Hell's Gate: A Steampunk Lovecraft Adventure

By Brent Nichols

How far would you go for a friend? What would you risk?

A devastating raid by the cult of Katharis leaves Colleen Garman alone, faced with a formidable task. The world itself hangs in the balance as the cult opens a portal to another realm. Colleen's duty is plain - she must close the portal at any cost, and keep it closed.

But her old friend Carter is trapped on the other side. To get him back she will have to risk everything. Her only ally is Dirk Smith, a government agent locked up in an insane asylum. Somewhere in his shattered mind are the clues she needs to thwart the cult, get back the portal stones, and attempt a rescue.

The stakes couldn't be higher. She risks setting the mad god Katharis loose in the world. But if she succeeds it could mean salvation for Carter - and maybe even Smith, as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brent Nichols
• Release date: Oct 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301332076

Brent Nichols

Brent Nichols is a writer and trainer based in Calgary, Alberta.

Book preview

Hell's Gate

By Brent Nichols

Copyright 2012 Brent Nichols

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – The Madman

Chapter 2 – Retaliation

Chapter 3 – The Raid

Chapter 4 – The Other Side

Chapter 5 – The Broken Team

Chapter 6 – In the Asylum

Chapter 7 – Mean Streets

Chapter 8 – Hunted

Chapter 9 – The Interrogation

Chapter 10 – Portal Stones

Chapter 11 – Lost Souls

Chapter 12 – Desperate Measures

Chapter 13 – Madness

Chapter 14 – Aftermath

Chapter 1 – The Madman

From the outside, the insane asylum didn't look so bad.

It was surrounded by a wall of sandstone, seven or eight feet tall. Ivy covered the stone and gave everything a pleasant, natural look. Colleen could see the main building through the wrought-iron bars of the front gate. It was a grand stone edifice that wouldn't have looked out of place at Harvard, shrouded in ivy and roofed in red tiles.

You had to get pretty close to see that the windows were all barred. There was an air of desperation to the place as well, though Colleen realized it might have been her imagination.

The blue Model T rolled into the small parking lot and stopped just in front of the front gate. It was a grey and blustery day, and only a handful of patients were in sight, clustered near a side door smoking cigarettes.

Well, said Maggie Nelson as she turned off the engine, here we are. She was a stern-looking woman with grey hair drawn up in a bun. Colleen knew her to be tough as nails when she needed to be, but far nicer than her severe features suggested.

Colleen nodded, doing her best to hide her nerves, and got out of the car. There was no way to be entirely at peace. She was here to visit a madman who had once been a friend.

He's much improved, said Maggie. Of course, he's not the man he was. Far from it. But he seems better.

Colleen nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and followed the older woman into the building. A couple of orderlies in white uniforms gave her startled glances as she climbed the front steps, and she sighed. Somehow it was perfectly fine to wear the new dress styles, scandalous skirts that almost showed a girl's knees, but trousers were still something shocking.

A bored clerk at the front desk asked them who they had come to see, then got them to sign a visitor book and gave them directions to a meeting room. They walked past a propped-open steel security door and into the asylum proper.

Colleen followed Maggie down a dingy corridor painted in an institutional green and lit by flickering, inadequate light bulbs. The meeting room was as depressing as the corridor, with mismatched chairs and a battered table with one leg shorter than the others.

They sat and waited, making small talk about the weather, until Colleen heard the sound of shuffling footsteps in the corridor. Then the door swung open and a man came in.

Dirk Smith had always been thin, but now he was gaunt. His long, saturnine face had been shaved somewhat carelessly, and his hair, cut quite short, stood up in clumps. There was more grey in it than Colleen remembered.

She recognized him despite the changes, but when his eyes wandered aimlessly around the room he suddenly seemed like a stranger. The man she'd known had been one of the most focussed and purposeful people she'd ever met. Now his body was like a puppet being moved by a smaller, weaker, much lesser person.

An orderly came in behind him, a beefy young man with a flat, inscrutable face. The orderly helped Smith find a chair and get seated. Smith sat slumped in the chair, staring at the table top, clearly no danger to the women, but the orderly gave him a long, suspicious glance. I'll be right outside, he said. Shout if you need me. Then he stepped out, leaving the door open a crack.

Hello, Dirk, said Maggie, and Smith raised his head. His eyes were blank and lifeless. Maggie gestured at Colleen and said, Look, I brought Colleen.

Smith's eyes didn't move.

Maggie shrugged and chattered away, telling Smith about their recent mission to the South Pacific and the artifacts they'd brought back. Smith's eyes slowly sank to the table top, but Maggie kept chatting. Her tone was light and unconcerned, but Colleen could sense the strain just below the surface. This was breaking her heart.

Finally Maggie's voice trailed off. She looked at Colleen, her eyes sad, and said, Next time we'll come first thing in the morning. That's when he's at his sharpest. It's also when he's the most agitated, poor thing, but at least he'll recognize you. They give him a pill at bedtime, you see, and another one in the morning. If we get here before the medication kicks in, sometimes it's almost like having the old Dirk back.

She reached out and squeezed Smith's hand. We're going to go now, Dirk. You hang in there, okay? I know you're in there somewhere, getting stronger, fighting your way back. I only wish I could help you. But you take as long as you need to take. We'll be here.

She let go of his hand, and she and Colleen stood. He sat unmoving, and Maggie reached for the door knob.

Thanks.

The single word was so low that at first Colleen thought she'd imagined it. She looked at him, and found his dull blue eyes looking back at her. Then he turned back to the table top.

Colleen rested a hand on his shoulder. He had retreated back into himself. She gave his shoulder a squeeze and followed Maggie out of the little room, down the hallway, and into the grey world beyond.

Chapter 2 – Retaliation

A cutting torch was a dangerous tool, and the absolute concentration it demanded was exactly the balm Colleen's spirit needed. She worked her way through half a dozen steel rods, then turned off the torch and pushed her dark goggles up onto her forehead. There was something deeply soothing about crafting something of value from brass and steel. It gave her a sense of purpose and control that was too often missing in the endless war with the cult.

She looked around her workshop with a satisfied smile. Supposedly she was researching the properties of the mysterious hot rock the team had unearthed on an island in the South Pacific. In reality she was building a marvellous machine the likes of which hadn't been seen in centuries, if not millennia.

Her workshop was the former carriage house of the McDougall building, once a grand country estate a mile from the Anacostia River. Now a victim of urban sprawl, it stood on the outskirts of Washington, DC. When the Federal Government had annexed the estate, President Wilson turned it over to Department Nine, the innocuously-named secret organization charged with dealing with occult matters. The McDougall building was the team's headquarters.

The manor house held offices and training facilities and storage of documents and artifacts. There was a small clerical staff, few of whom knew exactly what Department Nine was really for. Security was