Corvus Rex Read online

  CORVUS REX

  THE SUBSTANCE OF DARKNESS

  BY

  J.K. ISHAYA

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. All characters appearing in this work are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduction in whole or in part in any form. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the written permission of the author.

  © 2019 J. K. Ishaya

  First Edition: September, 2019

  For more information visit www.jkishaya.com

  Email: [email protected]

  Cover Design by Julie Kimbrell Ishaya

  Cover Model John Wells

  For more information visit: https://imdb.to/2Hf4fEb

  For news, teasers, art, and more visit: www.corvusrexbooks.com

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First and foremost, I must mention my husband, Indy (Named after the Dog) Ishaya, whose weird happily balances my own, and who has been a pillar of encouragement through the thick and thin of developing the Corvus Rex series. Also at the forefront, my mother, Patricia Kimbrell, who has always been there for me.

  To my beta brigade: Catherine Yvonne King, Jan Robnett, Tammy Holt, and Ben Thomas for ongoing feedback on the book, art, web page, and anything I needed to chat out. And to my friends Johanna Fally, Phoebe Juel, and Tara Cornett, my long-time founts of support.

  To everyone involved in the trailer/short film for Corvus Rex. I cannot thank enough those who contributed to the Indiegogo campaign or those who took part on that fantastic day: my Romans and Dacians and the other extras and crew who answered the call to help with makeup, catering, and gofering. I must particularly name Joe Holt, our talented cinematographer, who never stops adjusting until he gets the lighting effects tweaked just right, and superb actor John Wells, who slipped into the role of Yuri Corvinus/Zyraxes with seeming ease. Special thanks also to Shawn Ohtani, Catherine Bolt, the Novgrod family, and to Justin Mashburn for posing as young Howard Lovecraft and putting up with my makeup experiments. To Taketo Ohtani for all of the beautiful behind the scenes photography. And last but not least, David Hart and the Nichols House antique store for allowing the use of a parlor room in which our hero could tell his story.

  I am indebted to you all for your wonderful contributions and friendship.

  For Julian.

  You are so deeply missed.

  Providence, RI

  March 1908

  Chapter One

  The moment I see him, I'm already worming my way into the muddy maze of his mind, sussing out fine details about his character and, I admit, looking for faults and sordid reasons to tell my partner that the game is off. It is an ugly cluster of mental chaos, fear and resentment in there. I unravel and examine threads of loneliness and struggles for identity that have brought him to a seeming standstill in his life, that have brought him to resent his public schooling over the years. I can assess that his young mind, in many ways, is advanced beyond the average adult given his interests and the questions. Oh, the hundreds of questions that teachers and private tutors could not answer. Worse, none would even try, leaving him dissatisfied with his entire world and inclined to sneer at or play disrespectfully with his elders’ patience. How he craves answers to a great many things that it makes me ache just a little for him.

  This desire for knowledge has saved him. Through self-education, he has already filled his own head with philosophy and science balanced with all manner of mythology from the ancient world. Were it not for this continuing quest, he might have taken his own life by now, and the saddest of all is that he is only seventeen. He feels displaced in time, and shows it by wearing clothes of decades past, his father's clothes, somewhat ill-fit though he may grow into them better still. There are things that haunt him, faceless beasts that have permeated his nightmares and terrorized him since childhood. They appear to lurk in his imagination and he wants nothing more than to make sense of why they are there to begin with. We have some of the answers for him, but will they grant him closure or madness? It is an argument I could easily raise.

  The young man is not aware of my presence in his head, but it is not pleasant for him, either, given the way his long, lean face tightens up, his thin mouth drawing into a distasteful rictus. He cannot explain what moves him to frown at us, as we stand on the top stoop of the duplex on Angell Street. Maybe he feels a little sting inside there, behind his inky eyes, and he might not understand that it's only me digging around, assaulting his memories and emotions like the fiend that I am, but he certainly feels off at the moment.

