From the files of Nick Nightmare
Whenever I see mist, fog or smog, I immediately start wondering who’s responsible. Yeah, the smart guys would say, the weather. Like I don’t know that. I also know that thick, swirling vapors can also presage the coming of something supernatural, twisted, or hell-bent on wreaking havoc. When the noxious stuff is also slightly greenish in hue and contains more than a hint of a leering face or two, a gleam of teeth, then I know things are invariably going to get a little hairy. So when I ran into a wall of churning fog on my way to a rendezvous with Montifellini, he of Magic Bus fame, I gathered my wits about me and pulled my long coat tighter.
I’d had a cryptic note from him, telling me we should meet in a convenient side street, where he’d pick me up in his unique vehicle and whisk me off someplace where I’d hear something to my advantage. Like, how to prolong my existence, or avoid the unwanted advances of yet another alien intrusion. I have become the target of numerous dark and dubious powers in recent times. It would be nice to ignore them or project a few potent verbal discouragements their way, but sometimes you just have to get more physical. If Montifellini says there’s trouble brewing, you need to pay heed.
I fought my way through the aerial blanket, barely able to keep my bearings, but sure enough, the Magic Bus was parked not far ahead, under a street lamp whose tired halo of light burned little brighter than a Zippo flame. The bus was a relic of the 1950s, a squat, snub-nosed vehicle, its paintwork a mixture of yellow and black. I heard the strains of Puccini billowing out from the bus, but don’t ask me which of his works. Montifellini has done his best to educate me in matters operatic, but I’m more of a rock and blues man myself.
I clambered aboard. The big man smiled hugely. Well, he did most things hugely. He more than filled the driver’s seat. He turned down the thundering orchestra and waved me aboard.
“What’s on the menu tonight?” I asked him as he got his incredible machine moving.
“Someone wants to meet you, Nick. Says it’s urgent. I think there may be some big problems coming your way.”
“Why me?”
“Since when does the famous Mr Nightmare start asking dumb questions?”
I gripped the passenger support bar alongside the driver’s cabin as the bus lurched and bounced. Already we were off the New York streets, that or this district was undergoing a minor quake. There was nothing outside but the fog, like we were rolling along a sea bottom. The Magic Bus goes anywhere, literally. Sometimes I reckon Montifellini could take you to Never Never Land if you asked him nicely.
“You heard of Ulthar?” he said.
“City of cats?” I dragged a few references from my brain, which was as fogged up as the world outside. It had been a long, tedious day, sorting through too much accumulated paperwork.
“That’s it,” he said. “I got my Bella there.”
Bella was his cat, a particularly feisty calico, no-nonsense beastie, not to be messed with. She tolerated me, which made me privileged among men. I looked around the bus. Bella occasionally rode in it, but not on this trip. The bus was empty, save for me. If we were going to Ulthar, it figured. From what I’d heard, it wasn’t somewhere you’d want to go without a damn good, probably weird, reason. Don’t ask me what dimension Ulthar was in. You could spend a week speculating and drive yourself nuts.
“Who’s the contact?” I asked.
“Guy named Long Tall Sonny. Traveler, musician, wheeler and dealer.”
“A hobo.”
“Sort of. He gets around. Learns things. Useful contact, you know?”
My world and those I slipped into in the course of my bizarre private eye existence was full of Long Tall Sonny’s of one kind or another. Some were chancers, bottom-feeders living off scraps, others could be relied on to produce a nugget of information from time to time. Montifellini was no fool. No way would he drag me out into a place as off the beaten track as Ulthar unless it meant something, maybe the difference between life and death. So he gave Long Tall Sonny some credibility.
Eventually we parked up in deathly silence, still enshrouded in fog. I could see buildings around us, distorted by the swirling clouds, although these buildings would have been damn weird in normal light. This was Ulthar, a place of narrow streets and alleys, winding up and down at generally dizzy angles, its houses twisted as if they’d been thrown together in a storm, packed and piled.
“Welcome to the Dreamlands,” said Montifellini. “You want an inn called the Skai Arms. It’s at the top of that incline. Your watch working? Okay, come back within two hours. I’ll be here to take you home.”
I disembarked and climbed the jumble of stone steps. It wasn’t easy because they seemed to have been designed to make you dizzy and direct you anywhere but your destination. Behind me, Montifellini ground his gears and the Magic Bus was quickly swallowed by more billows of fog. It might have been night time. There were lamps, but for all I knew they burned perpetually in this dismal city. As I went up, hemmed in by leaning houses seemingly on the point of collapse, I noticed shapes slinking about me, just out of clear vision. Ulthar was famed for its innumerable felines, a host beyond number. They prowled and purred and suffered visitors on the clear understanding that one step out of line would be punished with feral fury, something I was not prepared to put to the test.
