James Palmer - Shadows Through Time

“Well, uh, see that you do. I don’t know what is going on here, Dick Burton, or why you’re up to your lapels in it, but I don’t like it.” With that he stomped off back up the corridor, presumably to tell Harvey Dunn that the old man still had a job.

“That was a nice thing you did for Mr. Dunn,” said Abberline.

“Well, none of it was his fault. No one could have stopped the Awakened from taking the meteorite.”

“So, you believe his story?”

“Oh yes.”

“What about all that rot about wandering around an outdoor market? The pink sky? Two moons?”

“Every word.”

“Are you going to tell me why?”

Burton looked at Abberline. “For the sake of your sanity, my friend, no.”

“We’ve got them red-handed, but we can’t do a bloody thing,” said Abberline as they sat in Burton’s study later that afternoon. “Mr. Holmes wants us to wait and see what they do next.”

Burton puffed on a cheroot and nodded. “That is probably wise. We need to know exactly with whom or what we are dealing.”

“I don’t like it,” said Abberline. “All this waiting for them to make the next move, and us with plenty of cause to arrest them. It’s maddening.”

“I know what you mean, Frederick. But I’m afraid Mycroft Holmes is correct in this case.

“They must have something planned for that psychic space rock,” said Abberline. He uttered a giggle. “Blimey. Have you ever heard such a ridiculous phrase in your life? Psychic space rock.”

He laughed again before taking another sip of brandy. The news that shoggoths may have waylaid some of his best men had relaxed his personal rule about drinking on duty.

“They obviously need that black mineral substance for something,” said Burton. “I just wish I knew what. Perhaps it amplifies some dark power they innately possess, or wish to. They have certainly made a name for themselves among the city’s occult community.”

Abberline arched an eyebrow. “Bloody nuisance is more like it. I heard there was quite a row out front of the Theosophes meeting hall where Goforth and Swinburne have been holding court lately. There were some fisticuffs, and the head of the society and a few of his lieutenants were kicked out.”

Burton scowled. “Truly?”

“Oh, yes. Now Swinburne, Goforth, and that actor chap Whiteside have taken it over, spouting some mumbo-jumbo about connecting with their past lives. Every one of those Theosophes have gone giddy for whatever they’re sellin’.”

“What of the other three? Nash, Greensmith, and Peacock?”

“Lit out of town,” said Abberline. “Headed for Yorkshire, nearest we can tell. Mr. Holmes says he has some contacts out that way, but it will take days to learn anything.”

“That’s odd,” said Burton. “I wonder why they left, and if they are coming back.” He didn’t like the thought of these entities traveling the country, maybe even the world, in their commandeered bodies, while the owners of those bodies remained trapped in some inaccessible limbo.

“Beats me. It means we’ve got a few less Awakened to worry about though, at least for the time being.”

They drank and smoked in silence for a long time. Burton felt drowsy, but his nerves were too on edge for sleep. Besides, he wondered what strange new dreams would assail him once he closed his eyes. He remembered his hallucinations from the day before and shuddered inwardly, as from a damp breeze.

“What does Mycroft Holmes think of all this?” Burton asked.

“Oh, you know Mr. Holmes. Beneath his cool, calculating exterior, he’s as confused as we are. That’s extremely hard for a man who has to know absolutely bloody everything.”

They sat in silence some more. Soon Abberline became acutely aware of the deepening shadows outside the study window. “I should go. There’s paperwork to be done. Good evening, Captain Burton.”

Burton nodded. He knew the real reason Abberline was hesitant to remain at Gloucester Place a moment longer and didn’t think lesser of him for it. The growing shadows were the perfect hiding places for shoggoths.

“All right, then,” said Burton, rising from behind his desk. He shook the policeman’s hand. “Let me know what you find out, if anything. I feel as if something of great import is about to transpire.”

“And that’s what I’m afraid of,” said Abberline. “My kingdom for an ordinary cutpurse.” Abberline retrieved his bowler and disappeared down the stairs, where a police pantechnicon was waiting for him. Burton stared out the window as the two big drays pulling it clopped up the street, then stared at the cityscape stained pink with the setting sun.

He turned and looked at the shoggoth gun Challenger had constructed. He had set the professor to the task of building more, hoping that would give the man something to occupy his mind so he didn’t go completely mad. And if what Burton feared was about to happen came to pass, they would need every flame-thrower Challenger could produce.

He tossed the remains of his cheroot into the fireplace and retired to his bedroom, removing his clothes and putting on a fresh jebba . Then he sat and meditated for a while, but he kept seeing the shoggoth bubble up out of the nothingness he tried to create within his mind, like Harvey Dunn’s sack full of eyes.

Burton opened his eyes, sighed, and lay down on the bed, staring up at the cracked plaster ceiling. He let his mind wander, idly imagining that he was staring at an endless desert of ceaselessly waving dunes. He could almost feel the hot, dry air whipping the folds of his jebba . His eyes closed, and then—

—He was staring at an immense black pyramid rising out of the desert, his mount—a fine Arabian—reeling from the towering edifice emerging from the shifting sands. Burton pulled back hard on the reins, urging the horse as far away from the disturbance as he could. But the pyramid that rose before him was vast. It shone like polished onyx, and he knew no ancient Egyptian had built this. The monument had lain under the sands for far longer than any Egyptian—any human—civilization had existed. Every inch of its mirrored surface declared its vast antiquity, and when Burton looked hard enough he could discern faint, grotesque shapes inside it, like flies trapped in amber. Was this a tomb? No. It was a prison.

Burton spurred his horse to turn and sent it galloping away up a steep-angled dune, his heart hammering in his chest, sweat dotting his tan brow.

“Listen,” said a voice coming from somewhere nearby. Burton stopped his horse’s progress and turned about, looking for a source.

“Listen,” it said again, and Burton realized it was coming from all around him. It was the wind. It was the soft pounding of his horse’s hooves on the hot sand. It was the dry rattle of the pyramid as it shook itself loose of centuries of sand and time.

“Listen,” the wind voice said a third time, and Burton listened.

“You are the key.”

“What?” Burton heard his dream-self ask.

“The Dream Key,” the voice answered. “The Key of Dreams.”

Burton awoke sweating as Miss Angell came up with a tray of food and coffee.

“Are you going to sleep all day, Captain?” she said. “It’s almost noon.”

“Bismillah,” Burton swore. He felt as if he had closed his eyes just moments before.

“Don’t go using those heathen epithets around me. Now eat your breakfast before it gets cold.” Miss Angell sat the tray on his lap and calmly left the room.

Burton stared down at it, blinking, the warm smells making him nauseous rather than hungry. He lifted the tray and set it on his bedside table. He couldn’t think about food just now. The vestiges of the dream, if dream it had been, were still with him. He looked out the window, where a thick fog roiled. He imagined dark, inhuman shapes in it, feelers and tentacles reaching toward the glass. He shuddered as a terrible coldness settled somewhere deep within him. He felt un-moored from this life, his mind drifting away from his body. He squeezed his eyes shut and saw with his mind’s eye the black pyramid rising from the shifting sands. The Dream Key. He was the Dream Key. What did that mean? Drifting in his vision now was a shining key. It was overly large and ornate, gleaming a bright, cold silver. He wrapped his right hand around it, and its cold seeped into his skin, down to his very finger bones. It did not grow warm to his touch. In it he felt pulsating energy. He heard a multitude of voices, not all of them human, issuing from it.