  Howard. His name is Howard. I knew this already, but I hear it drifting around on a cherished memory of his grandfather calling to him years ago. This figure has been gone four years now from the boy’s life, but he still grieves.

  Beside me, Kvasir knows exactly what I'm doing and stealthily elbows my side from under the coat hanging on his arm, but I ignore him for one moment longer. He hastens to introduce me, since I am the late-comer to this particular arrangement, and they have been meeting off and on for almost a month now. Pasty and pimpled, the youth before us squints from behind thin spectacles. I sense doubt in him, disbelief that we are who or what we claim to be, but he is amused nonetheless and keen to play along. He merely sees two men in crisp suits and ties with felt homburg hats to match. One appears to be in his late twenties, unusually tall, with flaxen hair, fine Nordic features and a friendly countenance.

  And then there is me: the ominous one presumably in his late thirties with trimmed black hair and neat beard, lean face still and studious. He is a little too comfortable, I sense, because we look like ordinary men, and he has already had many conversations with Kvasir to put him at relative ease. I return a sharp glare, perhaps even allowing a little spoke or two of red to creep into my steel-blue eyes because in all honesty, I want him to be uncomfortable, for too much complacency in my presence can be a very dangerous thing. He does not recognize the void of silence that follows me around. Dogs do not bark within any short distance of me. Crickets do not chirp and birds do not sing. For now, he may equate that silence with this cold, early March night in which a few dirty snow drifts still cling to the edges of the sidewalk as winter's fingers relinquish their hold.

  Stop that, Kvasir's voice hisses amidst my thoughts, and I finally withdraw my examination but maintain the slightest link so as to readily read the boy's surface thoughts and emotions.

  Immediately he blinks, sways slightly on his feet, but seems none the wiser why his head is suddenly clearer. His mood shifts as well, and the rictus turns up slightly at the edges. He reaches out a long, lean hand to shake mine. "Mr. Corvinus," he says, "it is an honor to meet you. Mr. Freysson tells me that you have a remarkable account of various past… events. I look forward to hearing it." A specific New England accent stiffens his nasally and high-pitched speech on top of the fact that his nerves are rattling around under his skin and in his gut.

  I do not like the situation, not only because of the involvement with this particular outsider, but more because of the memories I must exhume to accomplish it. I tug on Kvasir's elbow. "Come here, Mr. Freysson," I say with no lack of bite in my tone. "Just a moment." I smile stiffly at our would-be host and Kvasir stumbles, skillfully feigning human clumsiness. "One moment, please."

  "What is it?" Kvasir asks, objecting, as I guide him back down the steps out of the boy's earshot.

  We step down into the shadows of the sidewalk. A chilly breeze stirs around our coll
ars and through my coat. I smell the Seekonk River blocks away to the east. Just a few houses down to the west, I can see, in the dark, that a little old lady has stepped outside with her poodle, but she is too far away to notice us. Only her dog pays attention, but it dares not growl or bark. "I do not like this," I say. "His mind is a fragile mess, and he's a bigot with an acute fear of foreigners and Negroes."

  "An unfortunate syndrome of his class—hell, his entire race—that we have seen time and again elsewhere. You yourself used to despise anything Italian." He chuckles dryly at his own joke, but I am not remotely amused. "His bigotry need not come up, and besides, he may grow from this. We aren't here to make friends, not that you make friends easily anyway."

  "I do not have a good feeling about this. He's so uptight, if he swallowed a lump of coal he would shit a diamond."

  "Well that is the pot calling the kettle—"

  "Is everything all right, gentlemen?" the subject of our debate asks from the doorway. At least, I note to myself, he is polite, if I am to believe Kvasir's earlier assessment.

  "Who are you speaking to, Howard?" a soft feminine voice asks from somewhere deeper inside the flat.

