Oh, how little we actually knew about how complicated things were about to get.
It was maybe halfway over the Indian Ocean and a day into our three-day jaunt when the storm hit. Funny, that - I checked the weather, double-checked even, and yet the rain came down all the same, with some nasty gusts of wind. Thankfully, I'm skilled enough a pilot I was able to navigate around the worst of it and adjust for the added turbulence and wind. Enala was asleep in the passenger's seat for her own safety, while Chief was playing my eyes and ears for the plane's maintenance during the inclement weather. The others were making use of some wicker chairs I'd purposed as seats for the plane, tied down with rope. I was entirely focused on keeping the plane in the air since we couldn't land, and thus wasn't too happy when I suddenly heard yelling from the other two in the back of the plane. Since the sky had cleared some and the wind had died down, I engaged the gyroscopic stabilizer and went to check on what had happened.
Oh, something had happened, alright - Chief and Ludwig were both engaged in talking with an unknown black man, who was wearing long pants and a work shirt with the sleeves all the way down, and was being incredibly calm for someone with two guns pointed at him. His face was covered in ritual scarring, not uncommon for some people around Chief's neck of the woods, if a bit disturbing to look at.
"I tell you, I was sent to watch the cargo," he said, face a mask of placid ignorance and hands raised before him in a gesture of surrender.
"If that is so, who sent you?" Chief accused, her grasp on the gun tightening. "What is your name?"
"My name is Badru. I was sent by your client in Mombasa. His name is Salaa, I believe, but I have not spoken with him personally. Do not shoot, I mean no harm."
"Excuse me, but what the absolute fuck is this?" I interrupted. "The guy didn't say anything about having someone with us..."
"He likely did not trust us," admitted Chief, "And to be fair, we are rather... odd people these days, McCloud."
I couldn't argue with that logic, and this stowaway was right about our contact's name, so I let it go. He wasn't harming anyone, and besides, if he tried anything, Chief and Ludwig would pump him full of lead faster than you could say "fire". Then Ludwig leaned over to me and murmured something.
"McCloud, mein Freund, he is armed," the doctor whispered. "There is some sort of strange blade in his pocket... I noticed the outline. Do not turn your back on him."
I narrowed my eyes and vaguely nodded, but let this Badru fellow sit down in one of the wicker seats. I stood nearby, hand on my gun and ready.
"So, Badru, was it?" I asked, nonchalantly. "Where are you from?"
"I am from Nairobi," he replied. "Have you ever been to Nairobi?"
"Haven't had the pleasure," was my lie. "Small world, though - my friend over there, the black man, he's from Nairobi, too. Not sure what part, mind."
Badru smiled wryly, the first I had seen in his short time on board. "Indeed, it is a small world, and perhaps smaller than it once was in the past. One must be careful of whom they meet, in times such as these."
"Of course they do," I replied, eyes half-hardening as my mouth mirrored his smirk. "That's why a smart guy always carries a weapon on his person, kinda like the one you have in your pocket right now..."
The Kenyan's face resumed its cold look, and his eyes narrowed. "I do not wish for trouble," he replied, tone dark.
"Then hand your weapon over."
"No."
"I don't think you quite heard me, friend, and I'm not going to repeat myself a third time. I said, hand it over."
He motioned as if to concede, and reached for the knife in his pocket. At least, I thought it was a knife until he quickly revealed it, and I saw the tri-pronged blade with the thin handle. That was all I could see. Ludwig had only the barest amount of time to yell a warning before the stowaway launched it at me, giving me barely any time to dodge out of the way. The blade sliced Ludwig's arm and fell to the floor, and now we could clearly see the design on it - that of a three-legged monster, with a long tendril or tongue for a head, a design Clayton had warned us about...
"He's a cultist!" I barely had time to yell before I heard Badru launch at me in an attempt to pin me. Fortunately, the Good Doctor is quick for his age, and he managed to slam him in the back of the head with the butt of his rifle, knocking the cultist out.
