Chapter 50 Part 2

Of course, that standoff across Bow Street had no impact on Ode, who flashed his MI5 credentials and strode straight into the cordoned-off zone.

Special forces and armed police had already cleared the back alley of the Royal Opera House for him. Ode gave his gear one last check before slipping carefully through the back door. “I don’t see a soul. The Brotherhood’s got the hostages penned in the performance hall—”

The word hadn’t even left his mouth when thudding footsteps echoed from around the corner.

Ode sidestepped to hide, but glass walls surrounded him, offering scant cover. He’d barely squeezed into the stairwell when the steps barreled around the bend. A portly figure draped in a yellow robe rushed past his hiding spot without a sideways glance, hand outstretched for the back door. The glass reflected the smug glee and excitement on that pudgy face—

In the next instant.

“Urghaaaaah—!”

A piercing shriek, inhuman in its shrillness, burst from the man’s throat.

Ode, hand clamped to his earpiece to warn Faust to grab the guy or provide backup, stared in stunned disbelief as the yellow-robed form thudded to the floor. It convulsed madly for less than two seconds before going limp.

At the same moment, the contamination readings in his earpiece blared an ear-splitting alarm!

[Ode!] Faust’s voice crackled through, fury and alarm mingling with the siren. [Someone inside the theater summoned Hastur’s avatar, the King in Yellow! A phantom of the King in Yellow flickered atop the theater roof for an instant! Damn it… Hurry! Get everyone out of the contamination zone!]

Faust’s voice receded briefly; that final barked order was clearly aimed at the GORCC team.

Ode hesitated a beat. While Faust scrambled to organize the evacuation, he edged cautiously toward the fallen yellow robe on the ground and flipped the prone figure over. “One guy dropped dead right at the door. Face doesn’t match the guest list—probably Yellow Sign Brotherhood. Snapping a photo for you. Check his background? His actions don’t add up.”

[I see him. He was trying to bail from the theater, right? Right before the King in Yellow summon. Means he knew what was coming—oh, shit!]

Inside the bright and spotless Opera House, Ode had just snapped the photo with his phone when the corpse below—eyes, ears, nose, and mouth streaming blood in death—lunged upward. A hand clamped vise-tight around his wrist!

Then the yellow robe lurched erect like a marionette yanked skyward by strings at its head, rising segment by segment from skull to toes.

Ode: “…Shit.”

He thumbed send in a flash, then rose fluidly with the pull. He played along perfectly, body straightening as the yellow robe hauled him drifting off in some direction, acting out a frantic “Gotta escape! Damn, can’t break free.”

To his surprise, the yellow robe dragged him to what appeared to be a backstage dressing room. It flung him into a heap of costumes before slamming the door with a resounding Bang!

“Hiss…” Ode pushed himself up, teeth gritted as he peeled away the damaged costume clinging to him—chiefly those massive wings meant for angels or birds, now sporting broken decorations from the impact.

His gaze swept the room, taking in the cluster of trembling hostages. Then it snagged on an unexpected silhouette. “Professor?”

“Ode!” The professor, on his second unwanted visit to this nightmare, lurched toward him on unsteady legs, eyes brimming with tears.

It was mostly because GORCC’s protocol for handling affected memories wasn’t outright erasure but sealing. These poor souls, already prime targets once before, had somehow dodged a second bullet. GORCC designed the seals to unlock upon re-exposure, granting a sliver of prior experience. Right now, the professor was reliving the horrors from the ship, grief welling up unbidden.

Ode couldn’t help a wry chuckle. “You’re still in London? Visa holding up? And—what the hell’s happening in this theater? Did those yellow-robed monsters just snatch you all? Or are you actors? Where are the other guests?”

The professor waved his hands frantically, begging Ode for a moment to untangle his thoughts. “I have no idea what’s going on. Count Gergen invited me to the opera, so here I am. But he never showed—some other noble was in his seat. I don’t even know the man.”

[Odd… I’ll dig into this Count Gergen while I’m at it.]

Ode steadied the professor’s breathing. “Go on.”

“Er…” From his expression, the professor was still wrestling the chaos into order. “The first half of the opera seemed normal… No, hold on. Looking back, it wasn’t normal at all…”

“I remember guests during the show suddenly donning yellow hoods, weaving through the crowd like they were hunting for someone—or something.”

“But nobody batted an eye. The opera was all about demons stalking the mortal world and angels purging them, so we figured it was some avant-garde staging gimmick!”

“Searching for someone?” Ode’s brow furrowed faintly.

Not long ago, he’d been under a bridge pier with Faust, probing the Yellow Sign Brotherhood’s hit on the Mi-Go Agent. Now the professor claimed the Brotherhood was hunting someone amid the theater’s grandeur…

Faust, ever the mind reader: [Mi-Go Agent? Another one lurking in this opera house?]

[No… If they’re rolling out this kind of firepower, either multiple Proxies are holed up here, or one of them’s got something the Brotherhood’s desperate enough to risk it all for.]

