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Only one thing could get Howard Phillips back to Dunwich. And wouldn't you know, it was a woman . . .

Dunwich. I've got to be out of my mind coming here again. Twice before this place has tried to kill me. I swore I'd never give it another chance.

The Aylesbury Pike snakes around the feet of the hills. With the drizzle they're headless shrugging giants lumbering through the clouds on some nameless errand.

I have to wait for a relatively straight piece of road to take a shot from the flask. Normally I prefer to drink in a safely non-mobile chair or couch, but I desperately needed one. So, instead, I take two. A place like Dunwich will do that to you.

I've got a bad feeling about this job and it hasn't even started yet.

The first time I came to Dunwich I don't talk about. The second still wakes me screaming from sleep. Neither of them had a paved road or a huge sign at the bridge.

Seeing this does not fill me with happiness. All of the signs pointing to Dunwich were taken down fifty years before I was born. It was done for a reason.

Looking back, I should never have answered the phone. I was in my office, the ringing like a ice pick in the ear. I couldn't be sure how long it had been ringing, but once I noticed it, it had to be stopped. Scrubbing the fur off my tongue I grabbed the receiver and growled, "Phillips' Consulting."

"Howard!", the voice shouted. "Thank God you answered."

It was Ward. I looked at last night's bottle, wishing there was more than one or two drinks left, and decided that one would help me tolerate Ward. He ran one of those big money consulting firms; slick T.V. adds, hi-tech dectectors, Hollywood clientle.

"Look, Ward, I've told you a thousand times. I am not interested in working for you. Period." I picked up the bottle and started pouring into a bleary glass.

"Howard," Ward said, "it's Lin." I kept pouring. Lin rated at least a two drink memory.

"What about her?" I growled.

"She's two days overdue checking in on a consult--" Ward began.

I cut him off. "Lin's just taking a couple of days off to herself. She does that. You should know." I did, all too well.

"It's where I sent her, Howard. She said that if anything happened I should call you-" Ward was babbling now. In my profession you hear a lot of panic, and Ward had it in spades.

"Where'd you send her, Ward?"

"She always said you were the best--"

"Ward! Where did she go?"

"Dunwich."

There are, in the world, places that should be forgotten by humanity. Savage dark places where jungle and sand rule where man is small and transient. Dunwich is one of those places. The men who took down those signs in 1928 understood this.

I take one last swallow and drive across into the village. A shudder goes through me. I pass bright, rebuilt Colonial houses, low siding clad apartments, a 7-11 and a Starbucks. The old Church under Round Mountain is gone, replaced by some small chain supermarket. People walk briskly through the streets. There is even a motor-home or two parked in empty lots.

What the fuck is going on here?

I cruise through town, following a muddy track on the pavement. Less than a mile out of town I find the construction. And lots of it. There are two or three nearly finished condominiums and what looks like four more on the way. I pass by a sign:

I use a truck turnaround and head back to the village, cruising through one more time before leaving. It is getting dark. I spent a night in Dunwich country once. Nothing on Earth could induce me to do it again.

Arkham broods in the rain. Its ancient buildings huddle together whispering their secrets to one another. The darkness seems to absorb the wan glow of the streetlights so that the lanes are dark, haunted. It's a charming place.

I prowl the narrow twisting streets, heading toward the University. Something is going on in Dunwich, and I need help. Luckily, I know where to find it.

The University Miskatonic squats like a spider in the centre of town, and in the middle of the University squats the Library. A few students are braving the rain, heading for bars or wherever, but there are fewer than usual.

I reach the parking lot of the old Library, a pile of diseased looking stones. I spent a lot of time here once. It almost feels like home. I rush from the car to the doors, trying in vain to remain dry. Inside, there is a young co-ed handing out flyers for something. Absent-mindedly, I take one and crumple it into my pocket. At the information desk, a wizened old hag asks if she can help me.

"Yeah, I'm looking for Edward Kelly. Last time I was here he was working. . ."

"Oh, you must mean Doctor Kelly. Second floor, Curator's Office."

"Doctor Kelly?" I ask, amused.

"Yes, that's right."

Well, shit, I think. They must have handed the keys over to him at last.

