Strange Eons (23 page)

And it was indeed that, Mark noted, as he followed Moybridge through the french doors onto the poolside terrace.

Here in the deepening twilight he settled himself on a lounger to gaze across the placid pool at the multicolored coruscation of lights blazing beyond and below. It was a magnificent view, and only a man of Moybridge’s means could situate himself here above the city for such a nightly spectacle.

Not that Mark begrudged him that privilege. Whatever Judson Moybridge enjoyed was well-earned. It had taken him thirty years as a corporation attorney to elevate him to this hilltop eminence, and he had little else to show for his efforts—neither wife nor family. Unless Mark himself could be counted as family. After all, until he’d turned twenty-one, three years ago, the attorney had been his legal guardian.

Mark looked up at the sound of ice tinkling in a glass; his host had apparently helped himself to a drink from the portable cabinet beside his own lounger.

“Sure you won’t join me?” Moybridge said.

“No, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” The attorney lifted his glass and swallowed, then set it down on the patio deck. “Now, then. Information. What sort of information?”

“First, can you bring me up to date on that news report. My car radio’s out and I haven’t heard anything since I left the office. Did they find out who he was?”

“You’re talking about the man who made the assassination attempt?” Moybridge shook his head. “Prelim examination indicates his hair was dyed, fingertip pads eradicated by acid, some laryngeal surgery performed recently to alter vocal scans. That, and the absence of clothing labels or anything else that would serve as a clue to his identification, seems to establish him as a professional.”

“Was anything said about his weapon?”

“Yes, they mentioned some name, but I wasn’t paying attention. I gather it was just an ordinary revolver.” He hesitated, noting Mark’s frown. “Something wrong?”

“Very.”

Moybridge reached for his glass, staring at the younger man as he sat up and brushed thick dark hair back across a tanned forehead.
Nice-looking boy. Could have been my own son. Hate to see him tensed up like this.
Another sip, and then, “What’s the problem?”

“Don’t you see? Here’s someone who’s taken elaborate pains to conceal his identity—a real pro, you say. But when it comes to making his move he acts like an amateur. A professional assassin would take precautions to conceal himself. He’d use a high-powered rifle equipped with telescopic sights and a silencer, or get his hands on one of those new supersonics. But this man just climbs up on a balcony in full view of a hundred witnesses and blasts away with a noisy, old-fashioned handgun. It doesn’t make sense. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Maybe that’s what he intended. He wanted to be seen and heard, wanted to make sure that—whether his attempt failed or succeeded—it couldn’t be ignored or hushed up.”

“In other words, a psychotic seeking publicity.”

“Publicity seeker, yes. But not a psychotic; at least, not in the ordinary meaning of the term.” Mark nodded. “I talked to one of the security officers. He agrees that this was the work of the Black Brotherhood.”

Moybridge gulped the rest of his drink. “How often must I tell you—”

“That there is no such thing as the Black Brotherhood?” Mark shrugged. “I know the story—it’s a practical joke, a hoax dreamed up by some imaginative troublemaker, publicized until it became a media event, then a widespread popular delusion used to explain any unsolved crime of violence. You’ve explained it to me a dozen times. But now I want you to tell me the truth.”

“But I’ve always told you the truth.” The attorney rose stiffly, face and voice conveying cold anger. “You read my book. You were still living with me in the old house when I researched it.”

Mark nodded. “Those trips you took—the calls to Washington, interviews with government people. I used to wonder what they told you.”

Moybridge poured himself another drink. “It’s all in the book,” he said.
“The Fall of Cthulhu
—doesn’t the title itself answer your questions? I proved my point, and since then a dozen others have confirmed the facts.

“You weren’t even alive when it happened, all this nonsense about the earthquakes, what they meant and what they produced. It was sheer hysteria—just the old devil theory, people looking for a scapegoat. But now we know the truth. Easter Island was accidentally destroyed during a thermonuclear weapon test—that’s a matter of official record. As for this man Lovecraft, we both know the answer. In the five years since my book was published, other researchers came to the same conclusion. He was gifted, persuasive, and a classic example of the paranoid-schizophrenic.”

