The Medusa Ritual
A Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigation
by
CW Hawes
Lizard people in the tunnels beneath Los Angeles. Two fates await Dotty Kemper — and she doesn’t get to choose. And Pierce Mostyn is running out of time, lost in the subterranean world under the City of Angels.
The adventure continues!
Chapter 20
The man with the mask sat in a chair that had been carried in by the same two beautiful young women who had carried it in to Dotty’s prison suite. They stood behind him.
“I have decided,” the ancient softly sibilant voice said, “that you would not make a good daughter-in-law. Nor would you make a good mother for my great-grandchildren. Therefore there will be no marriage. Nor do I wish to simply extract information and then kill you. That would be a waste of a very useful human life.”
He looked at Dotty, and she looked back at him. She looked straight at the eyes behind the mask, and said nothing.
The masked man shifted his gaze away from Dotty. “That leaves me with two alternatives: extract the information you have and then either turn you into a zuvembie and use you to foil those who seek to learn of me, or use you to unlock the gate. The question that must be answered is whether or not now is the best time to open the gate.”
“And what happens if you open the gate?” Dotty asked.
“You cannot see, Dr Kemper, but you have made me smile.”
“How nice.”
“Do you remember the statues of Mr. Cortado?”
“Yes.”
“They came from me. You might say I’m the agent for the true artist.”
“And who or I should say what is the true artist?”
“You are a fast learner, Dr Kemper. The true artist is not of this universe, or even of this dimension. Many millennia ago they came to this world, the Terrible Ones, for that is what Gorgon means in ancient Greek. They were deemed immortal because the ancients did not possess the means to slay them. Eventually they passed into Greek myth. The infamous Medusa and her sisters.”
“As I remember the story, Medusa got her head cut off.”
“True. That was only after her Achilles heel, as it were, was discovered. Up until then, the Gorgons were invincible.”
“So they’re mortal just like you and me.”
“I’m smiling again. More like you, than me. However, that is all by the by. Now, thanks to Die unaussprechlichen Riten von dem dessen Name nicht genannt werden Kann, I have been able to bring one of the Gorgons to this world. Sacrificing you, for you are physically not unlike the ancient Greeks, will let me summon a whole host of these beings, who are part of the vanguard of the Great Old Ones themselves. The dawning of this universe’s night is nigh!”
“And what’s in it for you? Why are you excluded from being lunch meat?”
“Because the book also gives me the incantation that grants me protection. I will be the only human and to rule over my puny race with Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, Chaugnar Faugn, and Cthulhu Himself!”
“You’re deluded. And because of you, we’re all — including you — going to end up being appetizers at the most hideous banquet of all time.”
“I know one thing, Dr Kemper, if I decide to open the gate, you will not be on the menu.”
***
The scene was like a tableau in a wax museum. Mostyn and NicAskill on one side and the two humanoid creatures on the other. All four standing stock still. And then Mostyn and NicAskill drew their pistols, at the same time the creatures emitted a high-pitched sound that shattered the helmet lamps plunging the tunnel into darkness. By the time Mostyn found his flashlight and turned it on, the creatures were gone.
“My God, Boss, the Lizard People. We’ve seen the Lizard People!”
“Looks that way, NicAskill.” Mostyn took out of his backpack a wrist flashlight. “Get your on,” he said to NicAskill, “and let’s keep moving.”
NicAskill put the flashlight on her wrist and, once again the two OUP agents took off running down the tunnel. After a couple thousand feet, the tunnel they were in emptied into a larger tunnel, which still had rails embedded into the floor. Mostyn noticed up above, the wire for the power to the electric train.
He consulted the compass. “If we go left, that should take us into Chinatown.”
“Where’s this Medusa creature?” NicAskill asked.
“Don’t know. However, now that you mention it…” Mostyn rummaged in his backpack, and pulled out a mirror.
“Bardon thinks of everything,” NicAskill said, as she took out her mirror. “They’re not very big.”
“They aren’t. We’ll have to make do.”
“I guess so. Otherwise we’ll be decorations in someone’s foyer.”
“If we’re that lucky. Come on.” And Mostyn took off running down the tunnel, with NicAskill following.
“Are bullets going to kill this thing?” NicAskill asked.
“Perseus used a sword. The trick is doing so without looking at the monster. Perseus was lucky. Medusa was asleep and he had a hat that made him invisible.”
“I think Bardon forgot that part.”
