The Masks of Nyarlathotep: London part 3

Extracts from the Personal Diary of Dr Elisa Jamieson MD

Afternoon Saturday July 26^th

Oddly as we look back at Penhew Place it soon becomes clear that the eclipse has a very strange effect as it only shows up as a storm cloud once you exit the darkened area. Anyway we all feel that we need to regroup and assess the situation as there are clearly at least two human assailants and one supernatural one on site and from previous experience most of these supernatural creatures require specialist handling. This in mind we retire to Walton-on-the-Naze, or to be more accurate the Naze café and takeaway, where I assess and treat the injuries suffered by Belinda and Barbara, which are mainly cuts and scrapes. Barbara fortunately had not split her stitches from her earlier encounter in France.

However St John had also suffered an injury but this was not quite so easy to clean up. This was first noted when he began to get very personal between Belinda and myself. It appeared to me that his mind had become slightly unhinged by the encounter with the tittering entity and that he required tactile contact between himself and others. It should be noted here that while I have psychological training as part of my remit it is not really my area of expertise. Adam and Alex also picked up on St John’s behaviour and Adam took him under his wing.

Once we settled down Alex contacted Amanda Kensington at MI13 and reported the situation at Penhew Place. We were informed that assets would be deployed to assist in dealing with the situation. As we waited we observed a large black car drive through the village and head in the direction of Penhew Place. This we were later to discover was carrying reinforcements for the group that had opened fire on us in the house.

Shortly afterwards three military issue Land Rovers arrived outside the Naze café containing twelve soldiers and Major Simmonds who we were informed had been ordered to secure the area around Penhew Place. As the building was grade one listed they had been instructed not to fire on the house itself unless they themselves had been fired upon. The major also observed Barbara and Belinda’s injuries and inquired as to whether we required medical assistance but Alex informed him that I was a doctor and that I did not require aid.

Alex requested that he be able to accompany Major Simmonds on the mission as he claimed that there were certain issues involved. The major appeared initially unsure but after contacting his Colonel about these issues mainly involving ‘illegal aliens’ the Major agreed to take him along as an observer with the proviso that he should not involve himself in the actual operation. The operation appeared to run incredibly smoothly and a cordon was set up around the house. It was noted that our two cars were still parked just in front of the house together with the black car we had observed earlier. There were no signs of life within the house itself and the curtains remain closed.

Note: for reference I feel it necessary to impart some MI13 Information and code words at this juncture:

Head of MI13 is Dame Ursula Howard-Fiennes (Cruella) who is from old money, cousin of Duke of Norfolk. She is chain smoker and as a result is in very poor health, suffering presently from a rather intense case of emphysema, she is coughing up blood and in my estimation is on her last legs.

Marmaduke Forbush (Tulip) is the chief administrator and Dame Ursula’s number two he dresses like a sixties civil servant caricature complete with a stripe suit, bowler hat, umbrella and briefcase he is also terribly afraid of spiders.

Amanda Kensington (Contessa), ostensibly the secretary, she and Marmaduke were the entire administration until James Elliot was appointed

James Elliot (Mordac), computer expert and major pain in the posterior, who had been appointed as a new addition to the administration department after the incident at Alderley Edge.

Andy Price (Gallowsman) an ex-SAS trooper who joined MI13 after he suffered a major breakdown during the incident at Gallows Hill he trains us and occasionally provides technical help when required.

Harry Wise (Mr Happy), another survivor from the operation on Gallows Hill only recently released from the Wilmarth following the operation were he suffered a severe mental collapse after observing the Byakhee.

Lionel Woodthorpe (Solomon), retired previous head of MI13 and occasional useful source of information.

Mavis Enderby (Lipstick), retired agent bag lady and possible cultist.

Toby Higginbottom (Notos), retired agent and notable warning about flying to close to the sun.

The home team presently consist of

Detective Constable Alec Douglas (Black Cat): Special Branch liaison and present leader.

Doctor Elisabeth Anne Jamieson (Ice Queen): medical doctor and DC Douglas’ lieutenant.

Doctor Belinda Durham (Grace Darling): archaeologist with extensive knowledge of Celtic culture.

St John Cartwright-Fiennes (Cameron): occult expert and dowser (suffering from notable mental stress).

Barbara Smythe (Paige): security official from English Heritage.

Adam Walters (Sphinx); New Age healer.

Approximately a dozen other part-time staff presently assigned outside the United Kingdom ostensibly dealing with reports of occult terrorism.

We have been instructed to use the codenames when communicating on anything other than a secure line and certain terms such as ‘illegal aliens’ when referring to other worldly creatures and ‘sparklers’ when referring to magical abilities.

