Unfortunately, it was not as juicy as any of us had hoped. Chief had received a tip that Mr. Xiao had come into possession of a bizarre artifact of some sort, something she was absolutely certain must have been an Ancient Egyptian relic. Mr. Xiao had it, and chief badly wanted it despite the bad feeling it gave her. Naturally, bad feelings have always lead us to good answers, so we took her offer up. Chief herself was finalizing details for the smuggled goods we'd brought into the country, and Mei-lin had clients at work to take care of, leaving only Mahmoud, Laurent, and myself to confront Xiao. Oh well... their loss I suppose.
Xiao Tower is a modern wonder of opulence, a gilt jewel of the East. It is the tallest building in Shanghai by far, overlooking the entire city like a sentinel, and the inside is just as grand. Marble floors, fine mahogany doors, an elevator of modern design, even. Fine silk oriental rugs and wall-hangings, and that doesn't even cover the art on the walls. And at the very top of the tower, overseeing it all, was Mr. Xiao's office, grand with wall to wall shelves of books that looked conspicuously unread, a fireplace, and leather seats before a desk of fine ebony, all set before a massive window overlooking the Bund. Xiao himself, a paunchy, tight-lipped Chinese man in a fine suit with a poorly matched toupee, sat poring over documents on his desk, motioning us to enter as he saw us walk in. He looked every bit the respectable, shrewd businessman, serious and stern... and then, he opened his mouth to talk.
It's hard to believe it, but apparently "bigly" is a word, and people who run businesses use it. Either that, or Xiao was conspicuously used to getting his own way. Mei-lin had been correct, and I'm kicking myself now for not listening to her - Xiao was no more than a pompous stuffed shirt, and a narcissist to boot. But true to Chief's word, he simply couldn't resist showing us his newly acquired relic. It was a statue of some sort, inlaid with gold and rubies, carved of thick ebony and gilded. The figure somewhat resembled a faceless pharaoh and bore two sets of arms, each holding a different weapon - one of which, she was positive, was a replica of the Order's cult sickles, and another was a sort of large blade, I think Chief told me later it was called a pranga. Either way, it looked ancient and well-crafted, and I could tell was something priceless... and, no doubt, obtained illegally.
"Where'd you get this?" I asked, and Xiao gave an overly pleased, shit-eating smile.
"The marketplace, off Cherry Blossom Lane," he replied smugly. "Some foreign guy sold me it. It wasn't cheap. The seller gave me a huge discount, not that I needed it, but hey - always willing to give back to the community. It's the little guys who make a company, just like my father before me, and his father, and -"
"I hate to interrupt, but might I take a look at the statue?" Laurent piped up as he moved forward. Thank God for the Frenchman shutting Xiao up like that! I gingerly handed the archaeologist the object, and he studied the hieroglyphic inscriptions with care. I wasn't concerned at all, I knew he'd be careful with the artifact, but what I was curious about was his sudden look of confusion and disbelief as he quietly mouthed the glyph sounds to himself.
"Mr. Xiao, this artifact may be dangerous," Laurent said grimly, looking up to the rest of us dubiously. "It reads, The Arbiter of Ni-har-rut-hotep shall come to he who sayeth the Sacred Words. After that is a prayer of some sort. I cannot translate it..."
"What, like a mummy's curse?" Xiao asked, a bushy eyebrow cocked in skepticism. "I don't believe in curses. No such thing as luck, either. Getting ahead in life is an art form, all about knowing the right people and making the right deals. I wrote a book on that, you know. I'm sure your Arab friend over there read it. If anyone's high-energy enough to know how to make a good deal, it's him. I have a sense for these things."
"Mr. Xiao, I am not a businessman, I am a soldier in the British army," was Mahmoud's indignant reply, "And I would listen to Dr. Gauthier if I were you. He knows what he is talking about, and we have seen... certain things."
"He's right, you know," I added, confused as to why he thought that Mahmoud was 'high-energy' at all. "We've got... some experience dealing with dangerous things, and this Ni-har-rut-hotep guy, Nyarlathotep actually... He's bad news. He's connected to an ancient cult here in Shanghai, the Order of the Bloated Woman, and we're concerned they might come after you looking for this artifact. They've already come after us."
