Part Three:
“and the Dog Star leered at the throng of cowled, cloaked figures that poured silently from every doorway and formed monstrous processions up this street and that” The Festival, HP Lovecraft.
Some things you don’t see coming; they can be the most dangerous.
You are just passing an old church when it happens. Outside is a sign with the words ‘Closing down sale – out of date stock’ pasted across it, in the outdated, jokey style that the churches used to use to persuade people inside.
Those bi-millennial religions have fallen out of favour fast. The presence of older and darker religions whose practice had a definite effect on the world only reinforced the worthlessness of practice for those newer gods.
A rain has fallen; the team sheltered briefly in a stinking hole of a building that smelled like it had been used as an abattoir recently. Now the heat is returning and the moisture on the ground is evaporating fast. The sky rumbles and lightning threatens. The storm is not done with its tantrums.
You are just trying to draw your mind from the many distractions, when a man steps out of the church in front of you.
Stupid really, you should have figured the structure would be perfect for the worships of one of the new cults that hold the aliens as their gods, but a mistake is easy to make when you are strung out through lack of sleep.
The man is thin like a rake and his clothes are torn through with holes. His arm, tattooed with the images of Earth’s new masters raises a tightly rolled cigarette to his lips as he pauses in the doorway. He turns to go and for a moment it seems like you have been lucky; you and the others have frozen, hoping that the lack of motion will be enough to tip the balance. The man is almost back inside, when he stops and turns, perhaps noticing something in the corner of his eye. When he sights upon you, his mouth drops open and an unearthly wail comes out from the depths of his throat.
Harding dives at the man, striking him round the face with the handle of his gun, but it is too late – from with the church comes a shifting and a shuffling. You don’t have the ammunition for a fight. This could seriously put your mission in jeopardy.
Four men with clubs and knifes run out the front door. Harding is still struggling with the first cultist, so he is unable to help. You take careful aim and use up a shot of your valuable ammunition. The gun kicks back as you expected it would, hitting one of the men in the shoulder. He stumbles and falls on his back, probably more through shock than anything.
Two of the others turn to help their companion and Harding disappears in a mass of flailing limbs; blood splatters the air, whose is not immediately clear.
You see the rifle shaking in White’s panicking hands. At the moment he is more likely to shoot one of the team than your enemy.
You begin to think this will all end badly, then Scott starts chanting to himself. He draws a strange black dagger that you have never seen him without and pricks his finger with the end of it, pointing the bloodied end at the remaining cult members. Blue fire engulfs them and suddenly the conflict is over, but for the cries of the wounded and White’s desperate gasps.
You have overcome your opponents, but at a high cost: this final act has pushed Scott over the edge. He sits dribbling, his thinking self has retreated deep into his mind or is gone altogether. The casters often end this way.
Harding is finished. Your eyes do not dwell long on the horrible outcome of war; you have seen it too many times. It has lost its power to shock you.
Picking up the black knife and studying it for a moment, you assess what is left of the team. White’s terror has broken his nerves; he will be no further use to you, not where you are going. You realise that you must finish this alone.
On a whim, you wrap the knife in a thick cloth and put it in your belt, ordering White to look after Scott, to see him home if you do not return; he seems grateful for your kindness.
There is little distance left for you to travel, but the greatest danger is yet to come and there is no-one to watch your back or from whom you will be able to draw strength.