[Related to… that scrap from Brown Black’s pocket? Y’know, the ‘conspiracy across the eons’?]

Ode resolved to pry some answers from a Brotherhood thug later. For now, he soothed the rattled professor. “What next?”

The professor drew a shaky breath. “Then the yellow-hoods sealed the performance hall exits in a flash, guns barking for everyone’s personal effects—even our clothes. We weren’t having it! Ex-military types in the crowd drew iron and threw down, taking out most of the hoods, but…”

He couldn’t continue. Tears gleamed in eyes around the cramped room. A young woman in Hebraic costume looked up, her face ashen. “But the dead yellow-hoods… turned into monsters.”

“Those monsters shrugged off bullets, ignored every physical blow. They didn’t even recognize their old comrades anymore.”

“They quit scavenging and started herding guests back to seats one by one, stonewalling the old crew’s outraged shouts—even pinning down their former allies.”

The professor gathered himself. “Then the selection began. Pulling from actors, guests, even those prior companions, cramming them into this backstage. No clue why…”

“I-I might…” A timid voice piped from the corner. Heads swiveled.

The speaker was a plump girl in sloppy attire, a stark misfit amid the room’s parade of beauties, hunks, and even a dashing elderly professor. “I-I’m the playwright for this show. I counted heads just now—minus me, we’re exactly the number in the script.”

“…” Ode’s thoughts leaped to the lore: the King in Yellow’s avatar had a notorious passion for the dramatic arts. “You saying they want us on stage, performing the damn play?”

Pandemonium erupted backstage.

“Merlin, have you lost it?! This script’s a brick, and belting it out takes months of rehearsal. You expect this ragtag bunch—yanked from the seats or the kidnappers—to waltz onstage cold?!”

“We sure we gotta dance to the monsters’ tune? What’s in it for us? Better to crack how to fight ’em and bust out!”

“Setting that aside—who’s the male lead? Our star’s glued to a seat downstairs!”

In the bedlam, Ode drew the professor aside, voice pitched low. “Monsters picked former allies for the cast too? Where are they? You take them out?”

“We’re no conclave of killers,” the professor said, guiding Ode to a makeshift storeroom partitioned by hanging curtains in the dressing room’s corner. “They’re in here, trussed up. With… slight muscular strains, perhaps.”

Ode swept back the drapes and peered down at the battered Yellow Sign Brotherhood members. “…Fair enough. Mind giving me some space? Got questions for these guys.”

“Don’t hold your breath for intel from them.” A stern, upright voice sounded behind him. Ode glanced back at the gray-haired man in crisp military uniform standing ramrod straight. A quick scan of the insignia confirmed the rank gulf between them. “We tried. Not a peep.”

Ode nodded, yanked open his shirt’s collar button with rough efficiency, shrugged off his suit jacket over one arm to bare the vest’s cinched lines accentuating his slim waist and hips. “Try tempting them?”

“…” The Major General’s face went slack for a beat, as if socked square in the nose. “…Pardon?”

Ode inclined his head in polite understanding toward the Major General. “I appreciate the urge to pitch in, sir, but that’s why branches split into armed police, spec ops, and spooks, yeah? Right now, if you stand guard outside with that sidearm—make sure nobody crashes our chat—that’s help enough.”

The curtain dropped a hairbreadth from the Major General’s nose. He gripped his pistol rigidly, frozen in a daze for several seconds before wheeling about woodenly.

“What’s eating you? Why plant yourself here?” His old comrade strode up, equal parts baffled and alert.

The Major General worked his jaw, then muttered in blank absurdity, “No idea…? Maybe… play the royal chamberlain?”

“?” His friend’s face scrunched. “What crack are you on? Royalty shagging inside or what?”

Meanwhile, across the street in the open-air café.

Nyarlathotep: “Brother, brother! You watching? Wow, sister-in-law’s so bold. Think I’d—mmph!!”

Without even looking up, Cavendish swung a thick, heavy tome straight into the face of his noisy blood relative. Nyarlathotep never saw the attack coming. Blood streamed from his nose as he sat there in stunned shock on his chair before toppling backward onto the floor—he hadn’t even thought to dodge or scramble to his feet.

“Clang—”

The cafe’s patrons turned to stare, and several staff members rushed over in a panic.

“Hey, don’t hit him, don’t hit him! There’s no such thing as an overnight grudge between brothers, right?”

“I’m just saying, bro, but coveting your own brother’s wife is pretty out of line—even if I get why you’re pissed. Some things you just don’t do!”

“Are you okay, sir? Should I, uh… call that lady for you?”

“Forget it,” Nyarlathotep said. He shoved the staff members away forcefully and rose to his feet, wiping viciously at the blood from his nose. “I don’t think he has time for that right now. After all, he’s tangled up with three other wild men at the moment, isn’t he?”

“…………” The staff members all took a step back in unison, thinking in shock: Holy shit, talk about a messy family situation!