I knock on the door of the Curator's Office after mounting the stained marble stairs worn smooth by thousands of past students. I enter at the muffled "Yes?" from inside.

Kelly is pouring over some huge ancient tome on his desk, not looking up. Just like I remember him.

"Doctor Kelly?" I ask with some incredulity in my voice.

"Yes, what--Jesus, Howard!" Kelly exclaims, leaping up to embrace me. "Holy shit, Howard. What are you doing here? How the hell have you been? God it's good to see you again. Here, have a seat."

"Nice office." I say. The place is almost as big as my entire apartment.

"Comes with the keys," Kelly says, his huge grin splitting his face in half.

"Doctor Kelly? Were they actually stupid enough to hand the collection over to you?"

"Yeah, well, when Armitage finally kicked off I was about the only guy on campus who knew the collection well enough to take over. What about you? Still looking for skeletons in people's closets? I tell you man, you should come back here. This is where the real action is."

"Dusting the books?"

"Hah! You're jealous. Hey, want to take a tour through Special Collections? They finally told me where they keep the good stuff locked up."

"Maybe later," I say. "I'm here on a job and I need a hand."

"What kind of job?"

"Dunwich."

Kelly's grin fades away. "I thought you swore that you'd never go back there."

"It's Lin."

"What? That bitch? Jesus, Howard. I thought you'd have gotten past her by now."

"She was on a job up in Dunwich. Ward called me when she was three days late checking in. There's something going on."

Kelly leans back in his chair. "Well, it's been quiet since you left the last time. Lots of construction though. They're turning the place into some kind of tourist trap."

"And that doesn't seem strange to you?"

"No, not really. Hell, even this place is a tourist trap. Some dim bulb started running tours through rural New England a few years back. Took off like a rocket. Hell, we get more tourists now than England. 'American Heritage', and all that crap. Besides, you and Lin cleaned out all the nasties that last time you went to Dunwich." A pause. "Didn't you?"

"Yeah. That's what I thought. Maybe you're right, it could be nothing. Still, Lin was up there and she hasn't gotten back to Ward."

"Screw Lin. That bitch doesn't deserve a passing thought." Kelly had always been clear on how he felt about Lin. Tonight was no different. "Well, you got that look. You're going to check it out anyway. What do you need me to do?"

"Take a look into an outfit called Miller Construction. They seem to be the big builders out there. I need to know who owns it, when they started construction, et cetera."

"Anything else?"

"Not right now, but keep those keys of yours handy. I might need a book or two."

"Done deal. Where are you staying?"

"Ashcroft Hotel. Which is where I'm going right now. It's been a long day." I stand and move to the door. "Thanks, Ed. It's been good to see you."

"I'll call you tomorrow night to let you know what I dig up." Kelly still has a look on his face. It says I should ditch the whole thing and go home.

If I was smart, that's exactly what I would do. No one's ever accused me of being smart. Just thick skulled.

Finding a place to sleep in Arkham is not as easy as you'd think. Oh, there are bed and breakfasts aplenty, and a number of hotels, more now than there used to be, but you have to be careful where you sleep. It's not that you're likely to be robbed or ripped off, it's that the buildings of Arkham have a certain type of history, even the new ones. It seeps into them. Like a disease. The Hotel Ashcroft is the only place I trust. Even then I sleep with my gun handy. You can never tell what might be in the bathroom.

I pull my keys out of my pocket and dump them on the desk. The crumpled flyer that the co-ed gave me comes out with them. I flatten it out and have a look. It is a "missing" poster with the pictures of three girls. No wonder the campus was so quiet. The community of Arkham is tight knit. Quiet, suspicious and strange, but tight knit. Something like this will have most residents home and indoors by dark.

I sit on the bed and unwrap the bottle. I pour myself a double, the first and last of the night; I need to be clear headed tomorrow. I take a sip and try not to think about Lin. No such luck.

I met Lindsey Carter-Ward when I was still in grad school. Despite the fact that she was studying popular phenomena, she knew her stuff. Lin could tell true poltergeist activity from pubescent angst just by walking into the room. I could never understand why she worked with the meter readers and technophiles. She was good, one of the best I have ever seen.