I reached the inn, identified by a low-hanging sign, its paint faded and flaking. Stooping, I entered its shadowy embrace. Inside it was spacious, with a high ceiling. A big hearth and a glowing fire made it more welcoming than the drab streets. I pushed through the empty chairs and tables to the bar.
“You from the Southlands?” said the barman. He welcomed me as cheerily as he would have a strong head cold. His rheumy eyes regarded me suspiciously.
I glared back at him. “Nope. Never mind where I’m from, pal. I’m looking for a guy named Long Tall Sonny. Or maybe I should say, he’s looking for me.”
“I don’t want no trouble.” As he spoke, I saw shapes shifting around him, on shelves, along the bar, on some of the tables—cats. Scores of them. Every one of the furry beasts was looking directly at me, wide-eyed and intimidating. Some of them were as big as a small dog. All in all there were a lot of teeth in that place. I heard a communal purring, which somehow seemed to form itself into a soft, rising chant, focused around one word. Food.
“Sooner you get him outta here—and his freaky friend—the better,” the barman grumbled.
Friend? Two of them. I didn’t order a drink, just followed directions as the barman pointed to a shadowy corner of the inn, where a figure slumped over a table. Drunk? Hell, that was all I needed. I went over to the man and he looked up nervously. He was skin and bone wrapped up in rags, with a gaunt face suggesting he wasn’t too familiar with the concept of healthy eating. As I stood by his table he shivered and curled up tighter.
“Long Tall Sonny?” I said.
He nodded until I thought his head would drop off. “Did Montifellini send you?” he squawked.
“Yeah. You got something for me? I don’t have a lot of time.” As I spoke I caught movement behind him in deeper shadows, and I brought out one of my Berettas in a fast draw.
Long Tall Sonny reached out with a hand—more like a claw—and gripped my wrist. “It’s okay,” he said. “I can explain.”
I tried to get a clearer view of whoever had moved back there, but all I saw was a blurred shadow and a pair of eyes. Very green, bright and sparkling. My guess was, it was a dame.
“She’s my—my, uh, partner,” said Long Tall Sonny. He didn’t seem very sure. “We need to get back to New York. Your New York, and mine. Otherwise they’ll kill us.”
“And what do I get out of it?”
“I’ll tell you everything. Just get us away before it’s too late. The Cobweb Queen knows I’m here in Ulthar. She’s closing in.”
I didn’t know of any Cobweb Queen, but anyone who knows me will tell you I’m not a big fan of spiders, or anything on eight legs, or even six for that matter. To be blunt, I’m not that fond of two-legged beings either. I thought I heard a change in the tone of the moggie collective, a sort of growling. They didn’t like spiders, either. I recalled that Montifellini’s cat, Bella, occasionally found one and chewed on it, a snack between meals.
Long Tall Sonny lowered his hand, but I kept the gun aimed at the shadow person. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I saw now it was someone in a thick, black cloak, hooded and with a black scarf covering its face, save those eyes. They were the only thing about it that moved.
“So—convince me I should help you.”
“The Cobweb Queen is a cruel mistress,” said Long Tall Sonny. “She’s enslaved half a world and she’s always greedy for more. There were three of them once, demi-gods. They were sisters, the last of their race, but they fought the Old Ones, the terrible deities from the stars, and lost. Two were destroyed, burned to cinders by the wrath of Azathoth. The Cobweb Queen escaped and started a new empire of her own. Zermillia wants out.”
By Zermillia I guessed he meant the green-eyed shadow behind him.
“We want to get to the safety of New York. The Cobweb Queen can’t get through to it. Her movements are restricted by the servants of the Old Ones.”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
“Zermillia and me will start a new life together.”
It was tough imagining anyone starting a new life with this bundle of bones, but who was I to argue with love? It being blind, and all.
“If you get us back, we can help make sure the defenses are strengthened. Just in case the Cobweb Queen tries to invade. She’s restricted, but she’s powerful. Block her out on your side and she’ll never get through. She’ll look someplace else for new conquests.”
Before I could poke him for more information, the feline tribe set up a new caterwauling. Something had spooked them, big time. The barman rushed to one of the tiny windows and peered outside. Whatever was out there had upset the apple-cart. He swung round and looked at me angrily. “You brought them! You treacherous -” He ran off a string of uncomplimentary insults that made me wince.
