By the time they had taken their turns outside in the bathroom and managed, as well as they could, to make themselves presentable, Glory and Smith had prepared dinner in the kitchen. They all sat down to a meal that was unexpectedly formal. Lovecraft couldn’t help but notice the truly awful condition of his rumpled suit, and Howard, accustomed to eating his own improvised meals with his father, felt distinctly awkward. But there were no complaints. The dinner was a simple fare of steak and mashed potatoes with vegetables and garnish, and both Lovecraft and Howard ate ravenously, hardly pausing to make conversation through their full mouths.
It was after he had eaten that Lovecraft realized that if it were not for him and Howard, the meal might have been a romantic candlelit dinner between Smith and Glory. He had not commented on her change of clothes, but he had hardly failed to notice. Howard was a little less observant, but he, too, could feel the chemistry between Glory and Smith in the air, and he often glowered at Smith from under his brooding brow.
They all complimented Glory for the meal, and while she prepared coffee, they got down to the business at hand. Lovecraft and Howard, took turns relating the details of their journey, interrupting each other to add details, embellishments, insights. Often they did not fully agree with each other, arguing a point of fact or adding something the other should have noticed. Smith found it a little confusing, particularly because Howard’s style was to narrate the gist of the action while Lovecraft had a tendency to take his time laying the background for the events, often not getting to the point until Howard expressed his impatience. It was altogether unbelievable.
“If the both of you didn’t look so wretched, I’d believe you were out to hoax me,” said Smith. “I know you’re both storytellers, and I know you have no reason to be making all this up, but it all exceeds the realm of plausibility.”
“I can corroborate some of what they said,” Glory replied for them. “Half the things I’ve seen I wouldn’t believe, either.”
Lovecraft added more sugar to his coffee-so much that Smith wondered why his spoon didn’t simply stand upright in the cup. “Since you are suddenly such a skeptic, Clark, let me reveal to you a piece of physical evidence that might sway your opinion in our favor.” He produced his satchel and opened it on the table, and from one of its compartments, he withdrew the Kachina doll.
Smith held the doll and turned it back and forth in his hands before he passed it to Glory. “Quite interesting,” he said. “I don’t know much about Southwestern Indian lore, so I can’t say much about this doll. Wait a moment.” He left them for a few moments and returned from his study with a small carving, which he placed on the table. It was one that Glory had not seen with the others; she put the Kachina next to it for comparison and heard a sharp intake of breath from both Lovecraft and Howard.
“My God,” said Howard. “Did HP describe it to you before we came?”
“No. The image came to me in a dream.” Smith’s carving was only half the size of the Kachina-it was only a bust-but the face bore a startling resemblance to the odd features of the doll. “It’s been my experience that coincidences like this one are meaningful,” he said.
Lovecraft gulped his coffee. “Bring the book, Clark. I want to see that page you copied for me earlier.”
Smith excused himself again, and this time he returned with the black-wrapped bundle and unfolded it in the middle of the table, revealing the book, simultaneously filling the entire kitchen with a dank, musty odor they had not noticed earlier. He turned the pages until he reached the symbols he had copied.
Lovecraft reached gingerly into his watch pocket, producing the Artifact with a slight wince of pain. He placed it on top of the of the open page and there, juxtaposed next to the pictogram, the Artifact began to pulse with its sinister glow. It was bright enough to see even in the diffuse sunlight that illuminated the room.
“My God,” whispered Glory, involuntarily drawing back.
Smith did the opposite, reaching for the Artifact until his fingers hovered just above it. There, he changed his mind and let his hand rest on the open pages of the book instead. “Tell me, HP, what do you suppose all this means? My impulse is to take this as corroboration of the Cthulhu Mythos—to some significant degree.”
“That is what I also fear. And I wish it were not so. What have you gathered from the Necronomicon, Clark?”
“I’m afraid my Latin isn’t as good as it should be. I should have studied it more intensely instead of branching off into French and Spanish. It’s written in some odd Latin cipher, and I’ve only managed to unravel little bits and pieces.” He paused to pour himself some more wine, gesturing to Glory to ask if she wanted her glass refilled also, but then, noticing the disapproving glances from the other men, he sat back. “It’s getting rather close in here,” he said. “Why don’t we retire outside to my study, where we can sit under the sky and breathe some fresh air? It’ll be light for a while yet.”
“Let’s,” said Lovecraft. He reached over and retrieved the Artifact. He was surprised at how warm it felt in his hand-the same temperature as human flesh, he thought.
Part Two
KIVA
14
Friday 23 August, 1935
LOADED WITH THEIR SLEEPING BAGS and other gear, they went out of the back door of the cabin. It was only a few dozen yards to the edge of the property, where a fallen blue oak, still tenaciously alive, marked the boundary between the tree line and Smith’s pleasant outdoor compound.
“I work out here most of the time. Until winter,” said Smith, gesturing toward the small camp he had set up.
They expected to see the other campers returning any minute to their chairs and their cots. The fire pit was small and cold, but obviously well used, with a coffeepot still perched over the coals. “This is where we’ll be sleeping,” said Smith. “Unless, of course, it happens to rain.”
The camp chairs were quite comfortable, as Lovecraft immediately ascertained for himself. He glanced around at the table, which Smith had placed strategically so it would be in shade for most of the day; it held a few writing supplies and a couple of books held open and weighed down with small stones. Lovecraft found it difficult to imagine this was the spot from which Smith wrote his stories for Weird Tales.
Howard put down the sleeping bags. He rattled the box of matches at the rim of the fire pit and poked in the dead coals. “Let’s stoke up some coffee and get on with it,” he said. “What we need is a nice coupl’a jackrabbits drippin’ fat over this. Now that’s my idea of a study.”
“In true barbarian style, no doubt,” said Smith, laughing.
“Not a side of beef or the whole carcass of some wild boar?” asked Glory.
“That would be a tad much for the four of us,” Howard replied, not detecting her sarcasm. “Unless you have an appetite like Red Sonja?”
Glory frowned.
“The female counterpart of Conan the barbarian,” said Lovecraft. “Bob, if you’d allow me the cot that isn’t downwind from the fire. I find the odor of smoke on my clothes to be quite annoying.”
“Sure, HP.”
Smith put the Necronomicon down on the weathered table. “Now if a couple of you will accompany me to the pantry to bring back some supplies, we’ll be set up for the night before it’s dark.”