House Of Cthulhu Ch 01

~First Night~

The Woman on the Roof

The considerable height above ground, combined with the first harbingers of autumn storms, made this rooftop not a nice place to be. The woman in black pulled her heavy leather coat tighter around her body, shielding herself from coldness, wind and night. She leant forwards again to get a clear view through the telescopic sight of her precision rifle, with her body and weapon still in the relative protection of the weathered cistern wall. Thanks to the additionally fitted night vision device, she was able to witness the action taking place inside the candle-lit luxury flat across several streets. Its resident had not bothered to inhibit the view through the continuous window front by anything else than switching the lights off.

Welcome to the 21

st

century, fucker...!

There was a special reason as to why Sibyl was freezing her fine derrière off on the rooftop of this old Neo-Gothic building. It was the only one in the nearer area with a roof lying higher than the flat no 1103 of the Jägala Tower.

Well, that explained the

place

. The

reason

was standing yonder, behind four centimetres of heat insulating, sound absorbing glass.

During a questioning of a member of a feuding House (the kind of questioning Sibyl did not want to have knowledge about and had no taste for) it was revealed that one C. Howard Suydam was about to hit town to perform an exceptionally vile act against nature.

Howard Suydam. Like the one in 1103. World is small.

Suydam, a foreign person probably washed ashore from the brackish waters of New England, had rented the two times fifty square metres maisonette one month ago. And tonight, he was not alone.

Like Sibyl, the girl was in her early twenties and of lithesome physique. Unlike Sibyl, she was completely nude. Well, she had been completely nude; that had been before Suydam shoved some kind of S&M gag into her mouth, secured it in the nape of her neck and under her chin and laced her fair-haired head tightly into a leather hood. Much to Sibyl's deprecation and disgust, the girl neither objected nor showed any other form of reluctance.

If someone were trying all that bondage stuff out on me, I would so not keep still!

Suydam, naked from the waist up, stood in front of his victim-to-be, using white rope to bind her hands in an elaborated way. Loops around the wrists, loops between them, checking the tension, then more looping, creating a classic cinch.

Sibyl groaned disdainfully. The last thing she had been spending the last four hours on top of this building for was playing voyeur on bizarre sexual practices.

She leant back from the scope and studied the city's brooding art déco skyline. Neither Tallinn nor Tartu offered this particular architecture. This city had often been described as the Paris of the Baltic states -- by people who never had been to Paris.

Reluctantly she turned her attention back to her target. Her mind added details the lenses on her DSR 1 rifle could not deliver. How the candles along the back wall, perhaps beeswax, perhaps just paraffin, filled the somewhat cool air with faint flavours, while their flickering only were underlining the absence of any other light. Perhaps he had turned up the volume on his Yamaha hi-fi system. A little bit louder than normal, but not to a level his neighbours would complain. Just loud enough to drown out the screams of a gagged woman. Something tasteful,

"Kind of Blue"

mayhap.

Sibyl was aching to take that pervert out then and there, but restrained herself, would wait until the girl was properly secured. After half an autumn night on a house roof, Sibyl did not have the patience to deal with a hysteric lass who had experienced her sort-of lover's head exploding. Better have her in a position where she couldn't cut a caper.

Said position turned out to be a rigid semi-suspension, with the girl's expertly bound hands winched up towards the upper floor's gallery, bearing most of her weight. Only the very tip-toes were still reaching the expensive carpet, making her prance en pointe.

Suydam stepped aside, admiring his work, then turned to the window front. For some seconds his face and balding head lost their contrast in the image intensifier as he lit a hand-rolled cigarette. Sibyl somehow doubted that it was tobacco smoke he inhaled.

For long moments he just stood motionless, letting his mind react to the drug.

The angle was bad, the girl could be hit. Sibyl waited.

Finally, Howard Suydam stepped back into the middle of his living room. He seated himself in the lotus position in front of the girl who was by now trembling in discomfort. Yet Suydam seemed to have lost any carnal interest in the helpless body before him. Between drags on his spliff, the man recited arcane phrases (Sibyl didn't need to hear that -- she knew whither things were heading).

As the more perceptive of hypothetic spectators had realised by now, C. Howard Suydam was no run-of-the-mill fornicator. That fair girl dangling so tantalisingly on her rope was supposed to be sacrificed to an unspeakable entity.

