Carter & Lovecraft (38 page)

“I think so,” said Carter. He felt desperate and directionless. “I don’t know. I think the Fold’s still there. We stopped fighting over it … it wasn’t destroyed. It shouldn’t be destroyed. I’m sure it wasn’t.”

“You’re sure. Awesome.”

“This has got to be reversible. It must be.”

Lovecraft wouldn’t look at him anymore. She looked at the street, full of good citizens of Arkham.

“Randolph Carter and H. P. Lovecraft fixed this once,” Carter persisted. He needed a rock. He needed a path. “We can do it again. Somehow. Somehow we’ll do it again.”

Lovecraft looked at Carter.

“That is such bullshit,” she said.

* * *

They did not notice the bookstore sign above them. They did not see that it, too, had changed.

Now, the sign read
Carter & Lovecraft
.

Epilogue

THE STRANGE HIGH HOUSE IN THE MIST

There was a heavy mist rolling in from the Miskatonic River, drowning the lower-lying streets and burying the roof ridges in thin tendrils of curling white.

From his top-floor office beneath the penthouse suite at the highly reputable law firm of Weston Edmunds, Henry Weston watched the mist advance. It wouldn’t last long, he knew; from his vantage point, the sky was clear and blue, and the sun would soon burn away the mist. Still, it was a pretty enough sight, and he enjoyed watching the panorama below, the ancient city spread out before him like a quaint model town. It was an exclusive view, after all; the Weston Edmunds building was eight stories high, one of the highest in Arkham, a city that took its skyline seriously and was not keen to see it cluttered.

Weston had missed Arkham. Providence was all very well and he hadn’t disliked it, exactly, but it simply lacked the character of its predecessor, vanished from space, time, history, and human recollection but for the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and it was partially Lovecraft’s fault it had vanished in the first place. Weston didn’t blame him for that, though, nor did he blame Randolph Carter for his part in the affair. Weston was not the sort to hold grudges.

Still, he was glad it was done with now, in as far as he understood the concept of gladness. He still remembered Providence—that was in his nature—and it seemed likely Daniel Carter and Emily Lovecraft might, too, if they had survived Waite Road. But they would be alone, and Weston would never admit to knowing a city called Providence had ever existed there. Why should he when one never had? A moment’s concentration, and almost a century’s history was peeled away from his memory to be replaced with the correct version.

There. Much better.

Not that he would entirely dispense with the memory of those phantom decades, of course. He had learned useful things during the period and, in any case, it might transpire that there was unfinished business to attend to. He hung up the memories in a rarely used closet in his mind, and closed the door upon them.

Henry Weston decided he would indulge himself with a walk through the mist-haunted streets and got as far as reaching for his coat and hat when he heard a sound he had not heard in a very long time, a metallic purr so high that it would have troubled few dogs.

With a small sigh, he returned his hat to the hook. First things first, of course.

He locked the door and called through to his assistant that he was taking a personal call and was on no account to be interrupted for the next hour. Then he climbed the flight of stairs to his penthouse and secured its door after him, too.

From a locked drawer in the desk in his penthouse study, he removed a wooden box six inches deep by a foot square and placed it on the desktop. It wasn’t exactly six by twelve by twelve inches, of course; it had not been built by artificers who used inches, or even centimeters. No dendrologist would have succeeded in identifying the wood used in its construction, either.

He made to lift the lid, but remembered himself in time. How could he speak to the others through something as crude as a mouth? This life had made him habituated.

Henry Weston, attorney at law, smiled a very human smile, dug his fingers into the synthetic flesh of his neck, and proceeded to tear away his face.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The opportunity to develop and write
Carter & Lovecraft
came to me from Brendan Deneen via the good offices of Peter Joseph, my editor at Thomas Dunne Books. I enjoyed writing it, and I’m grateful to Peter for suggesting me to Brendan. I am also, as ever, grateful to my literary agents—Melissa Chinchillo of Fletcher & Company in New York and Sam Copeland of Rogers, Coleridge & White in London—for fighting in my corner during negotiations.

My thanks also go to my editor, Peter Joseph (yes, he gets thanked twice; disgraceful, I know) and copy editor, Ivy McFadden. While I flatter myself on turning in manuscripts that are reasonably polished, the text is a great deal shinier due to their efforts.

This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Noel, who never had a chance to read it. This is just bloody typical of obstreperous fate, as it’s the first novel I’ve written that I think he might have enjoyed, being that he was not a great fan of fantasy, horror, or science fiction. My dad enjoyed detective stories a lot, though; he bought me my first Sherlock Holmes book and lent me his Ed McBains. I think he might well have enjoyed reading of the travails of Dan Carter, PI, and Emily Lovecraft. It pains me that I shall never know for sure. Literary interests aside, he was also a good man, and whatever is good in me came from him and my mother. I miss him a lot. I owe him a lot. Thanks, Dad.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jonathan L. Howard
is a game designer, scriptwriter, and veteran of the computer-games industry since the early nineties, with titles such as the Broken Sword series to his credit. He is the author of the Johannes Cabal series, as well as the young adult novels
Katya’s World
and
Katya’s War.
He lives in the United Kingdom with his wife and daughter. You can sign up for email updates
here
.