I ignored him and went to the dusty window. One look out explained the barman’s over-excitement. Several figures stood in the street, contemplating the inn. I would have said they were men, but they looked more like they’d risen from the deeps of the Black Lagoon. They were naked, had obvious gills, eyes like moons and a spine of sharp quills that ran from the back of their heads to the lower end of their backs. And being a dark shade of green added to the aquatic effect.
“No friends of mine,” I said.
Long Tall Sonny yelped in horror and started gabbling. “They serve the Old Ones! They’ve come for Zermillia. They want to trap the Cobweb Queen and sacrifice her. You don’t know what they’ll do to her. We have to get away!”
“Let’s not get hysterical.” I turned to the barman. “This is the part where I ask you if there’s a back way out of here. Maybe you could have your cats distract those fish-suckers?”
He seemed to understand that me and my two new pals weren’t quite as undesirable as he’d originally imagined, whereas the shamblers outside were all that and more. He nodded and spoke to the mass of cats, which had miraculously grown to about three times its original size. Boy, were those beasts ready for action. The barman swung open the door and the cats poured out, shrieking as only cats can. I didn’t stay to watch the bloody rending and tearing that followed. Long Tall Sonny stood up, a spindly guy who must have been nigh on six foot six. He had a battered old guitar hanging from a shoulder strap. Both had seen better days, better years even.
The barman led the three of us through the inside of the pub and to a low doorway that opened to another alley. He gave us instructions so I could find our way back to the original steps that would drop down to where the Magic Bus would be waiting. On our way, I could hear the frenzied sounds of wild animals at war and was thankful I couldn’t see any of it. We got back to the stair, but not before I sensed other shapes out in the fog, like smears in the swirling clouds. They were closing in. This was going to be a close shave.
Mercifully the unmistakable shape of Montifellini’s vehicle was waiting. I hurried Long Tall Sonny and Zermillia towards it. She’d managed to run the gauntlet still mummified in her cloak, apparently as easy on her feet as if she’d been gliding. I heard the scuffling of many feet behind us. Things were undoubtedly closing in and I smelt the salty stink of the sea.
I flung open the door of the bus. Montifellini looked down from his seat, his black eyebrows raised in an expression of deep curiosity. “You’re in a hurry, my friend.”
“Two more passengers,” I said. “Can we scoot, pronto?”
He revved the engine, which made a sound suggestive of something about to blow itself apart. But the bus was alive, primed. I gestured for Long Tall Sonny to get aboard and he did so, Zermillia behind him. Her head was down as she drifted past the huge driver, not wanting to look at him, or be seen. I got on board and shut the door. Long Tall Sonny and Zermillia went into the empty bus and sat near the back, looking out of the windows at the thickening gloom.
I stood beside Montifellini as he took us away. I thought I felt something bump on the sides of the bus, like we were being mobbed, in danger of being turned over. Montifellini shouted a few choice Italian swearwords and I picked out the word ‘paintwork’.Then we were plunging into a new fog bank, dark as a tunnel.
“Passengers?” said Montifellini. “I recognize Long Tall Sonny. But who’s the other?”
I attempted to explain.
“Something is wrong,” he said, his voice low, covered by the rumble of the engine. “Have you seen her clearly?”
“No, we didn’t have a lot of time for introductions, not with the fishy tribe about to organize a three course meal.”
“You say she was a servant of the Cobweb Queen? I know a little about that monster. Nasty lady, if that’s what she is, my friend. Her servants are not women you would want to associate with. Even you would draw the line, I think.”
“Hey, easy on the compliments,” I grunted. “I’ve just had a run of bad luck with the fairer sex of late, that’s all.”
He grinned. “Sure.” His grin dissolved. “Seriously, Nick, we’re in trouble. We need a little time to work this out. Go and sit with them. Find out what you can.”
I did so. Long Tall Sonny was hunched up, not very talkative. Zermillia’s vivid eyes studied the fog as if it would reveal its secrets to her.
“Tell me about your former mistress,” I said, but she shrank back as if I’d threatened her. I wasn’t going to get anything out of her, obviously. So I sat back and let the bus wind its way back to my world.
* * * *
We’d stopped. It was night outside, and still foggy as hell.
“Terminus!” called Montifellini.
I went up front. “Seriously?” I said, voicing my skepticism.
