Arkham Horror

  It is the height of the Roaring Twenties – a fresh enthusiasm for the arts, science, and exploration of the past have opened doors to a wider world, and beyond…

  And yet, a dark shadow grows over the town of Arkham. Alien entities known as Ancient Ones lurk in the emptiness beyond space and time, writhing at the thresholds between worlds.

  Occult rituals must be stopped and alien creatures destroyed before the Ancient Ones make our world their ruined dominion.

  Only a handful of brave souls with inquisitive minds and the will to act stand against the horrors threatening to tear this world apart.

  Will they prevail?

  Also available in Arkham Horror

  The Adventures of Alessandra Zorzi

  Wrath of N’kai by Josh Reynolds

  Shadows of Pnath by Josh Reynolds

  Song of Carcosa by Josh Reynolds

  The Fiztmaurice Legacy

  Mask of Silver by Rosemary Jones

  The Deadly Grimoire by Rosemary Jones

  The Bootlegger's Dance by Rosemary Jones

  In the Coils of the Labyrinth by David Annandale

  Litany of Dreams by Ari Marmell

  The Ravening Deep by Tim Pratt

  The Last Ritual by S A Sidor

  Cult of the Spider Queen by S A Sidor

  Lair of the Crystal Fang by S A Sidor

  The Devourer Below edited by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells

  Secrets in Scarlet edited by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells

  Dark Origins: The Collected Novellas Vol 1

  Grim Investigations: The Collected Novellas Vol 2

  Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebooks

  The Darkness Over Arkham by Jonathan Green

  Welcome to Arkham: An Illustrated Guide for Visitors

  Arkham Horror: The Poster Book

  First published by Aconyte Books in 2024

  ISBN 978 1 83908 297 9

  Ebook ISBN 978 1 83908 298 6

  Copyright © 2024 Fantasy Flight Games

  All rights reserved. The Aconyte name and logo and the Asmodee Entertainment name and logo are registered or unregistered trademarks of Asmodee Entertainment Limited. Arkham Horror and the FFG logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fantasy Flight Games.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover art by John Coulthart

  Distributed in North America by Simon & Schuster Inc, New York, USA

  ACONYTE BOOKS

  An imprint of Asmodee Entertainment Ltd

  Mercury House, Shipstones Business Centre

  North Gate, Nottingham NG7 7FN, UK

  aconytebooks.com // twitter.com/aconytebooks

  This one is for my foes, adversaries, opponents, and rivals, never say I didn’t give you anything.

  Chapter One

  The Web

  Carl Sanford’s ruin came to Arkham in a dapper Italian suit, with a knowing smile, and no fixed address.

  The interloper named Randall Tillinghast had been walking up and down in the city for over a week before Sanford even detected his presence. That was an appalling failure of Sanford’s intelligence network, like a spider hearing secondhand about the presence of a new fly in his web. There should have been warnings. There should have been vibrations. Instead, the man had nearly ten days to lay his traps and set his snares without interference before word finally reached Sanford about the “humble antiquarian and enthusiast of the esoteric” who’d set up shop somewhere south of the river, peddling his wares, which supposedly included objects of real power.

  Either this Tillinghast was a fraud dealing in worthless trinkets, in which case, Sanford would chase him out of the city, or he was a genuine occultist with access to worthwhile relics, whereupon Sanford would acquire everything he possessed of value and then see what further use could be made of him.

  Arkham was Sanford’s city. You couldn’t just move in here and join the game without asking permission and paying tribute. Someone had tried to usurp Sanford’s place as the preeminent master of the magical arts in Arkham last year, and that person had ended up blasted with a shotgun, blown up with dynamite, buried in rocks, and drowned in the icy Atlantic.

  “You’re quieter than your brother was, Brother Altman,” Sanford said from the back seat of the Bentley, where he gazed out the window at the slow river bleeding silver beneath the bridge.

  His driver, bodyguard, and – increasingly – confidant was the slightly younger sibling of one of Sanford’s former lieutenants. The first Altman had died in a hotel room, murdered by cultists… and a bit later, the twisted doppelganger those cultists had created to take Altman’s place had died in a temple devoted to their dead deity beneath the sea.

  The new Altman was broadly similar to his brother in terms of expertise, experience, and discretion, but he lacked the original’s sardonic sense of humor. He did still possess both his ears, while his predecessor had lost one in some overseas unpleasantness, which Sanford supposed was a sort of cosmic balance.

  “Our mother used to say Reggie wouldn’t say boo to a goose,” Altman replied, “but that I wouldn’t say shit if I had a mouthful.”

  “How charming.” Sanford sniffed. The new Altman had come to Arkham last year from a sojourn in Africa, where he’d been doing unspeakable things for some colonial government or another, to attend the funerals of his brother and his niece, who’d also been lost in the unpleasantness last year, when the Lodge was assaulted. Altman the younger had agreed to stay on as Sanford’s new personal assistant for a hefty salary and the opportunity to vent some of his rage on the Lodge’s enemies. “If you’re going to be my batsman and bodyguard and amanuensis, I’ll need you to indulge in the occasional conversation. I do some of my best thinking aloud, and without a partner in dialogue, it would just be… ranting.”