  I wince. I have already seen the owner of the voice via the boy’s thoughts and memories, felt the contention between them that has grown, especially in his teen years. The same woman who loves him to near death and yet has described him as hideous at the same time, so much that he has come to believe it. “And then there is the mother to deal with.”

  “Ah, yes, there is that,” Kvasir says, cutting his gaze toward the landing. “Not quite sure what Winfield saw in her,” he admits.

  "Just some men whom I am interviewing, Mother." The boy disappears inside for a moment and I couldn't be more relieved to not have him staring at us. I hear him murmuring gently, "Here, have your tea."

  "Why are you interviewing them?" Dread in her voice. A high-strung quiver.

  This is answered with a patient sigh. He cares for her, loves her more than anything while also resenting her with all of his being.

  Kvasir steps in closer, starts to raise his hands as if he'll shake me to corral my fragmented attention then drops them at his sides. His fingers still curl tautly, gripping the air if nothing else. "We both know you are more afraid of speaking your history than he is of hearing the truth. He's Winfield's boy. We owe him that."

  "We owe him nothing but a peaceful life of ignorance."

  "Which he does not want. You know this. You were just inside his head rooting around indiscriminately. He yearns to know things."

  "Even if those things might drive him insane as they did his father?"

  That gives him some pause. "That is what this is all about, really, isn't it? It's not your history you're afraid of, it's his. The circumstances that involved Winfield were beyond our prevention. We have known for a long time that it will eventually involve his son one way or another. I've been keeping an eye on him for years. He was a very keen and clever child from the beginning. He can handle this. Until now, he was accomplishing so much. We can bring back that spark for him. He is the one to bring our message, our warning, to the world, but he will need your guidance.”

  This reminder of our new mission rattles me more than anything. We aren't doing this for ourselves but for the good of the planet and every race, human or otherwise. What ripple effect it will have, we will not know for some time. It is the gentlest way to reach into human consciousness, to prepare the world for what is coming with seeds of truth peppered in fiction, even if it is just a name here, a glimpse there. I stare down at the space between us and raise my hands, paled by a faint wash of dirty, yellow light from the house. They still look like strong, corded hands, a warrior's hands, yet they are shaking.

  “But, Vassie," I suppress a whine from rising in my voice. "Must I go first?"

  “I think it best. You were human once. He will need that association before I remotely tell him more about myself.” On my lingering hesitation, he lowers his voice to deadly seriousness. "You do not get to run this organization and not take part in the actual plan, Yuri, and young Howard is most definitely your department. He has found the steps. He has never completely descended them and yet they have not faded from his mind with coming adulthood. They still tempt him at every moment he sleeps. You saw inside his head. It is as I have told you, is it not? He has encountered the night-gaunts. They terrorized him as a child."

  "Only old dreams as far as he's concerned. Must we make them reality for him? The experiences could fade with age if we let them." The boy's human shortcomings aside, I cannot help but feel concern for him, another young mind placed at risk by our hidden war.

  "But they are reality," he argues. "He's a Dreamer like his father." Then he adds, "Like you. Everything Winfield saw, he will eventually see too, whether in nightmares and dreamscapes, or when something actually slips through his bedroom window on the tiniest cool draft. Those dreams open portals, and his have the potential to gape wide and horrible. We need to help him understand and control it, so he can navigate safely through each journey." He pauses and says with the utmost compassion, "Zyr.”

  I hear his voice as if it's speaking from the other end of a tunnel, and the name that coaxes and reminds me of how and why we came to be here, standing against the muted dark of Angell Street. Another century or two and I might be able to forget that name if I did not have Kvasir around, whispering ever so often to draw me back into myself and anchor me, to keep my own portals closed and locked tight against the things that call to me from time so deep and murky as to be incomprehensible. I know that this is something that I must do, for I have grown so tired and worn, and it is I who am at risk of losing my sanity. Completely. Permanently. The time of fighting on our own and in the shadows is at an end. To this I nod, and within my periphery, I catch the figure of the boy, so thin in his old black suit, stepping back into the light of the doorway.