“The fog will pass. Go and get some sleep. Tuck the lovers up in bed.” He said it with a tone of finality and I knew that was it. Out. Resolve whatever problems I’d now gleaned from this little jaunt without him. I grunted and waved Long Tall Sonny to me. He and his cloaked partner disembarked and the three of us watched the Magic Bus rumble away, its exhaust pumping out clouds of fumes that suggested it was where the fog had originated. Maybe it had. Montifellini works in mysterious ways.
“Where are we?” said Long Tall Sonny.
“Good question.”
“This doesn’t feel like our New York.”
I wasn’t going to argue. Instead I watched the fog as it began to close in again, tight as a fist. I heard the sound of lapping water and a sudden gust brought with it a distinctive fetor of sea. So we were on a quayside. I turned to see Long Tall Sonny and the woman walking away. I followed them.
Ahead of us a number of buildings reared up, partially obscured by darkness and mist. Blocks of stone, windowless and in places overhung with thick tresses of leaves, ivy maybe, or some kind of matted climbers. This place was deserted and had been for a long time. My guess was, a very long time. There were stone steps leading up to an open rectangle of deeper darkness, a door. Further up the quay a long slipway dropped at an angle into the mist and again I heard water lapping at it. There’d been no ships sliding down that ramp in an age.
I paused at the top of the steps, looking around. If this was New York, I was a monkey’s uncle. Where the heck had Montifellini dropped us—and why?
Long Tall Sonny re-emerged from the building. “Zermillia’s gone inside, looking for somewhere to crash until sunrise. Where is this place?”
“The truth is, I don’t know. It’s not our Big Apple.”
He let out a deep breath of relief. “I’m cool with that.”
“You want to explain why?”
“It’s Zermillia.” He dropped his voice. “She’s not my partner. Well, she sort of is. She seduced me. I feel kinda impelled to do what she tells me. She has powers. She’s not on the run from the Cobweb Queen.”
“You’re not making my night any better.”
“She’s a Summoner.” He peered through the doorway, listening. When he was satisfied we were still out of the girl’s earshot, he spoke again. “The Cobweb Queen has eight of them, her most powerful servants. They look for new places for her, like scouting bees. When they find somewhere, they perform certain rituals and summon her into existence. Right now the Cobweb Queen is heavily pregnant. When she arrives, she’ll discharge her countless thousands of offspring and the invasion will begin.”
“Invasion?”
“New world, new home, new beginning.”
“And is there any good news?”
“What you just told me. This isn’t our New York. And Zermillia doesn’t know that. Better if she doesn’t.”
I was beginning to get the picture—and Montifellini had indeed cottoned on to something. Which is why he dumped us here. Not like him to abandon me, though. Maybe he thought I’d wriggle out. Right now, though, I didn’t have a key.
What I did have, tucked inside my coat, was a flashlight. I pulled it out, as well as one of my guns, and switched on. The beam shed light beyond the doorway as we entered. This was some place, a granddaddy of a warehouse, its ceiling way up above us, festooned with more creepers, lianas, jungle plants. Another piece of this weird puzzle clicked into place. This wasn’t just a case of where we were, it was also when we were. My guess was, a long time ago. Montifellini had done a good job of shipwrecking us.
The walls were coated with slime, fungus, mold, you name it, and it was soon apparent I didn’t need my flash. Some of this stuff glowed, a baleful candle-light that threw everything into relief. We’d climbed more steps to the central area and could have been in a primitive cathedral, its tall columns angled upwards, some leaning, others collapsed, but still enough to keep most of the roof up. Tendrils of fog curled around up there, feeling their way in through an open section, but quickly dissipating as they groped about in the inner air, a bizarre, natural defense.
Long Tall Sonny gasped, a skeletal, bony hand indicating one of the walls, where an inscription had been embossed and could still be read. To me it was gibberish, as intelligible as Sanskrit, but he recognized it. He was a travelling man, so maybe he’d picked a few things up on his ramblings.
“Jehoshaphat!” he cried, then dropped his voice again. “I think I know where we are. It’s an island, an old kingdom. One of a number of places sacred to…an old religion.”
I wasn’t exactly loving this. An alien world, a remote time, and we were on a goddamn island. “Something tells me you’re not talking High Anglican Church.”
He pointed to some crude carvings, bizarre figures cavorting about, figures with gills, spatulate hands, piscean features. Not unlike the things I’d seen shambling about in Ulthar.
“Servants of the sea god,” he said, shuddering.
“Azathoth? Is that what you called it?”
He shook his head. “Azathoth is at the heart of his own universe, linked to many others, a sort of primal chaos, a cosmic being beyond understanding, who -”
“I get the picture. So which god are we talking about here?”
