Recipe for Adventure Pt. 02

"Your sister looked like fun," Carol said. "What could possibly happen?"

"Oh boy," I said and lowered my gaze to my drink.

"I think that was a yes," Felicia said. "What do you think?"

"Definitely a yes," Carol agreed.

I held up my hands in surrender. We agreed that once the weather improved we would have dinner with my family. Speaking of the weather, I got up and turned on the television. I switched it to the weather and saw that we would not be receiving the brunt of the storm. It was going to hit north of us and we would be getting maybe half of the snowfall originally predicted. I was still going to be shoveling a foot of snow when it was all said and done. The girls plopped down and Carol took the remote and switched on the science channel. Felicia was still sipping the last of her hot cocoa. I asked when I was going to meet their moms they looked at each other, took out their smart phones and giggled. It didn't take an idiot to see that they had rehearsed this. Carol handed me her phone first. The image on the screen was what appeared to be a New Year's Eve party. Centered amidst the group of people was a busty brunette flashing the camera. She was only showing her bra but man she filled it out nicely. I could see the mammary resemblance, I mean family resemblance. Felicia handed me her phone and I let of a soft moan. The woman was bent over grabbing her ankles. She was wearing dark stockings, a bright red thong and was naked from the waist up. I saw where that fine ass of hers had come from.

"Those are your moms?" I asked.

"Uh huh," Carol giggled. "Mom had a little too much to drink last year. She keeps up a good façade but add booze and it all falls apart."

"My mom is a professional model," Felicia said. "She wanted me to follow after her but I took after dad more I guess."

"I see why you don't want me anywhere near them," I said and they both nodded. "I'll be good."

Those three words incited another round of laughter from them. I frowned but they would have none of that. The ticklefest that followed left me crying and gasping for breath. I gave as good as I got. Carol actually fled the couch and Felicia cried foul. I stood up and helped Felicia to her feet. I offered Carol my other hand and I led them up to the third floor. I guided them to the shower room and we lay on the floor and stared up through the glass ceiling watching the snowfall. The girls snuggled close and we enjoyed a simple moment before I had to take time away and prepare for the dig in Egypt. We watched the snow strike the glass and melt. We lay there was a while before I let out a sigh and told them I had to hit the books. They understood and gave me the time I needed.

We got up and I moved to the study to begin reading the books given to me by the Chancellor. I sat in the chair that was there and immediately knew I was going to have to bring up one from the first floor. I walked down and sat in all of them to decide which one was getting lugged up the stairs. Once that was decided Carol watched me and offered to help but I told her I could manage. It was easier than I expected considering the chair was made from heavy oak. I placed the chair behind the desk and drug the box of books next to me. I sat down and randomly picked one of the books and opened it. It was a tome of mystical knowledge, the Book of Eibon. It was the Latin edition and covered spells, formulae and rituals for the worship of a being called Zhothaqquah. Apparently this was the patron deity of the author, Eibon.

I read the book cover to cover and took a break. It was still dark out and when I walked to the shower room and looked up it looked like the storm was getting worse. I heard the girls in the bedroom and it sounded like they were having a great time. I knew if I peeked in I would stop my research and join them until dawn. I stalked down the stairs and fixed a pot of coffee. I didn't need the caffeine I just had a hankering for the taste of a nice dark brew. I stood there watching the coffee drip into the pot. I looked down at my hand and it was shaking. The things I had read were very disturbing. If they were true the ramifications were life shattering. The more I read the less I liked it. But damn it there was that burning curiosity to know. I didn't want to go to Egypt I needed to. I had to learn the truth for myself.

"Coffee," Felicia said as she approached barefoot and naked.

"MMMMM I could use some," Carol added as she slid her arms around me from behind.

"I didn't want to interrupt you guys," I said. "You sounded pretty intense."

"Yeah I guess we were," Carol agreed. "How goes the research?"

"I finished one of the books already," I said. "I needed a break, pretty deep stuff."

"It's only been an hour," Felicia gasped. "I wish I could read that fast."