"Never heard of 'em," was Xiao's response, "And I know everyone in this city. I know Ho Fong, personally. Do you know how important and smart Ho Fong is? Anyone who's anyone in Shanghai is good friends with Ho Fong!"
It became clear to us after hearing Xiao's boast that we weren't getting any help from him, so we simply told him we would get to the bottom of where the artifact came from so he wouldn't be in trouble with the law if it was a stolen object, and shortly thereafter left. No use picking a fight with someone convinced they can do no wrong, after all.
Cherry Blossom Lane was nicer than the other street markets in Shanghai, but it was still a street market in Shanghai. The only difference was this one was not located in a slum. It was just as shady, just as confusing to navigate, and had just as many merchants that refused to show their faces. And yet, even with all that, we still found the man Xiao had bought from - a light-skinned man covered in robes and wearing a conical hat, sat in the shade of a small tarp awning hawking costume jewelry and the like, and wearing upon closer inspection, a set of cowboy boots beneath the traditional Chinese garb. He was clearly a smuggler, and a poorly hidden one at that. Besides, I'd recognize those cowboy boots anywhere.
"... Walter?" I asked. "Walter Kimble?"
The man looked up, eyes ringed with sleepless marks, and I could tell he recognized me, but he didn't say a word. I'd recognize his facial scar anywhere, I've worked with the man before, smuggling a few goods here and there for him. He paid well, and generally was not half bad at his job - so why was he so obvious here in Shanghai?
"Can I help you folk?" He asked in his Texan drawl, and we proceeded with the questioning. Yes, he sold to Xiao, a certain statue he said... but the look in his eyes betrayed other facts he wouldn't speak. I had never seen the man so twitchy and spooked, he was never this paranoid. Properly paranoid, as all smugglers are, yes... but never this bad. He agreed to talk when I brought up the artifact, but not here - no, it wasn't private enough, too many ears listening, he said. Not all of them the cops', either. And so, we followed him into an alleyway nearby, to a well-secured door with a sort of vault-like lock on it, which he opened expertly. It wasn't until we got inside his hovel, however, that I realized how bad his mind had gotten.
He was a man insane. His entire home was a hodgepodge of newspaper clippings, drawings of faceless pharaohs, phrases in hieroglyphs, and repeated words on scraps of paper. He had drawn on the walls with ink, pencil, charcoal, and something that looked unsettlingly like his own blood. It was Laurent that realized the phrases were from the statue as Kimble frittered around the room with care, ensuring nothing was out of place, then sat us down. It was only then he explained his story, which I have written down below to the best of my remembrance.
"I got the statue on a ship, the White Maiden. She was bound for London, an' she had cargo I wanted. That statue. My boys, they told me about it, said it was priceless. I had to have it. So, I hired some men from the ship crew, bribed 'em like, and we nabbed the thing. There was some sort of tussle with the guards, an' I got out with the goods, but my men, well, one of 'em got caught an' began screamin' bloody Hell, and the other I couldn't find. Skedaddled off somewhere. Well, I had issues of my own, some upstart Yanks I knew from a past heist were on the ship too, and they were madder than a nest of rattlesnakes when they found me. The cop in particular, Field Marshal, I think, he had it out for me an' to this day I don't understand why. I never hurt him none. Anyway, they roughed me up good and trapped me for a bit, but I wrestled my way outta that one by some of the other crewmen I bribed. They got a boat ready, and I jumped off the side of the ship. Miracle I landed in the boat, really. I broke my leg an' a few other things for my trouble, but I had the statue. It was all mine, and I was seein' dollar signs."
"That's when the dreams started. Awful dreams! Nightmares about Egypt, about some sort of big faceless lion comin' after me, about a man with pitch-black skin and even darker eyes... About a big bat-thing with an eye like a three-leaf clover, burning like fire. An' I couldn't wake myself up none, an' couldn't sleep... I saw things at the center of the universe. Big swirlin' dark things, like some kind of hellish animals but smart like a man. Smart, an' immortal, an' watching me... I was exhausted, scared to sleep, but after I sold the damn statue to some Scot, the dreams stopped. That is... until the statue found its way back to me. How? I don't fuckin' know how! But one night, I come back to my rented room, I find the damn statue sittin' there on my bed. Like it were waitin' for me. An' I kept tryin' ta sell it, but it always found its way back."
