Recipe for Disaster Pt. 04

"What's gotten into you?" I asked and that's when I saw the tears. "What's happened?"

"He died," she whispered. "Morris died at the hospital. It was some sort of aneurism. They aren't sure exactly but scan showed massive brain damage. They've never seen anything like it."

"I am sorry," I said and she squeezed my hand.

"It's not your fault," she said. "No one is blaming you."

"The Chancellor will see you now."

We walked in and I paced around his office as I tried to explain what was going on with the monolith in some form of coherent thought. The Chancellor just sat there smiling as I tried three separate times to explain and failed. Felicia laid a hand on my shoulder and took a shot at it. I surrendered and let her talk. As she went on about the full spectrum scan and the transparent steel casing surrounding the monolith I walked around and glanced at the Chancellor's private library. Many of the books were first editions borrowed from the library while a few were leather bound editions with no markings on their spines. I randomly pulled out one of them and opened it. I was shocked to see that it was a book on the real-world applications of necromancy. I returned it to its spot on the bookshelf. I grabbed a second book and looked over my shoulder. Felicia had the Chancellor's full attention. I opened the second book and my blood went cold. The title of the tome was practical demon keeping. I had learned enough. I returned the book to its location just as Felicia reached her conclusions.

"So do you want us to dismantle the thing or just leave it be?" I asked.

"If we dismantle it the public might not like it and we lose our publicity but on the other hand if we make a media event of it... let me make a few phone calls. Thank you for your clear concise explanation of things detective."

"You're welcome Chancellor," she said and we left.

"Are you wearing any silver jewelry?" I asked once we were on the steps heading down.

"Yeah, I have my grandmother's ring, why?"

"Don't ever take it off." I told her as I texted Carol, Sis and my mom with the same question.

"What's going on, you look terrible," she said and grabbed me. "Stop... what the hell is going on?"

"Did you see the crime scene photos of Loveless' murder?" I asked and she nodded. "I know this sounds fucking nuts but I know what killed him."

"You mean who killed him don't you?"

"No, I mean what," I said. "I've been so fucking stupid. I need to know for sure."

Felicia fell silent and just followed me. I took her all the way down the steps. We ended up in the subbasement. It was the long term storage facility for the university. I walked around and checked the master lists looking for the digs that Squiggles was on, specifically the Antarctic expedition. The newest digs were the furthest away from the steps. It all appeared to be in chronological order. I walked to the 1990s and found a gap. I looked at the master list and saw the discrepancy.

"Damn it, they moved it," I cursed.

"How can you tell?" Felicia asked.

"Look at this list, see how there are several different types of signatures. All of them have it except this one. All the entries were done by one person."

"You're right, someone removed something and redid the master list. What now?"

"Keep looking," I said and searched the entire basement.

We walk every inch of it and tucked in the back was something I never expected to find. I stared at the vault and its impressive computerized lock. It was the only place the missing items could be located. How the hell did you open this thing? I looked at the detective and she shrugged. She approached the control panel and squatted down to get a look at it.

"It was manufactured by Numenor Technology," she said. "You think it's A.I. controlled?"

"Only one way to find out," I said and approached the vault door. "Open up..."

"State your identity," stated a cool metallic voice.

"I am Doctor Donahue," I said and after a short delay the vault began to open.

"Authorization granted," it said.

It wasn't thick the way a bank vault is but it appeared to some form of tempered alloy. The interior lights came on and I could see the crates marked Antarctic 1995. I looked for the list and found it on top of one of the crates close to the front. Unlike the crates that were covered with a light layer of dust, the list was clean. I recognized Squiggles' handwriting. He had catalogued the entire dig. I found the item I was looking for and which crate it was in. I told Felicia the number I was wanted and we began searching. It was near the back wall and it took both of us to lift the crates that were in front of it. I dug my fingers into the corner and freed it with a swift upward tug. A few more pulls in key positions had the lid off. I moved the packing material to the sides to unveil the strange green stone. It was the belly of the idol.

"What the hell is that?" Felicia asked staring at the forgotten god.

"I don't know," I said. "It is listed as the Alien Deity." I removed the rest of the packing material and the detective took a few steps backward away from the thing. "Hideous, isn't it?"

"That's one word for it," she said obviously repulsed by the thing. "Are those tentacles... it looks like some bad hentai villain to me." She shivered before she continued. "Now tell me why we had to come down here?"

