The Divine Chaos is using us, as is the way of the divine, for a reason. I know our calling now - He is displeased with His cults, those false worshipers claiming to praise His Name and Thousand Forms, and He wishes for us to eradicate them. That's why He has not struck us down for slaying so many of His followers - He is, in fact, rooting for us. Shakti in particular surely has displeased Him and is a thorn in His side, he does rule the Brotherhood! It is a noble and divine purpose we serve; we are no less than His Chosen Warriors! Why can't the others see that? Surely He is not the great evil the others claim... at the least, not entirely. No, He must be a Great Neutraliser, a balancing force of the universe that removes the stagnant and encourages growth through entropy. His tricks are little more than a method to encourage change, as nothing can proceed without change occurring. How can any human being claim that Chaos Itself is evil, when its Divine Embodiment is beyond our concepts of Good and Evil entirely?
This I believe. But this I can only tell in these pages, for the others would never comprehend. Never... I can only hope they soon come to reason, and understand, but perhaps they never will... Besides, what we have dealt with the past day only proves that I am on the right track, that we all are. We are on a divine mission to eradicate the cults, though I do not deign to know why. I do know, however, that Omar Shakti is a danger to be destroyed, and the sandstorm proves it. It was a large, terrible one, sweeping in over the hotel today like a vast blanket of brown as thick as any London fog. One couldn't see one's hand in front of their face! Clayton informs me that the Arabic term for such a storm is haboob, which would explain why the saffragi were saying it so much. None of us dared leave to speak to the Clive Expedition in that horrendous weather, so we remained inside the hotel, watching the desert world outside vanish before our eyes as the storm raged.
But first, you must forgive my weakness. It has been a rough set of months, even before my revelation, and I hadn't rested for some time. I would normally never delve into the perverse pleasure that is the consumption of illicit drugs or excess alcohol, however surely you can excuse me for taking Ewan up on the offer when he suggested it. Sarah, ever adventurous and strained herself, was also eager to try, but Clayton was not interested and instead chose to find Nigel Wassif at the consulate, something about looking out for Shakti. The rest of us headed to our hotel room, and settled in as the winds howled outside. I will admit, for how strong it is, arak, or palm wine, is quite delicious. It tastes something of black liquorice, which I happen to quite like. As for khaat, I do not much favor it, more because of the horrendous green stains it leaves on the teeth than the flavor and mild euphoric high it brings on. And so, we watched the storm, chewed the fat and the khaat, and drank together. It was more normal than I had felt in some time, though I am certain my former employers would have recoiled at the sight of me of all people drinking!
All seemed normal, until a strange dizziness from the drink and drug came over us, and the storm began to take familiar shape, that of a human face. Slowly it resolved, and we all came to realize whose face it was - that of the Black Pharaoh! Now, I was certainly disturbed at the anomaly, but had no reason to fear as the stormy illusion slammed against the windows and rattled them. Why would I fear a message from God? Surely, it was a warning, and an ominous one of something coming for us.
Sarah and Ewan took it much more harshly, going pale at the sight as the wind buffeted the building and the lights in the hotel died from the damage. Poor Sarah nearly fainted, she was shaking and near tears as she pointed with shaky hands at the shadows in the corner, then began to scratch at her skin and scream that scarabs had crawled beneath it. Ewan began to make a choking noise, as if hot sand were in his throat, and would not speak though nothing ailed him. I held my ground, and attempted to calm the others, nauseous and dizzy though I was. Nothing would assuage them, and Sarah became a crying heap in the corner while Ewan eventually got over his hallucinatory bout of madness.
Perhaps we never should have mixed a stimulant and depressant if this was the ensuing effect! But still, I was puzzled. Why had the Crawling Chaos saw fit to warn us in such a way? We were in no danger! Or were we? Had, somehow, Shakti or his men found us, and that was why we were warned?
As I calmed Sarah from her hallucinations, I heard a soft sound from the corner - a mewing from a cat. We then looked up to see a sleek and beautiful Abyssinian crouched on an end table, likely a stray that had found its way into our room. The little beast purred contentedly, staring at us with wide amber eyes, blinking slowly as its tail flicked. I mostly ignored it, assuming it was sheltering from the storm with us. It seemed friendly enough. Ewan's face lit up as he saw it, and a side of the rough and tumble Scot came out I'd never seen before - that of the baby-talking cat lover.
