Unholy Dimensions by Jeffrey Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

does it take? I just walked out of that fucking wall, there!”
    “Shit!” Bell hissed, whipping his head around as if someone had whispered in his ear, reminding him of something. Something about walking into walls. Webs that could bend the walls between dimensions. “The kid...”
    “What about him?”
    Bell unfolded the boy’s drawing he had taken from him. Lines and angles in silver ink like the symbol of silver ink tattooed on his chest. He passed it to Kaddish. “The boy was drawing things like that in the holding room. Formulas. Like the one you used...”
    Kaddish’s eyes leapt up from the paper. “If I escaped that way, he can, too!”
    Bell brought his communication device back up to his face, beeped his precinct house. He didn’t want to have to talk to Bellioc again, however. Bellioc might change his mind, order him back right now. “Put Graf on!” he snapped at the dispatcher. Several moments later, the Choom was there. “Graf -- you have to do me a favor, man. Don’t ask why. Go in and take that marker away from the kid from the cult. Make sure he has nothing at all to draw with, understand?”
    “Sure. But...”
    “Is he being guarded, now?”
    “Yes. The chief said you called, and...”
    “Tell them to watch him! He might even try to draw in his shit or his blood. Watch him! Keep him at the table. Don’t let him near the corners of the room!”
    “The corners? John, look...”
    “Do it!” And Bell cut him off, lowered the device.
    “He has to be drugged, John. Or put suspended animation. I’m telling you. He was born and raised to be an extension of Yog-Sothoth. And of all the gates of the Old Ones, Yog-Sothoth is the biggest. The rest are just cracks. Yog-Sothoth is the fucking dam, Johnny, and this kid’s finger is all that’s holding back the flood. Understand? Yog-Sothoth is the gate and the guardian of the gate and the key to the gate, all in one.”
    “I’ve got to get back there. I have to fill the chief in now. And you’re coming with me, Josh, I’m sorry. I can’t let you go off killing more people. There has to be another way to handle this. You can tell my chief your story, and the Headquarters agents when they get there.”
    Bell fully expected Kaddish to put up an argument, given the strength of his obsession. He was surprised, then, when Kaddish dropped his eyes and slowly nodded in agreement. “All right,” he said quietly, “I’ll go back there with you.”
     
    Outside Precinct House 15, lions cast in a pale blue resin flanked the front steps. These terrestrial creatures, no matter how fearsome in aspect, were a weak and ridiculous symbol of protection in the face of the threats Bell had learned of.
    Bell was handing over to another officer the two pistols Kaddish had acquired for Kate Redgrove when Chief Bellioc, having heard that Bell had brought his quarry in, came hurriedly into the room. The private detective looked calmly up at the police chief and gave him a pleasant nod.
    “So, it’s the magician who performed that disappearing act in his cell,” Bellioc grumbled.
    “You must be Chief Bellyache.”
    “Don’t fuck with me, you sleazy little piece of dung. I should put you in a nice safe stasis field right now. Tell me what’s happening here. What kind of threat is this to the city?”
    “The city?” Kaddish snorted a bitter laugh. On the ride here, Bell had filled him in on the loss of contact with Earth, its moon, the Mars colonies and now, according to the news they had listened to on the Edsel’s radio, outposts on the moons of Jupiter. When asked what he thought the spreading cloud might be, Kaddish had only said under his breath, in a tone of awful reverence, “Azathoth.”
    “Sir, the whole Coalition...the whole universe...is under threat,” Bell told him. “There are cults still here in Punktown, cults on Earth, that are working to make this happen.”
    “John, do you expect me to believe in Satan worshipers calling up