Shadows Out of Time

The Beast Comes to Brooklyn GORDON LINZNER

“Hands off!” Professor Wolfgang Bauer snarled at the young man who’d been reaching for a package that had almost slipped from the academic’s arms.

The would-be Samaritan was a boy, really, in his late teens at most. He blanched at the rebuke and scurried backwards.

Seeing the youngster’s shock, Bauer relented. “Nein, danke,” he added in a less hostile tone. “I can carry these on my own. Your concern is appreciated.” The professor raised his leather travel bag with his left hand, while tightening his grip on the heavy package in his right so that his knuckles whitened.

“All yours, mister,” the youth said with a sneer, and turned up along the South Ferry pier to enter the train station.

Bauer returned to his own thoughts. The oppressive temperatures made him testier than usual. Having spent more than a year in Egypt, he ought not to have been so bothered by the City of Brooklyn’s late August heat wave. Of course, that had been a dry heat.

Mopping his brow with a sleeve, Bauer took a last glimpse at Brooklyn’s sister city across the East River. His grip on the package never loosened. Every other artifact he’d uncovered on this expedition had been shipped directly to his benefactors at the Boston Museum, but he’d felt compelled to make a side trip of his own to New York. He’d hoped to consult an antiquities expert at Barnum’s American Museum, perhaps learn something of its mystical nature from the Fox Sisters. The latter meeting would not have met with his sponsors’ approval.

It had all proven a waste of time. Barnum’s so-called experts were anything but, and the museum staff was preoccupied in preparations for the arrival of Swedish singer Jenny Lind.

With a sigh of self-pity, the Professor entered the station himself to board the train to Boston.

The car was sparsely populated; this was hardly the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad’s most profitable run. He slid his traveling bag under a seat and placed the package in the unoccupied space next to him, resting his arm less than casually atop it. He could not say why, but the professor was convinced this item was the most important discovery of the expedition.

Seven years earlier, archeologist and occultist Enoch Bowen had explored the ruins of the tomb of Nephren-Ka, discovering, in a box covered with indecipherable symbols, a bizarrely shaped object he dubbed the Shining Trapezohedron. The socalled Black Pharoah had built a temple around that item, in which unspeakable acts occurred.

Apparently its geometry affected Bowen as well. On returning to his hometown of Providence, Bowen formed a cult known as the Church of Starry Wisdom, and subsequently cut all ties to his scientific colleagues.

Exploring those same ruins, Bauer discovered what Bowen had missed: a second oddly marked box, containing an artifact even more weirdly shaped. Following precedent, Bauer dubbed it the Lustrous Triacontahedron. It was a clumsy nomenclature, he had to admit, but the thing almost seemed to name itself, emanating a weird power. Again, Bauer could neither define or adequately describe the sensation. He hoped his museum colleagues could help him discover the source.

After what seemed an interminable wait, but in reality was less than a quarter-hour, the train lurched forward. The open cut down the middle of Atlantic Avenue, created a few years earlier to compensate for the steep grade of Cobble Hill, had only recently been covered over. The outside world went dark.

Bauer felt a sudden urge to gaze once more on his treasure. He’d only examined it in the light before, and for the briefest of moments each time. Steadying his hands, the professor carefully unwrapped the stone box and raised its lid.

A greenish glow temporarily blinded the archeologist.

Then it enveloped him.

Half a mile further on, the train returned to surface level. The traveling bag tucked beneath the seat was the only sign that a Professor Wolfgang Bauer had ever been aboard.

Six and a half decades later, Robert Suydam sat brooding in his study. Shelves covered every wall of the room, even partially blocking the single window, as they displayed a lifetime’s collection of mystic artifacts and arcane books.

On this particular evening, the white-haired Suydam was taking advantage of 1916’s leap day to expand on a new line of mystic research. Glow from the lone lamp on his desk deepened the furrows of his brow, highlighting swollen cheeks. In recent months he’d begun focusing his studies more on immortality and methods of transcending time; death, he’d come to realize, would render moot his search for ultimate power.

