The trip to Lord King’s headquarters didn’t take very long, especially since most travel in the city was done on foot.
The place was slightly less garish than the rest of the city’s buildings, having a simple neon sign which proclaimed it to be King’s Casino. The establishment looked like it might have once been a bank, its large Greek archways and solid, durable presence giving a sense of timelessness in an otherwise fragile-looking city.
The people walking in and out of the casino were a fairly diverse lot. Some of them looked to be Wasteland traders while others appeared to be inhabitants of the city. I was unnerved to see what appeared to be New Arkham citizens scattered amongst them, citizens who didn’t look like they’d fled the Remnant but were on a day trip. The casino exterior was guarded by a number of bouncers armed with crude machine guns and bulky melee weapons. They looked considerably more impressive than the poorly armed band sent to retrieve us.
The Blue Meanie pulled up right in front of the casino’s revolving doors, causing a couple of the thugs to back away before immediately training their weapons on us. Mister Death had taken Jackie’s place on the passenger’s side while Jackie moved between Jessica and Katryn, giving her the safest position in the vehicle.
I wasn’t sure how welcome we were going to be given the cold reception we’d given the slime which had tried to ambush us. We’d left those thugs tied up back at the street where they’d attacked us, using a rope they’d intended to use on us. After my meeting with Lord King, presumably he’d send someone to fetch them. Sparing them probably wasn’t the best solution and I suspected Katryn wished she could have just slit their throats. However, I didn’t want to kill them. With any luck, they wouldn’t hold a grudge once we’d spoken with their superior.
Yeah, fat chance of that.
“We’re here to see the Boss.” I gave a short wave to the guards around me, keeping the weapons I’d hidden all over the car out of sight. I didn’t intend to start a fight but I sure as hell didn’t intend to rely on the honor of criminals for my safety either.
“Please allow us to pass,” Mister Death said, waving his hand in front of them. His smile was at once gentle but also deadly.
“And don’t you disagree!” Jackie said from the back, cheerfully shaking her fist.
I looked at the chief of the bouncers, a large Caucasian man dressed in a business suit. His arms and forehead were covered with a number of Elder Sign-like tattoos. The bouncer seemed caught between his desire to blow my head off and to let me through. I doubted he was used to people asking to see his boss. Crime lords summoned you, not the other way around (at least if the records in New Arkham were anything to go by).
Finally, he said, “Go on in, the Lord is expecting you.”
“Understood,” I replied, nervous about the amount of firepower we were facing. They might not be E.B.E.s but they were still dangerous.
Parking the vehicle in a nearby cordoned-off lot, I armed myself rather heavily from the trunk. Richard hadn’t had access to the same sort of weapons that had been available in New Arkham but he had a number of semi-automatic weapons and even a few grenades. It would be suicide to start a firefight in an enemy’s territory but we wouldn’t go quietly.
Jessica and Katryn also helped themselves to armaments, and Katryn’s father merely stood to the side. Jackie just watched the entire sight with a kind of perverse interest, as if she was in a story.
“Mister Booth, are you going to kill these people or talk to them?” Jackie asked, looking up at me.
“Talk, hopefully,” I answered her.
“With guns?” Jackie asked, hopefully.
“No,” I told her.
“Oh.” She sounded almost disappointed.
I turned to Jessica. “I’m charging you with Jackie’s protection while we handle this.”
“Hey! I want to meet the bad guys!” Jackie complained. “Do you think they have secret treasure vaults filled with gold?”
Jessica frowned at me, taking Jackie by the arm. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable letting you go in there alone.”
“I’m not going to be alone,” I said, looking to Katryn and Mister Death.
Jessica frowned, indicating she wasn’t exactly sure that they weren’t part of the problem. “Uh, Captain?”
“I’ll be fine,” I reassured her.
Katryn bowed her head. “I will kill anyone who threatens him.”
“Uh, thanks.” Jessica looked awkward and uncomfortable with the whole thing. “Well, good, I guess.”
“Stay safe.” I nodded to Jackie. “We’ll find you a home here afterward. This city is considerably safer than the Wasteland.”
“Yeah, sure, Mister Booth.” It was obvious Jackie didn’t believe it. I wasn’t sure I did either.
Kingsport was a decadent, evil, and thoroughly unsafe location. Other possibilities existed, like the Crow Kingdom in the distant British Isles across the Atlantic Ocean. There were also rumors that Boston had reconstituted itself, as well as York. All three were potential havens for a child in need. I wanted Jackie to enjoy all the fruits of human life before undergoing her metamorphosis. However, I wasn’t sure if they were really realistic choices. I needed to find an appropriate guardian for her in case of my death. As much as I knew Jessica was undyingly loyal to me, I wasn’t sure how she’d react to discovering Jackie would eventually become a ghoul.