“He who dwells in the deep ocean. There is a theory that his city, R’Lyeh, sits in more than one dimension, on more than one world. This is one of them. It’s out there, in the fathomless ocean chasms, where he dreams. This citadel is one of a number that ring the ocean, a place where his children can gather, swarming up from the waters.”
“So, all in all, pal, this is probably the worst place in any number of universes for us to be. Sandwiched between the water god and the spider monster.” I was thinking, the next time I saw Montifellini, I was going to have a few words with the big guy. Was he nuts? Then it hit me. No, not completely. There was method in his madness. Things started to make sense, the internal fog clearing if the stuff outside wasn’t.
“And all this you’ve told me,” I said to Long Tall Sonny, “Would be news to Zermillia? She doesn’t know where, or when, we are?”
“It’s better if she doesn’t. But ask her yourself. She’s coming.”
We were almost in the center of the huge building, dwarfed by its monumental stones, its floor a series of concentric mosaics, ancient patterns. Zermillia came out of the shadows beyond it. She had got rid of her cloak, hood and facial mask. I tried not to gape. She looked like something that had stepped off a catwalk in the latest Parisian fashion show. She wore a single, flowing garment, a very pale pink affair that hugged most of her contours, thin as silk. Her hair was as white as snow, a tumbling mass, and her skin was also white. An albino, as pure as I’d ever seen. Her face was human and yet had an elfish look, if I can put it that way. Her eyes were a brilliant green, emphasized now by that white skin, and her lips were very full, blood red, though that wasn’t lipstick. Beauty incarnate, and yet in a way repellent, at least to me. Long Tall Sonny had already succumbed to her charms. His natural inclination wasn’t to recoil, far from it.
“Mr Stone, or should I say, Nick Nightmare,” she purred. The cats of Ulthar would have liked that. “Good of you to help us.”
“Always like to keep the clients satisfied.”
Her green eyes surveyed me coolly and I was thinking more of serpents than spiders. “I am a little puzzled, though. This building, its location—aren’t we a little off the beaten track?”
I could feel Long Tall Sonny’s terror crawling up him from his boots like a hot flush of plague. His long face was slick with sweat. Panic was poking him.
“That’s right, ma’am. We’re in New York, but this is about as insalubrious a spot as I could find.”
Those crimson lips made a little moue. “Quite. And why did you choose it?”
“Thing is, ma’am—”
“Zermillia.”
“Sure. Thing is, guys like me who travel around in ways most folks don’t even know about, are secretive types. Only a few of us have the keys to the kind of trip you just made.”
“Yes, it’s why my mistress selected you.”
“We come and go privately. If we’d walked out into Times Square in broad daylight, well, we’d have caused a stir. My guess is, your mistress would rather announce her coming when it suits her. Element of surprise.” I waved my arms at the surrounding stone. “No one will know she’s here until she’s ready.”
“Very clever, Mr Nightmare. Your point is well taken.”
I thought I’d done pretty well for an on-the-hoof explanation. But we were a long way from being out of the woods yet.
“What is this place?” she asked innocently.
“Uh, well, ma’am—Zermillia—it’s an old building. There was a war many years ago, a world war, in fact, and our military powers built a whole lot of warships, some in secret bases like this one, to disguise the scale of the work. Even in its heyday, this place was remote, out on the edge of New York. When the war ended, it was abandoned. Never been used since. We’re probably the first people to set foot here in a long time. So we’re not likely to be disturbed.” All this was complete bull, but experience has taught me the key to bull is to deliver it with conviction.
“The Cobweb Queen will be delighted. We shall begin the rituals after dawn. I suggest you get some rest. It will be quite taxing.”
“I assume you won’t be needing us.”
She smiled her chilling smile and I mean icy. “Oh, I will, Mr Nightmare. You and Sonny are an integral part of the—ceremony.” She left us again, swallowed by the walls of shadow.
“Dawn,” I said to him. “That could be a problem.”
“We have to get out of here,” Long Tall Sonny muttered.
“When dawn comes up, and if the fog has lifted, it won’t be the Manhattan skyline she sees across the water. My guess is, it’ll be jungle. Not a concrete one. One with a whole lot of trees. And we’re not talking weeping willows.”
* * * *
We snatched some uneasy sleep. My dreams were twisted ones, mostly to do with water and things bubbling up from it. Not helped by the sloshing and gurgling of the tide outside, sluicing up the big ramp. I heard things wading around in it, but with any luck that was just my fevered imagination. Who was I kidding?