  "Mr. Freysson? Mr. Corvinus? Is there a problem?"

  Kvasir looks up at him and smiles, and it is like sunlight cracks through the bleak night and warms us all. "Everything is fine, Mr. Lovecraft. May we come inside?"

  ✽✽✽

  Young Howard takes us first into the front parlor of the little flat. It's adjoined by an opening into a dining room that is framed by open French doors. The home is gas lit and bathed in flame glow from globed wall sconces and additional glass oil lamps placed on the mantle over the coal hearth that burns in the corner, producing a meager wave of heat. The Empire furnishings here belong in a larger room in a much larger home, or even in another time as they crowd the little parlor with bold, regal colors and a floral pattern here and there. The woman sitting on the sofa is petite, just reaching her fifties, and she, too, is as displaced as her son but for different reasons. Her white dress is out of date by a few years as women today are beginning to sport skirts that come to mid-calf, but hers covers her feet, and her frilly blouse is buttoned conservatively up to her throat. Her hair is worn up in a loose bun fastened with black velvet ribbon. She reeks of fading perfume and arsenic as she sits with her cup of tea cradled in pale, slender hands and looks at us warily.

  If I thought the son problematic, I am aware instantly that my previous suspicions of his mother's apron strings are tenfold. If she knew who we are—what we are—and our previous involvement with her deceased husband, she would scream us out of the house. Kvasir and I glance at each other and silently agree that she is a figure to be navigated around if we are to have a peaceful first exchange with her baby boy. And yet, in her distant memories, I see her catering fabulously to a child's imagination, building tent forts in his bed chamber and taking him to find costuming materials to represent the exotic East of The Arabian Nights. Like her son, she is also full of complexities.

  "Uh." Our host coughs slightly. "This is my mother, Mrs. Susan Lovecraft, please forgive her for not standing."

  "I am afraid I've had a bit of malaise," she says. There is a marked tightness in her voice as
she speaks through her teeth. I do not have to touch her mind to know that she does not want us here. The tea cup rattles on the saucer.

  Kvasir, summoning all of his charm, gives her a bow and steps toward the sofa. Immediately I sense the younger Lovecraft going into a strange state of frenzy, flitting back and forth between protectiveness and resentment. "Milady, let me help you with that." Kvasir kneels before her and gently cups his hands around hers, silencing the clatter of porcelain.

  "Oh." A quivering smile touches her lips but does not quite travel up to her eyes.

  "You do not have to stay up on our account. Please rest. We are here only to give your son a few notes for his research."

  "Research?" she blinks slowly, her head swaying, and Kvasir smoothly removes the cup and saucer from her hand, places it on the center table. From where I stand, I see him use a fingertip to trace a flowing symbol over the back of her hand. Little energy trails glow and appear to sink into her skin, sliding up her arm and swirling around her head where they absorb like a vaporous drug. “Research on what? He has not spoken of this arrangement.”

  "Just research," he repeats, "and I'm sure you are not terribly interested."

  "Probably not," she says through a little yawn. Kvasir reaches out to cradle her head before it drops back too suddenly, and she is instantly asleep. He rises and retrieves a knitted lap blanket from the arm of the sofa and covers her before stepping back.

  Howard steps into Kvasir's place, hovering over her. "What did you do to her?"

  "Not to worry, Mr. Lovecraft," Kvasir says. "She is only sleeping deeply so she need not worry her pretty head over our presence. We have time now, at least eight hours." With that, he removes his hat, and I follow suit. It's as simple as Kvasir pulling back that piece of his own mind that has been touching Howard's or Susan Lovecraft's. He's been projecting what we wanted them to see all along, a method that we both use, although it can be mentally taxing in a crowd. Tonight, it's been an easy illusion to cast for such a small audience. Instantly, before Howard's eyes, we are no ordinary men. "I believe I have long been offering you some proof of my claims."