After the cordon is set up Alex requests a secure communication line to contact Marmaduke Forbush to require certain assets and hints to deal with the illegal alien residing within Penhew Place. We understand that the creature is something called either a Star Vampire or a Shambler from the Stars - this information imparted upon us by St John who appeared to have suffered an epiphany.

Shambler from the Stars/Star Vampire is an otherworldly creature of notably hideous appearance. The creature appears to be able to bend light around its form and thus appear invisible. Noted for making a noise akin to a sinister tittering, these creatures have some immunity to normal weaponry and also appear to be armoured. Note the creature can become visible if you were to throw paint or flour at it but this is not advised. The creature also becomes visible when it feeds but it this is clearly not an option of choice. As the creature can travel though space any cold based or gas based weaponry would likely be ineffective.

Mr Forbush informs Alex that the only person who can give us advice would be Lionel Woodthorpe who it appears had previously encountered one during his tenure. After this Alex reports his findings to the rest of us. We decide to take advice from Lionel so that we have the best chance of defeating the creature. Forbush further informs Alex that he will be sending Gallowsman and Mr Happy to assist in the operation.

As we are waiting for our specialists to arrive we note that the dark cloud over Penhew Place dissipates indicating the spell used had reached its duration. It was decided that Alex and I would accompany Gallowsman and Mr Happy when we stormed the house. While Belinda and Barbara would provide back up support as both had reduced mobility due to their injuries. St John was in too fragile a mental state to be risked and Adam would stay with him at the Naze Café to give him moral support.

Note: following the incidents on Gallows hill it was advised that Gallowsman and Mr Happy should not be exposed to the illegal aliens and should only be used to assist in the neutralisation of human elements due to their somewhat fragile states of mind.

When Gallowsman and Mr Happy arrived I noted that Mr Wise appeared to remember Adam from the Gallows Hill incident and to a lesser extent he also remembered my involvement yet he stated that he did not recognise I was involved in the current affair.

Andy Price, as the senior of the two, went over the plan with us while we equipped ourselves. Fortunately we had worked with Mr Price previously and he was able to provide a gas mask in my size. Alex, as the leader of our team, was nominally in charge until the operation began and then he would defer to Mr Price’s superior tactical knowledge.

The plan was that Major Simmonds and his men would create a distraction for the enemy forces while the four of us in the initial team would move from cover to the kitchen door. As we entered it was decided that Andy Price would be in the lead and then Alex would be second man in, I would then be third while Harry Wise would cover the rear. Note: we had made it clear that the library was to be avoided until all resistance had been neutralised and that Andy and Harry would be relieved by our support team of Belinda and Barbara before the illegal alien residing there would be dealt with. (I was not overly confident that Barbara should have been involved, as she was quite severely injured and was under medical advice to not do anything too strenuous.)

So shortly afterwards we got into our relative positions and right on cue Major Simmonds’ men opened fire from their concealed positions. Almost instantly return fire began from the top floor of Penhew Place. The initial assumption was that there were two people in the upper level but this was to prove incorrect. With the distraction in place our team made our way from cover to approach the kitchen door. It appeared that our diversion did its job, as we received no fire from the house on our approach. Once at the backdoor we had the minor issue of the lock but Andy Price swiftly removed the obstacle with an application of detonation cord.

Andy Price then led us inside and then he carefully checked each room on the ground floor. Alex took a covering position while Harry Wise acted as a rearguard. We only met one hostile in the entire West wing, a male, who was swiftly neutralised by Andy Price.

As we approached the centre of the house we detoured through the dining area where we came upon our second hostile. This was a female who was kneeling upon the floor and it should be noted that she appeared to be unaware of our presence as she had her back to us as we entered. The female appeared to be chanting which implied that she may have been attempting to invoke a spell effect (as it turned out this was the woman who cast the spell we had observed the effects of earlier). Again, like her male compatriot, she was swiftly dispatched by Andy Price.

After dispatching the female Andy then moved through the door to the hall with the intention to begin clearing the east wing. However one of the hostiles had heard the shots and had taken up a defensive position in the main doorway covering the exit from the west wing. (This was the same man we had observed shooting at us earlier.) Unfortunately Andy did not spot the man lurking in the shadows and when he emerged the man fired, hitting Andy high in the meat of his right arm causing Andy to loose the grip on his main weapon, which dropped down to his side. This gave Andy two options he could either attempt to take cover behind the cloth-covered furniture in the centre of the room or he could duck back. Andy being a man of action of course chose the first option diving into cover behind the furniture.