After grad school we started in the consulting business out of some naive altruism, wanting to make the world a safer place for the common man. It worked for a while; Lin had a innate sensitivity and I had the theoretical angles. Yeah, we were quite a team.

I can't tell when it started to go sour. Nobody ever really can. I guess that Lin just got tired of one bedroom apartments and dusty offices. Ward headhunted her into his organization and we went our separate ways. Of course, in our business, you tend to run into other consultants and everytime I saw her was like pouring acid on open wounds. Still, for all the pain she caused me, I loved her. I wasn't really surprised when she and Ward announced their engagement six months later. Ward could give her what she wanted: big salary, big clientele, big jobs.

I could say that I'm not still in love with Lin, but I'd be lying. I got used to the empty bed, the lonely nights but through it all I still loved her. I would do anything for her, even now, even going back to the God cursed blight on the Earth that is Dunwich. And Lin knows it. She's probably counting on it right now. I hate her for that, and I hate her for leaving me. I hate her for the empty bed and the lonely nights and I hate her for dragging me here to save her sorry ass.

Damn. I have another drink. At least Lin didn't drive me to the bottle. No. That was Dunwich.

I can't quite get my mind around this job. Dunwich a tourist trap, complete with colonial pillory and taffy pull, condominiums springing up like weeds. Just what the hell was going on here anyway?

I finish the glass, slip my .45 under a pillow and turn out the light. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

The drizzle, if possible, is thicker. It coats everything in a sheen, and there are only shadows of things. The giants huddle in the mist, brooding presences half seen/half guessed. I have pulled through Dunwich already and have been cruising the country-side, counting construction sites. Eight sites with what looks like three to four four story buildings in various states of erection. A "Miller Construction" sign sits at every one of them.

Big job, which tells me there is some fairly serious money backing the project. There wasn't much in the way of infrastructure in Dunwich, so they would have had to build that too. And nobody in their right mind would build in Dunwich which tells me that who ever this is, they are either fabulously wealthy and crazy, or crazy and fabulously wealth. Believe me, the latter is far worse.

I pull into the parking lot of the main site office. There is one of those trailer things set above the mud. It is beginning to rain, which serves to make the slick mud of Dunwich even slicker. I park as close as possible and skate to the boardwalk.

Inside is a mud stained linoleum floor, a desk, a door and an assistant who looks terribly bored. I flash her my best salesman smile and walk up.

"Hello. I'm with Phillips' Consulting. Is the site manager here?" I ask.

The girl goes to the door knocks, opens it a crack and mumbles something to someone inside. The door opens and a huge man steps out. The kind of guy whose family worked construction since the Tower of Babylon, and his genes show it.

"Hi," I say, extending a hand. "I'm with Phillips Consulting--" He cuts me short.

"Already had a consultant through. You're wasting your time. She already signed off on the whole damn town." His voice is gravelly. He looks pissed off.

I open my mouth to go with plan B. "Don't need a second opinion neither," the man snaps. This is going to go nowhere.

"Well, okay then," I say sheepishly, like he expects me to. "Sorry to waste your time." I begin to leave, but before the Hulk gets to his office I ask, "So, what are you building here, anyway?"

"Retirement condominiums. The whole place is going to be an old folks home."

"Thanks," I say and leave.

I nearly lose it on the mud trying to put it together. Retirement homes in Dunwich? Only the terminally gullible or the mentally infirm would retire to Dunwich. This job is heading into the surreal fast. I need to know what the hell is going on. Luckily, Dunwich provides just such a service.

It has a crazy lady.

Every good cop or P.I. knows that if you want to find out what is going on in a neighborhood you ask the local crazy lady. You know the one: that strange little woman who is always wandering around silently staring or sitting at the window with the shades open just a crack surveying the great outdoors for abnormalities.

In Dunwich the local crazy lady is Eliza Bishop, of the 'undecayed' Bishops, if you could call Eliza Bishop undecayed. Eliza has been in Dunwich since forever and has never left it. If anyone has a clue what is going on here it is her.

I pull into the muddy track leading into the old Bishop farmstead trying not to get stuck. It has been raining heavily since I left the construction site, and the land around Dunwich turns into a mire with just a little drizzle.