Piled on his desk were archived issues of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, recently liberated from the newspaper’s vaults under a spell of distraction. These were not the most recent ones, of course; Suydam cared little about the Great War that had raged throughout Europe for the past year and a half. It was also unlikely any of the staff would notice mid-19th century gaps in the library before he returned the trove.

Behind the desk lamp, partly in shadow, sat a glass jar in which floated a human brain preserved in formaldehyde. None of the weak-brained fools Suydam employed for menial tasks truly appreciated his genius. If by chance any of them did, he still preferred not to share his knowledge. The anatomical artifact provided him with the perfect sounding board.

“Well, Clarence,” he addressed the organ, “let’s see what we can find tonight.”

Clarence’s sole response was a slight tremor as Suydam slammed open the August 1850 volume. He was working chronologically backwards through the archives.

Suydam of course was well aware of Enoch Bowen’s 1843 Egyptian adventure. As a young man, he’d even made a personal visit to the Church of Starry Wisdom in Providence in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to obtain the Shining Trapezohedron for himself. According to certain forbidden texts, the wielder of said artifact could, simply by gazing into it, summon the ancient being known as Nyarlathotep. In exchange for horrible unspecified sacrifices, that entity would then reveal other worlds and much arcane knowledge. The insanely angled stone had been created by an unknown race on the far-off planet Yuggoth, and somehow brought to Earth eons before humans evolved.

Suydam did not push his bid for that object further, as he soon discovered there was bigger game to be found, capable of far greater power: the Lustrous Triacontahedron, which allegedly could open portals between worlds, bend time, and, if the legends were remotely true, even invoke mighty Cthulhu himself.

Itself.

For months the trail of that object led to one dead end after the other. A German archeologist named Wolfgang Bauer supposedly found the Triacontahedron on an expedition to Egypt half a decade after Bowen’s discovery. Every artifact save that one was shipped directly to the Boston Museum. Bauer himself made a side trip through New York, and was never seen again.

Then, a week ago, while ferreting out more information regarding what might lay under the Red Hook docks, Suydam came across an off-hand reference to the closure of the Cobble Hill rail tunnel in 1861. A mention of unclaimed luggage would mean nothing to anyone else, but it revived his interest.

“And here it is,” Suydam announced to Clarence. “A single sentence — not even complete, just a police blotter notation — a distinguished gentleman, W.B., mysteriously vanished from a Boston-bound train on August 29, 1850.”

Suydam clapped his wrinkled hands. “Bauer did not lose himself in New York, as we believed! He actually boarded a train here in Brooklyn, headed home. There is no record of his being seen at any later stops, so I’d abandoned that line of inquiry. Do you understand what this means?”

Clarence waited in polite silence for him to continue.

“The Lustrous Triacontahedron must still be somewhere in that tunnel.” Suydam frowned. “A tunnel that has been sealed since the Civil War. Gathering the resources to enter it could attract much unwanted attention.” He tapped the glass jar. “Have you any suggestions, friend?”

The brain bobbed briefly.

“I like that idea. Yes. Let the U.S. government do the work for us. This city is already paranoid about German spies. We can spread word over the next week or so that saboteurs are using the tunnel as a base of operations. When the Bureau of Investigation checks it out, we can slip in behind them.”

Clarence remained stoic.

“Of course, you’re right. By ‘we’ I mean only myself. I don’t need a horde of minions for this task. A simple spell of distraction, and whoever’s investigating the site won’t see anyone but their own agents.”

Suydam rose, patting the jar lid. “You are a most excellent listener, Clarence. No one living can so effectively help me focus my thoughts.”

Edward Alexander Crowley reclined on a couch in his Hell’s Kitchen apartment, silk robes draped above his knees, pondering the scribbled letter in his left hand. Lady Jenna, as he’d dubbed his latest Scarlet Woman, casually massaged his broad shoulders. Occasionally she paused to alternately plant a kiss on or lick his shaven skull. Her own silk robe, more diaphanous than his, hung open.