“Good luck, Captain.” Jessica looked hesitant. “Try not to get killed.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said,
Turning around and heading to the casino doors, I saw Katryn and Mister Death followed close behind me. I felt oddly comfortable between the two magicians, one who worshiped life and the other death. If I was a superstitious man, I’d say their presence was a positive omen.
It was Katryn who spoke first. “Jessica is exceptionally loyal to you. She will follow you to the ends of the Earth.”
“Yes, we grew up together,” I said with just the barest hint of a smile. “We were in the same school grouping. We played ‘Smash the Mutant’ together as children, and as teenagers we took turns distracting the proctors to get alone time with our romantic partners—at least before the breeding exams.”
Katryn narrowed her eyes, probably wondering exactly how “breeding exams” worked. In many ways, I admired the Dunwych practice of just choosing their sexual partners. Too bad their non-Dunwych partners didn't have a choice whether to participate or not. “Loyalty is what my father wishes to talk to you about. I can see it in his eyes.”
“Yes,” Mister Death said. “I am curious what you are willing to give for the future of humanity. What is your loyalty to your race?”
“I would give anything for it,” I said. It was a stupid question to ask, and an insulting one. “Anything at all.”
“Including your life?” Mister Death asked.
“Easily,” I answered. Anything was anything after all.
“And your loved ones?” Mister Death raised an eyebrow.
“They are why I do it.” What was the old wizard getting at? “Why do you ask?”
“In due time,” Mister Death replied, smiling. “In due time.”
That was one thing I had not missed about dealing with the Dunwych: they were maddeningly obtuse.
The three of us passed the entrance guards into King’s Casino. I was almost immediately overwhelmed by the smell of Devil’s weed, Ghoul powder, marijuana, and opium that clung to the walls. The place was dark and musty with yellow wallpaper, stained yellow carpet, and even the dealers wearing some shade of the color gold. I saw a few small statues of the King in Yellow, a Dunwych god often associated alternatively with the Unspeakable One or Hastur, resting on various gambling tables. It was a curious deity to associate with gambling.
Despite the abysmal smell of the place, it seemed to be doing good business as its rusty slot machines were almost all occupied and the place was packed to the gills. There were blackjack tables, roulette wheels, slot machines, and a few games I didn’t recognize. The casino used old-time bank teller stands to run some sort of pawn shop, exchanging goods for yellow poker chips which looked like gold coins.
A number of the gamblers were not entirely … human. Some had skin corrupted by M-radiation, others looked like they carried the lineage of some unsettling, otherworldly entity, and a few sported deformities ranging from unnaturally long digits to no eyes. The dealers, while visibly disgusted by these beings, simply let them play as a normal man might. If nothing else, the Kings ran an equal opportunity business and I had to applaud them for that.
Serving the various mutant and trader gamblers were a rather pathetic looking set of waiters and waitresses. They were a skinny and frightened lot, forced to wear revealing attire designed to accent their meager sex appeal. I could see the hopelessness that rested behind their eyes, an all-too-common sight in the Wasteland. I had no doubt they were part of the establishment’s many “entertainments” for sale.
Anxious to get out of this place, I looked to Mister Death and asked, “Where is our host?”
“There.” Mister Death gestured to a set of glass doors nearby by the casino floor, apparently leading to some sort of restaurant. “Move cautiously and do not seem like an enemy. Mister King employs the local thugs to guard his casino, but to guard his person, he employs Dunwych.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” I said, moving through the strange room. “Now, what did you mean? About whether or not I was willing to sacrifice my life, I mean.”
“I do not see your beginning or end, John. You are an ouroboros to my magic. I think it is because you are touched by the gods. I think you may be capable of killing the Necromancer, though only if you are willing to die in the process.” Mister Death took off his hat, revealing his shaven head.
Katryn frowned. “He is capable of doing it without dying, Father.”
“I found you in the Wastelands, Katryn. You were a gift from Shub-Niggurath and a child of two worlds,” Mister Death spoke, shaking his wrist at her as if putting a hex on her. “But do not interrupt me again.”
It was a strange revelation, especially given how much they resembled one another. It made me wonder if Mister Death was just trying to pass off an inauspicious birth as an accident of fate. Ignoring it, I told him, “I am willing to die to kill Alan Ward, Mister Death. I may not have much life left in me anyway, but even if I did, it is a life well spent to sacrifice oneself for others.”