"Good night," he murmured, smiling, and both I and Chief picked the stowaway up and bound him to a wicker chair.
It was then that we both noticed the man's shirt had come undone. If the blade didn't show he was a cultist, then the scarification certainly did, because every single design was a mix of tribal designs and markings that Clayton and Sarah had told us were sigils for the Bloody Tongue Cult. Now we were definitely sure to make sure his weapons were gone, and he was securely tied up. We deliberated for a while on how to deal with him, long enough that he eventually came back to. I guess Doc didn't hit him hard enough to knock him out completely, and boy, was he madder than a copperhead about it. He swore in profuse Swahili, alternating with bloody promises of our deaths at the hands of his god, assuring us he would kill us all. Yeah, him and what weapons? There was nothing he could do all tied up like that anyway.
I was about to return to the cockpit when yet another shuffling noise was heard from the cargo bay. Oh great, another stowaway.
"What the hell?" I half-sighed, turning to the back of the plane suspiciously. "You're the only person here, right, Badru? Nobody snuck on board with you?"
"No, no-one," he responded, a confused look suddenly marring his otherwise hardened features. Well, Chief and I got the impression that he really was genuinely confused and had no idea what the noise was, so I motioned for Ludwig to keep an eye on the stowaway while Chief and I went to investigate.
It wasn't more than five minutes before we found what we were looking for - the sound of shuffling, and of odd chanting, from behind some of the cargo crates - and in particular, one of a strangely long design, labeled the same as the rest. It was cracked open slightly, and the inside held a strange, blackish residue along one part of the oddly non-brick-shaped parcel within. We had no clue what was actually in the crate, but we could obviously hear muttered Arabic behind it, which greatly concerned us.
"You might as well come out now," I half-sighed. "We know you're behind there..."
There was no response, and we faked like we were going to leave, but then I heard someone or something fall, and we turned just in time to see an Arabic man trying to shift between two of the crates. He wasn't well-hidden or anything, especially since it was his bright red fez that gave him away, and Chief was quick to grab and pin him. The man reacted with alarm, but otherwise gave in.
"Who are you, now, and what is it you want?" She half-growled, knife already at the man's throat. "And do not tell us you were sent to keep watch on the cargo, we have heard that lie already."
"I-I was simply trying to escape Darwin and return home to Cairo!" the Egyptian stammered, but I wasn't buying it, either.
"Wanna try that again?" was my response as Chief readjusted her grip. "Why are you here, and who are you?"
"McCloud, he has something beneath his shirt," Chief warned, and for a second I feared it was a weapon until she pulled out a strange medallion in the shape of an inverse ankh, carved with hieroglyphs. I can't read hieroglyphs, but I damn well know what that upside-down ankh meant, and I wasn't happy about it. Neither was the cultist, now that he'd been unveiled - his eyes grew hardened, and his face cold.
"Very well," He murmured, dark eyes never leaving mine. "I know when defeat stares me in the face. I am called Mudar. I was told to observe you, and if possible, kill you. But that is obviously not going to happen now, is it?"
The man smiled, showing the vaguest hint of the disingenuous look of a madman, and a chill ran down my spine. This guy was no less than a psychopath, I could tell that much just looking at him - cold, emotionless, and absolutely ruthless. We'd probably saved all our hides, catching him when we did, but I was still not convinced... and I had a sick feeling he wasn't telling the whole story.
"What were you doing back behind that crate, huh?" I asked suspiciously as Chief bound and frisked Mudar, unveiling several small vials of blackish substance. "And what the hell is that stuff?"
"To the first, I was praying to my god," was the cool and somewhat sarcastic response, "And to the second, it is the Blood of the Black Pharaoh. Quite powerful, I assure you. Perhaps you would like to test what it does to the flesh for yourself?"
