609: Meridian

Synopsis

As evening falls, the investigators' cabs drop them on a quiet street of narrow shotgun houses outside the home of Detective Mark Russo. Its peeling green front looks unremarkable apart from a police crime-scene placard on the door, and the unsettling ordinariness reminds them of Corbitt's house back on their old cul-de-sac. Nobody seems to be watching, and the jazz drifting down the street turns out to be an ordinary radio. With the front door and windows locked, they go round to the back. Tallahassee keeps watch out front while Devin Black, with Dr. Shrimp Puerto Rico on his shoulders holding the tension tool and a flashlight, picks the lock.

The kitchen, storage room, bathroom and bedroom look undisturbed at first, but the smell of old blood leads them to the front parlor. A desk chair stands against the wall, soaked in blood, and above it a large Amducius sigil is painted in blood on the plaster. They switch on the radio and tune it to jazz. Rope fibers and wear on the chair's arms show that Russo was tied up, which suggests he was questioned or tortured before he died. Jameson notices that this sigil, unlike the earlier ones, is a sloppy and incomplete copy, with circles and lines missing. In the desk, among letters addressed to Russo, is a roughly handled local atlas with spots of blood on it. One page has been torn out: the section showing the bayous and swamps south of the city.

In the storage room, a box of Russo's case files dated 1900 to 1910 has been disturbed, and the 1907 file is missing. The group connects this to the Brotherhood of Orion's "Event of 1907," a sealed joint action by government and church against heretical activity in the southern marshes, after which the Brotherhood withdrew into the deep bayous. Slipped down among the folders is an evidence photograph of a seated, winged, tentacle-bearded idol, labeled case 2586, evidence 1311, dated October 31, 1907. They wonder whether the luminous vault lies in the southern bayous, and whether Big Benny Benoit, a man from those bayous, might be killing to protect the bloodline from Corbitt. They also note that Russo was killed in mid-December and that Corbitt was seen among onlookers outside the house about a week later, on the 22nd. The bedroom also appears to have been searched before them.

At dusk, in fog and light rain, they reach the Meridian House on Church Street, a tall, narrow former mansion in the shadow of St. Patrick's Church. Its windows are boarded, a small observatory dome on the roof has its shutters stuck partly open, the doors are chained shut under another police placard, and a brass plaque reads "The Meridian House, Astral Society of St. Lazarus, established 1832." After a failed attempt that risks breaking the padlock, Devin gets it open. Inside, transients have camped in the common area, and the framed charts are smashed on the floor. A grand staircase leads up to a balcony that wraps around the second floor.

Major Bakersfield and Shrimp go left, into a long, wrecked hall painted with stars and constellations. Its furniture has been smashed, iron hooks hang bent in the ceiling beams, and a broken stone altar stands at the far end. With Shrimp on his shoulders guiding him, the one-eyed Major makes a hard success and turns over a marble chunk of the altar inscribed with a registry of the faithful of the Brotherhood of Orion, dated 1918: "The seven stand beneath the Hunter's Eye, each a flame upon the gate. When their stars fall, the key shall turn." Eight names follow, headed by Professor Nathaniel Vane Orialis and including Dr. Auguste Duret, Madame Eloise Duret, Louis Ravel, Charles Delacroix and Adeline Fontaine. These are the names of nearly every one of the Axe Man's victims.

Jameson, Tallahassee and Devin go right, past a ransacked, mold-ridden library, a horrifically overflowing bathroom and an office that has been carefully stripped, to a ladder and trapdoor into the observatory. Under the dome they find a magnificent brass telescope smashed and bent, an old bloodstain at its base, and the worn remains of an enormous Amducius symbol covering the whole floor. Tallahassee unscrews the cap of an intact second finder scope. Inside are three rolled papers, which he tosses aside so he can look at the sky.

The first is a letter from Orialis to "Charles" and "Teresa," dated September 14, 1918, the day he died. In it he writes:

The Axe Man is no mere lunatic but an unfortunate swamp mystic possessed by an avatar of Amduceus from the Lesser Key of Solomon.
Its nexus is the Brotherhood's own luminous vault, which the Brotherhood had taken from earlier occupants. Removing those occupants' idol and sealing the "great drowned one" freed the lesser Amduceus.
Amduceus is hunting the Brotherhood in their beds.
He also regrets sending Marcel on an expedition abroad in search of the Brotherhood's "holy grail."
He names Charles his successor.
He considers a distasteful alternative: the idol the police seized when the drowned chapel was closed could be used to suppress Amduceus again.

The letter breaks off as he hears a sound. The other two papers are rituals: the Rite of the Turned Key, a standard Brotherhood sealing ritual, and the far darker Dreamer Ritual, or Call to Cthulhu, which dedicates a place of worship to a being named Cthulhu and requires an idol in his likeness.

As the others talk, Jameson steps away across the rotting floor and hears faint, discordant music carried on the wind, and what might be the creak of a door somewhere in the house.

Funny Moments

Asked if the box of case files is labeled "The Arkham Files," the Keeper deadpans that it is.
Shrimp's contribution to the lockpicking is sitting on Devin's shoulders, covering his ears and holding a flashlight.
"Is there any cheesy hot dogs here?" There are not.
Tallahassee throws the hidden papers aside to look through the telescope: "You see the sky. It's beautiful."
Tallahassee gets pushed into the overflowing bathroom.

Notable Quotes

"The seven stand beneath the Hunter's Eye, each a flame upon the gate. When their stars fall, the key shall turn." —the Brotherhood of Orion registry
"This Axe Man is no mere lunatic. He is possessed, ridden by something older and far more dangerous." —Nathaniel Vane Orialis
"I don't think that the Axe Man would have taken time to tie up the detective." —Devin Black