"That's when I started seein' him... the onyx-skinned man, with black orbs for eyes an' teeth like a shark's. He followed me everywhere, no matter where I ran to. Cairo. Bombay. Australia. He was always there, waiting for me, taunting me, telling me lies an' worse. He showed me what he really is, one of them swirlin' nightmare god-things, an' told me I was cursed. He whispered things to me about the bleak future, an' how meaningless humans are, and told me my soul was his an' I'd never be rid of him. An' all that time, the dreams never stopped, not once. He's like the Devil but worse, and lemmie tell you, I weren't no god-fearin' man then, but I sure am now. So I figure, I'll hide here. In Shanghai. Sell the damn thing and prove him wrong. An' you know what? That blowhard Xiao bought it off me, and it ain't come back yet! But it will. It always does. I know it will one way or the other. It always does..."
His eyes looked up, maddened and weary, and pleading with us to believe him... and we did. How could we not? We'd seen too much... and Hell, I'd seen a man with no face recently. Unfortunately, Laurent then did something stupid - he told Kimble about the inscription on the statue and described the being as a guardian. The lunatic's eyes lit with mad fever and that slight tinge of opportunity Kimble's always had when he sensed an out. I didn't even have time to chide Laurent before Kimble demanded the translation, was given it by a frightened Laurent, and then we all were thrown out - forcibly, at gunpoint, by Walter Kimble and one of his leftover Turkish rifles from the War. Well, I'm not gonna argue with a loony at gunpoint, so we left. Not that we left the area alone, of course - Mahmoud wanted to keep an eye on Kimble, and I agreed he might do something bad if we left him alone, so we spent the afternoon watching the place. Sure enough, just around sunset, something happened - but it wasn't what anyone expected.
Around 8:00 PM, Walter started pacing his room expectantly and nervously, glancing outside before sitting on the couch again. He looked about ready to have a nervous breakdown, and then, out of nowhere around 8:45 PM, he did. He started murmuring something we couldn't hear from the paper translation, then he began fidgeting, crying, rifle pointed at the door for no reason, but we of course saw nothing until Laurent nervously pointed out that the door's lock was undoing itself. On closer inspection, we saw he was correct as the door swung open of its own accord and Walter's screaming became audible. So, being suspicious, we crept closer, ready to tackle the madman if he tried anything. That was when we heard another voice, an almost enticing and familiar voice over Walter's sobs, a voice as deep and dark as the shadows surrounding us...
"Oh, don't cry, Walter... shh, catch your breath and listen... there's a good lad..."
A pitiful whimper from Kimble as we crept to the door, and the voice continued.
"Do you want me to leave you alone, Walter? I know you do... I'm almost hurt you do, I thought we were good friends by now, you and I... But if you really want to be left alone, I just need one more favor from you. Just one more, that's all... You must unleash the Arbiter, and then bring me my idol. You stole it from my followers, you are the one who has to right the wrong. Bring it back to me, and invoke my name, and I promise... I will leave you be, and you will never see my face again."
Kimble seemed almost entranced as we peered inside, and saw who spoke with him - a man, at least he seemed to be a man, with skin like onyx and dressed in black and red robes so long they covered his feet, melding with the shadows themselves. He murmured in sickly sweet, mockingly caring tones to a defeated, entranced Kimble, and we could tell this figure easily had the lunatic wrapped around his finger, manipulating every thought, every word, every action... and enjoying every second of it.
It wasn't until the figure turned his head, however, that we got a really good look at him, at his black and pit-like eyes and triumphant sharp-toothed grin. It was then we realized whom it was, and how dire a situation Kimble was in... Laurent panicked, screaming at the sight, and Nyarlathotep looked up, seeing us, and smiled in what appeared to be genuine bemusement we were even there. We didn't exactly stop to ask him why, we just ran for it. I'm honestly not sure how we walked away from that one, but it only confirmed how real and dangerous what we were dealing with was in my mind, as well as in Mahmoud's and Laurent's.