He smirked an oily smirk, and I sneered back, motioning for Chief to help me get this guy into the passenger area and tie him up. However, something unexpected happened as soon as we did. His cold eyes gazed around the area, then settled on Badru, who noticed the intrusion and turned to look for himself. I swear you could have felt the lightning-hot tension and disgust for each other between the two for the briefest of seconds... and then all hell broke loose.
I know I say that a lot, that all hell broke loose, but this time it really did. Did you know that apparently the Bloody Tongue Cult and the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh are bitter rivals? Neither did I until I saw two of their ilk suddenly launch at each other despite one of them being tied down, screaming violent praises to their respective gods and trying to murder each other. Badru got so angry, he actually broke the ropes holding him, and Mudar attempted to garrote, then stab to death the former. I think we just barely managed to get the two of them subdued, but they were fighting tooth and nail, arguing in a mixture of Swahili, Arabic, and English about which side was the "truth". Kind of reminded me of the debate between Protestants and Catholics back in my hometown, but with more bloodshed and a lot more chaos involved. Either way, they were soon both tied back down, giving each other death glares and snapping at each other under their breaths.
"Now, you boys gonna play nice, or do we have to kill you?" I asked, only half joking. Neither responded, so we took the chance to huddle up and decide what to do with them.
"If you ask me, I do not see why we do not just let them kill each other," Ludwig offered.
"Absolutely not, they will bleed on the cargo if they do that," Chief said defiantly. "We should push them from the plane."
"And get rid of my new wicker chairs? I paid good money for those!"
"But McCloud, we must do something. We cannot keep them here... they are a liability."
"We could torture them for information."
"I really doubt they're gonna give us anything in the way of useful info, Chief, you saw those scars on the one guy. I think we might be stuck with them..."
Ludwig snarled in annoyance, and Chief sighed. There wasn't anything we could do, so I asked the two of them to keep an eye on the captives while I double-checked the controls to be sure we were still on track. I assume they must have been plying them for info, or otherwise staying very quiet, because I heard nothing for the rest of the evening. When I did go to check what was up, things seemed the same as always, but then I saw the way Mudar kept looking out of the window at the coming night.
"What now?" I asked, suspecting some trick.
"What is the time?" He shot back nervously, and I was taken by surprise at the urgency in his voice. "Please. I must know..."
"I'm not sure without checking the time zone," I admitted, "But it's only been a few hours since we caught you..."
The Arab's face paled, and he began muttering something I vaguely recognized as a corrupted version of a typical Muslim prayer. Now I was worried.
"You wanna explain what's happening?" I leaned in closer, examining his face for any sign of emotion.
"I beg of you, you must release me, now!" He plead, but I wasn't falling for it. "There will be great consequences for us all if you do not!"
"Yeah, that's not happening," I dismissed, but he interrupted me again with something that chilled me even more than his earlier dark stare.
"No, you do not understand, infidel... I... Great Pharaoh, forgive me, I did not get to finish the ritual before I was caught... He is not properly bound!"
I was about to reply when I heard a terrible crash from the cargo hold, and the sound of shuffling footsteps afterwards. The others turned and trained their guns towards the cargo bay, preparing for the worst. We should have expected what came next, but we didn't... maybe that was our fault. Then again, it's not every day you see a dead man walking, one you were told got shot point blank in the head, one that was looking way older than he should be. As in, 700 years older than he should be.
What stepped through that cargo bay door was once Omar Shakti, according to Clayton's earlier description. But it was awful hard to tell that, considering the man was little more than a desiccated, dried, and shriveled corpse of himself, quite literally a mummy walking. His eye sockets glowed with an eerie green light, and his dried lips and gums pulled back from his teeth in an unearthly snarl. From every area of his body, every crack and orifice and crevice, dripped that foul and semi-iridescent oily black liquid, dribbling from his eye sockets like tears and his mouth like motor oil as he spoke.