Moybridge paused to drink and Mark eyed him through the gathering darkness. “I read what you wrote. But where’s the evidence?”

“Right before your eyes,” said the attorney. A quarter of a century has passed since those quakes occurred. But in spite of the panic, in spite of all the crackpot prophecies of the crazy cults, nothing happened. The quakes stopped, didn’t they? And no slimy monster ever emerged from the sea. We’re still here, thank God, safe and sound as always. And now that Lovecraft’s work is out of print—”

“That’s another thing,” Mark said. “With all the interest in this Cthulhu Mythos, you’d think publishers would take advantage of the market. But I can’t even find his books in the second-hand stores. Do you suppose there’s some kind of government censorship involved—buying up copies and destroying them?”

“I suppose nothing of the sort.”

“What became of your copies, the ones I read when you started your book?”

“I got rid of them when I moved here.” Moybridge sighed. “Look, there’s no point in discussing this any further. I’ve done my best to answer your questions—”

“All but one.”

“Which is?”

Mark stared at the attorney. “Why did you get involved in all this? Why did you neglect your own law practice just to write a book disproving the Mythos theory?”

“I told you, there’s no point in discussing—”

“But there is. Because I trust you. I’ve always trusted you, more than anyone I know.”

“Then trust me now.” Moybridge moved to Mark; in the darkness his face was a blur except for the somber eyes. “We used to be so close, until these last few years. I’m not complaining—you’re a man now, it was right for you to leave and go on your own. But I’ve missed you, and I still think of you as my own. It’s your welfare that concerns me, now and always.

“That’s why I want you to quit this investigation. There is no Black Brotherhood, believe me. But there are political fanatics—dangerous, unprincipled men who exploit the present social unrest for their own ends. They’ve seized on this old superstition to rationalize their violence. You can’t stop them, and there’s no point in trying. If you stand in their way they’ll destroy you.”

Moybridge put his hand on Mark’s arm. “Please—for both our sakes—”

Mark stepped back. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why did you write that book? What do you know? Tell me why you’re so frightened—”

“Frightened?” The attorney’s voice was shrill. “I never said—”

“You don’t have to. Look at your hand; it’s shaking so hard you’ll drop that glass. I tried calling you at your office earlier today—they said you haven’t been in for weeks. Why are you hiding out up here? Don’t you see? I want to help you, but there’s no way unless you tell me the truth. Is the Brotherhood after you too?”

“Get out!”

“Please, listen to me. You’re in some kind of trouble, I know it. If you’re involved in this—”

“I’m not involved. And you’re not going to involve me!” Moybridge’s voice rose. “Just get out and stay out. Out of here, out of my life, out of this investigation!”

He stood silent then, watching Mark turn and go through the doorway, following his progress across the living room and listening to the sound of the front door closing behind him. Moybridge remained motionless until he heard Mark’s car starting and moving off.

Only then did he summon sufficient strength to cross the patio and reach into the portable liquor cabinet beside the lounger. The way his hands were trembling, he thought he’d never get the cork out of the bottle.

But he managed.

Mark managed, too, but it wasn’t easy. The headache was killing him, pounding and throbbing through his temples. And his neck hurt too; he had to loosen his collar in order to breathe.

What had happened back there? It wasn’t just a quarrel, no sense pretending that. He’d never seen his former guardian frightened before, never seen anyone so disturbed over an abstract difference of opinion.

Only this wasn’t just a matter of opinion. And in spite of what Judson Moybridge claimed, the facts were otherwise.

The Black Brotherhood was no invention of the media—it definitely existed. And the current wave of assassinations and assassination attempts was too widespread to be dismissed as the work of a few political subversives. There was nothing political about their threats or their predictions of calamities to come.

The arguments Moybridge advanced in his book and repeated in books by other skeptics just didn’t hold up. Even with the sudden disappearance of Lovecraft’s work and its curious unavailability in reference libraries, there seemed to be a general public awareness of its content; an awareness fostered by the Black Brotherhood’s statements and by word-of-mouth revelations.