"This was the dig where nearly thirty men were lost. I wanted to see what they had brought back that was worth so many lives."

I stared at the stone idol taking in its hideous blasphemy of everything that was normal. I stood the thing up on what i believed were its feet, if you call six muscular looking tentacles that ended with a pseudo foot. The body was barrel shaped and what passed for a head was a mass of tubes of varying lengths and thicknesses. There were no eyes or mouths to speak of and whatever dire imagination dreamt up this thing was long dead, thank god. I looked at the master list one last time but nothing on it made me want to spend another minute with what Squiggles had classified as an alien god. I repacked the stone horror and placed the crate's lid back on. Felicia and I left the vault with a few more answers but even more questions.

We returned to the steps but now a metal security door stood in our way. I raced back to the control panel of the vault and ordered the A.I. to lift the door but it appeared to be offline. Great, just fucking great, I stomped back and stared at the impervious door. Felicia looked at me and I knew for certain who had locked us in, the Chancellor. He didn't want us harmed just delayed for some reason. I sat down on the dusty stone floor and closed my eyes. Felicia sat down next to me and glared at the door. As she cursed a blue streak I tried to remember everything I could about the subbasement.

"Wait," I said and Felicia fell silent. "I remember something in Squiggles log book. He talked about parties at a house that was off campus. They were able to get to it during prohibition times via a tunnel that ran under the campus. One end of the tunnel is down here somewhere."

Felicia was on her feet and exploring the myriad hallways that formed a grid pattern. I looked in the other direction and we agreed to meet back at the door unless we found something. Half an hour later I was back at the door and she was waiting for me. I shook my head and she said the only thing she found was a campus flag hanging on the wall. She looked behind it but the only thing there was a stone coat of arms. It had the same design as the flag just more elaborate. I asked her to show me. We walked back and a few minutes later we were in one of the corners of the basement. She pulled back the flag and just like she said there was the coat of arms. I closed my eyes again and tried to remember what he had said in the journal.

"He wrote something about waves and crowns," I said.

"Look, in the bottom right hand side those are waves right... and the top of the shield has a crown."

"Push them and find out," I suggested and she walked up and pressed the waves and then the crown but nothing happened. "Try both of them at the same time."

Felicia nodded and pressed them both. A grinding sound of stone on stone could be heard as the secret door opened. Felicia pulled out a small flashlight and switched it on. I followed her down the partially flooded tunnel. At least it didn't smell like a sewer. There were a dozen or so rooms on either side of the main tunnel. Felicia shined her flashlight into each of them. On the third room something glinted in the illumination of her light. I walked over while she held the light steady. There was one ancient wooden box jutting up from the water. It was perhaps eight inches long, four inches wide and four inches deep. I lifted it up out of the water and it was pretty damn heavy. I carried it over to Felicia and we opened the crumbling lid.

"Are those what I think they are?" Felicia asked.

"They look like uncut stones," I said feeling suddenly giddy. I opened my briefcase and dumped the stones into it. "Finders keepers..."

"Are there any more boxes underneath the water?"

"I'll feel around," I said.

I returned to where I had found the first box and thrust my hands beneath the surface of the water but found nothing. I shook my head and we agreed it would be smarter to just come back later. We continued down the tunnel and there were other boxes in other rooms but we didn't know how long the flashlight would hold out. Reluctantly we passed up what could have been more valuables so that we got out in one piece. The tunnel ended in another blank wall but this time there was an obvious switch available. I tugged the lever and the stone door rose up revealing more tunnel but also what appeared to be steps going up.

"Thank god, we are out of here," Felicia said. "I wonder what is up those steps."

"It was a party house at one time," I said as I led the way up the stairs.

There was a stout wooden door at the top. I turned the knob and it opened. The door was blocked by something on the other side. I put my shoulder to the door and slowly pushed. I didn't want to knock over anything and scare the hell out of the owners. I made enough room for us to slip by and let Felicia take over from here. She could always flash her badge or something. We stepped out but the house looked empty. It was unkept and dusty. I pushed the door shut and replaced the bookshelf that was standing in front of it. We made our way to the front door and had to unlock it. We stepped out into the late afternoon air and looked around. Next door was an elderly lady sitting on her rocking chair. She looked at us and smiled. I closed the door to the house and walked next door. She stopped rocking and began to laugh.

