The Tree of Azathoth, page 28
I was of the opinion that the Great Old Ones did not remotely give a shit about humanity, let alone our genders that probably didn’t coordinate to anything their species possessed. I also felt it ridiculous to worship beings that considered us equivalent to termites on a good day, but that wasn’t going to help my position.
“That sounds fascinating, though I admit I am here primarily to discuss our business arrangement. I want my library to find a good home and that requires a face-to-face meeting to hash out our details.”
I walked past the sisters and found myself in a stately looking study with a set of winding stairs leading to the second floor, and walls full of books, mostly lesser volumes of the occult mixed in with a variety of cheap romance novels for strange contrast. The place had a lot of light coming in from the windows and well-appointed antique—or excellent reproductions of antiques—furniture.
They’d gone to some elaborate lengths to make themselves appear respectable and it was entirely possible they were, at least by City standards. None of that could hide a darker cast to everything, though, as my honed senses detected something unholy beneath me. I could sense a terrible power thrumming underneath the floorboards and guessed something or someone was gathering mystical forces for some nefarious purpose. It always was nefarious with magic. Call me premature but I’d have bet my PI’s license that was where the Cthulhu idol was.
“Of course, Mr. de Marigny,” Raquel said. “We just thought you might like to acquaint yourself with the intimacies of our religion since you’re someone who is going to help us so greatly—profit motivation or not. Would you care for a drink?”
I smiled. “I don’t drink. Deadens the mind.”
How stupid did they think I was?
So, I was an abject moron.
I was presently tied with ropes around my wrists against a Saint Andrew’s cross in the middle of the sorority’s basement, a large green balefire burning in the center of the chamber. The walls were covered in a noxious smelling pinkish fungi and smeared with other more identifiable fluids. Both the walls and fire seemed to be feeding strange artery-like vines that crisscrossed the floors, walls, and ceiling.
There was a general sense that the building’s foundation was alive, and the foundations had been dug out to allow the unnatural meat-plant growing around me to live. Worse—at least for my peace of mind—were countless animal bones and more human-like ones scattered among the bizarre underground garden. There were a few fresher bodies that looked like they’d been drained of blood, with large, circular, sucker-like wounds on their sides.
How I’d managed to enter this unfortunate situation when I was so cagey and determined to keep the upper hand over the Crampton Sisters is a fascinating story. However, I’m not going to tell it because it makes me look bad and you’ll just have to use your imagination. Let’s pretend it was something semi-dignified like knocking me over the head with the Cthulhu idol when I wasn’t looking.
The Crampton sisters proceeded to move into the chamber, both wearing extraordinarily revealing attire whose sexualized effect was somewhat blunted by the fact they were now hairless, nose-less serpent-women. Their bodies were covered in thick scales, and they had eyes of the most malign yellow, and long tails sticking out from the lowest point of their backs. Which, technically, I suppose made them resemble lizards more than serpents, but taxonomy wasn’t my strong suit.
Babs Crampton—I was taking a wild guess as to which sister was which—was holding a purple pillow bearing the Cthulhu idol. It was very different from the way Marceline described it as instead of clay, it was constructed of R’lyehian gold. Perhaps it had been covered in clay and the Crampton Sisters had cleaned it off. Raquel was carrying a large sword with a serrated blade that had a carving of a snake along its side. That was not a good sign.
“You sought to steal from us, Mr. Booth,” Babs Crampton said, her voice now carrying the inhuman throaty rasp of a serpent woman. “The idol to Great Cthulhu is something that is ours by right of conquest.”
“Marceline de Russy disagrees,” I replied, working against my bonds as I tested both the wood and rope. The rope was strong, but the wood of the cross was old and probably bought for purposes other than bondage—at least of human sacrifices.
“Ha!” Babs sneered. “You don’t even know her real name.”