Dawn came, its first light seeping through the east end of the building. The door through which we’d entered was shut, a solid block of stone sealing up the way out. Close by it, where the long slipway to the sea came into the building, I could see the outline of a huge door, its outline picked out in places as sunlight poked through the cracks of time. Maybe I’d been right about ships being launched from here, but whatever types of ships they’d been remained a mystery. No bad thing.
Long Tall Sonny and I got to our feet at the same time. Zermillia was watching us from the steps, a smile on her face that would have melted bronze. No doubt she was eager to get on with the summoning. Montifellini’s devious plans were clearer to me now: have the Cobweb Queen brought here and virtually imprisoned. That was okay by me. The problem was, I didn’t want to share her splendid isolation. I couldn’t believe Montifellini would simply sacrifice me to achieve his aims. So I assumed he’d pick me up once the work was done.
Zermillia had been busy in the night. The huge chamber had a central area which she’d cleared of any debris, and she must have used a makeshift broom from some of the bigger leaves to sweep away the dust of the ages. What had been revealed on the circular floor was an intricate concentric sequence of glyphs, dancing figures and stars, a kind of pictographic saga hinting at a cosmic link between the world and the stars. I’d seen this kind of thing before, mainly in conjunction with the sea and certain things that shambled up from its deeps from time to time and mingled with the human population, not necessarily to its advantage.
Zermillia saw my expression and laughed, a cold sound that bounced around the high walls. “It’s ironic,” she said. “This abandoned temple to dead gods and the forgotten remnants of the Queen’s enemies. It seems fitting that she will be brought here, hidden from your world in this shell.”
So she hadn’t bought my World War Two warship blarney. But she did think it was my world. I wish the thought had comforted me.
“Once,” she went on, “the priests of another cult stood here and poured their libations to the Old Ones, summoning powers from the stars. I shall open another conduit. The Cobweb Queen will come, carrying her thousand young! Here they will bloom and go out into your city and feast! Days of great joy are upon us.” She pointed to Long Tall Sonny, her finger a long, white stick, its nail as red as her lips. “Stand inside the circle!”
He snapped upright as if something had grabbed him. I could see him struggling against it, shaking like a doll caught in the mouth of a huge dog. It was hopeless—he couldn’t prevent himself from being dragged across the circles to their innermost point. Zermillia lifted her arms and spoke to the heavens, and a scarlet mist surrounded her, its fingers reaching out and ripping Long Tall Sonny’s ragged clothing off him. Naked, he looked even more bony, his flesh pale, his limbs like thin branches. Gasping with pain, he dropped to his knees, head bowed. His guitar rattled on the floor beside him.
I pulled out my twin Berettas and directed them at Zermillia.
“Save you bullets,” she said. “They won’t work on me. Enjoy your freedom for a while longer. Then prepare to meet your goddess.”
She raised her hands again and now began a low dirge, her voice echoing in the chamber, rising in pitch, picked up by the acoustics and amplified. I’d seen gates opened before by songs, and although this one was quintessentially weird, its power became evident as something high above groaned and shifted, as if huge stones had been moved to let in daylight. Well, not daylight. It may have been daylight outside the building, but whatever conduit Zermillia had opened did so onto a black, starlit sky. As the song swelled, the stars were gradually blotted out by a vast bulk, a huge something coming over the roof. Its long, long legs, several of them, were as thick as palm trunks, hairy and fibrous. The Cobweb Queen was answering the summons.
Long Tall Sonny had collapsed and the invisible forces that gripped him twisted him until he was spread-eagled. I had a good idea what was coming next, and it was not going to be a pretty sight. Darkness descended, along with something else, something I first thought was gloopy, hanging in slick festoons. Cobwebs! Dozens of lengthy strands, unfurling like drapes. I was caught in a nasty dilemma. I wanted the Cobweb Queen snared in the trap, but not at the expense of Long Tall Sonny. Sure, he was a bit of a creep and I didn’t owe him any favors—he’d dragged me into this mess in the first place—but it seemed wrong to let him become, presumably, a light snack for the grandmother of spiders.
So I fired off a couple of rounds at Zermillia, gambling that it was too late for the Queen to rise up and away again. I was right—her immense bulk kept lowering itself down into the chamber. The bullets whanged up against whatever shield Zermillia had erected around herself and I saw them spinning in mid-air, quickly cocooned in webbing like flies. Zermillia’s song was unbroken, her face beatific, eyes on her mistress. I could hear Long Tall Sonny’s guitar thrumming, as if he was playing it—he wasn’t—and its chords complementing Zermillia’s song.
