Sam Black Shadow by Paul Berry

Author:Paul Berry [Berry, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-03-21T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

I go into my mother’s bedroom – which, like the bathroom, is devoid of mirrors – and open a chest at the foot of the bed. Inside are tattered papers and spiral-bound journals. I flick through one and see page after page of symbols from the Necronomicon and the walls of Professor Ward’s cell, my mother’s handwriting scattered amongst them. There is no mention of weaponising the symbols and I wonder if she is being forced to carry out Jupiter Hill’s plans, a victim just like all the other creatures trapped here.

I dig around underneath and pull out a handful of photos. Some are of her and my dad, holding hands on a beach, laughing at a table in a restaurant, taken before she summoned Hastur, her complexion unmarred.

She has scratched out her eyes in each picture.

The only one of me is at a wedding I vaguely remember. My dad had not gone with us, and it was not long after we had found the geode. I’m wearing a chequered suit and a bow tie, her hands on my shoulders but facing away from the camera, her hair covering her blotchy face.

At the bottom of the chest is a brittle sheet of newspaper, and I carefully take it out to avoid tearing it. Although the ink is faded, I recognise the man in the picture. It’s my grandfather, his black beard and glasses making him look like Sigmund Freud. Above the picture is a headline. ‘Scientist Murdered’. The photo under it shows my mother as a young girl, her hair in a plaited ponytail, her face cold and inscrutable. The text is too faint to read apart from the words ‘stabbed to death’ and ‘no suspects’.

‘I see you’ve found my box of memories.’ I jerk my head round. She is standing in the doorway.

‘You said he died in a fire … you killed him, didn’t you?’

‘He deserved what I did to him.’

‘Why?’

‘He used your grandmother as a test subject in his experiments. She died screaming in agony, and so did he. It was only fair.’

‘Everything you say is built on lies.’

‘Sometimes lying is the only way to survive. You of all people should understand that.’

‘It’s not the same. I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘You will, though. It’s in your nature, even before you became a monster. You’re a survivor.’ I hate that she’s right. The rage I feel has only been amplified by the vampire, not created by it.

‘I went back to the library while you were gone. I know what you plan to do with the Datum.’

‘We must strike first to gain the advantage. Our initial attempt to open a rift has brought about a conflux. Eventually the Datum will spread beyond Adam’s house into the rest of the world like an infection, consuming everything.’

‘And room 49? Is that how you decipher the symbols?’ She looks taken aback.

‘They volunteered to use their gifts.’

‘Did they have a choice? You’re experimenting on them, exploiting them. Like father, like daughter.’

‘The war with the Datum is inevitable.

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