“No, I admit I do not,” I said, wondering if I had any magic that might aid me down here. I was a hedge wizard and the cost of even the lightest spell was one paid in blood or souls—if such a thing existed—and I was always hesitant to open my mind up to those terrible cosmic forces.
Once there had been a time I could have just torn through the creatures like wet tissue paper, ripping flesh and bone like they were nothing. I had been a creature that could have been worshiped by foolish mortals. I’d traded it for my humanity and some days—like right now for instance—I wondered if I’d gotten the better part of the deal. Instead, I focused my strength on one spot and hoped I’d be able to be able to break the center of the cross.
“We were her apprentices,” Babs said, pacing the statue at my feet. “She opened our minds up to the true nature of the cosmos but refused to give us real power. So, we took what was ours!’
“Uh huh,” I said, staring at her. “Was this before or after you became snake women?”
Raquel hissed at me, actually hissed. It was ridiculous.
“You will die, Mr. Booth, and your seed as well as blood will be offered up to Shub-Niggurath,” Babs said. “The Mother of All and Nothing shall feast upon you, and we shall drink of her ichor.”
I was less than impressed with their pulp magazine villainy and wondered how much their evil witch act was how society had educated them that evil priestesses were supposed to act. This was strictly amateur hour sorcery and they’d obviously ditched Marceline—if she was the real deal—well before they’d learned anything useful.
“The seed giving part wasn’t so bad, but I’ve had better,” I replied, referring to how they had gotten me here. “At least now that the beer goggles are off.”
Raquel lifted her sword and shouted. “Ia Shub-Niggurath! Yig-Seth! Bla’ata’al mack!”
Raquel was close enough that my recklessness had a small chance of success. Forcing even every bit of strength into my limbs, I snapped the Saint Andrew’s cross in half at my back and maneuvered my body so that the sword buried itself into the wooden beam binding my right arm. Striking it, the area gave way to free my upper arms and I grabbed Raquel before lifting her in the air.
“Ahhh!” Raquel shouted. “What are you—”
Raquel was cut off by my hurling her into the balefire behind her. What followed was a nightmarish scream accompanied by alien and not so alien obscenities. The flames licked at the serpent woman, and she thrashed in its magical light, the alien forces inside the fire tearing at whatever spells she’d cast upon herself to make her immortal. Raquel reached out to her sister, calling in some ancient tongue to be rescued.
“I can’t!” Babs shouted, horrified by her sister’s burning. Looking as if she wanted to go into the fire or work some magic to save her, she instead grabbed the Cthulhu idol on the ground before rushing to the door at the other end of the makeshift temple.
“Bitch!” Raquel’s final word was entirely understandable. The burning serpent woman then exploded and became a flying spectral will-o-wisp that bolted out of the balefire and rushed through the doorway past Babs. It reminded me of something out of a fantasy barbarian story. The remaining Crampton sister was thrown to the ground and the Cthulhu idol skipped across the ground away from her.
My legs were still bound to the Saint Andrew’s cross’ remains and that part of the object was bolted to the ground. Reaching down to grab the late Raquel’s sword, I started cutting myself free. The sword was incredibly sharp and freeing myself was fast but not quite fast enough. Because I noticed the room was moving.
The vines on the ground and wall detached themselves, revealing lamprey-like suckers that made disgusting noises as they began to descend upon me. A large, tumorous, fleshy growth descended from the center of the roof, revealing the evil heart of the creature the Crampton Sisters had cultivated here.
“The Great Mother’s Daughter shall devour you!” Babs shouted, raising the idol in the air. “Feed, mighty one! Feed!”
I finished cutting myself free and slashed my way through the vines as they came for me, spilling a noxious ichor where each was struck. Running toward Babs, I gave her a punch to the jaw that was perhaps not my most chivalrous action, but still managed to achieve what I was hoping for: knocking her flat on her tail. Grabbing the Cthulhu idol from her arms, I made a break for the door as I left the sword clattering on the ground.
