Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror

Not a drug deal. Not a delivery of some hijacked old shit. Devil worship? He turns his head and looks back at the Pontiac. At the trunk. The trunk he'd never looked in.

'Hello, Johnny.'

'Sorry I'm late, but the rain —»

'Rain?'

'It stopped just over there. Freaky. Like there was a barrier it couldn't pass through.'

'Rarely does the rain hunt in the Halls of Fire.' With a hand, thin wisps of curling smoke rising off it, he removed his sunglasses.

Red eyes leveled at him. Unblinking. Stabbing red eyes, bare of all except contempt.

Fuck, that's. unholy! His mouth open — language flattened out with a bang, the burning air rushing into it.

The dark man has not moved. As cursed shadows tethered to forgotten riddles his cats sit at the edges of the table.

'Heavenly things dancing in the sun. They Dwell on Other Planes.' Empty well-deep voice. Thin, stone lips hardly moving.

How does he do that? His hand moves to his left for comfort — no gun. He has a gun, but it's on the seat of the car. Forgotten in haste; to get this over and get out of here, to get his money.

The moon falls between cracks in the clouds. The air smells of light-devouring blackness. And the black man has not moved. And the scarring pattern of the swelling music boils on.

All he can do — simple and terrified — is stare. At the loud red eyes. He wants The End. Wants the money — his money. Wants to leave, to be on his way to Mexico. Wants Now to be over. But all he can do is stare.

The song the black man sings ends. The red eyes grow cold, the smile widens. 'So we have arrived. Dark and light in shadows on this hill. Dark and light, one to take and one to give.'

Shit, the package. It's still in the trunk. 'Right. Sorry. I'll get the package.'

Low laughter dancing. 'I've no need for it. I know the way.'

'But I have it. It's in the trunk. Right where your man said it was. I've never touched it. Never even looked at it. Could I get my money? And go?'

'Money? Oh, yes, that. Calm yourself, my boy, you'll have no need for money — not that there ever was any. Not where you are going.'

The stone smile.

Bait. Tricked.

Going? I'm going to get my fuckin' gun. He'll give me my money, then. and I'll put two in his head for fuckin' with me. Shoot his fuckin' cats too.

'Johnny, I can see by your face you think to do me violence and leave. That will not happen. I control the opening of every door. I've a few moments to fill, so allow me to amuse you with a detail or two about you and the road traveled.

'Your dear mother was a drunkard and a whore, not that she took money for her wanton rutting, mind you, but for a few cheap drinks she would spread her legs wide. And I had a need, a need that required a vessel to carry a drop of my essence. A need for an act to occur under a star engraved in times ancient. A little song in her ear followed by a several glasses of gin and she. how would you put it? She fucked like a rabbit — climbed on top and took to my lust as if she were a maggot to an apple. I left her sleeping and dripping with my seed.'

Black laughter brands him.

'I never saw her again, yet I've kept an eye on you. The night you were born the moon was fire-red — did she never tell you of The Burning? My pets were there, watching, walking in your first dream. After engraving you they came and reported to me. As the years found themselves whitened by the teeth of time, I've sent one of my servants to check on you from time to time. You'll recall the attorney who suddenly showed up to rid you of your legal entanglements when that girl died. He was a servant I employ on occasion. And Pitt — even the worm fears the scent of what he sends to the soil, did you ever wonder why a coldblooded monster like that befriended and protected you in jail? Again, my handiwork. Remember the evening your father fell down the stairs to his death, consumed by the spleen of a hard drunk?'

Mr. Phoenix's finger strokes the neck of the cat sitting at his right hand. 'Mesah was there watching that night and made certain the coarse mite flew to the Labyrinth Where the Damned Howl. I could not, after all, have you damaged. Every time some loose extreme put you at risk I cut it back to nothing.'

Assaulted by the life sprawling in his telescope of memory, his skin crawls. He wants out of the bullring, wants the weathervane to turn. Wants something sane. Wants his life to be another life, one not framed in the shipwreck of 100 sabbaths, not washed away by the teeth of 1,000 drinks. He is too stunned to cry. All capacity for speech is stitched shut.

'Though your life has been dark and violent, have you never taken note of the fact that in 32 years no scar has been born upon your body?'

His mind weak, beaten down. He is desperate for words. For some key to freedom.

'I see you wish you could trade the empty box in the trunk for your liberty. Yes, Johnny, the box contains nothing.' The word a grave.

'You see, for this, what shall we call it? Prelude To Windfall, perhaps. You needed to come here freely. The package was merely a vehicle for you to do so. I can see you're searching for a reason for all this. I'll be plain. I am called by many names. Tonight the verse of stone and wind call me, The Opener of the Way. You and I are here to open a door. A door opened by the harvest.'

Harvest? Like in dead?

He would run — the keys are still in the Pontiac's ignition, but finds himself bound, held knee-deep in sand.

Mr. Phoenix's hands glow. Tendrils of jet-black smoke curl from his spider-fingers. There is a blade in his hand.

The black man stands. His stone smile widens.

He finds his tongue, hisses, 'A door to what?'

'To something you'll never see, nor would you understand.'

Lost and overwhelmed. 'I don't —»

'The only thing you need understand is there will be blood spilled.'

Copping Squid Michael Shea

Michael Shea has written the Lovecraftian novel The Color out of Time (DAW, 1984). He is the author of the short story collection Polyphemus (Arkham House, 1987). His Cthulhu Mythos story 'Fat Face' has been widely reprinted, notably in Cthulhu 2000 (Arkham House, 1995). Among his many other works are a four-volume series of novels chronicling the adven tures of Nifft the Lean (1982–2000), the first of which won the World Fantasy Award. Shea has also worked in science fiction and has been nominated for a Hugo Award.

Ricky Deuce, twenty-eight and three years sober, was the night clerk at Mahmoud's Mom and Pop Market. He was a small, leanly muscled guy, and as he sat there, the darkness outside deepening toward midnight, his tight little Irish face looked pleased with where he was. Behind Ricky on his stool, the whole wall was bottles of every kind of Hard known to man.

This job was easy money — a sit-down after his day forklifting at the warehouse. He already owned an awesomely restored '64 Mustang and had near ten K saved, and by rights he ought to be casting around for where he might take off to next. But the fact was, he got a kick out of clerking here till two a.m. each night.

A kick that was not powder nor pill nor smoke nor booze, that was not needing any of them, especially not