost data;
catalogued and projected shortfall. Her hand hesitates at the doorknob; her
face wears the beginning of an expression.

The Randolph Carter Academy was a ghost town populated solely by graduate
students, short of sleep and exhibiting the unhealthy pallor obtained by
spending days in a poorly ventilated building heated by a wood-burning stove,
reading ancient books and worrying over
Things Man Was Not Meant to Know
.

Seriously. That’s a major at Carter.

Yael trailed behind with her cat, while Sumire and
April walked ahead, holding hands, and chatting. I did my best to keep my eyes
open, but didn’t see any of Yael’s mystery men. There were several stray cats
lurking along our route, tracking our movements with stoic and vaguely
predatory patience, but that was probably Ulthar being nosey.

Yael hurried off on her own as soon as we crossed
beneath the school gates, leaving Sumire, April, and myself to track down
Professor Dawes.

We located him in a classroom in the Esoteric Studies
building, lecturing a motley collection of graduate students. We huddled in the
doorway and caught the end of his lecture.

“…our primary concern – the first manifestation of the
Outer Dark – that of artifacts.” Dawes operated a projector with one hand,
cycling through a series of archive photos as he spoke. “While many are
suspected, we have confirmed only a few here at Carter. The Sundered Altar, for
example, sealed in the basement of this very building, or the Blind Mason’s
Compass and Rule, discovered in the marshes adjoining the Empty District, used
by the Engineering Department to measure the impossible dimensions of
non-Euclidian objects. The Orchids of Yuggoth are presently under cultivation
in a closed laboratory in the Biology building, grown in conditions that
simulate the dark side of the moon. In the Architecture department, a study
group has labored for years over records of the Pallid Mask, last seen in
doomed Roanoke, which causes travelers to lose their way and animates shadows.
The art department is naturally concerned with the impossible colors – verghast,
celestewhite, and infraviolet – while Textile Arts students hunt for the rumored
tools of the Three Graces – needle and thimble, scissors, and mirror.”

Professor Dawes glanced in our direction, and offered
us a quick nod, then returned his attention to the students, busily tapping
away at laptops.

“Naturally, acquisition of such artifacts comes at
great cost and ridiculous complexity. After the ill-fated expedition to the
basalt mines of Mnar, and the acquisition of the Sundered Altar – which you
should see while it is on display at the main library, even if it causes your
tear ducts to bleed – the study of such objects was restricted to graduate
students working on faculty-approved projects. As you explore the history of
these items, do note the sacrifices made by their discoverers and researchers. More
than a few archivists have gone mad and plucked their eyes from their heads to
bring you the margin notes provided in your text, so please do not skip them.
Pay particular attention to the break out lesson regarding effective
application of the Yellow Sign, in regards to artifacts from the Outer Dark. It
is considered to be the most potent of wards, and you will encounter it
repeatedly during your academic and professional career.”

The clock tower struck eleven. The students glanced at
the Professor, fingering backpacks and laptop bags.

“Enough for today, then,” he said ruefully, as the
students hurriedly abandoned the classroom. “Make sure you finish the third
chapter of the
Dhole Chants
before next Tuesday!”

Dhole were horrible enormous worm things that lived in
a giant pile of bones in the Underworld – according to the Professor, anyway.
All I saw was darkness, and a few drug-induced hallucinations. I have no idea
whether the chants were about the monstrous scavengers, or by them, and I
didn’t plan on asking for clarification.

We waited until the classroom was mostly evacuated
before we cornered the Professor.

“Preston. A pleasure to see you here.” Ian Dawes
offered me his cool, parchment-dry hand, and I shook it carefully. The
professor wore a seersucker suit with thin blue stripes and polished calfskin
shoes, white hair neat and combed back, smelling vaguely of pomade and pipe
tobacco. He really was the nicest corpse-eater anyone could ask for. “What
brings you to campus today?”

“Escorting the girls,” I said, remembering my earlier
deception. “I do need to have a brief word, though.”

Dawes gave me a subtle appraisal.

“In private?”

“If you have a minute.”

“I do, as it happens,” Dawes said, tousling April’s
head fondly while she wrapped herself around his waist. Sumire laughed and
aided the professor in the process of extraction. “Let’s head to my office,
shall we?”

It was a quick walk. Dawes used the opportunity to
encourage Sumire to consider the graduate program at Carter. By the time he led
us up the cookie-and-cream marble stairs to his third floor office, even I was
ready to apply for financial aid. Sumire was reserved, however, offering polite,
but minimal response.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no other college
in this city, but there are whole neighborhoods I have never seen. Maybe Carter
has a cross-town rival for the occasional lacrosse match, but I doubt it.

The office was narrow for its length, densely
furnished with aged leather furniture, and absolutely choked with books. Overflowing
shelves dominated the walls. The writing desk and antique table were both lost
beneath piles of leather-bound volumes and portfolios of illuminated
manuscripts. There was an inert fireplace at the far end of the room, long ago
transformed to a storage nook and filled with cardboard boxes. A substantial
chandelier provided light, but numerous sconces were scattered about the room,
stocked with half-consumed candles. An ominous and antiquated pictogram was
incised on the inside of the door.

