I do not own anything relating to the Teen Titans.
Opening the Closet Door a Crack – Chapter 12
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Leaving the town square, the five adventurers made their way slowly down New Church Green. They walked slowly, carefully. Even those titans who normally flew, Starfire and Raven, stayed on the ground. There was something about the atmosphere of the town that encouraged them to stay close. For the four humans, or part humans, it was the instinctive reaction of humans to huddle together in the face of the unknown. Even though these heroes had faced many dangers, both together and alone, there was something about this town that triggered the instinctive herding mechanism.
As for Starfire, she stayed with her friends, duty, loyalty and honor, the hallmarks of a warrior race demanded it. Even conflicted between them and her greater duty to the universe, until her conflict was resolved, she would stay by the side of her friends.
And so they walked. Innsmouth was an old town, an old New England town. The streets were narrow, winding. It was not encouraging to see building after building either boarded up or fallen down, or some combination of the two.
Periodically, Beast Boy would pause and stare at a house, alerted by his animal senses of something alien hidden within. The others would stop as well and watch the drama being played out on the green teen's face. A snarl would appear and he would crouch slightly, as if he were getting ready to attack. Then, he would master these instincts and a stony look would come across his face and he would resume their exploration.
No one suggested they enter any of these buildings that Beast Boy paused in front of.
In fact, no one said anything much. There was no normal banter, no bickering. Something about this mysterious town, this derelict, oppressive font of alien unnaturalness hindered speech. Even Raven, not normally prone to speech regardless, found the atmosphere unnerving, despite her half-demon blood. There was something here older, more malignant than the demons she was kin with.
And so they walked.
As could be deduced from the name of the street, as was typical of many northeastern towns, there were a number of churches located on the boulevard. Actually, there were a number of abandoned churches, the Methodist church, the Episcopalian church, the Congregational church, the Lutheran church, all fallen into disrepair and abandonment. As they continued down the road, they passed other streets, typical of the region, Washington Street, Adams Street, Paine Street. Even though it was the mid-afternoon, these side streets were dark with no evident signs of life.
Before them, on the left side of the road, loomed a large building. It was not a church, per se. But it did have an institutional look. There were stone pillars in the front of it, a rather large entrance and an ornate façade facing the street. It had been kept in better care than the surrounding structures.
On the top of the pillars was a large granite roof, on it a variety of signs and words, symbols of the Masonic lodge that was once housed here. Over the door, however was another sign, in wood, faded but still legible, "The Esoteric Order of Dagon".
The five titans stared at the building for a moment, then Robin said," Guess Moe was right. Let's go in and look around."
Walking up the steps to the front doors, Robin reached for the doorknob and opened the door. Expecting a creaking sound, he was surprised to hear the door swing open smoothly and silently. Obviously, this edifice was maintained and appeared to be regularly used. The front vestibule was empty, just four walls, no decorations, no tables, no chairs. There were no bulletin boards with notices of upcoming events, nothing. Just four bare walls. The room was small, simply an entranceway to the larger room beyond. The titans looked at one another. Onward.
The next door was sealed tightly. There was stripping around the edges to create, if not an air tight seal, at least as close to one as was practical. It was unlocked also. As Robin silently opened this door, Beast Boy winced and closed his eyes from the smell that wafted from the chamber within. The others looked silently at him, questioning. He nodded; he would be able to enter, but it would take a considerable amount of self-control not to start growling. This was no time for his animal senses to override his human ones.
Entering the room, the first thing noticeable was it was extremely dim. There were no windows to the outside, no electric lights. The room was lit by a series of candles at strategic places along the wall. The walls themselves were dark, painted in swirling shades of green and blue. Not bright shades, but somber, dark shades. The floor had been painted black. The ceiling was the same swirling blue and green, almost resembling waves. Interspersed along both side walls were a number of black drapes, presumably to hide closets and doors.
From what could be seen, the room itself was quite large, the dimness and the wall shading masked its true size. There was no furniture in the room, again, no chairs, no benches, nothing.
