He Who Walks in Shadow (20 page)

Journal of Inspector François le Villard (Translated)

8 May 1933

There is a memory, one from long ago, when my daughter was very young, that goes with me every day of my life. It was from that time when her mind was opening, when she was beginning to see the world as it is, and from this new vision untold numbers of questions were born. She wondered, I suppose, why I left every day very early, only to return at night, often very late. It stuck with me, and I remember it exactly as it happened. She asked me, “Papa, where do you go to work?”

“I’m an inspector of the police.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well,” I said, surprised, as many a father has been, at how difficult it is to answer the simplest questions of a child, “I keep bad people from hurting good people.”

Her little eyes grew wide in amazement.

“That’s what you do every single day?”

“Every day,” I said.

“There must be a lot of bad people in the world.”

“Not so many,” I said, not wanting to leave her in fear. “It is just that it is hard to do the right thing, and easy to do the wrong. And when people do bad things, it takes a lot of work to make it right.”

“And that’s your job, to make it right?”

“It is,
mon chéri
.” I kissed her on the forehead and led her off to bed. I have little doubt that she slept the sleep of the innocent that night, unaffected and undisturbed by the dark forces that move in the world. After all, she had her father to protect her.

But there are so many, it seems, that I cannot protect.

For six days, we have pursued what the Press has dubbed the “Butcher of Cour du Dragon.” But in all their wildest imaginations, no journalist in Paris could conjure the truth of what happened that May-eve night in the Latin Quarter. I am scarcely sure I believe it myself.

The case began to break yesterday when I received a letter. It was unsigned, and how it came to be upon the desk in my office was as much a mystery as its author. In all of my days, with all I have seen, I have never felt my blood run cold in my veins, but as my eyes scanned that cursed missive, all the warmth seemed to drain from the world. It was only by some force beyond my knowing that I kept myself from destroying the letter, then and there. Instead, I have recorded it here, for posterity, though perhaps there are some things that mankind is better not knowing.

Inspector Villard. Do not look for me, for you shall not see me. Do not seek me, for you shall not find me. Hear me, if you have ears to listen. Only then will you know the truth, and only then will you know what you face.

This world is not ours, inspector. It never was. All cultures call for a conclusion to this existence. Every holy man who has ever put chisel to stone or pen to parchment has written of the end of all things. Or, at least, all things human. And if it were to happen, if we were to vanish from this earth, leaving nothing but our ruined cities and dark tombs behind, and if in the ages upon ages that followed, the epochs of time that passed the world by, a vastly inferior being that had never known man were to rise from the muck and the mire and stumble upon those stone necropolises, would it not go mad in the offing? Would not the cosmic truth be so great that its mind would simply break, dark insanity falling upon it?

We need not wonder, Inspector, for we stand upon the brink of the endless abyss, and the truth of the ages shall soon come to us all. Man was not the first to rule this earth, nor is he the greatest of her masters. There were others that came before, beings of such immense intellect and boundless hate that our minds are ill-equipped to comprehend them. And although they are gone, they left behind a promise to return.

For ten thousand millennia they have lain undisturbed, but the world has not forgotten them. They sleep. But they do not rest, and their slumber is not peaceful. They speak to us in our dreams. They are the voice in the night, the shadow that walks, the madness that haunts the broken mind. And although they reigned long ago, they are not diminished. They are the gods of old, the demons of religion, the haunters of the dark. And the nameless cults of lost antiquity worship them.

They worship one above all others.

If it is through the god of light that all things were made, it is through the god of darkness that all things are unmade. At the center of all chaos, across the fathomless void of eternity, in the swirling center of endless darkness, he waits, sleeping. And when he wakes, there will be worlds nor gods no more. Only he and those who serve him.

He has many names, the most-high god, though only one that is his own. The Canaanites of old worshiped him, believing that it was his will that his adherents were to offer the blood and burnt flesh of humanity—in the form of their firstborn. At the summit of lofty ziggurats, at the center of mighty cities, the screaming children of Sumeria were made to pass through the fires for Moloch, for Kesan, for Zanoni, for Azazel, for Chaos.

For the great god Azathoth.

For 30,000 years we have waited. For 30,000 years we have shed our own blood so that Azathoth might wake from his eternal slumber. And finally the time of his return is upon us.

But for him to rise, first must come the harbinger.

I am writing you this letter, Inspector, in the hopes that you can bring an end to that which I have helped set in motion. In the hopes that you can stop our order before it is too late. Even now, they search beneath your feet, digging into the earth, scouring the land of the dead for a grave. Not one of man, but of legend—of the eye of truth and the staff.

You have seen our work, how we opened the gate. You have seen the price we must pay. I cannot live with the cost.

You see, Inspector, it was I who bled her dry. It was I who sliced her open. It was I who cut out her eyes. It was I who tore out her still-beating heart, till the screams of my first-born daughter died away in my ears. Till her voice was silenced forever.

It was I who made the way for the return of He Who Walks in Shadow.

The letter ended there, as too, I believe, did the life of the fiend who wrote it. Whatever madness possessed him is not his alone, I fear. And so I must search the city of the dead that lies beneath this, the city of the living. I pray I find the answer to this riddle before more lives are lost, before more innocents are sacrificed.

Journal of Carter Weston

July 26, 1933

Under the cover of night, we followed Nassim out of the nameless café, each of us clutching a knapsack containing canteens of water and two electric lanterns.

“The first man to explore the catacombs,” Nassim had told us, “died of thirst after searching the dark for an escape for days on end after he lost his light. They found his body not ten meters from an exit. The catacombs are the city of the dead, and they will add to their kingdom from the ranks of the unwary.”

We would be better prepared.