We cannot have that, can we?

Most people had a wrong picture of this avocation: There were no blokes in black cowls chanting "Hail Satanas" around an upside-down pentagram painted on the ground. Things were a little more...

serious

.

Sensing things starting to get serious indeed, Sibyl readied herself, taking aim through the scope. Three hundred and fifty metres -- even with the weaker sub-sonic ammunition and considerable wind speed no problem.

On the white carpet, Suydam started to tense up as his mind reached out beyond the protective hull of what humankind misconstrued as reality, bending time and distance to its master's will.

On the roof, the dark-haired woman leaned into the butt of her rifle. Sibyl exhaled halfway, then held her breath. Her index finger moved from the frame and found the trigger. Pulled. When the recoil punished her shoulder, the

Lapua

projectile already had travelled across the street canyons, stricken through the soundproof window glass, ripped through Suydam's head and buried itself into a large ferroconcrete pillar.

Sibyl flipped the lens covers shut.

~

Maisonette

She had hidden the DSR 1 under her long coat ("

my shotgun cloak"

), with scope, night vision device and tactical suppressor stowed away in an inconspicuous shoulder bag. Standing in front of the maisonette's door now, she strapped her rifle onto her back for more mobility. The bag she leant against the corridor wall. The door was closed and most likely locked from the inside, but Sibyl had been fitted with a secretly achieved spare key the day before. She drew her sidearm, hesitated for a moment, then unlocked and opened the door.

Only after ascertaining that indeed no one else was there, Sibyl holstered her pistol and turned her attention to the girl on the rope. The desperate noises from under the hood and behind the gag might be resulting from her cramping feet and calves, from the burning in her shoulders. Or they could have been caused by the long silence after a bundle of muffled sounds. Sounds of different materials being destroyed. The sensation of something hot and wet hitting her outstretched body.

Sibyl released the tension on the rope, and the girl fell to her knees, then tilted onto her side. Quickly the woman in black loosened the bonds and rubbed the blood back into the girl's hands. The blonde tried to clasp her saviour, but Sibyl kept her wrists seized. Being this close, she could see even in the dark how severe the hood was. Its only openings, except the one for the neck, were nose holes. It had been tightened by means of the laces in the back until the captive's face was moulded into the leather as a featureless mask. Even the straps of her cruel gag were pressing through the material.

"I know, I know; you just want this nightmare to be over."

In a sudden move, she twisted the girl's right arm behind her back and slipped a set of handcuffs from under her coat.

Well, what a shit of a day, honey...

~

With the girl secured again, her betrayer turned to Suydam. She already had verified his death -- the whole right front of his head was missing -- and was in no mood to come too close to his cadaver. Instead, Sibyl reached across and picked the still smouldering joint up. She dragged on it and held the smoke in her mouth, careful not to inhale. Her sole experience with marijuana dated back when she had been in puberty. One lungful, and she had vomited all over Kristjan's lap. Kristjan had been the cutest boy at school. And Kristjan had not looked at her at all afterwards.

Gone. All gone.

The girl had not stopped writhing, but Sibyl grabbed the hood's lacing to hold her head steady. Carefully, almost gently, she blew the smoke into the girl's nostrils.

"Shh, shh!" she solaced.

Sibyl had given her the intoxicating breath slowly enough not to cause coughing. The girl indeed calmed down somewhat, and she also showed no tokens of imminent regurgitation. Leaving her cowering on the carpet, Sibyl hunkered before the large pillar to the right. She pulled a blade from the leg of her right boot. It was long and narrow, almost a little bayonet. With it she poked in the crater torn by the

Lapua

until the deformed projectile dropped into her hand. She squeezed the piece of metal into the tight pocket of her leather trousers, to its corresponding cartridge.

Next she examined the glass front looking to the east. One of the room-high panes showed the telltale cobwebs of cracks, but was still held together by some kind of film between the glass layers. Sibyl ran her gloved hand over the hole in breast height. One might ask why she had killed Suydam from the distance, only to enter his place nevertheless. The answer was as simple as disturbing: The mind of a medium such powerful was never fully connected to this world anymore. He would have sensed her presence in some monstrous way.

Even without being a medium, Sibyl was eventually the one who sensed a presence behind her, and her system reacted with the unintentional, yet familiar feeling of disgust. She did not turn around, sparing herself the sight.