“This is a very odd missive, Jenna.”

“Hmmm?”

“It’s from a man named Monk Eastman. We met briefly when I first arrived in New York. He would be a good candidate for a model, should I start taking painting seriously. Very Neanderthal.” What he did not tell Lady Jenna, for there was no reason for her to know, was that Eastman had been among several underworld figures he originally hoped to use as his eyes and ears while in this city. Unfortunately, like most of Crowley’s early recruits, the man had ultimately proven useless.

He glanced at the envelope and chuckled. “He’s writing from Dannemora prison. Apparently, I made quite an impression.”

“Of course you did, my Beast. Aleister Crowley — occultist, magician, mountaineer, author, and so much more — makes quite the impression on everyone he meets.”

Crowley offered a half-smile. “I cannot deny that truth. We met at a Tea House on Mott Street — of course he won’t say opium den in a letter likely to be vetted by the warden. Years ago, Eastman was a prominent gang leader in the Five Points district. He wants me to help him make a comeback.”

“Put together a new criminal gang?” Jenna asked. “You?”

“He wants me to teach him magick. Give him special powers.” He allowed the letter to drift to the floor, unfinished. “I think not, Mr. Eastman. Much as I enjoy being called the Beast, a name for which I will always be grateful to my mother, and have sympathy for fellow drug users…helping establish criminal kingpins? Not my cup of tea at all.”

Jenna worked her way down Crowley’s pate to nibble on his right ear. “But I am. Aren’t I?”

He reached up to stroke her breast. “Better than tea. You are sheer nectar, you fiend.” He shifted in his chair. “Alas, I need to get dressed. I have urgent business downtown.”

“Hmmm?”

“Preparations.” Crowley paused. “For the Equinox Ceremony. And of course the ensuing Bacchanal.”

Crowley’s open, eccentric nature led most people, in particular his followers, to believe him incapable of keeping secrets, save those involving certain esoteric magical rites. He took pains not to discourage this impression. Several married women knew of, and were grateful for, his discretion.

A more important reason for rectitude was a major reason he had come to New York two years earlier: he was on a secret mission for the British Government. This occasionally required him to work with America’s fledgling Bureau of Investigation, rooting out German saboteurs and propagandists. The United States continued to resist being drawn into the Great War in Europe, but anyone with half a brain saw that this isolationism could not last. The Kaiser certainly did.

Posing as a feckless Englishman sympathetic to the German cause, Crowley had already surmised from his associates on that front, as well as interactions with the prostitute Gerda Maria von Kothek, that at least one German group was assembling bombs, or plotting to, somewhere in the New York City area. The exact location remained elusive, but the Bureau had recently received an anonymous tip that the saboteurs might be operating out of a long-abandoned rail tunnel in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, near Cobble Hill. Crowley was to meet that afternoon with his Bureau of Investigation liaison, Robert Blake, to help the agency determine their best course of action.

“But that festival is weeks from now,” Lady Jenna protested. “Days, anyway.”

“One cannot start planning these events too early.”

Alas! Lady Jenna had no idea that she would soon be a past memory for the Beast, being little more than a time-filler as he recovered from Jeanne Foster rudely tearing herself from his side. Crowley already had designs not only on Gerda, but on a certain Alice Coomararswamy, wife of a man he’d befriended in Europe and whom he suspected was part of an East Indian group sympathetic to the German cause. Few things were as satisfying as mixing business with pleasure.

“Are those preparations really so urgent?” Lady Jenna asked, reaching under his robe.

“Ah. Not quite that urgent.”

Crowley had done some research of his own regarding that abandoned tunnel. He couldn’t ignore an uneasy feeling that was unrelated to espionage, even as Lady Jenna began to work her own special magic.