Alex then moved to the corner to begin a firefight with the figure in the doorway while Andy attempted to deploy one of his CS gas canisters. Unfortunately Andy was throwing both from an awkward position and with his weaker arm and thus the canister did not end in its intended place. Fortunately the team were all wearing gas masks and for the most part were immune, yet I did notice a slight reaction from Harry maybe there had been something wrong with his mask. Fortunately he did not get much gas and swiftly shook it off. As Alex was attempting to pin down the gunman at the door it fell upon me to cover Andy, as he was vulnerable to anyone coming onto the balcony from the east wing.

As I trained my shotgun on the balcony I did observe two figures emerge from the east wing. Yet I noted that neither was equipped with breathing apparatus and the CS gas caused them to beat a hasty retreat. As I was concentrating on my assigned targets I failed to observe the end of the firefight, which resulted in the demise of the hostile with a rather ugly wound to the head.

Before we continued we moved into cover on the east wing while I administered some medical aid to Andy’s right arm. Essentially I was only stopping any further blood loss at this time. The shot had fortunately passed through and avoided all the bones and major blood vessels. However it may have inflicted some nerve damage but we were unable to ascertain the extent of his injuries at the juncture.

With Andy somewhat incapacitated, Harry and Andy changed swapped their roles. I had of course informed the team that I had observed the two figures disappearing upstairs. With this new information it was decided that Andy would cover the flight of stairs at the top of the corridor while the rest of us would move down the corridor toward the other flight.

Worryingly both Alex and myself observed that the door to the library was open and hopefully this would not indicate that the illegal alien was abroad within the house as a whole. Yet our fears were alleviated somewhat when we approached the doorway as the sinister tittering noise could still be heard. We all moved carefully down the corridor, staying as far away as we could from the creature.

As we were passing the library we observed a figure move across the open area at the end of the corridor and so were well prepared for when he reappeared. On this occasion it was Harry who fired but the result was ostensibly the same.

This appeared to leave either one or two hostiles camped out in the upstairs rooms. It was decided that the best way to resolve this was take both ends of the corridor at once and as we were technically rookies it was decided that Andy and Harry should be the protagonists. They both threw concussion grenades to hopefully disable anyone waiting in ambush then they quickly made their way up the stairs. Downstairs, outside the library, Alex called in Barbara and Belinda, asking them to bring the items required to activate some of our own ‘sparkler’ effects.

After two almost simultaneous loud bangs we heard heavy footsteps on the stairs followed quickly by two large retorts from the direction of Andy then virtually a split second later we heard loud screams emanating from where Harry was assumed to be. Now both Andy and Harry are tough guys and it must be something fairly distressing for one of them to make a noise like that. As medic I rushed to see what had occurred. I nearly slipped in the blood pool left by the hostile on the corner but it did not slow me down, taking the steps two at a time I quickly made my way to Harry who appeared to have been hit by either a flamethrower or by some kind of spell effect. Harry, being as tough as old boots, was still conscious at this stage but was clearly suffering dreadful agonies. With this in mind I quickly sedated him and requested the medi-vac.

We had now dealt with all the human hostiles within the house as the final male hostile had been found in one of the upstairs rooms where he had been shot during the firefight with Major Simmonds’ men. Leaving just the illegal alien to be neutralised, this was a job Andy and Harry could not assist us with so it fell upon us to deal with the threat.

One thing that appeared obvious to us was that the Star Vampire appeared to be linked in some way to the library itself because the door had been open for some time and still it remained within the confines of the room. The only question we had to consider was that if it threatened would it be able to leave the room and attack us. So with this in mind we chose to err in the direction of caution by setting up a circle of protection in the corridor outside the room.

This led to an issue as to who should deal with the problem of the Star Vampire. As we could fit only two shooters in the doorway Alex was clearly one. Barbara was injured and that left Belinda. As Barbara was also lacking in magical power we decided that she should retreat to a safe distance together with Andy and Harry. My own job was to draw the circle and then control it as Barbara did not actually have the spell and Alex would be unable to keep his concentration if he was involved in firing at the star vampire. Feeling that in such close quarters the firing would be horrendous on the ears I acquired a pair of ear protectors from Andy.

Fortunately for us the plan went off like clockwork but did inflict considerable damage to the wood panelling. I had initially expected it to take some time to take the creature down but my two compatriots quickly got there eye in and it was all over within five minutes. Strangely enough, as the creature dissipated I felt an overwhelming sense of well-being.

