The Book of Cthulhu 2 by Ross Lockhart

Author:Ross Lockhart [Lockhart, Ross]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781597804356
Amazon: 1597804355
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Published: 2012-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

The Hands That Reek and Smoke

W. H. Pugmire

I.

Lisa came to me on that fateful night of revelation, her purple hair as wild as her intoxicated eyes. Her pixy face had lost is usual mirth. She was dead serious. “You must see Nyarlathotep,” she panted, refusing the chair that I had offered her, preferring to pace the wooden floor instead. One hand clutched a canvas that was covered with a sheet of cloth.

“It amazes me,” I answered, “that hair as short as yours can look so disarrayed.”

“Screw the hair,” she shot back, at the same time running a gloved hand through the unruly mess. “You’ve been moaning for months about your inability to write. I tell you, go see Nyarlathotep, and he will drench your dreams with wondrous vision.”

I blew air. “I doubt that the parlor tricks of some cult figure will inspire new work from my dead pen. No new Lord of Disillusion can save me. Stephen was here, too, yakking about this bloke of yours. Seems he’s arrived three months ago to set up in some building downtown. No, I have no need of tricks.”

“You know, it’s really stupid the way you allow your cynicism to keep you cooped up in this depressing little apartment. Things are happening, can’t you feel it?”

“I feel only this intolerable heat wave. Such appalling weather for mid-October. Autumn is my favorite time of year; it heralds absolutely the death of torturous summer, that wretched period when ugly human apes strip off their gaudy attire and shriek to cancerous sun. How you can wear such thick gloves when it’s so hot quite bewilders me.”

How oddly she smiled as she placed one hand before her face and gazed at it as if in rapture. As she did so I noticed two curious things. First, the gloves that encased her hands were not composed of cloth but rather of some fine mesh of metal. Second, with the movement of her hand there came a wave of smell, a scent not unlike the festering of dead lilies. I watched as she silently stared at her gloved hand, and something in her expression unnerved me. I jabbered on. “I’ve not been able to sleep because of this diabolic heat. When I am able to catch a few winks I have monstrous dreams, horrid visions that soak my sheets and shake me out of slumber.”

She looked at me with her serious face. “He will make you dream,” she sang. “You would find your muse again if you knelt before him.”

“Oh, please. You speak of this freak as if he were a god.”

“By god, he could be! He looks supernal, with his golden eyes and scarlet robes. I worship him.”

“Great Jesu, you’re worse than little Stephen. But, no. I fear I’m far too old and faded for such radical wonder as you hint of.”

She looked like she would spit at me. “You see, you do that all the time. Using your age as an excuse to be a boring little shut-in.

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