Johnny Torrio smoothed his gingham shirt with his free hand and toyed with some papers on his desk. His office was on the upper floor of the Chicago brothel he had made his headquarters. He spoke softly into his phone’s receiver, though there was no one else around to eavesdrop. Torrio was checking in with Frankie Yale, the man he’d left in charge of the Five Points Gang when he moved from New York.

“So everything is pretty jake here, Papa Johnny,” Yale concluded, having given him a broad outline of the past week’s gang activities. “Oh, one more thing. You might find this funny. Remember Monk?”

“Eastman? Barely.”

“It looks like he’s friends with that magic guy.”

“Houdini? He’s here in Chicago this week. Or was.”

“Not him. That Irish fella, what’s his name, Crawley?”

“Aleister Crowley. A prime nutjob. He still in New York?”

“Yeah, that guy. Anyways, my contact at Dannemora tells me Monk wrote to this Crowley asking for help.”

Torrio chuckled. “If Monk is trying to get out of prison again, Houdini would be a more useful contact.”

“This is the funny bit. He thinks Crowley can use his magic powers to help rebuild his gang.”

Torrio snorted. “And you take this seriously?”

“Of course not. I thought you’d get a chuckle, is all. So. How’re things with Big Jim?” Yates knew how much Papa Johnny hated shop talk, and usually made an effort to end their conversations with social chatter.

“Uncle’s doing good, Frankie.” The gangsters exchanged a few more pleasantries before Yates rang off.

Torrio rose and walked to the gramophone on the table in the corner. A little opera always helped clear his mind. He flipped through his collection of disks, but could not focus.

Monk Eastman. That has-been hophead would do better to join the army rather than running a gang again. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone check up on this Crowley character, on the slim chance something actually was going on.

Torrio picked up the phone again and asked the operator to reconnect the number. When Yale answered, he said, “Do me a favor, Frankie. See if you can get Alphonse, the Capone kid, to find out some more about this magician, on the off-chance there’s more going on than Eastman’s delusions.”

Capone might be a little hot-headed — what teenager wasn’t? — but Torrio had always found the kid pretty reliable.

A few days later, Aleister Crowley stood on the corner of Clinton and State Streets. He’d exchanged his flashy ritual robe for a plain dark brown suit and tie, under a loose-fitting frock coat. This allowed him to blend in almost supernaturally with the residents of this lower-class Brooklyn neighborhood. In fact, he seemed to elude notice completely, as passersby seemed preoccupied with spending as little time in the freezing weather as possible. The only person who offered more than a passing glance was a burly teenager sitting on the stoop at 169 Clinton Street, and even he seemed interested in poring through the day’s edition of The Brooklyn Eagle.

When the teeth-rattling echo of heavy machinery finally ceased, Crowley made his way to Atlantic Avenue. Blake, standing in the middle of the street, noticed the magician’s approach first, and signaled his own men to stand down.

“I was about to give up on you, Aleister.”

Crowley removed his nondescript fedora and gently rubbed his ears. Despite the late winter chill, his coat was unbuttoned, flapping in the icy wind. Crowley barely noticed. He had survived far worse weather in his mountaineering days.

“I was waiting a block away for the racket to cease. My ears are still ringing from the pounding of those pneumatic drills.” He peered down into the ragged hole the Bureau had dug in the middle of Atlantic Avenue.

“We call them jack-hammers.” Blake spoke louder than necessary, due to the ringing in his own ears.

“Of course you would. Have we, you, broken through?”

“We just finished widening the access.”

Two Bureau agents angled a twenty-foot ladder into the gap. It stopped with a yard to spare.

“Time for introductions. Aleister Crowley.” Blake turned to the man beside him as he spoke. “This gentleman is Edmond Fiske. He’s a lieutenant with the New York Police bomb squad. His expertise has proven invaluable in the last few years.”

Fiske extended a hand. “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Crowley. Bob tells me you’ve been working for the British govern…?”