Once the creature was gone we were able to call in the rest of the team and search the library. In all we found that while the room was ostensibly described as a library it was a misnomer as it was rather sparsely populated with books. However, it did sport numerous items of Egyptian statuary and jewellery adorning its walls and dominating them all there was a life size bust of the Black Pharaoh, Nephren-Ka. Unfortunately most of the items had received some damage in the firefight.

The firefight also did us a favour as we discover a wall safe, which dates pretty similar to the building of Penhew Place. Fortunately the safe had a key lock system and not a combination and thus we soon able to gain access. Inside the safe we discovered an electronic key card, most likely to the room in the basement of the Penhew Institute; a seemingly ordinary key similar to that for a chest of drawers; one sealed and genuine canopic jar of the third dynasty, which Belinda informed would have been used to store the liver of the incumbent mummy; and finally a letter from Dr Henry Clive, an archaeologist working on a dig in Memphis (Egypt not Tennessee).

The letter was written in English, dated 22^nd February 2008. This makes me suspect that Sir Aubrey is in fact still alive and that he had returned to the house at least once to place this item in his safe. However while this is a development, I find the contents of this letter quite disconcerting and I have transcribed them below.

Dear Aubrey,

I am happy to confirm we have found the tomb of the Queen and preparations are underway to translate the inscriptions of the Great Chamber in time for the ceremony of resurrection. We will relocate to Memphis to prepare. Broadmoor and Gardiner are with us as per instructions, but I have released Van Heuvelen as the man is incompetent and unable to obey even simple orders. We await the turning of the stars! Yours in blood, Clive

When we check up on this later we discover that Doctor Clive’s expedition is being financed by the Penhew Institute and that Broadmoor, Gardner and Van Heuvelen are all listed as being on his staff. This clearly indicates to me that at least someone at the Penhew Institute knows more than they were telling with my main suspect being the office manager, June Telson, who had been so reluctant to hand over the keys.

During the clean up at Penhew Place we are to discover the identities of the hostiles we had neutralised. The woman casting the spell was Sir Aubrey’s housekeeper, a Mrs Kanika Fuad, while her husband, Fuad Ahmed, was Sir Aubrey’s gentleman’s gentleman. Two of the other three gunmen’s names we recognised from our tour of the Penhew Institute as they were Tom Grindle and Adam Marsh, who both serve on the security staff. The final gunman and the man who had shot Andy Price was Courtney Grant, the night watchman who was also on staff but had not been introduced to us. Incidentally it turned out that Adam Marsh survived and in this I am led to believe that this is very similar to other SAS actions were they had been involved in a counter terrorism role. They always attempt to leave one survivor for interrogation purposes.

The final hostile was a man named Tewfik Al-Fayyad (2^nd cousin to Mohammed Al-Fayyad, owner of Harrods), a man involved in shipping between Egypt and the United Kingdom and another of the reasons why Sir Aubrey was so successful in avoiding red tape when removing items from Egypt. We also discover that the spell he had used on Harry was named ‘Shrivelling’. It appeared Harry was fortunate in being in such good physical condition because it would very likely have killed anyone less fit. On the plus side Harry is recovering well.

The final piece of the puzzle was the body in the library who we later learn was a career petty burglar by the name of Wayne Blean who had been reported missing several months earlier when he had skipped a meeting with his parole officer. The assumption is that he had seen Penhew Place as unoccupied and hence a ripe plum for the picking. Obviously he had not planned for the Star Vampire and had paid the ultimate price. Mind you I must admit that I don’t recall ever seeing a sign saying ‘Beware of the Star Vampire’.

Once the clean up was over we made our way back to London to see what was in the suspicious room under the Penhew Institute. The key card we had was, as we had suspected, was the key to Sir Aubrey’s underground lair, which we found to consist of two rooms. The first was clearly Sir Aubrey’s sleeping and eating area for when he was supposedly working late. The full itinerary of this outer room was a camp bed and sleeping bag, a portable calor gas stove and various tinned foodstuffs, a locked cabinet containing an automatic pistol and bullets to match, £2,000 in used banknotes, two expired passports showing Sir Aubrey in various disguises (one showing him with a beard and the other with him sporting grey hair and glasses probably forgeries), a change of clothing and a variety of other rudimentary items such as matches candles etc.

However the second room was clearly a dedicated occult workroom as the walls were covered in murals and a wide array of Egyptian artefacts, icons, statues painting, mosaics and friezes all depicting Mythos deities and their servitors. With St John’s deteriorating mental health in mind we decided that it would be for the best if he did not come into the room as he was still suffering from his latest bout of madness. As I was the least interested in the contents of the room I was chosen to be the one to stay with him. Belinda seemed convinced that most of the items in this room where actually genuine Egyptian artefacts.