Entrances to the catacombs were many, but we were going to one that was little known and little used—better to avoid any unwanted confrontations. It was located in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, in an abandoned crypt. The theory put into practice by its creators was simple in its cold logic. How better to shuttle the dead into their new grave than through a tunnel in the midst of the cemetery? Untold multitudes were dug up and cast into that pit. It had been bricked up when the morbid task was complete, but Nassim and his fellow cataphiles had broken through and now used it for their nightly activities. We would be following in their footsteps.

It was a strange thing, creeping through Paris at night. Oh, how different a city feels when it is lit by the moon instead of the sun. How different when the night rules instead of the day. When Guillaume began to speak, I was happy to have something to break the tension. But then his words made me wish for silence.

“So Rachel’s husband…”

His voice trailed away.

“He died,” I said. “It’s hard to say more than that.”

“You know you weren’t responsible, even if you did pull the trigger. Even in the short time that I have been with you, I have learned enough to understand that.”

“I know that,” I snapped. I was immediately embarrassed. I had not meant it as an attack, but I knew that was how it sounded. Or worse, as a defense. I sighed, and in the silence of a Parisian night, the magnitude of my sins seemed to overshadow all. “But Rachel feels differently. And maybe she’s right.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s so much about this world we don’t understand,” I said. “But one thing we know for sure is this—there is power in sacrifice. When it happened, when William died, well, we needed that power. We needed it for reasons far more important than ourselves. We had to decide. And what is the life of one man put against the fate of the world?”

Guillaume didn’t answer me, and I found that even I was appalled at what I had just said. For many years, I had told myself that I had done what I must on that icy Russian steppe. That I had no choice. But now even I wondered if all those years ago I had seen it not as a necessity, but as an opportunity. If I had welcomed the chance to sacrifice the man my daughter loved, to harness the power of his death against my adversary. That was the thought that weighed upon me as we walked.

The streets were all but deserted, and few honest citizens ventured out. In fact, we met only two others—a man and his dog. As they passed us, the dog stopped, gazing up to study us. I caught the beast’s eyes and had an uncanny feeling of recognition. But it was only for a second, before the gentleman said, “Come, Snuff,” and they were gone.

All the while Nassim continued his steady pace. If he heard our conversation or noticed the others, if he even cared, he never showed it. His focus was on our destination, which we soon reached.

The gates of the cemetery were closed and locked, but there would be no midnight ascent up and over the walls. Nassim had a key, a benefit of keeping a close—if somewhat financially costly—relationship with the groundskeeper.

Upon our entrance, seemingly limitless lines of tombstones met our eyes. The granite sentinels shone white in the moonlight, keeping watch over the dead. Between the rows we crept, and even though the chance of capture or interference by the authorities was negligible, we stayed silent and we stayed low.

An abandoned crypt lay at the heart of the graveyard, and to any of those who passed it unawares, there was nothing that bespoke its sinister purpose, this gateway to the land of the dead, the empire of the shade. Only the name above the portal—or should I say the lack thereof—provided a clue. Whatever family crest had once graced that slab of stone had long since worn away, and I wondered what extinct line of French nobility had built this monument to last forever, to trumpet the glory of their name until the end of time.

Nassim pressed another key into the lock, and the great iron doors opened with a sound of metal grinding against metal that made the fillings in my teeth hurt. A black maw opened before us, a cold rush of air chilling me despite the warm night.

“I hope you’re ready,” Nassim said. He reached within his bag and pulled out an electric lantern, turning it on and shining its feeble beam into the tomb. Where once the sarcophagus would have sat was the beginning of a crude stone stairway descending into the depths.

“A week ago I was in a beer hall in Berlin. And now this,” said Guillaume.

“It always ends up like that,” I said. “You hunt your quarry where it lives. And this particular beast resides in the dark places of the world.” I thought back to all the times I had found myself in this position, standing on the precipice of some great descent, or preparing to wander off into a forbidden desert, or set to climb a shunned peak on a demon-haunted steppe. If it weren’t so serious, it would almost be comical.

“Stay close,” said Nassim. I had no intention of letting him get away. Everyone is afraid of something. For me, ironically perhaps, it was the dark.

Like Dante of old, we began our descent, down into a deep place where the sun was silent. The roof above us was one of rough-hewn granite, and even in the pale light of the lantern I could see the dark stains left by burning torches from a century before. What brave men those must have been, walking into shadow with nothing but a flickering flame for comfort.

The air was still and cold, growing more so with every step we took. Before long, the outside world was but a memory. We were entombed, encased in a coffin of stone.

The stairwell ended in a low archway. We ducked underneath and into a larger chamber that ran off in two directions, one to our right and the other our left.

“This is the first of the old granite quarries,” Nassim said. “There are hundreds of miles of tunnels down here. If you take the tunnel to the left, you hit the vaults, larger spaces where the Parisian youth like to go and drink absinthe. We go to the right.”

I could not help but wish we were going left.

Nassim led on. In that dark, dank underworld, minutes seemed to stretch on for hours. One turn followed upon its brother, and we passed from one unremarkable corridor to another. Were it not for Nassim, we would have been hopelessly lost, doomed to wander until we fell dead of dehydration.

It was after one of a seemingly hundred turns that we first saw them. They filled the corridor, piled to the ceiling. Yellowing bones, moldering. How many thousands of souls did they represent? How many lives lived and lost, laid to rest only to be wrenched from the earth and piled like trash to be left behind forever?

“Come,” Nassim said. “Our path takes us through there.”

It was foul business. Again Nassim went first, crawling on his hands and knees over the bones, femurs rattling off the pile like stones as we went. More than once my hand sank to the elbow into the crumbling remains. Forward we slithered, my back scraping against the roof of the tunnel. I was as a man buried alive, a hundred feet below the streets, living what would have been most men’s nightmares. But it was when I came to the end that I made a horrendous mistake.