“You will never be able to outrun the Great Mother!” Babs shouted at me as I started up the stairs.
“I only have to outrun you!” I shouted back, a quick glance having confirmed the vines in the basement were starting to wrap themselves around their former master.
I tried not to listen to the sounds I heard as I reached the first floor. They were infinitely worse than screams.
I grew sicker and weaker with the passing of the days. Within two days, I had lost twenty pounds and every moment I was covered in sweat from a fever that seemed always on the verge of taking my life. I also found myself carrying the Cthulhu idol wherever I went, unable or unwilling to let it leave my sight save with the strongest of efforts.
Marceline’s spell was more clearly something designed to kill me unless I returned to her the property she thought was rightfully hers. It was bad client manners and yet I had to admit I only cared that she undid the magic when I finally arranged for the meeting at the docks near midnight.
I, of course, didn’t believe for a second that she intended to remove the curse once I’d delivered her property, though. One thing I’d learned about wizards over the years that had held true with virtually each I’d met was this: they were all assholes.
I was standing on the edge of pier 13, holding a large package wrapped in brown paper with a little wax covered rope around it. I was once more dressed in my trench coat and fedora, glad to have a set of clothes again even if covering the cost of my lost suit from the guys I’d rented it from would be an enormous pain the budget. I was armed but I didn’t think that would make a large amount of difference with Marceline.
Not if she saw it coming.
“I’m glad to see you’re a man of your word,” Marceline’s voice filled the night air, just a few strokes after midnight. She’d changed from her flamboyant red dress to a blue trench coat that was complimented by a similar blue hat.
“You promised me ten grand,” I replied, now shaking with the pain of her presence. I wanted to throw myself on the ground, present the Cthulhu idol to her, and offer my life up for sacrifice. It was behavior so out of character that I wanted to put a bullet through my brain just to make sure I died as myself.
“I’m afraid that part of our deal is cancelled,” Marceline spoke, stretching out her hands. “Give me the idol.”
Her voice had a compelling, almost hypnotic quality. “Not until you fix whatever you’ve done to me.”
Marceline’s eyes narrowed and she repeated herself. The power behind her words became all-encompassing. “Give me the idol.”
Instead, I unwrapped package and revealed the Cthulhu idol. It had a grenade wrapped in duct tape around its side. I pulled out the pin and squeezed the safety lever. “I’ll happily give you the idol. But unless I’m cured, I guess we’ll be finding out if it’s explosive proof.”
Marceline stared at me.
“Impressive, Booth,” Marceline said, her voice sounding familiar in that moment. However, I couldn’t quite place it.
“It seems you haven’t lost all of your Wasteland cunning in your time play-acting as a detective.”
“Make your choice,” I said, struggling for breath. “My hands are really shaky.”
Marceline waved her hand over me. “May the dark gods cease feasting on your soul.”
I fell to my knees, a sudden sense of relief filling my body. “Thanks.”
“Give me the idol,” Marceline said, slowly walking forward. “Put the pin—”
Of course, I obeyed her command this time and threw the idol into her arms. Marceline began screaming several commands in a guttural inhuman language before I drew my gun and put three rounds into her head. Her body collapsed into a bunch of writhing snakes that fled into the water beneath the pier. I wasted a few bullets, blowing up as many as I could before they disappeared. I got maybe half in the end, leaving bloody snake parts and bullet holes all over the wooden pier’s planks.
Jackie, my backup, ran up to me with a shotgun in hand. “Did you get her?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted.
Jackie looked down at the Cthulhu idol and pulled out the wooden grenade I’d carved and painted with shoe polish. “Glad she fell for the bluff.”
“I wish I could have acquired the real deal,” I muttered. “No matter, I suggest we take this thing down to the nearest foundry and smelt it.”
“That’ll really piss her off,” Jackie muttered.
“I got the impression she already hated me,” I muttered. “But hopefully she’ll take time to recover.”
