The Mask of Romek - Chapter One

Chapter One: Room Service
March 21st 2009. 0200hrs
Room 230, Hotel Atlantica near Boston, Mass.

I nudged the motel room door open a little.
“Marcus?” No reply. Shit was I too late.
“Doc?” Doctor Marcus Lockhart was an old friend, a fellow survivor of the expedition to Peru back in 1924.
Using the barrel of my revolver I eased the door fully ajar, letting what little light the hallway offered spill into the room.
The room was a mess. It looked like someone had been sitting reading when they had an unexpected guest. The ensuing melee making casualties of the writing desk, the bedside lamp and finally the unfortunate figure lying near headless in the middle of the floor.
However that figure was not my friend. Good. My gaze followed the trail of destruction to a middle aged man curled in the fetal position in the far corner.
“Marcus, it’s me... Are we good?”
He mumbled what I took to be a yes and I entered. I hit the light switch and quickly regretted it. The fluorescent light seemed to highlight the redness I was surveying. Gun trained on the dismembered corpse I kicked it over.
It had been a young woman in life, probably pretty, about twenty wearing a red baseball cap. The hand axe in its neck marred it’s looks somewhat. Judging by it’s pallor it had been dead about a week. I tucked away my pistol and pulled the axe free, tossing it towards Marcus.
“An axe Doc? Jesus, buy a gun. These damn things are too messy.” Marcus climbed back to his feet gripping the axe like a favorite pet as he did so.
“It's a tomahawk John. Besides I can’t shoot straight anyway,” he said in a disapproving tone. I had always offered to custom up a shotgun for him but he was a man of principles. Which is a nice way of saying he was a stubborn bastard.
He began cleaning brain matter from the blade like an artist cleaning a brush. The Doc never traveled without a weapon of some kind, I guess he always found the axe, sorry tomahawk, kind of comforting. His current one looked very modern with a blackened steel blade and carbon fibre grip. I caught a glimpse of runes and fetishes which I knew were more than just decoration. He cast a critical eyes over the top of his glasses, apparently satisfied it was clean he placed it in his luggage.
“How did it get in?” I asked. I noticed he had the usual charms in place, sigils above the door etc.
“I was hungry, I wanted pizza,” he explained. My eyes finally picked out the blood soaked remains of a “Santini's” pizza box amongst the debris.
“Pack your stuff,” I told him,” I reckon we've got five minutes before the local LEO's get here. Besides, I came to take you back to the Miskatonic. We have a situation.”
Marcus stopped packing and threw me a look, eyebrows raised.
“What exactly?”
“I'll tell you in the car. C'mon, grab your gear while I sort this mess.”
Five minutes later we were heading north in my car, the flames of the motel a receding glow in my rear view mirror. I didn't like torching the place, but it’s easier than hanging around waiting for the cops to arrive and explaining to those cops why a retired federal agent and a history professor from Arkham were in a motel room with a dead female. In fact a badly mutilated dead female which if they checked the CCTV as any good cop would, could be clearly seen strangling a pizza guy in the parking lot and striding stiff-legged up to room 230 wearing his bright red cap and carrying the professor's 21 inch deep pan pepperoni. Then try and smooth over why Marcus had to butcher said female with a tomahawk he keeps for the kind of brush with the undead that is sort of an occupational hazard for him. Then try and convince these already skeptical cops that the poor woman was already dead so no harm done really.
If you have ever tried to talk your way out of a speeding ticket, you will understand why a can of gas and some matches was the easy way out.
As I drove I told Marcus why I had driven from Washington to Boston in the middle of the night to bring him home to the Miskatonic University in Arkham, interrupting his visit to Boston.
“Marcus, I got a call from Swaggart at Arkham PD,” I paused to make sure I had his attention.
“There’s been a theft and a murder at the Miskatonic,” there was no point sugar coating it.
“That’s awful, who was it? What…What happened?” he looked paler than usual.
I could tell he was still unsettled by his unwanted visitor, but we would get to that later.
“I'll tell you what I know so far,” I paused, straightening out the events in my mind.
“Campus Security responded to a report of a female screaming in the new museum block. More specifically the Mesoamerican display you're putting together.”
“Yes, I've spent the last five years on the collection in the new Upton Hall Museum. The last pieces were shipped yesterday from Madrid. I was looking forward to examining them first hand after I got back from Boston.”
He opened his briefcase, and pulling out a cracked piece of carved rock, ran his hands over it reverently.
“I was hoping the boys at Boston could help authenticate this piece I acquired last month, I think it’s...”
“Anyway,” I cut him off before he went all Discovery Channel on me.
“When security got to the museum, the place had been trashed and a young postgrad name of Sarah Gerber was dead on the floor.”
“Oh God, she was Beman's assistant,” he exclaimed.
Professor Archibald Beman was a typical academic. Balding, middle-aged pear shaped man in his mid fifties. I think I met him once when Marcus returned to the Miskatonic in the early 90's.
“Beman's missing Doc, along with some of the exhibits.”
“Oh dear,” my friend’s expression was one of concern.
“Not finished. The mask is gone.”
Now Marcus looked very concerned.
“When did this happen John?”
“Four hours ago,” I said , glancing at my watch.
“Drive faster,” he told me. Marcus looked over his shoulder at the distant redness that was his motel room.
“Who was that poor girl I butchered?”
“Spoke to Swaggart, said he was having one of those nights. Said someone stole a body from the morgue. Reckon you found it.” It was really the other way round.
Swaggart knew me from my days with the Bureau. Bill Swaggart was an old school detective that I had dealings with a few years back. At first he tried to ditch me from his inquiry into a series of ritual killings, however he warmed to me after I dragged a succubus off him by the hair and emptied six glaser rounds infused with holy water into it. That Thanksgiving he sent me six silver bullets as a gag.
Came in handy by Christmas. But that’s another story.