Sumire took three books from her bag, wrapped in
canvas and twine to protect them from damage, and handed them carefully to
Dawes, who then set them in a pile with the same care I show to the morning
paper I never ordered. April was persuaded to whisper her request in the
professor’s ear, and then Dawes spent several minutes locating an index card,
which he had April read aloud, and then several more searching for a specific
volume stored in the library adjunct. He wrote out what seemed like
unnecessarily detailed directions on expensive stationary and then gave them to
Sumire. I could hear April giggle as they ran out of the office and down the
hallway, in an impromptu race.

It was probably an act, but a cute one.

“With that handled,” Dawes said, taking a half-full
bottle from a desk drawer, “what can I do for you?”

He motioned with the bottle hospitably, and I nodded,
masking my reluctance. From the same drawer, Dawes produced two wide-mouthed
glasses intended for brandy.

“Information, Prof. One of your associates.”

He winced as he filled each of the glasses with two
fingers of dark amber, twelve-year-old scotch. It wasn’t to my taste, honestly,
but it seemed the polite thing to do.

“Do call me Ian, please.” He handed me a glass and
then sat gingerly on the creaky chair behind the desk. “Which of my colleagues
are you interested in?”

I found a chair that didn’t accommodate a pile of
books and took a seat, sipping the Scotch sparingly, out of politeness. I’m not
much of a drinker, but I am sensitive to social obligation.

“Not one of your colleagues,” I said, rolling the damp
glass between my palms. “An associate. A peer, I suppose.”

The Professor raised an eyebrow. I got the feeling he
was enjoying this.

“The owner of the Kadath Estates,” I explained. “Holly
Diem.”

His eyes widened and he set his glass aside. To his
credit, however, he didn’t just throw me out on my ear. Caution was required, nonetheless.
There was every chance that this would make it back to Holly.

“You have piqued my curiosity. What do you want to
know?”

“Holly’s business. Whatever it is. I wanna know.”

Whatever the personal crises my request precipitated,
Dawes recovered quickly. He finished his Scotch, straightened his royal blue
tie, and got back to business.

“Why?”

“You probably know that I do the odd job for Holly,” I
looked for a place to set my largely untouched drink. “You may not be aware
that she has taken to employing Sumire in a similar capacity.”

That last part was my invention, but it seemed safe
enough.

“This work,” Dawes said uneasily. “It involves
violence?”

“Sometimes. By accident, rather than design, for the
most part.”

“Still…”

“Yeah. I don’t like it either,” I lied. “C’mon, Ian.
You must want to know what your landlady has gotten your students involved in.”

Dawes took a sheet of paper from a desk drawer, and a
rose-gold fountain pen from his breast pocket. He wet the nib with his thin
blue lips, and proceeded to jot down notes.

“The question stands, Preston. Why does it matter to
you?”

“That’s hurtful.”

“Oh, come now.” Dawes’s eyes were unclouded and full
of good humor. “Do try and be honest.”

“I like to cover my bases,” I explained, embedding a
nugget of truth in what would become a mass of lies. “Holly has done me all
sorts of favors, but I don’t know the first thing about her. Nothing at all.”

“Clearly,” Dawes said solemnly, scratching away at the
paper. “Otherwise, you would already be aware that merely asking that question
is a dangerous proposition. Holly has kept her business private for years, and
secrets do not keep themselves.”

“Are you saying...?”

“Not at all,” Dawes said, glancing from his expanding
notes to shake his head. “Nothing so inelegant. I merely suggest that Holly Diem
should not be taken lightly.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

“I don’t understand why you would feel threatened by
our host. Whatever she may be, it should be clear that she isn’t an agent
of...whomever. I can attest that she is no friend to the Outer Dark. Also, she
is...undeniably beautiful. What could she have done to excite your suspicion?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Ian. Let’s see. She calls herself a
witch,” I said, counting off my points with my fingers, “nobody knows who she
is, or where she comes from, what she does for a living, or how she came to own
the only occupied building in a completely abandoned neighborhood. Everyone is
afraid of her, but no one knows why. It
must
bother you. Listen – none
of us can remember why we came to the Estates in the first place, right? We all
showed up with a letter assuring us that arrangements were made and a key, and
not a clue why or how.”

Dawes blinked and nodded reluctantly.

“Don’t you find that suspicious? She owns the building.
Do you think dear Miss Ai selects the tenants? Ridiculous. Holly is in charge,
particularly of important matters. For all we know, we live at the Estates
because Holly
invited
us.”

The ghoul folded his hands thoughtfully. If he could
have gotten paler, I suspect he would have.

“That is a disquieting notion.”

“Isn’t it just?”

He rubbed his temples and sighed. Ian Dawes is a nice
guy, despite his dubious dietary and lifestyle choices, and I felt bad
awakening his suspicions. Whatever came of it, his relationship with Holly
would never be quite the same. We do what we must, however – or I do, anyway.

“I will admit to unease with my ignorance.”

“You’ll look into it?”

Dawes appeared to consider it; then he stood and offered
me his hand solemnly. I stood and then we shook, the whole ritual forced, his
hand as cold as the grave where he acquired his meals. There was a more
squeamish time when I might have flinched from contact with a ghoul, but the
fact of the matter was, they were a normal part of the Nameless City.