“Ha!” Mister Death said. “Individual lives are often worth more than the lives of the herd. The Dunwych will die by the hundreds attacking the Necromancer. All that matters is a single life is taken, that of the corruptor.”
We hustled our way past several patrons, trying to make our way through the crowded casino to the restaurant doors. No one was paying any attention to our conversation, drowned in the din of winnings and arguments with the dealers.
I didn’t like the way Mister Death causally dismissed the lives of his fellow tribals. “I can get into the Black Cathedral without your people needing to sacrifice themselves. This fight is between me and Ward. I’ve made him bleed, I can kill him.”
“It is too late for that. The Dunwych have already made preparations for war. We are a people who must either conquer or turn upon one another,” Katryn explained. “Take advantage of the distraction it will provide.”
I should have been surprised but I wasn’t. “You’ll just send them to their deaths by the thousands?”
“If necessary,” Mister Death said, his voice low. “The Dunwych are a divided people. The Whateley line is no more, so we have no king. Instead, we have many chiefs, chieftesses, and priests. This would not be the first time one leader or another has sought to unite a race by making a conflict larger and more violent than it has to be.”
“Is there nothing I can do to dissuade you?” I asked. Their cavalier disregard for human life bothered me more than their reverence for the Great Old Ones.
“No,” Mister Death replied. “What is done is done. Besides, you have your own role to play. A hundred Dunwych would also fail where one might succeed. My daughter insists the one might as well be you. Personally, I think she is just infatuated.”
“I’ll try and kill him quickly.”
“Let us hope,” Mister Death said, approvingly. “We don’t want the entire army to die, just enough to make the victory worthwhile.”
Truly, madness reigned in the Wasteland.
The three of us finally entered into the King’s casino. Despite it being daytime, the place was dark with all of the windows boarded over and covered with heavy yellow curtains. The place was illuminated by candles with numerous skulls and animal bones hanging from the walls. In a strange way, I could “feel” the wards against otherworldly entities built into the room’s walls.
In the center of the disturbing restaurant was a white table where a man of Asiatic descent was sitting. He was surrounded by six or seven Dunwych warriors, who each wore slightly fewer weapons than a small army. He had long black hair and was wearing a pair of tinted glasses despite the already visibly low light provided by the candles. His attire was an actual honest-to-God tuxedo of the kind not seen outside of a movie. Despite his strange attire, I could tell he was taller than me and extremely well-muscled.
Walking forward, I saw them raise a number of automatic weapons towards me. Casually ignoring them, I pulled out a seat in front of the Asiatic man and sat down across from him. “Mister King, I presume?”
“Ezekiel Tobias King. I’ve been hearing quite a lot about you, Mister Booth.” The gangster’s voice was surprisingly low and guttural, as if his throat was full of gravel. “I’ve been hearing a lot about you from my sources near the Marsh family. You’re also quite the celebrity back in that crazy survivalist compound you call the United States Remnant. All of my tourists from there have been talking about your hanging; apparently it was quite controversial.”
“I’m surprised anyone can remember my name,” I said honestly. “The Remnant citizens I remember were more concerned about who won the local ration lotteries that week. Oh, and who was sleeping with who, especially on television.”
“Their trade is good, which is all I care about.” Ezekiel removed his sunglasses, revealing slit-like serpentine eyes. “Are the men I sent after you dead?”
“No,” I answered, leaning back in the chair. “I thought killing them might be construed as … impolite.”
Ezekiel laughed before smiling. His teeth were mostly gold, like those of his followers. “I like you, John. You have more class than the average Remnant thug I deal with.”
“Like Peter Goodhill?” I asked, deciding to ignore his baiting. Pride could get you killed in the Wasteland and the humble man often laughed last.
“No, I don’t deal in slaves.” Ezekiel said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out two hand-rolled cigars. “Do you smoke?”
“I occasionally indulge,” I said, taking one and smelling it. The aroma contained hints of Ghoul powder, which made me hesitant to smoke it. Still, it was important not to show weakness in these sorts of situations and I instead just broke off the end and allowed him to light it. “What do you want from me?”
“A moment, please,” Ezekiel King said. He then started puffing on his cigar, filling the air with a strange corpse-like aroma.
Katryn and Mister Death took a protective place behind me, which made the Dunwych guards around Ezekiel uncomfortable. The Dunwych were a very spiritual people and they undoubtedly would take any orders from Katryn and her father more seriously than orders from Peter Goodhill. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come between religion and money, since one could never tell where someone would fall in that decision.