"Here, puss-puss... sweet little baby, yes..."
The cat purred, blinking slowly, its eyes focused on the Scot as he reached a hand out to pet it... and then the unthinkable happened. I say "unthinkable" because it is truly not a danger any of us would have expected, and would it be anyone other than those privy to this journal they would dismiss it as outright madness, or as another khaat-based hallucination. But no, it was real! For you see, as Ewan's hand made contact with the animal, and he leaned in to murmur sweetly, the cat's tongue lashed out rope-like, far longer than it should have been, and wrapped about the man's neck as a constrictor about its prey. Ewan choked and scratched at the tongue, and Sarah didn't think twice - she withdrew the straight razor from her garter band, and slashed the tongue free as the cat squalled in pain.
"What the hell?!" Ewan cried, backing away from the animal. But we didn't have much time to react. Instantly, the scratchy tongue dried and mummified as it fell to the floor, and then the cat itself began to change... and it became instantly clear to me what My Lord was warning us about. The cat was a monster, a mummified demon hell-spawn come to destroy us. And we had just angered it. Much gunfire and panic later, the thing had given up and returned back to its cat self, leaving only its mummified tongue behind as a memento.
At this point, I decided to make myself scarce and find help, and went to locate Clayton at our meeting point downstairs. He had just come back, was settled at a table with a glass of iced water, and he was very much looking annoyed.
"What's the matter?" I asked, trying to distance myself from the happenings upstairs. "Did you find Nigel?"
"No." Clayton was fuming mad, and kept glaring down the hallway. "But I did find Shakti. I just accidentally saved him from the sandstorm."
I was gobsmacked. How did Clayton not know? Was this another message from the Black Pharaoh, to warn us of the danger? Surely He'd have known and told His Chosen if such a powerful enemy were approaching us! No, it was certain now, the face in the storm had been a warning before. A warning that Shakti had discovered where we were, and was coming for us. And now, Clayton had unwittingly brought the man into our range. What better luck could we have? Shakti was alone and vulnerable, and likely not expecting us to have an advantage, or a god, on our side...
"Bridget, I need you to gear up and find Nigel at the Consulate for me," Clayton sighed, and I realized from his grim tone how serious the situation was. "I'll deal with Shakti; he's right down the hall that way. He won't be expecting an attack while he's alone and vulnerable."
"Are you sure going against him alone is such a good plan, Byrd?" I queried. "Besides, I have never dealt with the conditions outside. What if I end up lost?"
"You'll be fine if you keep one hand on the side of the buildings," he replied, sipping his iced water. "Stick to the left, Consulate's less than a block or two from here. You'll find it, and with the gear I'll give you, the sand won't be able to touch you. It'll be like a thick London fog, only with more moaning wind and dirtier. Nothing you haven't dealt with before."
I would have objected, but Clayton has been through hell, as have we all. His rudeness was forgiven by his anger at Shakti and his nerves from the Bent Pyramid and recent ambushes by the Brotherhood. Of course he would come off snappish. Not wanting to pry or otherwise disturb his thoughts (it simply wouldn't have been right, after all), I geared up as he showed me and left into the storm as he took down the hallway.
The wall of tan grit was near blinding, and the howling wind rushed against me like a sheer wall of force as I trailed one cloth-wrapped hand over the nearby building walls. Briefly, my mind turned to Mah'muhd, the beggar boy we had been asking aid from this whole time - how on earth did he shelter from such brute natural force? How did anyone here? I murmured a brief prayer to My Lord for safety, and continued onward, pressing towards the Consulate. It was not an easy journey, but I made it safely and found the place, blacked out from the storm. Nigel was surrounded by several of his fellow Consulate workers, speaking in rapid Arabic to them, when they all noticed me burst in, bedraggled and coated in sand.
"Nigel Wassif? I need to speak with him. Please, it's urgent..."
All of them were absolutely shocked that I'd done the absolute suicide action of walk outside in such a storm, particularly Nigel. My guess is that he was expecting Clayton, not myself, and his worry was palpable. Rather chivalrous of him, but hardly necessary - I'm much tougher than I appear, you know! I briefly explained the situation - Shakti was at the hotel, we had him alone, and there had been an attack on us. We needed Nigel's aid, and now. Nigel quickly responded and rallied those he could, halfway in proper gear to survive the natural sandpaper outside. The Blessings of Nyarlathotep be upon that man for his aid in our hour of need, he has done absolutely everything in his power to help us!