Oh yes, he still had voice - a voice that spoke in a rasp from long-dead lungs - and the very first sound he made was a laugh of such awful cacophony and madness that it seeped into my head, and surely would have driven a less confident man to jump out of the plane to die in the ocean below simply to end the horror. I'd like to think I'm made of sterner stuff. I'd like to think I've seen worse, and I have. But all the same... I don't think I'll ever forget that hideous laugh as long as I live... or the feeling of a dead man staring me down with more hatred than anything I've ever felt.
"You..." the monster rasped, eyes focused on me. "You... were... with the Byrd-man. You... killed me! You... will die with... the rest...!"
Something around his hands, a sort of blackish energy, then formed and began to glow as he moved towards me. Magic - of course he'd have magic, can't ever have an easy break dealing with Nyarlathotep's cults, can I? I barely managed to grab my gun, and blast the undead fiend with everything I had, but it did nothing - I shot him in the head and everything, but he simply casually motioned and the gun flew from my hand as from some unseen force.
I could hear Mudar's laughter as he gloated over the "power of the Black Pharaoh" in resurrecting his leader, clearly having lost it in the heat of the moment. Badru seemed to have lost it as well, for he once again broke from his bonds and began trying to attack everyone in sight, and that meant Chief was stuck trying to subdue a very angry and very insane Kenyan with throwing knives. Hey, nobody ever said cultists were a stable lot... Fortunately, Ludwig jumped in, and managed to get the cultists under control, knocking them both out and tying Badru back up before turning his attention to the mummified madman and shooting, without much luck. Unfortunately, it came too little too late, because by that point Omar had backed me into the cargo bay.
It was only a sheer stroke of luck that saved me as I blindly groped in the darkness for anything to protect me, and found a fire axe. I'm not sure when I picked one of those up, but damn was I ever grateful for it just then, and even more grateful that the very dead Omar Shakti was able to be hacked into smaller pieces easily. I managed to slice the thing in half at the waist and ran for the passenger compartment, but even then, the upper half still kept coming, dragging itself towards us shrieking. It was strong and fast, but Chief was faster, managing to shoot it point blank with a rifle to the point the head was entirely obliterated. That left me to chop up the rest, and from there, Omar Shakti the Undead Fiend looked a lot more dead than before as he began to crumble into dust. A terrible shriek of remorse bit the air, but it wasn't from Shakti.
"Why, my Lord?!" Mudar cried, hysterical. "Why have you forsaken your loyal son?!"
"Shut up, Dummkopfh!" the doctor commanded, and then he and Chief entered the cargo bay where I was. "Are you alright, McCloud?
"I'm fine, I think," I replied. "Shaken as hell, but fine. You ask me, these cultists need to try harder. Speaking of, what to do with them now?
Once again, we debated what to do, but suddenly a sound like choking was heard in the passenger bay, and we all groaned inwardly as we ran back to the other room. Apparently, Shakti was still clinging to some life, because one of his severed arms had tightly wrapped its fingers around Mudar's neck and was squeezing the life from him, its filthy nails digging into the skin enough to make the cultist bleed. From these wounds, sickly veins of blackish substance radiated outwards, and we heard a shifting of the wicker chair as Badru turned to us.
"You have no reason to save that heathen, or to trust me," the cultist said, suddenly sober and seemingly back to a calmed state. "However, if it is not stopped, you will have another, much larger problem..."
"And what is that, exactly?" Chief stepped forward, knife at the ready. "If you lie, I will kill you."
"The black substance he had, it is the blood of our God," he responded gravely. "It revives the dead... and blesses the living. You would not wish to see a Blessed of the Red God in such a closed space as this... I can reverse it, but you must release me, now!"
"And how do we know you will not kill us?"
"You do not, but you will assuredly die if I am left here."
Chief deliberated a few minutes, then held her hand out. "Give me your knives," she commanded. "All of them. If you are a man of your word, you may have them back. If you are not, we will kill you without remorse."