  “Am I all those things, then? All right. I’ll try to hold my end up.” Altman guided the Bentley slowly into the narrow streets of Rivertown. “No actual address, eh?”

  “Frustratingly, no,” Sanford said. “Each of my two informants gave me a different location, which means one of them was confused. Both placed this new shop near the graveyard, though. It’s called Tillinghast Esoterica and Exotics. How gauche. You might see my name on a building at the university someday, but I’d hardly emblazon it above a mercantile concern.”

  They drove up and down the streets of the Rivertown district but saw no sign of a new shop. “It has a green door, apparently, with a sort of eye painted on the window,” Sanford said, though Altman knew that already. “A cheap ploy to appear mystical and draw in the credulous, no doubt.” They traversed the densely packed blocks of the Merchant District and passed the former site of Huntress Fashions, a “For Let” sign in the dusty window, and Sanford felt a twinge in his guts he chose not to investigate. A Lodge member named Diana Stanley had operated that shop for a time, but she’d left town after betraying Sanford’s trust… and then saving his life. That last part probably made them even, or maybe put Sanford very slightly in her debt. Better for all involved that she’d left town with her beau. Sanford had resisted the urge to deploy agents to track her down. Let her do as she would, as long as she wasn’t doing it in his territory.

  Sanford drew much of his strength from the past, of course, but he preferred to look forward to the future whenever possible.

  “Dash it, just go to the general store,” Sanford commanded, and Altman obeyed without complaint. They parked near the ramshackle structure, a neighborhood institution despite its decrepit aspect, and Sanford said, “You may as well wait here. No reason to scare the plebeians.” Altman chuckled, where he normally would have stayed silent. Sanford appreciated the man’s efforts.

  The magus of Arkham slid out of the car and walked up the warped board steps, nodding to a couple of old-timers who sat in rockers on the drooping front porch. They nodded back, eyeing him with open suspicion. They might recognize him – Sanford was well known in town, of course, and those of his social class weren’t very welcome here – or they might simply be reacting to the presence of a man who was wearing a suit instead of stained dungarees or overalls.

  He pushed through the door, a bell clanging discordantly overhead to herald his arrival. The musty general store was crowded with wooden shelves holding everything from tinned foodstuffs to used hand tools, arranged in no discernible order. A sullen, bearded man slouched on a stool behind the wooden counter, seated next to an immense jar of pickled eggs suspended in a suspicious greenish fluid. They reminded Sanford of the peculiar biological specimens preserved in the laboratories deep beneath the Silver Twilight Lodge house.

  The shopkeeper – Sanford could never remember the man’s name – looked right through Sanford, as if he were a pane of window glass with nothing much

of interest on the other side.

  Sanford wished he’d brought his walking stick. Smashing that jar of eggs would get a reaction, wouldn’t it? Instead, he smiled, strolled to the counter, and rapped his knuckles on the wood briskly. “Hello, my good man. I wonder if you might be able to assist me.”

  The shopkeeper grunted. “First time for everything.”

  “I’m looking for a shop that I understand has recently opened in the area.”

  Now the man barked a laugh, showing off yellowed teeth. “Now why would I send a customer off to one of my competitors?”

  Sanford looked around at the dusty bags of flour, the chipped glass jars, and rust-edged shovels, and sniffed. “I don’t think your business and his have much overlap in terms of inventory. It’s called Tillinghast Esoterica and Exotics–”

  When Sanford spoke those words, it was as if the shopkeeper had downed a revitalizing tonic. He stood straighter, his eyes brightened, and his smile went from sly and knowing to wide and genuine. “Mr Tillinghast! Why, of course. He’s a true gentleman! You can look at him and tell he’s a man of quality, but he doesn’t go around putting on airs like some people do. He even brought me a little gift, did you know that, like he was welcoming me to the neighborhood when it should have been the other way around.”

  “How very hospitable of him,” Sanford said. “Now, where exactly–”

  “I’ll show you!” The shopkeeper bent down and reached beneath the counter, drawing out…

  A snow globe. A perfectly unremarkable example of the form, as far as Sanford could tell. The shopkeeper shook it vigorously, filling the glass sphere atop the rounded stone pedestal with a flurry of white flecks. The artificial snowflakes were usually made of wax, or meerschaum, Sanford understood, but as he leaned obligingly forward and peered at this one, he wondered. This looked very much like actual snow. Even after the shopkeeper put the globe down on the counter, the snowstorm inside didn’t abate, the fragments not settling as gravity should have dictated, but continuing to fly about in all directions, obscuring the contents. Sanford only caught glimpses of the shape inside, but where he would have expected a snowman or a white deer or a country church, he saw… was it a man, bundled up, bent forward as if walking against the wind?

  “The snow just flurries around all by itself in there, though it goes faster when you give it a shake,” the shopkeeper said proudly. “Mr Tillinghast told me it’s on account of, what was it… ‘a complex chemical interaction among incompatible material elements.’”