"Demons walking earth," the Egyptian murmured fearfully. "Pre-Adamite creatures waking from sleep, accursed relics... it is the End Times! The Apocalypse is upon us..."
Maybe Mahmoud was right, and the Apocalypse was coming. When we got back to Xiao Tower, we found the guards slaughtered - all of them. Some gunned down, and others seemingly bled dry. Then we heard screaming and chanting a few floors up, and realized Xiao was endangered and Kimble had somehow gotten to the tower first. I can't tell you how fast we ran to the elevator, but run we did, and up we went.
Too bad the ride did not go smoothly. It was halfway up when the light in the carriage suddenly went out, and the cab swayed. Then we heard intense roaring and insane giggling, and felt the carriage judder from some sort of massive impact. I think I must have panicked and hit the wrong floor in an attempt to make the elevator work faster, because once it started up again, we stopped abruptly on the 24th floor and the doors opened to reveal a guard getting grasped by nothing... and then, screaming, being suddenly drained of blood, which coalesced into - God help me - into a nightmare made flesh and sudden visible blood, into maws and whirling teeth and tentacles and claws... into absolute horror.
"Mr. Xiao!" I cried, pushing my way in. "Lock the doors, you're in danger!"
"I can't talk now, my idol's gone missing!" He responded, and we all soon realized what happened. Kimble's idol had returned to him, and he had just unleashed the guardian inside it.
"No time, we need to go!" I screamed, but we were too late - Walter had arrived at the top floor, and he was armed and grinning madly, the idol in one hand.
"I told y'all, didn't I?" he drawled, voice thick with mad glee. "This idol always finds its way back to me!"
The world exploded around me, and like that, I was back in the War. In the air, hyper-focused, the Germans on my tail. A harsh screech, and I knew the creature was back for more blood, this time invisible. I heard Mahmoud start shooting at Kimble, and the horror grab and consume the horrified secretary at the desk. Bullets flew, and I responded by shoving Mr. Xiao under the desk and turning to Laurent as he pulled out his own gun.
"Laurent, keep shooting!" I yelled, and he understood. A bullet struck the rifle from Kimble's hand, and sent it flying. I saw my moment, and took it, waylaying Kimble with a sucker punch. Fists flew, and all I could see was the war zone. Somehow, I knew Mahmoud felt it too, I heard his bullets attempt to rip through the creature above and Xiao scream a My God! in horror as he saw the beast in full. Kimble eventually let go, and I threw Laurent the idol.
"Read the damn inscription!" I cried, just as the beast's claws came for me and I dodged. It had finished the secretary, and wanted more. Kimble wasn't down and out yet, and all I remember is noise. Laurent chanting, Mahmoud shooting, Kimble snarling, the beast above tittering in ghoulish glee as it tried to get at someone, anyone, to consume. I didn't stop punching until Kimble passed out, and Laurent's chant finished, and the creature suddenly shrieked as a crackling boom tore through the room. Then, silence. Merciful, sweet silence... and the fog of war settled, and I stood.
"Mr. Xiao?" I said as the businessman came from hiding. "You're gonna need some new guards. Quite a few of them."
"D-damn guards didn't even do their jobs, I should've fired all of them," Xiao murmured, adjusting his toupee. "Besides... nobody has to know about all this. How much you want to keep this our little secret? Nobody's going to believe a monster did this, anyhow, I'll just say a mob hit did it."
I was gobsmacked the sleaze could just write it off and bribe us like it was nothing. How many shady deals had he stacked that way? Sure, money is money, but even I wouldn't dismiss human lives for money. Of course we took it, we needed the dough, but all the same... it feels dirty. Real low. Chief's getting an earful from me when we get back to the Jade Garden, that's for damn sure. As for the idol, Xiao didn't want it, and it had vanished by the time we thought to look for it. And Kimble? Well, I just hope the man got help. He's not right in the head, and I hope to God he's not a reflection of what's waiting for me, doing all this digging into cults and shit...
-- Francis McCloud, Recently Enriched Pilot (May 25th, 1928)