Impotently I fired another few rounds as I backed away. A couple of the bullets hit the far wall of the chamber and ricocheted around the place like mad wasps. Incredibly they kept going, longer than I would have expected, like they’d picked up on the power that was in play and were accelerating. The sound as they bounced from wall to wall rose.
Zermillia stopped singing, the bulbous Cobweb Queen a dozen feet or so from the chamber’s floor. I got a better view of the monster and gaped. It was no normal spider, and had an exaggerated head, shaped like a huge skull and—features. That face, it was stretched across the skull, but it was Zermillia’s face, or the prototype of it. Its brilliant, green eyes opened and fixed on me. I shrank back as if Satan himself had favored me with his sulfurous gaze.
Zermillia watched the buzzing bullets, then flung something at them, white light in jagged forks. There was a crackling, a hiss, something small rolling across stone, and the bullets were still, little smoking pellets, redundant. Zermillia stepped out of the circle and away from Long Tall Sonny, whose eyes were tightly closed, his body rigid.
My guess was Zermillia was about to taunt me and start in on me with her powers, with a view to divesting me of my clothes as she had done her earlier victim, but something checked her. Her head rose and she cocked her ears like a hunting eagle, picking up sounds outside the normal human range of hearing. I heard nothing—at first. Then it came to me, that soft whispering, a susurration. The sea outside. Lapping up against the huge doors. That and something else.
Visitors.
I worked my way back towards the base of the doors, to one side of the ramp. Zermillia wasn’t impressed and flung even more of her light bolts my way. Behind her, the Cobweb Queen, the size of a house, blotted out the light, her legs stretching across the chamber. Long Tall Sonny was in shadow, but his fate was even more clear.
Beside me, light exploded and small sections of stone burst apart as Zermillia vented her petulance on me. In her irritation she’d damaged a lower part of the doors, and sunlight flooded in. That wasn’t all that flooded in. A score of aquatic shapes rode in on the gush of sea water. They gave a whole new meaning to the concept of surfing. More of the door opened. I don’t know what force was outside, dragging at it, and to be honest, I didn’t want to, but it was enough to admit a whole host of these salty invaders.
Zermillia screamed in a combination of fury and fear. I liked the fear bit. I saw her make a break for the far end of the chamber. Meanwhile the Cobweb Queen shook herself and I saw her abdomen ripple then let loose a flood of smaller arachnid shapes. They may have been her babies, but they were the size of wolf hounds. And to add to their horrific appearance, they all had bloated quasi-human heads. And all their faces were replicas of Zermillia’s. They scampered forward at speed, preparing to meet the onslaught of the water things. These were humanoid, having our general shape and limbs, but other than that they were more like crustaceans or fish, their limbs ending in claws that would have chopped a normal man in half. And those mouths! Looked like they were chewing on a nest of lampreys. I shrank back into what shadows I could find and mercifully I was ignored. The presence of the Cobweb Queen and her horrible spawn had driven the sea folk insane with anger and blood-lust. They broke on them like a huge wave and the conflict that ensued was violent and murderous. I had no idea what the outcome would be.
Fortunately Long Tall Sonny was as interesting to the sea things as I was, and at last he was able to break free of the power that had gripped him. He snatched up the remnants of his clothes, put them on, and regathered his dignity, as well as his now silent guitar. I waved him over to me and we stood, temporarily mesmerized by the confusion. We lost sight of Zermillia, but my guess was she was either buried under a mass of writhing tentacles and claws, or she’d found a back way out of there. I didn’t much care one way or the other.
I dragged Long Tall Sonny out through the door into daylight. The churning sea was right up the slipway and for the moment had finished disgorging the horde of things from under its waves. There was a narrow path, a rough quay to one side and we edged along it. I looked out to sea. As I thought, no city skyline, but no jungle either, just a flat sea horizon. This island may not be anywhere near the mainland at all. Out in the bay, the deeper waters boiled. It looked like something even bigger and nastier was preparing its own version of a D-Day landing.
I shoved Long Tall Sonny along the quay and we kept going. Eventually, rounding the last of a series of rock outcrops, we came to a small bay and a bigger quay. There were buildings, small and cramped, but long abandoned. And no city.
“You okay?” I asked my companion.
“Thanks,” he said. “You saved my bacon.”
“Pal, you were the bacon. And we’re not out of this yet.”