  It’s a simple magical charm, Sanford thought. But such trifles are sufficient to amaze a simpleton. The flakes had probably been enchanted to abhor the fluid they floated in, and the glass that surrounded them, and one another, and flurried incessantly in a fruitless bid to escape. Still, it seemed a lot of effort to go to, for a child’s toy…

  He saw a flicker of darkness, a black speck among the flurrying white, and peered closer, almost putting his nose on the glass. Was that glimpse of a humanoid figure… moving? Actually trudging through the snow? Why bother with such a detail?

  The shopkeeper snatched the globe back, and when Sanford looked up at him, he saw naked hate and avarice in the man’s gaze. “This is mine,” the shopkeeper said. “You don’t need to go touching it.”

  “I wouldn’t dream,” Sanford said smoothly. “It’s a beautiful piece. I can see why you’re so fond of it. Might you direct me to Mr Tillinghast’s establishment? Perhaps I could procure a slightly less wondrous item for my own enjoyment.”

  The shopkeeper squinted, suspicious, then shrugged his bony shoulders. “I’m not sure. I never been there myself. Mr Tillinghast just stopped in to introduce himself a few days ago and had himself a pickled egg – best he’d ever had, he said, I make them myself – and went on his way. I heard he’s got a place not far from the graveyard, but beyond that, I couldn’t say.”

  “Capital.” Sanford removed a slim white card from his jacket pocket and slid it across the counter. “Perhaps if Mr Tillinghast returns you might give him my card? I’d love to discuss certain business opportunities with him.”

  The shopkeeper picked up the card – Sanford imagined the edges were instantly discolored, though that might have been mere fancy – and squinted at it with a grunt. “I suppose I could do that. For a loyal customer. A loyal paying customer.”

  Sanford sighed.

  Back in the car, he passed Altman a damp, bundled handkerchief. “What’s that?” the man asked.

  “The best pickled egg Randall Tillinghast ever had,” Sanford replied. “Enjoy it with my compliments.”

  Altman grunted and, to Sanford’s surprise, devoured the thing rather than dropping it out the window. The man grunted again and said, “I’ve had worse.”

  “Have you really? Remind me never to ask you for a restaurant recommendation.”

  “Where to now?” Altman asked.

  Sanford settled into the back seat and glowered at nothing. Why had Tillinghast wasted any magic, even a paltry charm, to ingratiate himself with the proprietor of the general store? What could he possibly offer? Although… the shop was frequented by a variegated cross section of Arkham inhabitants and was something of a central point for the dissemination of gossip. Maybe Sanford should have cultivated an informant there. He had numerous connections among the city’s elite, and in the Underworld, but dash it, he’d never really had the common touch. “We’ve wasted enough time. I’m supposed to have lunch with Miss Standish soon, so let’s hie ourselves back across the river.”

  “Visiting all the finest people today, aren’t we?” Altman chuckled.

  “On second thought, I think I liked you better when you were silent,” Sanford said. “Forget I said anything.”

  “Too late now, sir. You’ve gone and opened up my floodgates.”

  •••

  Ruby had set their meeting place, phoning the Lodge with the location early this morning, as she always did. The young woman had a profoundly suspicious turn of mind, but then, she’d earned it.

  Thus, Sanford found himself on the doorstep of the Songbird’s Perch, a lively enough place at night, when there was live music playing and, undoubtedly, a general disdain for the constraints of Prohibition. During the day, however, the Perch’s carved wooden panels seemed shabby and the red-shaded lamps a bit sad. There were one or two people dining in plush booths, but not much of a lunchtime crowd compared to the more conventional eateries in the area. Sanford made his way to the back, waving off the hostess with a murmured, “I’m meeting someone,” and found Ruby in the most distant booth, sucking an olive off a toothpick.

  He slid into the seat across from her, nodding toward the martini glass on the table. “A bit early for that, isn’t it?”

  Ruby smiled at him sunnily. Her hair was dark, lately, and even in her presence, it was hard to pin down her age or extraction – late twenties, early thirties? Some hint of the Spaniard or even Central American in her ancestry, perhaps?

  “If I’m awake, it’s not too early, Sanford, darling.” She wasn’t at her most glamorous just now – no fascinator in her hair, and no jewels around her neck, dressed neither for speakeasy nor garden party – but her makeup was immaculate, her hair perfectly curled, and her day dress effortlessly à la mode, a dark pink with a big black ribbon bow tied at the neck, the trailing ends spilling down her front. Ruby was capable of making herself up to look like the dowdiest hausfrau, or an innocent farmgirl in the city for the first time, or a silver screen vamp to put Theda Bara to shame, depending on which appearance best suited her stratagems. He was tempted to think this version was the “real” Ruby, shorn of all disguises, but Sanford knew better than that. If there even was a real Ruby, he didn’t think this woman shared her with anyone but herself.

  She tapped the rim of her glass with one of the rings on her fingers, making it chime. “Would you like something?”

  He settled back into the booth, which was actually quite comfortable, the better to entice visitors to sit and drink awhile. “I’m quite all right. We could simply meet at the Lodge, you know. I don’t like talking business in public.” Not that anyone was paying them the least bit of attention here.