In the room the group found a locked glass cabinet filled with an array of books and scrolls. The key we had discovered in Sir Aubrey’s safe opened the cabinet and they noted that the volumes within were in wide array of languages: German, French, Russian Spanish and Latin. However two were in English. Some of the books were quickly analysed as simply abstruse works on Mythos theology covering items such as how many sacrifices can Cthulhu swallow in one gulp. However some were clearly genuine Mythos texts such as the G’Harne Fragments, The Book of the Dead and the Testament of Nephren- Ka and it was noted that some of these tomes may even have borne mystical spells but we would be unable to ascertain this unless we actually read them.

There were also sixteen scrolls in the cabinet, of which nine appeared to be poems written in praise of Nyarlothotep written in Arabic, Latin, Medieval French (now we are talking about painful) and Old English (if anything worse than the French). The remaining seven scrolls each bore the following spells.

Bind / Dismiss Servant of Set and Evoke Servant of Set.

Bind / Dismiss Steed of the Black Pharaoh and Evoke Steed of the Black Pharaoh.

Banish Aten.

All three of these written in Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

Another three spells had been transcribed in Arabic and these were…

Bind / Dismiss Ghost of the Desert and Evoke Ghost of the Desert.

Curse of the Power of Tahuti.

Evocation of the Visions of the Night.

And finally a further three had been written in German…

Command Spawn of the Nebelding.

Mist of the Nebelding.

Quicken Spawn of the Nebelding.

Of course we could not ascertain this at the scene but MI13 were quickly able to provide us with translated transcripts.

We also found a small ornate chest, which was fashioned of carved sandalwood inlaid with silver depicting strange figures, which we were later informed were depictions of Ghosts of the Desert. Upon opening the box we found it contained two rather ornate silver daggers with wavy blades, which just screamed to me, ‘sacrificial daggers’.

On a shelf above were we found the chest was a collection of occult ingredients including dried bat wings, pickled toad eyes, powdered blood, strips of skin and hides from creatures both known and unknown plus various other items (either Sir Aubrey was trying out for a witch role in Macbeth or he had been a cultist only posing as a well renowned archaeologist).

We also found a small stoppered stone jar bearing an unidentified grey powder, three two inch long sealed metal vials bearing Elder signs and a bronze whistle of similar manufacture to the Byakhee whistle stored at MI13.

Everything in the room was immediately impounded by MI13 under the auspice of national security and thus was not made available to either the Police or the Crown Prosecution Service.

The remaining staff of the Penhew Institute all were initially taken into custody under the auspice of the anti-terrorism act, which allowed us to keep them in custody for up to seventy-two hours without charge. There they were all intensively interrogated and finally under intense questioning Alan Marsh and Ted Waite cracked under the pressure implicating Jane Telson (as I had suspected) and Mahmoud (Mark) Al-Naami. As of yet they have been unable to break Ms Telson’s resolve. As to Mr Al-Nami however he was somehow able to take his own life while confined in his cell, taking whatever he knew to the grave.

It also came out that the security guards implicated another woman named Shani Sharif who it appears was the night cleaner. Working nights as she did she had missed the initial sweep and spooked by this had disappeared from her residence before the police arrived on the scene.

The director of the Institute, Mr Gavigan, and the remainder of his staff were released without charge but it must be noted they were all placed on the MI5 watch lists, which meant that GCHQ and MI5 would be prying into their lives for many years to come.

As to the final fate of Ms Telson and Mssrs Marsh and Waite, they were charged with terrorism and conspiracy plus a number of other crimes. It was likely that in the interests of national security they would be tried in closed chambers and then buried away in a very deep hole never to the see the light of day again.

The official line was the old coconut that the incident at Penhew Place was a carefully co-ordinated operation involving elements of the Metropolitan Police, Army and Security Services against a terrorist cell operating out of both Walton on the Naze and London. Certain staff operating from the premises of the Penhew Institute were implicated in the bombing plot. But the Institute as a whole was cleared of any wrongdoing and was able to open its doors again in time for the August Bank Holiday. The Egyptian government were also endeavouring to trace any links to the case involving terrorist groups operating within their borders.

As to other evidence involving this case, my check on Grey Dragon Industries revealed them to be a reputable company based in Shanghai and were not implicated in any way with the acquisition of nuclear materials. Also, as suspected, the end user certificate turned out to be a fake, especially once the intelligence community confirm that the Ukrainians do not have access to any weapons grade uranium, let alone any to sell. My search into the ownership of the three yachts was less successful and is still ongoing.