"What are your biddings, mistress...?"

The voice was like soil from a shallow grave; a humid, guttural squeal no human being was capable of.

"Take the girl away and clean this mess up."

"As ye wish, mistress."

In the window's broken surface Sibyl watched the shadowy reflexions of two ghouls seizing the hooded female. The girl, stiff with dread at first, shrieked under their chill touch.

The lead ghoul, still standing behind Sibyl with the rest of its brigade, spoke again. Primal greed was drowning its

un

-voice.

"And yon corpse, mistress?" it asked in an obscene intonation.

Sibyl felt her bile rising.

"It shall not be found."

"Aye, mistress."

The woman in black had a sickenly clear idea of how this task would be approached. The misshapen creatures would feed on the lych.

Sibyl left Howard Suydam's maisonette with the sound of the first bones being crushed and their marrow sucked out.

She took the lift. Her myrmidons were galumphing down the stairways right now, as discretely as it was possible for semi-braindead tomb-dwellers. They would, unseen by the night-blind residents of this city, drag their burden through catacombs and sewers and air raid shelters -- right into the forecourt of Hell itself.

~

In a Dark Place

Monolithic in its non-geological meaning might be an adequate term to describe this kind of architecture. The bank building Vilms & Järvi had not been used by a financial institution for decades, and still it ruled the central boulevard with its dark splendour. An obscure stronghold in line with the Museum of Fine Arts, the opera and the older library of the

Polütehnikum

.

The founder member's names

("Croesus & Mammon")

were still emblazoned high above the impressive front doors, but a brass plate at the centre column informed that this building now gave shelter to the

Anthropological Society of Estonia

.

Sibyl had used a side entrance, yet she headed to the monumental counter hall. In the insufficient lighting she could barely make out the domed ceiling. The counters, each of them a marmoreal behemoth with own flight of stairs, were placed at the far wall, opposite to the main doors. The farthest left one was illuminated.

Sibyl crossed the hall, towards counter No. I, trying to ignore the smirking man sitting behind it as long as possible.

"Who might that be? Workin' late, princess?"

Sibyl managed a polite smile.

It's his hair. Curled reddish hair seems to make me aggressive.

But it was more likely her aversion for the well-fed man resulted from his inexhaustible pool of cheap chat-up lines. They could just as well serve as his trademark as his huge stainless steel thermos flask, which was constantly keeping him on a healthy caffeine level.

She produced the rifle from under her coat and laid it on the counter, together with the shoulder bag. He reached for them. Sibyl drew her HK sidearm and placed it onto the polished surface as well: a USP Match, the consecrated weapon of a

Nightbringer

. The blued slide's left side, where usually manufacturer, model designation and calibre were engraved, showed some kind of ancient cuneiform. Sibyl was capable of reading it -- pronouncing it was a horse of a different colour.

Cthulhu fhtagn

Behind his casemate, the armourer droned while ticking lines in his large general ledger off.

"One DSR, three rounds, cartridge and bullet of a forth."

"Suppressor, scope and night vision for aforesaid."

"One

9mm

; two magazines á eighteen rounds, one single round, previously chambered."

Sibyl had chosen the Parabellum rather than the .40 S&W or the .45. In hands as slender as hers and a weapon this well-balanced, the less on recoil did wonders to precision. Furthermore, the 9mm-calibre offered the best adjustment between penetration depth, magazine capacity and the size of the permanent wound cavity being created.

With her disarming completed, she turned towards the guarded door leading to the erstwhile office wing.

"Oi!" the armourer barked, "your penknife, too!"

I'll show you "Oi", fatso!

Stroppy, she stomped against the counter. Keeping her foot pressed against the stone, she pulled her blade from its sheath inside the boot and skittered it across the marble. Not willing to give him the opportunity for some smug remark, she rushed to the door.

~

Deep below the marmoreal hall, the revolting sounds came closer. In the high octagonal chamber, the two

Askirtay

-- Guardians of the House -- levelled their cocked sub-machine guns. Behind them, the portcullis had been lowered and locked to protect the entrance to the bank's foundation. The men did not expect any problems, but one never knows. In front of them, the half-round maw of the tunnel intensified the atonal grunts. The tunnel owned no separate walls and ceiling, it was just a continuous bricked arch, creating its very own kind of weird echo.