I poured the coffee and I was surprised at how quickly I had consumed a three hundred plus page book. I added cream and sugar to my mug and stirred it. As I sipped Carol chimed in about the dig site. She had pulled a few strings and had detailed satellite scans of the area and told me what she had learned. There was a reason no one had ever dug at that location. It was the resting place of a massive meteor strike. The iron meteor was buried deep beneath the surface of the dunes miles away from our site. According to the records it was believed that the meteor strike occurred around three hundred and seventy million years ago. It corresponded with the Devonian event that wiped out most of the life on Earth. It was still being debated but it was the leading theory for now. The satellite scan also showed what appeared to be a set of spiral ruins where X marked the spot on our treasure map. There was something there but the layout was like nothing the Egyptians had ever constructed.

"I hope that helps," Carol said with a grin.

"The fact that there are manmade ruins there is huge. I wonder why no one has ever dug there before."

"I suspect the area has a bad reputation." Felicia added and we all nodded.

I was given two more hours to study. After that they were going to come and drag me back to the bedroom whether I like it or not. I doubt I would put up much of a fight. I returned to the study and grabbed another random book from the pile. This one was smaller and far thinner than most of the others. It was a German translation of something called the Celaeno Fragments. My German is worse than my Latin but I managed to get the gist of the subject matter. The book mentions a place called Celaeno and a great library there. I wonder if it means the Great Library at Alexandria. I stumbled through the material and it appeared to reference many books with subjects that ranged from high magic to nuclear physics. It reports to possess a formula for creating a cold sun. Could that mean cold fusion? How could even the great library have such knowledge that is ridiculous? I put that volume away for now and picked up a book in English.

"The Mysteries of the Worm," I muttered as I opened to the title page.

This was much like Mal Contentis and Practical Demon Keeping. It had designs and rituals for summoning entities from far flung dimensions. One such entity was called the Hound of Tindalos. There was a dire warning about using the spell since once called there was little chance of mastering the hound. Why the hell summon something if you couldn't control the damn thing? There was one thing that did catch my eye. It was the recipe and instructions of the proper construction of an Elder Sign. It was a way of protecting or sealing away places and people from outsiders and vile beings. I memorized the passages in the event of... just in case. I finished the book just in time. The girls showed up dressed for something completely different. Felicia held up her handcuffs while Carol displayed a blindfold.

"Oh, it's going to be one of those nights," I said and they nodded.

The snow continued to fall all that night and into the morning hours. We all took a turn beneath the lash. I discovered something about Felicia that I never knew before. She could slip out of handcuffs with an ease that was more than a little frightening. The girls washed up after the game was done. I just put my clothes back on, grabbed the snow shovel and went to work. I stepped out the front door and looked at all that virgin snow. Carol informed me she was going to play out back if that was alright. I told her it would be fine. She could build a snowman or a fort or whatever tickled her imagination. I had barely cleared the first step when I heard the cry of alarm. I stabbed the shovel into the snow and flew into the house. I raced to the back and there was a shaking Carol pointing outside. I moved passed her and looked. There in the snow were footprints. They came right up to the back door. Nothing human had made them but the chilling thing was when I looked towards where they had begun. The prints ran for twenty feet or so and simple vanished. The very first prints were a bit larger and deeper as if something landed and then walked to our backdoor. Did it simply fly away again?

"What the holy hell?" I said and then the soft sound of the wind chime caught my attention. "Thank you Widow Squire."

"Is it safe?" Carol asked.

"Yeah, just some prank by the neighbor kids or the guys from the engineering department." I said.

"Ooh those guys," Carol fumed. "I'll teach them to scare me!"

Then with a squeal of delight she launched herself into the foot high snow the fear forgotten. I turned to see Felicia standing there. She had seen the footprints and she was unconvinced it was engineers. I could tell by the expression on her lovely face. I shrugged and she pressed herself into my arms. I held her tight and told me Carol needed a ring like hers. I promised that before we left for Egypt she would have one, we all would. Felicia said she would keep an eye on Carol while I shoveled the walk. I kissed her cheek and returned to the task at hand. I shoveled my way out to the street and seeing as the elderly neighbor lady might appreciate it I did her walk as well. She called me in for a cup of hot cocoa and I decided I needed a break. I wasn't tired at all. Even after all that hard work I could have shoveled the entire block.