"Now that takes me back a long time," she said in a raspy voice. "You look like hell and then some."

"We had a little accident," I said. "Managed to find our way out though..."

"Through the hidden tunnel," she said and I nodded. "Lots of great parties at that house there. If you want to rent it I can call the owner. If you belong to the university she'll cut you a sweet deal."

"I'd like that, but right now I have to stop my friends from making a terrible mistake."

"Getting married huh," she said and cackled.

Felicia and I headed towards the monolith once we had gotten our bearings. The sun was setting and I was bogged down by the weight of my briefcase. We reached the campus commons and they had already taken off the clear metallic cover. They had already pushed most of the stone pieces into some kind of alignment. I shouted but they didn't seem to hear me. My shout became a scream but they kept on at what they were doing.

"Stop... for the love of god stop!" I screamed.

I could hear the terrible grinding sound as the group shoved the last stone into place. Felicia and I were still a great distance away. I clamped my hands over my ears as a high pitch whine filled the air. I dropped to my knees from the pain. The detective seemed unaware or immune to the sound. I was barely able to lift my head to watch what happened next. The shadows deepened around the monolith. My vision blurred and I had to blink away the tears as the image of the Chancellor appeared near that god forsaken relic. I screamed again as shadowy tentacles lashed out and snatched the people that I had grown so close to. Their howls of horrors hung in the air as they were snatched down and disappeared from sight.

I tried to reach for Felicia's sidearm but didn't have the strength. I watched as the Chancellor strode fearless to the wavering shadows and spoke to them in a language no human being should know. The alien syllables were sounds no human throat should be able to form. He had won. He had been behind this the entire time. My rage gave me strength. I rose to my feet. I cursed him with the last of my breath.

"Burn in hell," I screamed.

The shadows that had faded back to normal suddenly darkened and snatched up the Chancellor. He tried to fight them off and failed. Just like my friends the wailing figure of the elderly man was drawn down to his fate, whatever that might be. Once he disappeared the shadows disappeared and a flash of darkness forced me to clench my eyes shut. When I opened my eyes the monolith was restored. I looked over at Felicia and she seemed disorientated. I caught her as she fell. I held her and my tears fell on her upturned face. Please be okay I said over and over again.

"Don't leave me Felicia," I gasped. "Please don't leave me alone."

"Donohue," Ivan asked as he and Carol appeared from my left hand side.

"Ivan... Carol... did you guys just um..." I asked and they both blushed.

"I was still..." She said and I felt more tears flow this time but I was overjoyed that they survived.

"Thank god you are alive," I said.

"Of course we are alive," Ivan said. "Looks like we got here before the others..."

"Is Felicia alright," Carol asked.

"I hope so," I said even as Felicia stirred.

"What the hell happened?" She said her speech slurred.

She sat on the ground and I sat next to her. Carol and Ivan walked towards the Monolith and I freaked out but nothing happened. It was once more inactive... asleep... but for how long I wondered. I sat next to Felicia as she recovered. Once she was able to stand she had no memory of seeing the monolith and the death of the others and the Chancellor. Even though there were dozens of people near the commons and able to see the monolith none of them called 911 or had memory of those otherworldly events. I alone remembered. It was called a freak disappearance in the end. It was suggested that the Chancellor and the others simply left their old lives behind and went somewhere. The search turned up nothing. Ivan and Carol became an item after that day while Felicia and I got ready to sell the stones and leave for Egypt.

Epilogue: Two Days Later

It was early Sunday morning when Felicia got called out on a murder. She kissed me as she left. I watched her dress and smiled. I could never get tired of the sight of her bare ass as she pulled her slacks on. She yawned as she put on her bra and blouse. I opened the drawer and took out the bottle of elixir I had been hiding for so long now. I tossed it to her when she turned to blow me a kiss.

"What's this?" She asked.

"Ancient Egyptian pick me up," I told her.

"What's in it," she queried me and I told her. "What is that look on your face?"

"I don't want to be alone," I said and a look of understanding crossed her face.

"You won't ever be alone," she said as she unscrewed the bottle and drank its contents. "I love you Professor!"

"I love you too Detective."

"You better get ready," she said smiling. "You have an appointment with the Widow. Don't you disappoint her or I will know."

"I will break her," I promised and Felicia grinned wickedly.

"That's my man..."