The Bishop house has been standing here since the late 1600s and it hasn't had any work done on it since about then. It clings to life like a drowning man to a rope, squatting on its hill in astounding decrepitude. I consider it a small mercy that its neighbors have been pulled down. The world is a cleaner place for it.

I run for the porch hoping to stay dry. No real point. It is drier in the rain. My foot goes through a plank and the screen door comes off in my hand. I'd knock, but that would probably bring the whole thing down on me.

The inside is dark and has that smell that only old rotting houses can have, hoary and decayed. There is a vague shape across the front room beside a window yellowed by centuries of grime.

"Mrs. Bishop? You remember me? Howard Phillips. I was here a few years ago with Lin Carter."

There is a croak in the gloom, decrepit as the house. "I ain't sellin'. You city folks can keep yer money."

"No, Mrs. Bishop," I say as I step closer. Old Eliza hasn't changed a bit, not that I expected her to. The vitrified seldom change their appearance. "Howard Phillips. I came here back when the trouble started up couple of years ago. You remember?"

"Oh, that nice city fella with the lady friend," the dessicated Eliza Bishop croaks. "I mind ye. Yer lady friend came 'round. I remember as yer wern't with her."

"Did she say where she was going, Mrs. Bishop? I need to find her."

Eliza is silent for a moment. "Nope. Just askt me fool questions. I keep gettin' them other city fellers always askt for me t'dsell. Stir'd up the trouble, 'gin, they did. Like backt'in '28. They says it just the dynamitin, but I knows better. Boomin' t'up in the hills."

A shudder crawls down my spine. This is not good. "What fellows, Mrs. Bishop?"

"Them damn fool city men, comin' here and buyin upt the land. Y'listen here, young feller, you best git out o' Dunwich fast as y'can. There's City men here. No good kin come of it." I can't see it, but I know she's is waving one brittle claw finger at me. I agree with her. I should get the hell out of here before something happens. And something will happen.

"Thank you, Mrs. Bishop. You take care now." I start moving out of the house.

Eliza's croak follows me as I leave. "I ain't a sellin, so git out! Damn city folk. Don't knows when t' leave alone."

The rain is even heavier than it was. I get soaked before I can open the door of the car. A shuddering boom echoes back and forth off the hills. I pray it's thunder.

This isn't good. I am beginning to believe that Lin got in over her head here, and I am beginning to believe I'm going in right behind her. If old lady Bishop is right ...if that is what is really going on here in the midst of unsuspecting vacationers and retail girls...

What happened to me the last two times I came here is nothing next to what almost happened in Dunwich in 1928, and against that kind of thing I'm a boy scout who forgot to bring his swiss army knife. If that is what is happening here, my only hope is that who ever is behind it doesn't know as much as me.

Bad shit is happening in Dunwich and its getting dark. I need a drink.

I get back to the hotel just after nightfall and Ed has left a message for me. Up in the room I shed anything that is wet, which is almost everything, and pour myself a double.

Edward has left his office number. The switchboard rings me through.

"You called?"

"Shady deals going down in Dunwich, Howard,"ee he says, no amusement in his voice. "Construction started up in a serious fashion about three years ago, and Miller Construction is one of the major contractors. Its owned by the usual holding companies crap, but the paper trail ends up on the other side of the Atlantic. There is a rich ship building company over there that has the final control. This company owns just about every thing in Dunwich right now, under all kinds of fronts."

"Yeah, but what the hell for?" I interrupt. "Hell, most of the people in America have never heard of Dunwich. Who the hell over there would be interested in spending that kind of money?"

"This is where it gets scary. The shipping company is owned by one Cordelia Whateley."

That's a bombshell alright.

"I thought all the Whateleys were dead," I said. I should know. I killed the last one.

"Yeah, the American Whateleys. Young Cordelia is from the Old Country. Her family split. The younger sons went off to the Colonies. Cordelia Whateley is a rich, rich woman. I wouldn't be surprised if she did a little research on her own."

"But for what purpose?" I take a gulp from the glass and refill.

"That's the scary question, my friend. You going back up there?"

I take another gulp. "Yeah. Old Eliza Bishop said a couple of things about booming in the hills. There's something I want to check out. Keep digging. I'll call you tomorrow afternoon."