“Maybe he has more confidence in us than the gods had in Perseus.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” NicAskill said, although her face wasn’t so optimistic.
The two OUP agents ran down the tunnel, by Mostyn’s guess moving deeper into Chinatown, when after half mile they stopped. Before them the tunnel divided into three branches.
“Now what, Boss?”
“Good question. And I don’t have a good answer.” Mostyn thought a moment, shrugged, and pointed to the left tunnel. “Let’s see where that one goes.”
They entered and jogged for about a hundred feet before the floor began to angle upwards.
Mostyn came to a stop. “This one’s going to the surface, let’s go back.”
They retraced their steps and returned to the spot where the four tunnels came together.
“Okay, NicAskill, fifty-fifty. Which one?”
“Let’s take the center tunnel.”
“The center one it is.”
They jogged down the center tunnel and after a couple hundred feet, the passage began to descend.
“Remind me not to play poker with you.”
NicAskill let out a laugh. “I don’t gamble, sir.”
“You’re in the OUP, what do you call that?”
“A calculated risk, sir.”
Mostyn laughed. “That it is, NicAskill. That it is.”
After another couple hundred feet, the tunnel walls changed from concrete to stone, The curved ceiling became flat. The stone was rough hewn, except for the floor, which was fairly smooth. Mostyn noted the walls were dry, and the air was hot and stale. There was also no indication there had ever been electric wiring in the tunnel.
“This must be very old, Boss.”
“Looks that way.”
“I wonder if the lizard people made this.”
“Possibly. May have been Native Americans.”
“What for?”
“Who knows? Maybe someplace to hide from us.”
“Why did you decide to continue following this tunnel, sir?”
“Just a guess. The other was going up. This one isn’t. As I said before, if I was the masked man, I’d take Dr Kemper lower, not higher. To keep her from being found.”
“Makes sense, sir. Just hope we find her.”
“Me, too, NicAskill. Me too.”
Chapter 21
Dotty Kemper lay on the bed. The masked man had left her, left her in order to determine her fate.
“I’m going to die,” she muttered. “He is going to either sacrifice me or turn me into some kind of mindless thing to do his bidding. In either case I’ll be dead.” Dotty took a deep breath and exhaled. “I wonder if he’ll grant me a last wish?”
She had no idea of the time. No idea how long the masked man had been gone. No idea if Mostyn was looking for her.
She snorted. “Of course he’s looking for me. Probably with half an army. He loves me.” And for a moment Dotty Kemper took comfort in that thought. If she was going to die, at least she’d die knowing she was loved.
She sat up on the bed, and looked at the door. Locked. She’d tried it after the masked man had left. She got up and went to the door, trying it again.
“Still locked,” she muttered. “Too bad I never had Helene teach me how to dematerialize. Would never have been in this situation to begin with.”
Dotty sighed and returned to the bed, where she sat facing the door. The room was clear of things she could use for weapons. She was completely on her own. She was going to die. That’s all there was to it.
She heard the click and watch the door open. Before her was the Chines woman whose eyes had turned red, the one who called herself Zi, and the masked man.
He began speaking without any preamble. “I have made my decision. Tonight the moon is full. Your sacrifice tonight will open the gate which will allow the Gorgons to enter this dimension, making straight the path for the Great Old Ones to follow. Zi will extract the information that is in your mind, and then you’ll be readied for the sacrifice. You must be prepared so you are acceptable to them.”
The masked man departed. The door closed and the tell-tale click announced the door was locked.
The two women looked at each other. Dotty spoke. “Do you actually want him to unleash a horror that will destroy this planet? Do you want to die?”
Zi, her face registering no emotion, said, “I will not die, for I am not human.”
Suddenly it all made sense. “Of course. Precautions.”
“Precisely. Precautions. Now, Dr Kemper, lie down upon the bed.”
“No.”
“Very well.”
Zi lifted her arm and pointed a finger at Dotty, and Dotty felt all the strength go out of her body, and she fell back onto the bed. Zi positioned Dotty’s body so she was lying on her back. The Chinese-looking woman got on the bed and straddled Dotty, placing her fingertips on Dotty’s head.
Unable to squirm or scream or even blink, Dotty felt as though a vacuum cleaner was running over her mind.
***
Mostyn had stopped. He needed a five minute rest. As fit as he was, age was beginning its little tell-tale signs. He looked at NicAskill. While she appreciated the rest, she didn’t need it. He sipped from his canteen, and his partner did likewise.
