WE PASSED THROUGH the entrance by the people lined up to get inside. The doors were tall, made of dark mahogany, and carved in intricate patterns. I looked carefully as we passed, my eye picking out details in the artwork. Human faces melted into one another, forming a cascade of agonized expressions from top to bottom. They’d been carved by the hands of a master, each one as unique as a snowflake, their expressions locked in a moment of despair and anguish.
It made me shiver. I kept walking.
Inside the doors, the lobby ceiling soared away and out of sight. I’d seen the outside of the building, which stood only a story tall. The ceilings should not have disappeared like that.
But they did.
Daniel leaned in. “It’s bigger on the inside.”
“Someone should have painted it blue,” I said.
He nodded.
The Man in Black walked until a maître d’ in a white jacket stepped in front of him.
Holding a menu in his hand as a stop sign, he looked ridiculous compared to the elder god who stood before him. He was shorter than me and soft in the middle. His pudgy hand clutched the laminated pages of the menu. Lank but glossy black hair hung across his forehead, shadowing almond-shaped eyes. His voice came out lightly accented: a spice, not the meal.
His lips formed words. “Aa’sahh shaema my’ialalake-um.”
As the words left, his lips rippled, exposing ink-stained teeth, wide and opalescent gray like the man in line by the alley.
Visions of the nurse guardian at the hospital flashed in my head.
I let go of Daniel’s hand, reaching for the knife at my hip.
The Man in Black lifted his red right hand, reaching for the face of the maître d’. The hand pulsed with dark crimson energy, casting magenta highlights on the smooth planes of the man’s face. The maître d’s jaw slung down, mouth hanging lax and loose as he stared at the skinless appendage.
The Man in Black spat a word, his raw, red fingers twisting into an arcane symbol. As they rubbed together, a fat pink spark of energy popped off, arcing into the man’s open mouth.
The maître d’ stopped moving as though he’d been flash frozen. He didn’t breathe or blink, and no tremor disturbed his skin.
“Is he dead?” I asked.
“His kind do not die easily as long as they retain their heads.”
I looked around. The people in line continued to shuffle forward until they were met by another maître d’ who could have been a clone of the one standing before us. He handed out menus, then turned and walked away. The people followed him into the dining area that stretched before us. The back of the room disappeared in the shadows of dull light provided by a combination of muted neon and guttering candles. The line shuffled forward, and within seconds another clone appeared to take a small group away.
I watched diners at tables in twos and threes and fours, all of them smiling and laughing and talking. Forks and chopsticks dipped and lifted morsels of sushi during breaks in conversation. It looked like any busy metropolitan restaurant full of hip diners enjoying an evening meal with friends and family.
So why did the skin creep across the back of my neck?
Realization fell on me like a ton of bricks.
It was absolutely silent.
The number of people I looked upon should have produced a dull roar of white noise: voices mingling and meshing, laughter boiling over the top of it, the underscore provided by the clink of fork on plate, the muffled thud of cup on tablecloth, the creak and breath of chairs, even the rustle of cloth as people moved and reached and lived.
There was none of that.
The only sounds in the pin-drop silence were the shuffle of feet to my left, the whisper of Nyarlathotep’s coat rustling around his feet, and Daniel’s rhythmic breathing beside me.
And the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears.
Daniel leaned in, his voice close to my ear. “It’s like a silent movie.”
The Man in Black turned. “We have very little time before our entrance is noted. Use your Mark. Find our prey.”
I hesitated, not wanting to use my magick, not with the cost of it coming from Daniel. My eyes quickly slid over to Daniel. His hand found mine again. It felt warm. Solid.
He leaned toward me. “It’s okay. I didn’t feel it when you did it before. It’s the teleporting that takes it out of me.”
The magick inside me buzzed to life at his touch, murmuring along the skin of my hand. I closed my eyes and let it go.
My mind slipped sideways, disjointing itself as my mind’s eye opened. Prickles of pain rushed in from the edges, but I ignored it, concentrating on finding what I needed. The metal circlet around my neck crackled, its temperature plummeting until it grew so cold it frost-seared the skin underneath. The room blossomed in my mind like an unfolding flower, each person’s desire a petal.
They all pointed toward a thing I could barely discern. It was close but indistinct except for its hunger to assimilate, to mate and marry and meld with each person who fell under its influence.
My stomach growled, low and angry.
My eyelids fluttered open, and the magick sloughed away, falling to a low simmer. I could still feel the pull of the thing, but now it had distance. It was fuzzy, less immediate. But I knew where it was.
“It’s in the back of the restaurant.”
The Man in Black gave a slight bow and a flourish of his red right hand. “Lead the way, Charlotte Tristan Moore.”
I pulled the Knife of Abraham from my belt, holding it point down along my forearm like I’d been trained to do.
I had a bad feeling, but I stepped into the dining room anyway.