* * * *
We spent the day waiting. I’d convinced myself Montifellini would come. Somehow that crazy bus of his would roll up on the quay and whisk us back to our saner world. Long Tall Sonny was skeptical. He shuddered every time we heard a distant boom as the conflict inside the old buildings raged on insanely. The sea hurled its waves at us, probably stirred up by events, but we were otherwise left alone. I didn’t think we’d be safe indefinitely, though. Whoever won that clash of the Titans would seek us out eventually. A snack for the Cobweb Queen or a watery trip to R’Lyeh or some such tourist spot down in the deeps.
Evening finally turned up and my eyes, tired from scanning the emptiness of the sea, picked something up, a shape on the water, coming around the shoulder of rock to the west of us. A little craft, with one occupant. I slipped out a gun, fully loaded once more. As the canoe-like craft got closer, the figure waved cheerily. I knew the grinning face.
“Fred the Ferryman,” I breathed. “That’s a relief.”
“You know him?”
“I’m happy to say yes.” I helped Fred tie up at the quayside.
The little man’s blob of a head bobbed up and down as he laughed. “Mr Stone. Montifellini told me I’d find you here. He’d have come himself, but there’s an ocean of aquatic horrors on the lookout for him in this realm. And he was grumbling about some of them denting the bodywork of his bus. You know how that kind of thing irks him.”
Long Tall Sonny looked a mite queasy. “You mean I have to get aboard? I get seasick.”
I gave him my searching look. “Is it my imagination, or do I smell bacon?”
* * * *
Long Tall Sonny took his mind off the rocking of the boat as Fred ferried us through yet more banks of fog (which he breathed in happily) by strumming a few blues tunes on his guitar, while Fred added the lyrics, most of which centred around his having woken up that morning. No one was seasick, but I grumbled about the interminable fog, even if it did mask us from anything swimming about below us.
Some time later we bumped up against something and I realized we had arrived at yet another quayside. Long Tall Sonny and I climbed the weed-infested steps and up to dry-ish land. Fred gave us a cheery wave and rowed away, still singing about his baby having left him, though the event, if not a fiction, must have been a happy one. I wouldn’t be buying the album.
“Are we home?” said my companion.
“I think we have one more trip to make.” I pointed at a large, humped shadow. It shook to the strains of Carmen. Montifellini’s Magic Bus was parked alongside some weird buildings that could only have been erected in Ulthar, to which we had apparently returned. “Let’s get aboard. I want a few words with Pavarotti’s cousin, several times removed.”
Before we’d taken a few steps, things materialized in the fog on either side of us. Unpleasant things. Things that had lately been in that choppy sea, now sloping along, claws flexing, tentacular mouths wriggling, eager to fix on human flesh, specifically mine and Long Tall Sonny’s. It was touch and go as to whether we’d make it to the bus before they fell on us. A wild screeching shattered the silence and the fog disgorged yet more shapes, to wit a seething mass, furry and feline. Cats, scores of them. In their forefront and yowling with maniacal fury, was none other than Montifellini’s little calico heroine, Bella. She arched her back, her fur fluffed up and her tail three times as fat as normal, swishing to and fro like a conductor’s baton directing her musical ensemble.
The sea spawn hissed, a sound nowhere near as effective as the terrifying caterwauling, and at once the battle began, while Long Tall Sonny and I edged closer and closer to the bus and its swelling chorus of toreadors. We tried not to watch as claws of varying sizes swiped at flesh and needle teeth sank into skin and scales. The walls of the buildings echoed to the concatenation of horrible sounds. We reached the door to the vehicle and I looked up to see the big man, sitting back, eyes closed in euphoric pleasure as he accompanied the lusty Italian singing booming from his speakers.
He opened an eye and favored me with a face-splitting grin. “Nick! I knew you’d get through. Come aboard, and bring your musical maestro with you.”
We needed no second bidding as the battle on the quay, which had now assumed war proportions, snarled and hissed very close to the bus. Like the opera, it reached a crescendo—then stopped. There was only the fog. And a single cat. Bella. Insouciantly, she climbed up the steps into the bus, favored us with one of those imperious cat glances, found a comfortable seat and proceeded to wash herself as if nothing had happened.
“She is a Boudicca among cats,” said her master proudly. “I take it you dealt with the intruder,” he added, closing the door and wrestling the engine into life.
I was too relieved to be on board to make a big deal of it all. Long Tall Sonny sat down and idly picked at the strings of his guitar. “You know, that tune Zermillia was singing. Really melodic. Could be a winner.”
I glared at him. “Sonny, you play one note of that song and I will remove both your arms and shove the guitar where the sun don’t shine. Stick to twelve bar blues, okay?”