"My life is of no consequence, but to return without the sacred blades would mean dishonor," was his reply, and that was enough for us. Chief took the throwing knives and we let him go, and watched closely as he approached the dying Arab. First, he tore the undead arm off with such force it actually broke in two and went flying to the floor, where it disintegrated. Then, laying hands on the man, he sang in a strange mixture of Swahili and some other tongue I couldn't recognize, and soon the blackish veins faded and the Arab was back to normal, blinking at the Kenyan in confusion.
"You... you saved my life," he replied, astonished. "Why would a heathen like you save the life of an enemy?"
"Because we are children of the same god," was Badru's only response, and he left to sit back down in the wicker chair again. We didn't bother tying him back up this time, but did keep close watch on him just in case he tried anything.
He didn't. Neither of them did, in fact, though eventually the Arab man also begged to be released. He actually bargained with us, and said if we spared his life, he would give us information on how to deal with the Bloody Tongue Cult, which has a stronghold in Kenya. We took his ankh medallion as proof he was true to his word, for he told us that without it, he would have no power and would surely be killed as a traitor by other cult members. Keeping careful watch on both, and with both untied, the rest of the ride was quiet and sober. Neither went for each others' throats again. Neither sneered at us, or mocked. There was a sense of some sort of uneasy truce between the two, at least for the moment - and between them and us.
Mudar, for what it was worth, was as good as his word. As soon as the plane landed, he motioned for myself to come near, and murmured to me in a low voice.
"You have made good on your promise," he said, a vague half-smirk sliding across his lips. "Now allow me to make good upon mine. I see you are all intelligent men... perhaps the Great Black Pharaoh Himself has marked you, for what divine purpose, I cannot know. But I can tell you this - there is a dangerous man in Nairobi, an Indian man. He works with my fellows, but I do not trust him. You would be very wise to follow suit. And, if you wish to destroy the heathen Bloody Ones, seek the Star. I assure you, you will understand in time."
I nodded. "Got it, we'll keep an eye out for him. Now scram." In response, he held his hand out, and being true to my word, I gave it back to him along with his weapons. Then, carefully, as the door opened, he backed away, eyeing me as warily as I eyed him, and vanished into the Mombasan crowds beyond. Him dealt with, we turned to Badru, fully intent on killing him - but he had apparently noticed what Mudar had done, and suddenly expressed a change of faith. That, and Chief had a sudden idea about how to handle the cult in Kenya.
"Badru, what does it take for one to... join your faith?" she asked, and I instantly realized her ploy - she was attempting to infiltrate the Bloody Tongue Cult in order to keep us further under the radar. I said nothing, and motioned for Ludwig to stay silent as well.
"It is very difficult," was his response, "And is not for those who are not committed. You will be sent through many trials, all of them causing great pain and shedding much blood. You will be marked with scars and finally, brought before Him for judgement. If He decides you are worthy, then you may join the faithful."
"I will... consider this," Chief replied, and was about to turn away before Badru stopped her with a hand.
"You are blessed by Him," he said, eyes connecting with hers. "I sense this. Perhaps... you are already worthy, then. I respect this, and shall tell none that you have landed here. But listen carefully - my people know of you, they will be seeking for all of you and when they find you they shall kill you or worse. I can only pretend I have not seen you, for so long; they will eventually know you are here. You must be very careful, especially with the Tea Man. He is dangerous."
"Very well, thank you," she answered, nodding, and offered the knives back. "Now leave. If you attempt anything, you will die before you reach the door."
"I assure you, friend, I shall not," he said, and he too backed out of the plane without incident and was gone. Good riddance if you ask me, I've had just about enough of scares and sudden intrusions that threaten my life.
Unfortunately, I highly doubt it'll be the last we ever hear of Mudar of the Brotherhood... or Badru of the Bloody Tongue. We have a long way to go before we finally find out everything about what Clayton, Ludwig, and Sarah were looking into, and something tells me that a couple of cultists stowing away on my plane are just two of our many worries here in Kenya...
-- Francis McCloud, Suffering Serious Travel Lag (September 1st, 1928)