“Ex-girlfriend?” Jackie joked.
It wasn’t funny to me. “To be honest, for a second there, she sounded a lot like my ex-slave master. Katryn. Does no one stay dead anymore?”
I looked down at the Cthulhu idol, whose four ruby encrusted eyes twinkled back with the glow of an alien power that would hopefully fade once it was melted down. A part of me considered keeping it, but I knew it would just make me a target for every two-bit magician and wannabe sorcerer in the City. I had enough enemies as it was.
“He’s not the one to ask,” Jackie said, joking. “He’s not dead, only sleeping.”
“Yeah, and this world is the stuff dreams are made of.”
Afterword
By Matt Davenport, author of the Andrew Doran series
* * *
I cannot tell you when I “met” C. T. Phipps. Not exactly, although I remember how it happened. It was in two parts, and I don’t remember which came first. That’s the problem with age and memory, like dreams of an unfathomable god, they can shift, fade, and become something entirely different. On both occasions, I reached out to him for aid of a kind.
The thing to know about Phipps is that he always wants to help people get their words into the stratosphere. In one of our first conversations, my brother and I had just released our superhero book, Broken Nights, and we had no idea how to get it off the ground and in front of the readers we wanted. It was a superhero novel, and I had just finished reading The Rules of Supervillainy by the man in question. So I did what anybody who was overly gregarious and knee-deep in a sales career would do, I Tweeted him directly asking if he had any suggestions on how to market my book. He was not the only author that I Tweeted or emailed. I won’t call out the other authors, but I will say that out of the ten or more people I attempted to communicate with, C. T. Phipps was the only one who responded.
Imagine mine and my brother’s surprise when this foreign element, on par to us with Neil Gaiman or Deborah Harkness, reached down from the clouds of author bliss and readily provided every single bit of help requested of him.
The other instance that my brain has fogged over the timestamp of was on par with this first interaction with the fast-fingered typist. I was looking for someone to critique my Lovecraftian novel, The Trials of Obed Marsh. Again, he never hesitated, leaping to the front of the line like some sort of Randolph Carter being told that he was only steps away from Ulthar.
That’s the thing about Phipps. He always puts other authors on the same level as himself, even if those authors think he’s worlds above them. So, when I was given the chance to say something at the end of Tree of Azathoth, I was not going to let my guy down.
Azathoth is what happens when you mix the Christian idea of God with the popularized idea of Simulation Theory. In the mythos, you are bombarded with sleeping gods all lost in their dreams and waiting for the time to awaken. In those same stories, those dreams by those alien deities penetrate the minds of mortal beings and tear them asunder. We are left with the tattered remains of what could have been a great hero but has been turned into a gibbering mess.
Azathoth’s dreams are bigger.
Azathoth’s dreams are.
While those other beings are dreaming up some madness for us simple folk, Azathoth is dreaming up all of what we know of as reality. Your very existence is as a subconscious element in an alien’s indecipherable dream montage. Cthulhu dreams and we go mad, but if Azathoth awakens, we cease to exist. Now, that is trippy, but it is also so much fun to play around with. Especially, for someone like Phipps.
Another thing to know about Phipps is that he is a master at doing his homework. I won’t name any names (cough-ME-cough), but some authors, even those well-versed in the mythos, do their research as more of a last-minute kind of thing. They rely on memory and a well-worn Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia that sits on the edge of their desk with a coffee stain on the cover (I assume…).
C. T. Phipps might do something similar, but somehow, he manages to bring a level of depth to his work that reads like a graduate of Miskatonic University, itself. His subtle references, tying in obscure peripheral works along with the standard mythos references that even the earlier, unnamed author could have picked up give stories, like the entire Cthulhu Armageddon series, layers of complexity that make it enjoyable by people new to Lovecraft and those steeped in every detail of the lore. He writes for everyone in a niche genre that can seem intimidating to some.
