Joe Golem and the Drowning City: An Illustrated Novel (27 page)

“You must listen closely now, if you want your answers,” Dr. Cocteau said.

Molly spun around and saw that he had been standing in the shadows at the head of the table all along, just behind her, perhaps watching her while she lay unconscious. The skulker had climbed up into his arms and he held the creature like a child, his wet, sticky breathing more disgusting than ever. The image of the two of them together, like father and son, made her shudder.

“You felt it,” Dr. Cocteau said.

“In the stars,” Molly whispered, drawing her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around them. She glanced at the new shadows that had gathered in the room now that the lights had been turned lower, at the gas-men lurking there.

“No,” he said sharply. “Not
in
the stars. Between the stars. Behind anything your eyes can see.”

Molly nodded. “Mr. Church called it ‘un-dimensioned space.’”

“Yes!” Dr. Cocteau replied, excitement lighting his eyes. He hugged the skulker and nuzzled his nose against his gas mask. “That’s exactly right. But they did not always live in that space. These old gods roamed our world during its infancy, a first, hidden incarnation that science will never understand. The old ones found the solidifying world too confining, and they abandoned it, sliding into another reality, one infinitely more vast.”

Deeply unnerved, Molly glanced toward the curtained area where the pool awaited, still wishing she could make a break for those air tanks. She also considered making a rush for the spiral staircase the gas-men had brought her up, but even if it went to the surface, she would never reach it without Cocteau or the gas-men getting to her first. An image flashed in her mind of the way Cocteau had leaped down from the dais, and she got a queasy feeling in her gut. Whatever dark energies he had dabbled with over the years, they had taken their toll on him.

“Now, pay attention,” Dr. Cocteau said, hugging the skulker tightly before putting him down. He came and sat on the edge of the surgical table. She wanted to scream, kick him, and run. Felix still swam inside that bizarre tank, but she needed Mr. Church and Joe. Whatever was happening to him, she couldn’t help him on her own.

“Help Felix,” she said.

Dr. Cocteau frowned irritably. “Hush, girl, and I will.”

She nodded for him to continue.

“I am a seer,” Dr. Cocteau said. “A scrier, a prognosticator. I would even flatter myself by going so far as to say I am a prophet. I roll the bones, girl. I read the stars. I search for signs in the dregs of my teacup or the entrails of the rats we kill in the tunnels. The very existence of the old gods who live in this strange realm influences our world in ways one cannot possibly understand if one is not searching for such omens. Some have said that this century is cursed, that the plagues and the wars and the convulsions of the Earth are the result of that curse. They are fools.

“For many years, all signs have pointed to an approaching cataclysm, an event so terrible that this world and the human race will never recover. Only recently have I begun to understand that all signs point to myself as the originator of this cataclysm.”

Molly’s breath caught in her chest. “You want to destroy the world?”

Dr. Cocteau looked shocked. “Not at all,” he said, hugging the skulker close to him. The sight made Molly shudder. “I love this world, despite its many flaws. If there was any way that I could fulfill my ambitions—dare I say, my destiny—and still avert this catastrophe, of course I would do so. But I am a traveler, my dear. I am an
explorer,
not some kind of scientific tourist. I am the one human being willing to leave this reality and take the next step, no matter what the cost. When there are lands to discover that are just out of reach, that human eyes have never seen, then I will find a way to cross that breach.”

Molly stared at him, hugging her knees closer against her chest. She was afraid that she
did
see.

“There were two elements I needed in order to make my journey,” Dr. Cocteau said, his gaze no longer on her but peering into some distant shadow, some sideways world she could not see. “First, I had to find a way to part the curtain that separates our world from their realm. I presume you have, by now, learned the details of your friend Mr. Orlov’s strange birth.”

When Molly nodded, he smiled, but his gaze remained distant.

“Church was there when the grief-stricken Andrew Golnik attempted to offer Orlov’s mother—with him yet in her womb—as a sacrifice to some deity or other. Golnik thought Lector’s Pentajulum would force the Sumerian death god to pay attention to him, but he did not understand the Pentajulum. Not at all. He
did
get the attention of something ancient, but it had never been worshipped by human beings … never even shared this world with humanity. Using the Pentajulum gave it a window through which it could peer, and when it understood that Golnik intended his offering as some kind of invitation, it began to part the curtain … to slide through.

“If Mr. Church hadn’t arrived when he did, and shot Golnik, there is no telling what would have happened. Cataclysm, possibly. Or perhaps some deathless entity from that un-dimensioned space would have worn Golnik or the woman like a suit of flesh and wandered our world. Perhaps that old god would have proven to be an explorer, like me. No matter, of course, because that isn’t what happened. Church shot Golnik and the Pentajulum was lost, but the presence of the old god had touched Mrs. Orlov and her unborn son. The woman died screaming in an asylum, but her son was born and survived, never quite able to adjust to his life. He sensed the other worlds around him, just out of reach, and he felt the way his body would change …
wanted
to change, to become the thing he was destined to be.”