"Be careful."

I hang up the phone and pour a third double. Whateley. It is a name that I had hoped that I would never hear again. She could have learned about '28, but that is ancient history. How much does this Cordelia Whateley know? Enough, I'll bet, to get outside help.\par

Ward? No. That would be wrong. Lin would never have signed off on Dunwich if she knew a Whateley was involved. And Ward wouldn't betray his highest profile consultant like that, even if they weren't married.

No. If Cordelia was planning something the size of 1928 she would need someone with several years study of arcane magic or a doctorate in tactical hyper-geometry, preferably both.

I can feel the waters closing in overhead. This job is getting worse by the minute, and I still have no clue where Lin is.

I gulp down the rest of the glass and pull on dry clothes. The maids would probably have a fit if they knew I was wearing my shoes to bed, but my paranoia switch has been flipped to on.

God, I hate Dunwich.

The retirement condominium below Sentinel Hill looks completed. A brick walkway meanders through a groomed lawn more green than emerald. The structure is faced with brick and pine trim. The gables added onto the fourth floor give the place a malevolent look, as if it were brooding on dark thoughts. The architect managed to catch the whole theme of Dunwich here, except for the decrepitude. Decrepitude is not something that sells to wealthy old timers looking to spend the remainders of their lives in snazzy condo retirement.

I am slogging my way up the near side of the hill. The rain is coming in huge wet drops that soak everything. And the wind is picking up. I doubt that I will find anything at the circle of standing stones at the top, but I have to look just in case.

If there were any recent stains on the altar stone they were long since washed away by this rain. There are no marks or footprints. No sign that anyone has been up here since Wilbur's twin back in '28. Not my day.

The trip back down is as much fun as the one up. By the time I get back to the car, I am mud splattered, soaked and regretting that I left the flask in the car.

I am in a pretty foul mood by the time I get back to the Ashcroft. The sun is down and Arkham's streetlights are fighting a losing battle against the rain and dark, so I don't see them until I'm dragged into the alley.

Three of them. Construction worker types. I guess I must have tipped off the people behind Dunwich, so they pressed a couple of the boys into the thug business. I put up a pretty good fight and even manage to pistol whip one of them with the .45, but one of them has a fist like a cinder block so it doesn't take long for them to beat me into unconsciousness.

When I come to, I am looking at my shoes. My face feels puffy and there is a sledge hammer pounding in my head. The dried blood is making my scalp itch. I am upright only because I am tied into a chair.

My head weighs about three hundred pounds, but I manage to lift it. I am in an office. The construction manager is standing beside a desk, and behind the desk is a woman dressed in a suit that makes her look like a predator. This must be Cordelia Whateley.

"Ahh, Mister Phillips, so good of you to join us," she says, and stands up. She walks around the desk like a shark heading for its prey.

"Cordelia Whateley," I say, looking for a reaction. There isn't one.

"I see that your reputation is well earned," she says. "If you are looking for surprise, I am afraid you are out of luck. I was told that you would make an appearance."

I decide to play it tough. "So is this the part where you gloat over your perfect plan and then kill me?"

Cordelia looks pissed for just a moment, and then is back to predator mode. "Not exactly. I assume that I don't have to tell you that I am here to finish what my distant cousins failed to complete?"

"I figured as much," I state. "You are meddling with powers you couldn't possibly comprehend."

Cordelia smiles in contempt. "You are mistaken, Mister Phillips. Gravely mistaken. I would like to introduce you to a mutual friend." Her voice is as cruel as a knife. Cordelia walks back to her desk.

I am half expecting to hear Lin's voice when the door behind me opens. What I hear instead is far, far worse.

The voice is the voice of a thousand year old mummy, dry and creaking, full of dust. A voice from the grave.

"Hello, Howard." The speaker walks around to stand in front of me. He is a less than half reconstructed corpse. An immaculate Seville Row suit hangs grotesquely on bones and dessicated flesh; the neck tie is tight around the vertebrae.

My eyes narrow with the automatic response that only true hatred inspires. "Curwen," I snarl.

"Guess who found my essential saltes," Curwen croaks in what I assume is a chuckle. He slaps me, his taloned hand draws blood. "That wasn't nice, what you did to me the last time. In fact, I think I owe you another." His back hand nearly breaks my cheek.