Well, not precisely, near the back wall was what looked like a stone alter. Moving silently towards the back of the room, the alter came into better view.
It wasn't exactly an alter, it looked more like a granite sarcophagus, a large one. Roughly five by twelve, and three feet in height, it looked old. There were stains on it that had seeped into the stone. Whether it was water or some other, unnamed, liquid, was unknown. On the wall in back of it was the same swirling blue-green design. However, attached to the walls were a number of objects, knives, machetes and axes. All of which were in pristine condition. This was not the most disturbing aspect of the room.
Placed on the center of the dais was a small statue, approximately seven to eight inches in height. It was obvious that it had been given the place of honor. The work was unlike anything that the teens had seen before. It wasn't Greek or Roman based. It had no connection with Oriental or Asian designs. If anything, it might have bore some faint similarity to certain Polynesian or Haitian cult art, but that might have been stretching the point.
It was old, very old. The stone itself could barely be identified; it was a soapy greenish-black stone with iridescent flecks throughout, as if it had slept under the briny sea for eons. The figure was more of a representation, as if the sculptor was trying to put into stone something out of a dream, or a nightmare. It was an anthropoid creature, misshapen, with various tentacles protruding from its sides. On the end of the tentacles, which seemed to represent arms and legs, were prodigious claws. The cephalopod head was bulbous, there was no representation of eyes or ears that could be seen, either the artist did not put them in or they had worn away over the millennia. Smaller tentacles came from its face, surrounding the lower portion of its head, around its mouth. On its back were long narrow wings.
It was hideous, a corpulent malignancy dripped from every aspect of the foul thing. The longer one looked at it, the more a visceral disgust at this primordial monster from the primal ooze of the universe began to take hold of the psyche. After a moment or two, Cyborg could barely look at it and, closing his human eye, turned his head away. Beast Boy began an almost uncontrollable snarling. Raven, while uncomfortable, was able to continue examining it. Starfire was completely unaffected. Robin reached out a hand to examine the figurine further.
From behind them, sounds were heard. They were not footstep as it were, more, flapping, sloshing sounds. If you will, the nearest representation of sound would be a wet towel slapping against the floor. The titans spun around.
The gloom of the chamber tricked the eye, but it seemed as if from out of the depths of the room came a number of figures. Some were fully cloaked with hoods covering their heads, some were robed leaving their head uncovered. There were roughly twenty or so, with about one third leaving their heads unveiled. The….people….who showed their visages could hardly qualify by the name. Similar to the innkeeper, but more so, these individuals had large, bulbous heads with protruding eyes that never seemed to blink. A lack of hair and distinguishing facial features characterized their countenance.
However, it was the hooded figures who raised the most, disturbing, feelings among the teens. While nothing could be seen regarding these people, their shuffling, lurching gait affected the humans in the party as distinctly unnatural. It was from these entities that the 'twacking' sounds were made as the hooded entities approached.
Leading the group was one, hunched, lurching figure. Whereas all of the others wore greenish or bluish robes, this one's was pure black. Against the background of the swirling green-blue walls, the figures blended in and out, so that the natural camouflage of their robes made them seem almost ethereal. The one robed in black was the obvious leader. Unlike the other, unadorned figure, he wore on his head a tiara. The tiara shown with an unearthly splendor. Tall in front, it seemed to be made of gold, although a weird, lighter lustrousness implied that there was some unknown alloy intermingled with the gold. Misshapen, like all else in this unholy town, the tiara did not fit easily on the figure's head, yet, it seemed as if it were close to molding itself to the head.
Although the leader said not a word, there was a looming impression of displeasure, that the titans had trespassed into areas that were not meant for their eyes. No eyes could be seen in the darkness under the hood, yet, the titans knew they were being closely examined. None of them moved.
Finally, after long moments, the leader lifted up his arm. The length of the robe was such that it hid his arm and his hand. He pointed back to the door, indicating that the titans were to leave. The others made no move towards them, no attack was made, just a motion that the heroes should leave.