“His father’s son,” Molly whispered in horror.

Dr. Cocteau grinned, turning to the skulker, whose wet, ragged breathing had grown quieter with his rapt attention. “
Now
she’s getting it.”

The skulker turned to stare at her with his black lens eyes.

“You’re as crazy as Mr. Church said,” Molly said.

“You don’t believe that,” Dr. Cocteau replied. “You want all of this to be the babbling of a madman because you fear the alternative, just as Church always has. And, truthfully, if I were you, I would be just as frightened. At best, my journey beyond our dimension will draw the attention of beings to whom you and the rest of humanity are less than ants, and it may be to their amusement to destroy you. At worst, the cataclysm I have prophesied will occur, and the bleeding of their dimension into ours
will
destroy you. Destroy everything.”

Molly felt a cold, numb hollow opening within her. Once again, Dr. Cocteau had read her perfectly.

“Even if you get through and survive it, there may be no home for you to come back to.”

Dr. Cocteau smiled the way adults often did at the naïve innocence of children. It made her want to hurt him.

“I won’t be coming back,” he said. “And I may not survive very long. But, oh, the sights I’ll see. I will commune with the old gods in a way that no human ever has, and I will see the source of their power and be imbued with their majesty. I alone will represent man in the next step of human evolution, unlocking the possibility of elevation to godhood.”

Molly blinked, staring at him. “Godhood? You can’t be serious.”

Dr. Cocteau twitched, his lips pursing as if he’d tasted something sour. “You wanted answers, girl. If you’d rather we begin—”

“I think I’ve got the basics,” Molly said sharply. “But I still don’t understand why you need Felix if the Pentajulum is enough to get their attention.”

The madman pushed his fingers through his bushy white beard as if neatening it, but managed only to make it bristle. He was growing visibly more irritated, and Molly took half a step back from him, wondering if he would try to attack her himself, if she would have to run.

“I said I needed two elements,” Dr. Cocteau huffed. “This is only one of them.”

He reached into his jacket pocket—which seemed to have infinite space inside it, and might have been magic—and pulled out Lector’s Pentajulum. Its weird colors and shifting design seemed to absorb the light in the room and reflect it back with a dully colorful glow. Dr. Cocteau studied it, smiling as if he wanted to stroke it or lay his cheek against it the way a child might a favorite stuffed animal.

“I have spent years gathering all of the extant writings on the subject of the Pentajulum. I am as close to an expert as this world has ever produced, and I believe it will protect me as I travel through the dimensional barrier and allow me to communicate with the old gods. They will perceive me as their equal.”

He gestured at the glass sphere, its murk darker than ever.

“When my research into the Pentajulum led to my discovering the story of Orlov’s birth, I felt certain I had the other element I needed. I knew that, in time, his true nature would reveal itself, that the passage of time and his repeated contact with the etheric plane would eventually trigger a transformation. Had I realized that exposure to the Pentajulum when he went to pray at his mother’s grave was delaying his maturity, I would have put a stop to it years ago.”

“Wait,” Molly said. “You knew the Pentajulum was there?”

Dr. Cocteau smirked. “I deduced its location years ago, but decided it would be safer where it was than in my possession, where an arrogant fool like Simon Church might have stolen it. As long as I knew where it was, I would always be able retrieve it when Felix reached his true maturity. When my servants reported that you and Joe were also headed to the cemetery, the timing seemed serendipitous.”

Molly glared at him. “Because you need my help.”

“Indeed. The time has come. Felix could not hold off his metamorphosis forever. The stars aligned this morning and I rolled the bones to confirm my interpretation. I sent my servants to fetch your father because I knew that he would begin his ascendance today, and once again, my foresight has proven accurate.”

Molly thought of the séance with the Mendehlsons. She thought something had gone wrong with Felix’s communication with the dead, but was it possible that his seizures and his illness and the way his face had begun to change had less to do with evil spirits and more to do with his own birthright? She wanted to think not, but the timing of the gas-men’s arrival was too accurate for it to be mere coincidence. Dr. Cocteau had known what was about to happen.

She turned and stared at the glass sphere, wishing she could see Felix in that dark water … wishing he were still Felix. Cocteau had called him her father again, and this time she hadn’t argued. If Dr. Cocteau’s predictions had come true, did that mean the rest of his madness was also true?

“Once Felix has transformed, he will look up at me and see an equal, a brother. He will be able to part the curtain between this dimension and the limbo space beside it and slip through. When Felix ascends through the veil of time-space to the realm of the ancient ones, we will be together as brothers.”

Molly hugged herself, her throat growing dry. “You still haven’t said why you need
me
here.”