Crowley raised a finger to pursed lips, even though the area had been cleared of people for a block in every direction. Fiske nodded, realizing his gaffe. Behind his own tight smile, Crowley feared Blake and his associates might be getting careless. “The British Cultural Exchange, yes. We’ve been researching the history of train travel in both our countries. This is one of the earliest underground tunnels in the world.”

“Our job would’ve been easier if we knew how the saboteurs themselves were getting in here,” Blake complained.

“We still don’t know that they are,” Crowley reminded him. “My own sources were still unable to verify your information.”

“Well, our people have been coming up empty for months as well. This is the only lead we’ve had. We need to at least check it out.” Blake’s frown did not differ much from his normal resting face. “You don’t usually tag along on these investigations, Aleister. Working in the shadows, that’s more your style. Aren’t you worried you might expose your cover?”

I’m more concerned that your people might do it for me, Crowley thought, glancing at Fiske again. He said nothing, however, shrugging off the misstep. This time.

“What can I say? I love forgotten places. Gives me the same thrill I get from mountaineering.”

Crowley watched Fiske descend the ladder to the tunnel floor, then followed with a flourish of his coattails. Blake was right behind him.

“In any case,” the magician continued, when all three men were below ground, “considering how much noise your people made, I can’t imagine anyone hiding down here would not have left.”

“That may be,” Blake replied, “but they won’t have had time to clear out their equipment. I left two men standing by up top, in case someone tries to follow us. If we’re lucky, perhaps our German friends will show while we’re down here.”

The trio swung their flashlights in different directions. Scattered debris created uneven footing, but the bedrock walls and brick arches overhead seemed quite solid for a structure that had been neglected for over half a century. The air was stale, but breathable, and the ground surprisingly dry.

Crowley checked the revolver in his right coat pocket, which was counterbalanced by the electric torch and assorted other tools in his left. A year had passed since he’d been accidentally shot in the leg; he did not wish to repeat the experience. The Beast also preferred his own familiar weapon to the Bureauissued guns.

“We might cover more ground, quicker, if we split up,” the magician advised. Now that he was getting the feel of this tunnel, he was more than ever certain they would find no evidence of German saboteurs down here, and that this whole enterprise would prove a futile exercise for the Bureau of Investigation. He was further convinced, however, having spent decades dealing with magic rituals and effects, that this confined space housed something far more sinister. Something no ordinary government agent was equipped to deal with.

“Mr. Crowley,” Blake interrupted. “If you don’t mind. I’m the lead investigator here. You are merely a consultant.”

“Of course,” Crowley conceded, bowing to hide his smirk.

Blake accepted the apology with a curt nod. “Right. Fiske, we’ll split up, cover more territory that way. I’ll head north, you two go south.”

“I’m willing to scout ahead of Lieutenant Fiske and work my way backwards,” Crowley volunteered.

“Agreed.” Blake knew better than to chastise Crowley too often. “If you need help, or find something, give a yell. Shouts should echo pretty well down here.”

For the next quarter-hour, the only sounds Crowley heard were the scraping of shoes against stone, and an occasional soft curse as Blake or Fiske stumbled over a loose patch of debris, or across a stretch of long-disused track.

He stopped a yard short of a brick wall that blocked the entire tunnel. Crowley knew he was still some distance from the original end, which had faced New York Bay. Somebody wanted this section double-sealed. Who? Why? And how recently?

He ran his flashlight beam along the edges of the wall, then turned it off, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness.

A faint green luminescence glowed in the lower left corner.

Crowley knelt closer. The light seemed to ooze from a gap in the cracked lip of a carved stone box. He ran his fingers over the unfamiliar symbols, as if reading Braille. When the fleshy tips started to go numb, he pulled back.

He tried to pick up the box, and found it was partially embedded in that wall. Removing a chisel from his left pocket, Crowley started chipping away. When he felt the box shift, he put away his tool and tugged hard with both hands.

He winced at the pain in his back and strained as the object resisted. Then it popped free.