According to these sources, the official government reports were part of a deliberate cover-up. During the quake cycle of a quarter-century ago, Cthulhu had actually risen from his slumbers when the sunken city of R’lyeh partially emerged from the sea. He then began a journey marked by the destruction trailing in its wake—ships and planes vanished, entire populations of isolated islands disappeared. Secret missions were mounted; a thermonuclear blast destroyed both Easter Island and the suicide squadron sent against it.

The story had never been officially confirmed or denied, but it didn’t end there.

According to stubborn rumor, Cthulhu had not died. No weapon could annihilate an alien life-form capable of reconstituting its atomic components. The immortal entity had once again found refuge in a secret lair beneath the sea.

And now the various cults that preached his coming had also submerged. In their place was the Black Brotherhood. Black as in magic, not race, Mark reminded himself. Naturally the group must have a normal proportion of non-Caucasians—particularly in Los Angeles, where the population was presently twenty-two percent black, seven percent Oriental and over thirty percent Hispanic.

Yet no one really knew the cult’s components—how many were white, how many were black, how many were activist or mere believers. Probably the actual membership was small, but its influence was expanding and every incident of terrorism added to the cult’s strength.

No official denials, no scholarly efforts by men like Judson Moybridge, could stem the rising tide of tension surrounding the concept of Cthulhu’s coming. And no action on the part of the law enforcement agencies had succeeded in locating, let alone breaking up the secret sect responsible for the spread of violence and disruption. Not just here but throughout the world, the pattern was evident—bombings, arson, sabotage; the murder or mysterious disappearance of prominent citizens both in and out of public office, preceded by open warnings, as in the case of today’s attempt.

No doubt the authorities were staging widespread undercover investigations, but without results. What had once been a minor problem was rapidly becoming a major governmental headache.

Headache.

Mark blinked as the pain pulsed behind his eyes. He rolled down the window for air and the night chill fanned his forehead. Fog was rolling in from the sea; to his left he saw mist shrouding the expanse of trees and shrubbery behind the walls of Parkland Cemetery.

He had no love of graveyards, but this was a welcome sight—it meant he was nearing his destination. A turn to the left brought him to the little house situated across the street, and he pulled over to the curb at the deadend.

A moment later he was ringing the bell at 1112 Parkland Place.

Light flickered up behind the window flanking the entrance, and then a voice sounded from behind the door.

“Yes—who is it?”

“Mark.”

The door opened and Laurel Colman peered out at him. She was wearing a robe and her hair was up; obviously she’d been preparing for bed, and her face still bore traces of cleansing cream. But even without makeup the tiny brunette’s fine-boned features and slightly slanted eyes with their sapphire glint exerted a strikingly exotic effect.

The eyes were troubled now. “What on earth are you doing here at this hour?”

“Let me in.”

“Of course.” Laurel stepped aside, permitting him to enter. “But tell me—”

“Later. Got any aspirin?”

“Sit down. I’ll bring it.”

She led him into the living room, then vanished, reappearing a moment later with two tablets in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

As Mark gulped and swallowed, the girl eyed him, frowning. “What’s wrong?” she said.

“Nothing. Just another headache.”

“Really, Mark, you’ve got to see a doctor. You promised, remember?”

“I know.” He nodded. “There hasn’t been time.”

“You were going to call me tonight,” Laurel murmured. “What happened?”

He told her and she listened intently, without interruption.

“It’s Moybridge I’m worried about,” Mark said. “You know how close we’ve been. Ever since I was three, when he took me out of that orphanage—brought me up in his home just as though he was my real father—”

Laurel glanced up quickly. “Are you sure he isn’t?”

“I used to wish he was, sometimes, but that’s impossible. Once, years ago, when I was fourteen or fifteen, I asked him outright. Took a lot of courage for me to do so, but it must have taken even more for him to answer.”

“Gay?”

Mark shook his head. “Sterile. Some childhood disease—mumps, or scarlet fever. That’s why he never married. And I suppose it was one of his motives for becoming my guardian. In the years right after the big quake a lot of youngsters were left without parents—just dumped on doorsteps in some cases. Orphanages were overcrowded and the authorities launched this foster-parent program. Moybridge was one of those who responded, and I’m lucky he chose me.”