It had been far too long since the waters fell from the skies. The humidity had been building for weeks, and
the town of Innsmouth was slimy with condensation, and every breath of the stagnant air was a struggle to draw.
Malone stood in a doorway, across the street from a shop dealing in curios and rare artifacts.
He leaned on a rail that terminated at the door, smoking a cigarette and lighting matches, one after the other.
He wore a black hat with a carmine band, dark shades, a black overcoat, a bulky black sweatshirt, black jeans, and a pair of black hightops.
He held in his left hand an empty sack, made of canvas, and waterproofed.
Malone stood in the doorway, watching the shop, the light from the last working streetlight, down at the end of the block, glimmering dimly from his lenses.
He never seemed to run out of matches, and he was muttering something under his breath as he bided his time. Rivulets of sweat ran from his forehead down onto his chin, and fell from there to the sidewalk.
A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, all bass notes and threat. A chill wind blew between the buildings, and Malone shuddered inside his clothes.
"Gideon, why?" He asked the air.
Steam began to rise from the parched pavement as the first pea-sized drops of rain began to splash onto the tattered asphalt of Innsmouth.
The drops made a sound like wet feet advancing, louder and louder, more and more rapid, as time passed.
Malone had been too long away from the water, and a thirst was upon him. He turned his collar up, and streams of water ran down from his hat onto his corrugated neck.
It was small relief, but relief nonetheless.
The tempo of the rain on the street increased, taking on a martial air, and the last streetlight gave up the ghost, leaving Malone alone on the street in his cocoon of shadow.
He cursed softly, tossing the butt of his sodden cigarette out into the rain, placing his hands in his pockets so he couldn't light any more matches, and watched the south end of the block, where his quarry would come from.
He'd come too far, worked too hard, done too many dirty jobs, to let himself be tripped up by a nervous habit now.
Malone remembered a job he'd been in on, long ago, where that habit cost him his liberty, when events and circumstances were such that he was imprisoned, for arson. Malone did his time, kept his mouth shut, for it was best that way, best not to cross the family, to whom walls were not barriers.
When he'd gotten out, the family had set him up with a detective agency, under which guise he would conduct investigations, do a little strongarm stuff, sometimes for the family, sometimes not. When the family called, he came running. He figured the family paid the bills, they had the right to call the shots.
It was best that way, even if one wasn't obligated at the time. The family's rewards could be handsome, and their revenge terrible.
The prison mostly shunned Malone, who was no beauty contestant, kept his mouth shut, was too big to mess around with, and just didn't appeal to their attention.
That was all right with Malone. The sentence passed quickly enough, and he was out.
He had been a newspaper man before, and took to the PI biz like a fish to water.
His sense of where the bodies were buried held him in good stead at his new job...
Gideon Marsh, his quarry, the last of the once-mighty Marsh family, hove into view at the end of the block. Malone removed and pocketed his sunglasses, concentrating his night vision on the man. His slightly overlarge and protuberant eyes had no problem resolving the darkeness, and he watched as Marsh strode toward his job with a jaunty air, a pillar of the
communtiy, well-pleased with himself and his position, and harboring a secret.
Marsh had been working for years on translations of some incredibly ancient books of knowledge into English, for the use of those of the family who did not yet understand any of the elder languages, a laudable achievement with which the Chaos were extremely pleased. When Marsh had the volumes bound and published properly, they were more pleased yet, but that pleasure ended when Marsh
volunteered the fact of the books' existence to a patron of the Miskatonic Library, and agreed to donate the volumes to that library.
For in those books were also explicit items detailing how to stop the predations of the Old Ones, as well as apparatus and instructions for their invocation.
Agents of the Old Ones had appealed to Marsh to abridge or remove these sections, but he had ignored them.
Marsh was known to carry several star-stones upon his person, and other proofs against the agenst of the Old Ones, and the start weren't amenable to any direct action, so Malone was employed in this case.
He watched Marsh jiggle items in his coat pockets, saw a small relieved expression, knew that was where the stones were.
If Malone could get at the stones, it would all be over...
Gideon Marsh entered his shop, clicked on the overhead lights in the outer room, took off his coat, laid it on the back of a chair. He took his keys from a pocket, transferred them to a back pants pocket, walked over and opened the door to his private office.
He returned with a box, maybe a foot square, wrapped in tape. This box contained the translated volumes. He set this on the ornate carven teakwood desk, turned and headed for the inside garage door.
As soon as he'd shut that door, Malone made his move.
Swiftly, silently, he glided across the street into the shop. He swept the box under one arm, snatched the stones from the pocket with his other hand, transferred the lot to his sack.
"Gideon," he said again. "Why'd you have to cross Them? I really don't want to do this..."
Malone had known Marsh for many years, they were both members of the family.
But a job was a job.
Malone heard the sound of the car starting and the outer garage door opening, and ran back out into the rain. He removed his garments, stowing them within the sack, and began chanting, under his breath.
Marsh's car came around the corner, pulled to a stop outside the shop.
Faintly, above, a falling star began to grow. It approached, growing larger rapidly, visible even through the sheets of rain as a streak of flame.
As Marsh noticed the books' absence, and turned around to spy Malone out in the middle of the street, raising his arms to the sky and screaming the last words of the invocation, an expression of recognition, and then terror crossed his unlovely features as the Hounds of living fire came and took him.
The fury and the heat of their coming reduced the building to rubble in an instant.
The building and the car were a smoking ruin.
Malone stood for a moment as the gutted building breathed smoke from every portal and shattered window, until the sirens sounded in the distance.
Then he grabbed his sack, tying it around his left shoulder and neck, and ran to the opposite end of the street, to the sea, and took a long walk of a short pier.
His gills functioned perfectly in the frigid water, and he took the long way home, through the St. Lawrence into Lake Michigan.
He had a little family of his own there, in the Windy City, and the books would be nice additions to the library there...