The lid flew open, emitting a blinding flash of green light. Crowley slammed it shut at once. Whatever was contained within was definitely beyond the pale of mere saboteurs.

Behind him, a thin, cracking voice asked, “Was ist los?”

Crowley! Robert Suydam fumed as he stood on the curb at Atlantic Avenue, midway between Clinton and Henry Streets. He turned to hide his anger, though no one could see his face. How in the name of the Elder Gods did that fraud get connected to the U.S. government’s Bureau of Investigation?

Or was he? It seemed far more likely the eccentric cult leader had also somehow discovered hints of the ancient, alien artifact hidden below these streets. He probably slipped past the Bureau agents as a side-effect of the distraction spell Suydam himself had cast. Even a buffoon like Crowley, who gave serious masters of the dark arts a bad name, might occasionally stumble across objects of import. The old man was tempted to keep his distance. Let the fool destroy himself.

No. Such inaction might cost Suydam his own opportunity to obtain the precious artifact.

He boldly strode up to, then past, two government men standing near the jack-hammered entry. His long frock coat flapped. He waved his cane dramatically by its heavy brass grip, as if daring them to react.

Moments later, Robert Suydam was below street level.

Aside from an occasional glimpse of a distant flashlight beam, the tunnel was pitch dark. This was no problem for Suydam’s heightened senses. The Lustrous Triacontahedron was definitely located towards the south end. He could feel it.

He turned in that direction.

And collided with a thick-muscled teenager trying to slip past him.

Suydam grabbed the newcomer by the shoulders.

“Hey!” the lad whispered. “Get your meathooks off me.”

“Hey, indeed,” Suydam replied, releasing the boy. “You shouldn’t be able to see me. Who are you?”

“My friends call me Al. What’s it to you?”

“Friends are overrated, unless they’re in a jar. Al what?”

“Al as in that’s all you get.” Young Alphonse Capone was too street-smart to give this creep his full name. He regretted even blurting out his real first name. “Anyway, who the hell are you? You’re not with the Bureau.”

“Clever Al. Why are you down here, child?”

Eyes adjusting to the dark, the two figures could just make out each other’s faces. Even with his back bent with age, Suydam towered over the lad by several inches.

“I’m not a child,” Capone replied. Then, in a softer voice, his bravado cracking the tiniest bit, “I’m not sure. I just walked past those agents. I could have sworn they…”

“…looked right at you. I need to refine that spell. Make it more specific. Again. Why are you down here?”

The boy regained his composure. “I’m keeping an eye on that Irish guy. For a…friend. You?”

“The same, for myself. I suggest you leave me to it, boy.”

Capone tightened his jaw. “I keep my commitments.”

“You can follow your prey when he leaves.”

“That’s not good enough, old man. I’m supposed to find out what he’s doing down here, see if it has anything to do with…never mind what. Now, get out of my way.” The teenager started to walk around Suydam.

Barely moving, Suydam tripped the young man with the end of his cane, knocking him to the ground. Capone grasped the hem of the man’s cloak. Snarling, Suydam raised his cane in threat.

“If you touch my face,” Capone warned, his free hand feeling for the switchblade in his pocket, “you’re a dead man.”

Suydam lowered the staff. He was beginning to, not exactly like the boy, but to not detest him quite so much. “A truce, then. A deal, if you will. You continue to follow that man. Don’t hold back. Confront him. Ask him directly what he’s up to. His ego is massive. He’ll tell you everything you want to know, and more. Especially if you say you recognized him from the newspapers. His name is Aleister Crowley.”

“I know his name. I still don’t know yours.” Capone glowered through narrowed eyes at the shadowy, white-haired man. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“Your distracting him will allow me to find what I seek.”

“Buried treasure?”

“Something like that. Do we have a deal?”

“I should get a cut.”

“No. You really shouldn’t.”

Capone shrugged, held out a hand. Suydam smiled thinly.