One long and grinding trip back to the hotel later, we found Clayton as before, sitting at the table with a glass of iced water, however this time... he looked a bit strange. His eyes had a gormless cast to them, as if he were confused at his surroundings, and he didn't even seem to notice as we approached.
"Clayton? I thought you were taking care of Shakti..."
His eyes turned to me, confused, and he blinked.
"Who are you?" He asked, and it quickly became clear that Shakti had done something to the poor man's mind.
"Clayton, snap out of it, it's us," Nigel prodded, slowly coming to the same conclusion. "Bridget, he's gone amnesiac, what the hell happened to him?"
"I don't know," I answered truthfully, "But I might be able to smack some sense into him."
So, I slapped Clayton, as if he had been cheeky with me. Apparently, he assumed in his confused state that he had, because he winced and turned his confused eyes to me.
"What was that for?" he whined, rubbing at the site of impact. "I wasn't even trying to get into your pants, lady!"
That didn't seem to do the trick, so I rapped him over the head again, and this time he finally did snap out of it. Dreadfully sorry, Mr. Byrd, but it had to be done. It wouldn't do to have our only Arabic speaker unable to translate anything whilst in an Arabic-speaking country, would it? Once more, I queried him about what happened as Nigel and his men proceeded towards Shakti's room. All Clayton recalled was walking to the room, then some sort of bright flash, then nothing. It soon became clear to me that Shakti had used some form of magic against him to make him forget the last few minutes, or indeed that Shakti had ever been here. I caught him up and explained I had retrieved Nigel, and that they were investigating Shakti's room, but there was a terrible accident upstairs we needed to deal with.
Upstairs I brought him, where Sarah had finally calmed down and Ewan had managed to clean things up. Upon seeing the mummified tongue, Clayton was astonished... and then he too heard the meowing.
"Clayton, no!" Ewan murmured, sweat beading on his brow. "Don't fall for it, it's a trap!"
But Clayton went to investigate the cat, alone, and sure enough... we heard it snarl. Then, about five seconds later, we heard three or four gunshots, the cat squall in pain, and then Clayton poked his head back into the room.
"Cat's dead," He said nonchalantly, and we all peered out to see a very much dead cat in the hallway. Several million years dead, in fact, for the cat we saw was mummified and riddled with bullet holes!
"Um, Clayton, dear?" I asked, shaken. "Precisely what sort of rounds are you packing that can do that?"
I didn't get a chance to answer before Nigel and his men ran upstairs to identify the sound of the gunshot. We tried to, and utterly failed to, explain the situation that a mummy cat demon attacked us as he looked over the corpse of the dead cat, and pulled a single scrap of something from the creature's jaws. Before we knew it, Nigel stood and pushed open a door nearby, revealing a horrific sight - a man, skinned and still barely alive, hanging from a meathook. I'm fairly certain the men with him reacted the same as we did, with abject horror (poor Sarah broke down in tears and once more began picking at her skin), but Nigel merely narrowed his eyes and turned to us.
"You lot, in private," he responded. "We need to talk."
With that, we were moved downstairs to Shakti's abandoned room. We'd missed him entirely! Not only that, I was certain that we were in grave legal trouble, until Nigel explained that he knew what we were doing, and what Shakti was doing - that Shakti was powerful in magic and other such ungodly things, that he knew we were safe to trust, that he'd found Shakti absent but traces he'd been in the room... We needed to examine the Clive Expedition, immediately, and report back to him about it. Not only that, we needed to get out of Cairo before Shakti's men caught on to us. Nigel had spoken with Dr. Kafour, and confirmed we were trying to stop Shakti, but now they were both concerned things had gone too far. While he spoke, Clayton drew our attention to a scrap of paper in a nearby drawer, which at first glance appeared to be a shipping receipt until he showed us the other side.
"Guys... take a look at this."
Guide me, My Lord, and I shall smite these interlopers in your Great Game where they stand! Perhaps the Clive Expedition even has something to do with them. One must not suffer a false witness to live, after all...
-- Bridget Atwater, Enlightened with Divine Purpose (28 April, 1928)