The darkness started to move, seemed to waver, then gave way to two abominations. Running in a ducked, hobbled fashion, they had carried the struggling girl all the way from the Jägala Tower. The ghouls stopped in the octagon's centre, her hostage was dropped to the flagstones not too gently. The tainted creatures remained beside her, heavily panting, unwilling or unable to articulate themselves.

From the stair in front of the entrance, one Askirtay took a bucket. It was the bucket he had brought; he, and not his comrade, for they had flipped a coin about it, and he had lost. The man was holding his breath against the sweetish smell as he threw chunks of abattoir waste to the ghouls. The esurient creatures pounced on to their reward, starting to feed on it immediately (ghouls appeared to have a taste for week-old animal by-products).

The portcullis moved up with a rattling noise. The guardians left, one leading the distressed girl with a harsh grip (they would have to clean her up some -- ghoul shortcuts were a little bit on the dirty side), the other lugging the still half-full bucket. Behind them, the entrance was closed again.

~

Her watch showed two of the clock. Sibyl threw a discrete glance at it while waiting in Grau's office. Originally, it had been the office of the bank director (

"Vilms or Järvi?"

), and it was huge. Between the lounge suite they were sitting in and the oak desk were ten metres of nothing but parquet. Well, there

could

have been nothing but parquet if the whole room weren't stuffed with books and obscure relicts testifying Grau's obsessive search for forbidden knowledge.

"Suydam is believed to have seen the Court of Azathoth," the ostensibly middle-aged man with the strangely youthful eyes continued their conversation. "He must have been far beyond the business of mere worshipping the Edler Gods or anyone else."

"Then what was he up to? They shipped his arse all the way over from Boston."

Albert Grau took a draught of his tea (Sibyl had politely declined).

"We will know once these ghouls have arrived with his stuff."

"Foul creatures they are," she mumbled.

"But useful."

"Wait until they form a union..."

Even without further details on this matter Sibyl dared say that this night had seen a victory of her House. Not that she was overly proud of herself. Not in the light of what would happen later on. Yet it had been imperative to prevent the Followers of the Elder Gods to perform their occult ritual. This world might be but a secondary theatre of war, an aggregation of rock and iron orbiting a mean sun. Insignificant and inconsiderable -- if not for one aspect: the depths of this tiny planet's ocean enwombed the lair of Cthulhu, First of the Great Old Ones. And just like the Great Old Ones had warred the Elders, just like the Outer Gods had warred them, their human votaries battled and campained.

Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, Yog-Sothoth -- entities so strange that the very idea of their existence would appear lunatic. Outer Gods, dark deities hiding within the shadows of time and space. The five remaining Houses worshipping the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones stood against the High Houses of the Elder Gods in bitter enmity. It was a secret war, fought in silence, where a single bullet could cause more harm than an entire regiment. Like tonight, when it sabotaged weeks, mayhap months of planning by the adversary. And as a welcome side effect, it would assure the position of Sibyl's kin, for the Houses were also struggling for ascendancy among themselves. For long times, the House of Azathoth had claimed leadership, deifying the highest of the Outer Gods -- the personification of radioactivity, a raging nightmare within the souls of its disciples. Yet more and more the House of the Great Cthulhu with its squadron of elite Askirtay -- the Nightbringers -- was reaching for predominance.

"The ritual you have described: a powerful medium alone with the sacrificial offering..."

Grau looked over to one of the many book shelves. As he noticed that Sibyl became uncomfortable by his silence, he continued: "Was he sitting close enough to touch her?"

"No. There were at least one and a half metres between them."

The grey-haired man nodded absentmindedly.

He is remembering something.

Sibyl reckoned that Grau had seen more in his life than an average man could even dream of. Not that the length of his life was fully comparable to that of an average man. Often she had admired the sepia toned pictures on the wall behind his desk. Especially the one above the globe. It showed Grau as a young man with several others, posing in some sort of base camp amidst the antarctic ice. All of them were wearing thick parkas made of seal fur. Vintage tents and all kinds of equipment were visible, including a massive, partly assembled aeroplane. The photograph was not dated, but Sibyl once had bothered to thumb through the

Torval Aircraft Almanac

. The plane in the background was a Dornier Do-J

Großhöhenflugzeug

, circa 1930.