Ezekiel continued, “Are you familiar with sorcery, Mister Booth?”
“The Remnant practices Arcanothology, which teaches that there’s an underlying science to all so-called supernatural beings. I admit I’ve had my view in it shaken a bit. I still cling to its fundamental truth, however.”
That was one way of explaining I wasn’t sure what I believed after meeting the messenger of the Blind Idiot God who created the universe. That was the sort of thing which changed a person’s worldview.
“That’s not what I asked,” Ezekiel said, blinking his yellow eyes.
“I know a little,” I answered him. “Back at the Remnant, I read Unknown Cults and De Vermis Mysteriis. I’m currently reading a rather famous work which has opened up many new vistas regarding the manipulation of unusual energies.”
Ironically, it had been Doctor Ward who had lent me those particular tomes as part of my studies. I had treated them as little more than research material for a book on the Brotherhood of Yith.
“You’re reading the English translation of the Necronomicon,” Ezekiel smiled. I wondered if he’d lured me here to steal it. Many people had done much worse for knowledge half as potent as what lay within its pages.
“Yes.” There was no point in denying it.
“You’re an educated man. I like that,” Ezekiel said before taking several puffs on his cigar. “I was born a slave here in Kingsport. My grandmother taught me to read, though. I spent days sneaking into the ruins of the old municipal library, learning everything I could. Even then, it wasn’t until I found a copy of The Black Keys of Solomon in the archives that I realized the true power available to a man in this world.”
I thought about mentioning the hand on my shoulder, but realized Ezekiel undoubtedly knew the drawbacks of sorcery and just didn’t care. So I said, “I’m glad you’ve done well for yourself.”
“I fed my former master to a thing with eight million mouths and six dimensions. That’s not well, that’s spectacular.” Ezekiel let out a laugh before putting out his cigar and placing his shades back on. “However, I have a problem. No matter how much I learn in the ways of sorcery, I cannot kill a certain man.”
Events were starting to fall into place. I wasn’t being brought here for any great purpose; I’d just been brought in because I was a new factor in a gang war. “Do you mean Alan Ward or the leader of the Marsh Family?”
Ezekiel leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “Ward is just the latest in a long line of Wasteland messiahs. You may be the next one. I keep my ambitions realistic. I just want to be the sole trade baron in Kingsport. Obadiah Marsh is a Deep One with his own copy of the Necronomicon. As such, he can repulse anything that I conjure against him. His Deep One hybrids are also the equal of any Dunwych warrior.”
“That is a lie,” Katryn growled, stepping forward. Her father placed a hand on her chest and gently pushed her back.
I found it rather amusing humanity had gone through an extinction event which had destroyed almost the entirety of our race, discovered magic was real, and had the very laws of physics upended—yet we were still feuding over things as silly as who got to control the flow of goods in towns. That they were willing to use spells which could alter the shape and nature of reality to fight over something so petty. Perhaps this, more than anything, justified Ward’s decision to give up on humanity.
No, I couldn’t let myself believe that.
However tempting it was.
“You want my copy of the Necronomicon?” Honestly, he was welcome to it. The book had brought me nothing but pain.
“I wasn’t aware you had a copy until you stupidly implied you had one. However, no, I don’t. I want Obadiah Marsh’s copy.” Ezekiel placed his hands together. “Peter Goodhill has placed a thousand pieces of green gold on your head. That means he fears you. This is why I wanted to tell you I would be willing to give you an equal amount if you were to take care of his employer.”
“I’m not a mercenary,” I said, quite glad to have my suspicions about the Marsh family confirmed. I took several more puffs on the cigar before putting it out beside Mister King’s own. He had an ornamental obsidian ashtray, classy.
“You will be if you want to survive in the Wasteland, Mister Booth.” Ezekiel didn’t move a muscle, staring at me through his opaque glasses. “The question is, if I can set you up a meeting with the Marsh family to get your little girlfriend back—the one that Peter Goodhill entered the city with, will you kill Obadiah Marsh for me? I’ll consider the Necronomicon copy in his possession a bonus.”
This was almost too perfect, which is why the whole thing smelled of a trap. Minutes upon arrival in the city, I was being given the keys to my enemy’s house. Keys which, coincidentally, would take me right into the heart of an enemy stronghold with my guard presumably lowered. It was the perfect scenario to kill me without any danger to Peter. After all, if I failed, Ezekiel King could just claim he was doing them a favor by sending me to them.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t like I had any other immediately available options. “Make the meeting.”
“I’m glad you see it my way, John.” Ezekiel clapped his hands together. “Please, dine with me now. We’re having … fish.”