The tunnel after descending for at least half a mile had ended. Terminating into a staircase that led deeper into the earth below the city.
NicAskill peered into the blackness. Her wrist light revealed nothing but stairs. “I wonder who built these? I don’t think Native Americans would. What could possibly be their reason. On the other hand, the lizard people… Do you think they built this?”
Mostyn shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I just hope these take us to Dotty.”
“Do you think the others are going to catch up?”
“Don’t know. Hopefully they will, sooner rather than later.”
Mostyn took one last swallow of water, put the canteen away, and indicated it was time to descend.
Down the stairs they went, Mostyn in the lead. The stairwell had been carved out of solid stone. The steps, carved from the same stone, were worn in the center.
“At one time these steps had a lot of use,” NicAskill said.
“Given the dust, I’d say that was a long time ago.”
“Yeah. A very long time ago. This stuff has to be at least an inch thick.”
“And no footprints. So we’re the first to come this way in a long time.”
The stairwell was free of decorations. Nothing but the chiseled rock. The temperature gradually became cooler the further they descended, and after a time the stone changed from dry to wet.
From behind him, Mostyn heard NicAskill curse.
“What the matter?”
“Ugh. I don’t like the wet and the slime.”
“Just pray we aren’t dumped into an underground lake or river when this thing ends.”
NicAskill groaned.
The stairs continued for another fifty or sixty feet and came to an end in another tunnel. The floor was wet with a film of standing water. The walls were water-slicked and slime covered.
They followed the tunnel for a hundred feet or so when Mostyn and NicAskill found themselves at an intersection. They were in a small chamber which four other tunnels fed into.
Mostyn shook his head. “Can this get any harder?” he muttered. “Alright, NicAskill, go to that tunnel and listen. Tell me if you hear anything. I’ll start with this one. We’ll meet in the middle.”
NicAskill went to her tunnel and walked in a few paces and listened. Mostyn did the same with his tunnel. Not hearing a sound, save for dripping water, he went back out to the little chamber. There he saw NicAskill, who shook her head, and went into the next tunnel. Mostyn did likewise.
Almost immediately Mostyn noticed a slight incline to the floor. The tunnel was also fairly dry. He stopped about twenty feet from the entrance and listened. Chanting! He heard chanting!
He ran out. NicAskill was waiting.
“Come! Listen!”
Mostyn pulled her to the spot where he’d been standing. “Listen,” he said.
“Sounds like some kind of singing.”
“Chanting,” Mostyn corrected. “Come on. Let’s go. Keep your weapons handy — and your mirror.”
They ran down the tunnel making as little noise as possible, the chanting gradually growing louder the further into the tunnel they progressed. After a few hundred feet, Mostyn put his hand up and stopped.
“What is it?” NicAskill whispered.
“Light. Up there.” Mostyn turned off his wrist light.
Perhaps fifty feet in front of them they saw a rectangular entryway and the dull glow of light coming from beyond.
They crept forward and passed through the opening. Mostyn looked around. They appeared to be on a balcony, carved from the solid rock. A short wall about three feet high ran around the edge of the balcony. There was a set of stairs on the one side that Mostyn assumed led down to the floor below.
He got down on all fours. The chanting was quite loud now and seemed to be building towards a climax. There was no source of light higher up in the chamber, and Mostyn assumed it must be coming from down below. He crept to the edge of the balcony and peered over the wall. About thirty feet below was a large auditorium. A group of a couple dozen men were dressed in long robes and chanting. The words were now audible and they were all too familiar to Mostyn.
“C’goka fahf tgif ng ymg’uln. O n ghft ehye.”
NicAskill hunkered down beside Mostyn, and whispered, “What are they singing?”
“I don’t know. But whatever it is, it can’t be good. It’s R’lyehian. And I’ve never been anywhere where that language was a good sign. Look.”
NicAskill looked to where Mostyn was pointing. On a raised semi-circular dais, four naked women were holding down another naked woman who was spread eagle on a large flat stone, which was obviously an altar. Each of the women were squatting and holding one of the limbs of the woman lying spread eagle on the stone.
A man was standing next to the altar, holding a large knife in the air, his face elevated towards the ceiling, and his mouth was moving. Perhaps in some invocation.
NicAskill gasped. “Oh, my God, Boss. That’s Dr Kemper!”
To Be Continued!
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