There is a snort of contempt from Cordelia. "Must you?" She asks snidely.

Curwen spins. "This little bastard has killed me twice. Haven't you, Howard?"

I spit the blood in my mouth onto Curwen's polished shoes. "They say the third time's the charm."

"Not this time, Howard."

"Indeed," says Cordelia. "Mr. Curwen has been quite a valuable resource for me. Without his specialized knowledge, I would not have been able to complete my plan."

"You have to admit, Howard, it's a great plan." Curwen leans on the desk. "Cordelia had the money, and the guts and a long lost copy of old Zachariah\'eds diary. But she needed help."

"So she tracked down all the leads she could and came up with you," I finish for him.

"It wasn\'edt easy to raise him," Cordelia comments. "You did quite a job on Mr. Curwen."

"Not good enough," I spit.

"To make a long story short," Curwen continues, "I had the knowledge and the rituals. Cordelia had the plan. All we needed were some fresh wombs."

"The missing girls."

"You always were quick, Howard. But not quick enough. They are already pregnant. And by the time that they give birth, the retirement homes will be full."

"Of food," I say. The words make me sick. "Old people die all the time, right?"

Curwen croaks again. "Brilliant, isn't it. Except for one thing. You." He comes over and sticks his skull into my face. The odour of the grave is still on him. "I knew that you would come sniffing around sooner or later. And I knew if I could get that Carter bitch here you'd follow like a puppy on a leash."

"What did you do with Lin, you bastard?" Just a little closer and I could bite off his head.

"Nothing like what I have planned for you. I am going to enjoy this." Curwen pulls away. He nods to the site manager. "Good night, Howard."

This cinder block punch isn't as painful as the one the night before, but it is enough to put me out.

The wet and cold seeps into me long before I am aware of what is going on. When I finally come around enough to take notice of the rain on my face, I know where I am. Sentinel Hill. On the altar stone.

I know that I am tied down, but I try to move just to make sure. Someone must have noticed, because my view of the black clouds is occulted by the grinning rictus of Curwen's half repaired face.

"Hello, Howard," he cackles, his voice as dry as I am wet. "Now I want you to pay close attention for the next few minutes, Howard. This is going to be interesting.

"Not half as interesting as the first time I killed you." The slap I receive in reply shuffles my brain like a deck of cards.

There is the sound of a large amount of diesel fuel lighting up. I better start thinking fast. They've started the bonfires.

"We've got the spawn impregnated, Howard. You're already too late," Curwen gloats. "Even if you somehow managed to get loose it wouldn't matter."

"Then why the floor show?"

"Oh, this is just to grease the wheels, as it were, with the father. And to put you out of my misery."

"Any last words?" Cordelia asks snidely.

"Yeah," I snap, "how about: get me the fuck off this rock?"

"Impertinent to the last." Curwen looms closer. "So long, Howard. I can't say it's been nice to know you."

The storm is really going now. Lightning flashes all across the sky, and the winds are whipping into a howl. There is thunder booming in the hills, and more than thunder. Curwen stuffs his neck tie into my mouth. It tastes like corpse mold.

Now, the thing about this sort of ritual is the variables. Like quantum physics there are millions of them; some of them matter, some of them don't, and some you don't even know exist. The ones that matter are reproduceable, angles defining space, sound waves resonating, and give rise to the primary effect. The variables that don't matter give rise to the often bizarre secondary effects which are non-reproduceable. The study of these variables, and their effects, namely the intersections of various planes of existence and the unleashing of numinous forces, was called sorcery two hundred years ago. In today's jargon-laden newspeak it's called tactical hyper-geometry. The trick to it is knowing which variables matter and which don't.

Curwen, after a couple of hundred years of study, knows what variables matter. He has spent two or three lifetimes piecing it all together from imperfect sources, but he knows better than almost anyone which variables matter. Out of the twelve or thirteen people in the world who could pull this job off, he's about the number five.

I happen to be number number three, which is why he has jammed his two hundred dollar silk tie down my throat.