"You are quite fit young man," she said as she poured my hot chocolate. "Thank you for the kindness."

"It was the least I could do for the wonderful stories you shared with me."

"Nightgaunt," she whispered as she pressed her lips to the rim of her mug. "It was a nightgaunt."

"You mean the footprints in the snow," I said and she nodded.

"Horrid things," she said with a shudder. "You seem well protected enough against such horrors. I commend you. I used to dabble in the arts when I was much younger and far more careless."

She launched into a tale of her time with the young men who formed a coven. It was all fun and games she said when it began. But when they actually summoned something for the first time they became addicted to the power. They delved so quickly into unhealthy places where sane folk fear to tread. They robbed the graves of the dead and then summoned ghouls to do the leg work for them. They even had the audacity to name them like pets. Her fingers clung to her mug as she continued. The first blood sacrifice was the last night she had anything to do with them. She cut ties and moved away. When the disappearances ended she returned to Arkham and took up a position to watch the house. It was the least she could do to make some kind of amends for her sins. I asked her if she could continue to watch the house when I went to Egypt.

"What is in Egypt?" She asked.

"I am an archaeologist," I told her but that didn't satisfy her. "I found a map. It was hidden cleverly on two papyrus scrolls."

"You found it then," she frowned. "You are going after the treasure."

"What treasure?"

"The secret of immortality," she said. "They were all after it. They knew it was hidden on two ancient scrolls. You look confused, tell me."

"The treasure I seek isn't immortality." I said and she nodded. "I guess I need to satisfy my curiosity."

"You may end up paying with your life or worse," she warned. "I will keep an eye on your place for you. I will pray for you. It is the least I can do."

I thanked her and left a frightened old lady in her home. She wasn't afraid for herself I think she was afraid for me. I was comforted by her concern for my wellbeing. I returned to the house to find it empty. Carol had dragged Felicia into a protracted snowball fight. They had erected pitiful looking snow forts and were pelting each other with spheres of compacted snow. I tried to join the fray but was instead attacked without provocation and soon covered in the remnants of snowy missiles. Carol was a decent shot but Felicia was damn well deadly in her aim. After two shots to the nuts I surrendered. So we decided, after much cajoling from Carol, to build a snowman. I hadn't done it in years. We had plenty of material for the project that was sure. Soon we had a round jolly old fellow to guard our backyard from trespassers and even the hideous nightgaunts.

Felicia took a turn cooking for us and I was quite surprised at her culinary skill. She slapped my hand more than once for stealing bits of the stir fry she was creating. I pouted and sat next to Carol. She seemed quite pleased with how the day had gone so far. I lay my head on her shoulder and she stroked my hair as I relaxed. I tried to relax. I was still concerned about the elusive word, nightgaunt. I had read a few extremely rare tomes on magic and summoning and that word had not come up once. I sat up suddenly when I remembered the children's book upstairs, or what I had taken as a children's book.

I raced up the stairs and yanked the book from its resting place. I carried it downstairs flipping through its pages as I walked. There under the more notable mentions of servants. Nightgaunts serve the god Nodens and guard the mountain of Ngranek on the Isle of Oriab. There was a sketch of the faceless winged things. They were thin, dark and according to the description tickled dreamers that they caught trying to ascend Ngranek. The text continued and hinted that the nightgaunts were some of the few creatures that knew the way to Unknown Kadath. I walked into the kitchen and closed the book when I saw Carol. She made a face and stuck her tongue out at me. I returned fire with a loud raspberry sound which brought Felicia into the fray telling us to behave or there would be no food for either of us. We made faces at each other when we thought the detective wasn't looking.

"Oi, cut it out," Felicia cried out stifling a giggle of her own.

The three of us sat down to a delicious meal. It felt like once we went to Egypt everything was going to change and I wasn't the only one that felt that way. We ate, we drank and we fucked like bunnies. As the three of us lay on my bed I closed my eyes and let my mind drift. It wasn't exactly dreaming, the elixir had stolen that from us. My mind seemed to be processing all the information I had read over the last few weeks. It was a kind of collage of disconnected images, sounds and even smells. The children's book gave face and form to many of the creatures mentioned in the other tomes. Some were aberrations of nature while still others were monstrous outlines that no sane mind could fully encapsulate. What would I find in Egypt? Would it simply be some offshoot tribe of the Egyptian people or something older and far more menacing? A part of me wanted it to be the latter but the bulk of my hope rested with the fore. I prayed it was something simple and wonderfully isolated. I opened my eyes and the girls were staring at me.