Crowley was not about to put away his handgun, although the middle-aged man standing before him was obviously terrified.

“Bear with me as I go over what you’ve just told me, for the sake of clarity. Your name is Wolfgang Bauer. You are not a bomb-building saboteur working for the Kaiser, but a Professor of Archeology at the Boston Museum. The last thing you remember is being on a steam train bound for that city.”

“Ja, I mean, yes, yes, yes! I boarded at the South Ferry station, pier 7, City of Brooklyn. I was transporting a very valuable artifact to the museum.” Bauer indicated the object tucked under Crowley’s arm. “That one. In that stone box. It must be awkward for you, juggling it with that gun? I’ll happily take it off your hands.”

“The weight is a bit clumsy, but I’ll manage. I want to believe your story, Mr. Bauer, but there are some problems.”

“Such as?”

“The museum that you claim to work for went out of business over a decade ago. Brooklyn has been part of New York City for almost twenty years. And the only South Ferry station I’m aware of is a loop subway stop at the southern tip of Manhattan.”

“Was ist…what is a subway?”

Crowley ignored the question. “Either you are a madman…”—Crowley paused for dramatic effect, because he was Aleister Crowley—“…or you’ve come through some kind of time portal. In the latter case, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

“Mr. Crowley!” came a shout from down the tunnel. “Aleister Crowley! It’s really you! I thought as much.”

Crowley turned his head, keeping the gun pointed at Bauer but swinging the beam of his electric torch toward the teenager who was rushing at him. “For an abandoned rail line, there’s an awful lot of traffic down here,” he muttered.

“I recognized you from the papers!” the lad continued, stopping a yard away. “I’m a big follower! I just had to find out why you’re in my neighborhood. I have so many questions!”

The newcomer was a handsome young man, fairly well-muscled, with smooth, almost pretty features. Crowley recognized him as the boy from the stoop. He found him attractive then, and was even more drawn to him under these unlikely circumstances. “Indeed. This is a discussion we should have in a more intimate, ah, private environment.”

Crowley’s tone made Capone balk. “I ain’t no gunsel.”

“Of course not,” the magician replied. Not yet.

“You look like the young man who tried to steal my package at the pier!” Bauer accused. “Who are you?”

“A fair question,” Crowley agreed. “Furthermore, young man, how did you get past the government men?”

“That was my doing, I’m afraid.” Robert Suydam stepped out of the shadows behind Capone. “I had cast a distraction spell to get down here myself, unseen.”

Crowley sighed. “At this rate, half the population of Brooklyn will wander through this tunnel by sunset.”

“You said I was to talk to him!” Capone snapped. All three of these characters were obviously out of their minds. Papa Johnny definitely had nothing to worry about.

“That was before I saw what he’s holding. Mr. Crowley? My name is Robert Suydam. I believe, no, I know, that box you’ve got there belongs to me.” He extended his free hand.

“Nein!” Bauer inched toward Crowley. “It is my property,” he blustered. “Well, the Boston Museum’s.” He glanced at Crowley. “But since that institution no longer exists, yes, it belongs to me. I found it. In Egypt.”

Crowley waved his revolver. “I trust everyone here has noticed that I’m holding a gun?”

Suydam smirked. “Have you any idea, Mr. Crowley, how old the roof above us is, a roof that has not been maintained since the tunnel was sealed fifty-five years ago? A single shot from that revolver could well cause an avalanche.”

“You must take us for real goops,” Capone chimed in. “If all that jack-hammering didn’t cause those bricks to collapse, why would a pistol shot?”

“I don’t think avalanche is even the right word,” added Bauer. “You’re thinking of a cave-in.”

“Clever child,” Suydam mumbled, through clenched teeth. “Hand over the object, Crowley. You would not be the first to meet their doom, toying with things they do not understand.”

“Very dramatic speech,” Crowley observed. “The answer is no. Finders, keepers.”

Suydam slammed his cane against the floor. “You’re an ignorant clown, Crowley, constantly blathering about your insipid rites and sickening, perverted ceremonies.”