"Robin," whispered Starfire, "what should we do?"
"We have no choice. We're trespassing. They've obviously asked us to leave. They haven't attacked us, they've made no threatening moves. We're completely in the wrong here if we do anything but leave." With that, Robin made his way through the crowd towards the back door. The other titans followed, some reluctantly (Starfire and Beast Boy), others gladly (Cyborg and Raven). The members of the Esoteric Order of Dagon did not follow, but watched their departure from where they stood. As they approached the door back to the antechamber, Robin slowed, turning slightly to Beast Boy, he whispered,
"Beast Boy, follow the guy in the helm. He's obviously the leader and may give us some idea of where Carter is."
Beast Boy looked at Robin and hesitated. Raven looked at the green teen with concern. Remembering their conversation outside the Gilman House, Raven was about to object when Beast Boy shook his head slightly to her.
"What are you waiting for? Get going!" Robin whispered in a more emphatic tone.
"Don't tell me my job, Boy Blunder. You have no idea of what's going on." The changeling paused at the door for a moment. He considered for a moment and looked at Raven.
Somewhere, three hags sat. One observed the other two carefully. The other two were examining a thread. One had a spinning wheel, the other a measure. They carefully looked at the thread currently being worked on. While it was comparatively short, it showed a great deal of work, much change, redirection. It's interaction with numerous other threads was legion. Currently, it was mingled with four other threads, some heavily, some less. The spinner sat back, pondering.
After a moment, a crooked smile appeared on her face. Giving a chuckle, she adjusted the thread once again and resumed her spinning. The other two saw its direction and began to laugh as well.
At the door, since the other four titans blocked him from the view of the hooded figures, Beast Boy changed into a small greenish snake and slithered off into the gloom.
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Quite a bit shorter than my normal chapters, but I'm really tired this week. I've seldom been able to do more than cursory reading and, maybe, a few minutes of writing. My apologies for any disappointment in this chapter. I wanted to get SOMETHING out for you guys and I thought this would be a good stopping point.
My thanks to those of you faithful readers who have stayed with me during this delayed posting. Hopefully, I've given you a flavor of the prose that underscores Lovecraft. I've mimicked as much as I can reasonably get away with on this one. The description of the statue comes largely from "The Call of Cthulhu" (By the way, I CANNOT BELIEVE I misspelled Cthulhu TWICE in the last chapter. I must really be worn out." The tiara comes from "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".
Not much humor here. Nor will there be for a couple of chapters, we're getting to the heart of the second arc of the story. If I could do a Vincent Price laugh right now, I would.
Meanwhile, as always, my thanks to my very faithful reviewers.
TheForceIsStrongWithThisOne – Yes, that's probably for the best. If anything, I would not worry about speeding tickets either.
Downward Spiril1 – Glad you are enjoying it. Sorry to say (ok, not really), but the darkness will get thicker and deeper over the next few chapters as we explore the background of this…unpleasant…town.
KenzieCat – Welcome to the story. Glad you are enjoying it. As I said in my first story/profile, I will never stop a story in the middle. All of my stories are plotted out and will be completed. I may slow down from time to time due to extracurricular activities (ie, my job and family). Right now, I'm in my busy season, which should last through the end of the month. Updating will be sporadic until then. But I'll try.
Novus Ordo Seclorum – First, before I get to your comments. HOORAY! You made the update to Collateral Damage. For anyone not following this amazing story (which I can NOT believe anyone would read one of mine, but not his), it is fantastic and now complete.
Novus – Part 2 – Again, as always, my thanks for your kind words. Glad you picked up on the essay on silence. There is a reason why silence appears oppressive. Problem is, we don't pay attention. Meanwhile, running from Innsmouth sounds like a good idea. As you can see from the atmosphere in the Order, this is not a place to have a picnic.
My thanks, again, for your patience while I vainly attempt to stay awake long enough to write a chapter or two. Again, my apologies for such a short chapter. Unfortunately, for the next two weeks, I can't promise anything better.
Until next time my friends, sleep well.