"What..." I began and they laughed.

"What do you think we'll find?" Carol asked.

"An offshoot of some forgotten Egyptian tribe." I said. "Maybe they worshipped the meteorite and held the star glass they found as sacred and precious."

"Star glass," Felicia said. "What the hell is that?"

"When a meteorite hits a desert the heat of the impact fuses the sand into glass. The ancient cultures that found them collected them and traded them. The Bedouin were renowned for their trade in it. They could go into the deep desert and find the rare commodity among the dunes. The Old Kingdom held the star glass in high regard and used it in jewelry and reworked it into many different shapes and forms."

"Cool," she replied while Carol snuggled closer.

"I miss dreaming," Carol whispered as if it were a great and terrible secret.

"Me too," Felicia added. "Perhaps if I meditate hard enough I can dream."

"I hope so." I said as she closed our eyes and drifted away for a time.

The alarm went off and we got up ready to do our morning routine. Carol took out her laptop while I fixed breakfast and Felicia got dressed for work. I was taking the eggs from the fridge when I heard the happy cry from Carol in the living room. I was guessing the campus was closed due to the snow. She appeared and told me to the good news. All classes were cancelled and we had a snow day. The city was still digging out and I wondered how Felicia was going to get to work. She just shrugged and told me she would try and get to one of the main streets that should have been plowed by now. If she got stuck she would just find some strapping young men to help her push it. I fed her first since she was actually leaving the house right away. I had plans on leaving since my parent's drive needed shoveling today. It would be a great time to introduce them to Carol. Felicia was off all too soon but I knew a little thing like snow wouldn't slow her down.

"So much for global warming," I said as Felicia headed for the front door.

"What are we doing today," Carol asked with a wicked gleam in her eye.

"You get to meet my mom," I said and watched her reaction.

"When you say meet what exactly do you mean by that?"

"Just that, I am going over in a bit to shovel her walk. You two can sit down and get to know one another. You don't have to go if you don't want to."

"Oh, after meeting your sister I was a little confused. If you know what I mean." She said and smiled. "I mean my first impression of Briana was your cock up her ass. You have a strange way of performing introductions."

"I guess I do," I admitted as I fixed her plate of food. "Eat up; you might need your energy."

"I could get used to this," she said as she picked up her utensils. "Thank you for breakfast."

"You are welcome."

After we finished eating I called my mom and asked to see if she needed her walk shoveled. She told me that dad had already left for work after tromping through the wind drifts and unburying his car. I told her I would be over in a bit. That should give her and sis time to get dressed. Carol wanting to make a good first impression showered and spent quite a bit of time making herself presentable. I sat down and watched the weather to see if there was any other snow on its way. The talk all over the weather channel was the unusual weather patterns and the surprising amount of snow dumped on the northern portion of the east coast. They all seem to point out a queer front that originated in the middle of the north Atlantic. It seemed to come out of nowhere and build up strength as it pounded like a nor'easter. The strangest part of the entire system was how quickly it dispersed. They expected at least two to three days of high winds and possible coastal flooding but it fled as quickly as it appeared.

"That's fucking weird," I said to myself.

I picked up Carol's laptop and pulled up a map of the area where the front originated. There was nothing of interest there just open water. So why did it seem so damn familiar. I closed the lid and stood up. I walked up to the third floor and dragged out one of the books the Chancellor had given me. I dug through them and picked out the small thick volume entitled the Lost Civilization of Mu. I flipped through the pages and there it was, near the front, a map showing one of the possible resting places for the lost continent. The northern most tip of the island continent was a location called the tower of storms. During the hyperborean age the tower was home to Eibon an Atlantean sorcerer. He was a master of summoning not just beings from beyond the pale but fierce storms to protect Mu from its jealous enemies. I closed the book and returned it to the box. I was taking this entire subject of Old Ones and dark magic far too seriously.