The black clouds are beginning to swirl above me. Well, actually it is the very fabric of space beginning to swirl as our tiny three dimensional plane begins to visibly intersect with the hypergeometry of the far more immense universe. Curwen's corpse dry voice begins the chant.

I am beginning to run out of time. Soon the outer spheres will be opened and all hell will break loose. All I have to do is untie myself, kill Curwen yet again, disrupt a few variables and stop a hellish, blasphemous entity from the depths between the stars from crashing into our tiny planet. Right now the untying part is giving me trouble.

The clouds roiling above me are being sucked up into the sky, like black ink swirling into a drain pipe. Lightning crawls across the sky like spectral claws. I can feel all the hair on by body standing straight up. I grind my wrists and ankles against the ropes, struggling to get free, hoping the rain has made the ropes slick enough to slip.

No luck.

I almost don't hear the shots over the howling and crashing. omeone is firing a gun. What the hell is going on? A rich psychotic and a reanimated corpse are opening a portal to the outer spheres to unleash a creature as powerful to us as we are to ants. The sky is a roiling whirlpool pulling the very fabric of space up and into reaches beyond our realm all together. Only a lunatic would be up here during this mess.

The universe loves irony.

I twist harder. Either the rain or my blood, probably both, lubricates my wrist enough to slip one hand free. I lurch up to untie the other. Somewhere in the chaos of wind, rain and fire I hear Cordelia shout. A shadow passes over me and I look up just in time to dodge cinder block man. His fist misses my head by the width of the hair and smacks into the altar stone. His howl is lost in the thunder.

I get my other hand loose and give him my best hamfist. He goes down. The bonfires have been whipped by the wind into roaring columns of flame. The howling air is ripping almost straight up into the intersection forming above us.

It's too late to stop it now. These things have a kind of momentum. All I can do now is try to get out alive. And kill Curwen.

I can't see who is shooting, and I can't see Curwen, but I can see Cordelia. It looks like she is trying to pull a gun.

The ground comes up and smashes me in the face. A brutal kick catches me in the ribs and spins me over. Curwen. Most of his skull is missing where a bullet has passed through. Doesn't seem to hamper him much, though. His mud stained Guccis rip open my forehead. He draws his foot up for another kick.

Curwen is thrown off his feet. I stagger to mine before he does to see Edward with a maniacal grin and a .45. Ed tackles Cordelia out of the stone circle and the light. Curwen is getting to his feet. I give him a couple of kicks to keep him down and run for it.

The ground heaves up towards me as I am flung by a titanic lightning stroke to the altar stone. I roll out of the circle just as Curwen regains his feet. He looks up at the vortex for a moment, then at me.

"Damn you Howard!" He screams.

A boiling mass seeps down out of the vortex and engulfs the skeletal frame, yanking it into the sky.

A huge boom trembles the hill, and a deafening crack comes from the sky, and echoes away leaving only the wind, the rain and the inevitable stench.

It's over.

I grope my way over to Edward who is holding an obviously unconscious Cordelia Whateley at gunpoint.

A huge grin of pure excitement splits his face. "Holy shit, Howard! Are all your jobs like this?"

"A little more exciting than dusting books, isn't it?" I reply, and take the gun from him. "How did you know?"

"Well, when I couldn\rquote t get you at the Ashcroft, I figured you were probably in trouble. And Sentinel Hill is always at the center of trouble in Dunwich." He gives me a punch in the arm, barely able to contain his excitement. "So should we expect anymore trouble?"

"No. This was just Curwen trying to kill me," I answer, looking at the clouds. "We won't be seeing him again anytime soon."

"What about her," Edward asks, nodding at Cordelia.

"We take her to the police, and she tells us where the mothers to be are. The three girls who disappeared from Arkham. Then she goes to jail for a long, long time." I lie in the mud, trying not to hurt.

"How are you feeling?"

"I've got at least four broken ribs, what feels like a dislocated knee, very nearly escaped being devoured slowly over a thousand years, and been played by for a fool by a man I've killed twice before.

"I need a drink," I say

"Lin?"

I don't answer for a moment trying to think of what to say. "I figure she's dead. Curwen used her as bait."

Edward nods. "Sorry, man."

He hands me a flask. I take a triple. Lin rates at least a three drink memory.

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