“On the contrary. Unlike you, apparently, I do not fear sharing my knowledge with the world. I also seriously adhere to my golden rule: do no harm. I agree, however, that this particular object is far too dangerous for anyone to possess.”

“Save myself.”

“Including you. Especially you.”

As the men argued, Capone edged to position himself equidistant from all three. Torrio had asked him to gather information. The only weapons he’d brought were his switchblade and a knuckleduster.

Crowley glanced at the man beside him. “Professor Bauer, these inscriptions on the side have significance, do they not?”

“Of course,” Bauer replied quizzically.

“Please excuse me if my pronunciation is off. ‘Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh…’”

“No!” shouted Suydam. “Crowley, you idiot!”

“‘…wgah’nagl fhtagn!’”

From the solid wall at the end of the tunnel, a greenish-grey tentacle, as thick as a man’s torso, began to materialize. It was quickly followed by a second. Then a third.

“Give me the box!” Suydam ordered. “Before it’s too late!”

“Run!” Crowley yelled at Bauer and Capone, pointing past Suydam down the tunnel with his revolver. Then: “Catch!”

Suydam leaned forward, knees bent, prepared to catch the stone box despite his apparent age. Rather than toss the box in his direction, however, Crowley swung around to hurl it at the grasping tentacles. They wrapped around it easily.

“Nein!” cried Bauer. The professor leapt after the artifact, intending to wrestle it free.

“Wolfgang!” Crowley had no time to say more. Another tentacle lashed out, and the traveler from the past became a smear on the floor.

Crowley raced after the teenager. He shot past a bemused Fiske, who was coming to investigate the screams, and gestured the policeman to follow. They reached the ladder a moment before Blake, just in time to see the youth scramble up and disappear. At least, Crowley saw him. Neither of the men showed any awareness of the intruder. Robert Suydam’s distraction spell still functioned.

Possibly Suydam did, as well.

“What was all that noise about?” Blake demanded. The same question was written on Fiske’s face.

Crowley glanced back over his shoulder. The tunnel was eerily quiet now. His expression turned stoic.

“I fear I loosed, er, loosened something, stumbling in the dark. I thought the roof about to collapse. Silly me. I can confirm that I found no evidence of sinister foreign spies. Or non-sinister ones. Did either of you discover anything?”

Blake shook his head. “If we had more than a few hundred agents scattered over the entire country, we could do a more thorough search…”

“Not every tip pans out,” Fiske consoled Blake. “Your man is right. We’ll wind up just sealing the tunnel shut again.”

“Yeah.” Blake nodded. “First, though, I’m getting electric lights installed and giving the place one last going over. We may have to come back someday. Unlikely as that is.”

“I suppose you can waste your time on that,” Crowley said, resigned. “I remind you, however, though your country is not yet directly involved in our Great War, you are providing aid. There are German saboteurs in this city, planning something destructive before the year is out. You should concentrate your efforts on finding them.”

“Oh, we will, Aleister, we will,” Blake assured him. “The Bureau is all about stopping the bad guys.”

Crowley considered this might be a good time to arrange another mystical retreat. The astrologer Evangeline Adams, for whom he’d done freelance work, owned a cabin upstate. If he ran into that teenager, he’d advise him to leave town, as well.

In case Suydam held a grudge.

In his mansion overlooking New York Bay, Robert Suydam waited, sprained ankle throbbing under its bandages, hands gripping the armrests of his cushioned chair, sharing Clarence’s thoughtful silence. Actively seeking revenge for today’s interference would be a waste of time, time he was running out of. Still, should he ever again cross paths with Crowley, or that arrogant youngster Al…

Presently, Suydam had larger concerns. A ship was due from Sudan next week, carrying yet another package for his unholy collection. The loss of the Lustrous Triacontahedron was a setback, but there are many routes to immortality.

Provided one is willing to pay the price.

Or make others pay it.