LITMIR.BIZ

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to be a little extra skin. Maybe a fourth of an inch. Not much. Certainly nothing freaky.

      But when she looked up into his face, it suddenly dawned on her that yeah, she could see a touch of his uncle Carl in his face. That forlorn, toadlike quality. But in Kyle’s case, it was more froglike.

      Maybe it was just as well that this frog would never be her prince.

      * * * *

      The storm was over by two-thirty, but the skies still looked terrible. All the day’s clients had called to cancel, so Midge told everyone to go home.

      Melina had to tell Kyle about her appointment with the old women that evening. It would be best if somebody knew her whereabouts, in case something weird happened. Kyle said, “We have the rest of the afternoon to kill. Why don’t we drive around Cherrywood Lane? Check out the neighborhood before your big gig tonight.”

      “That’s in the rich part of town, isn’t it?”

      “You bet. So we’d better take my car. It’s nicer,” he said. “Besides, if we took your car, they might recognize it when you came by later and they’d know you’d been snooping around in their neck of the woods.”

      “Good idea you’ve got there.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “First time for everything, I guess.”

      “Clever! I should just let those two old witches eat you.”

      Twenty minutes, Kyle was steering his car onto Cherrywood Lane, which led up a hill overlooking the town. This part of Innsmouth was old and moneyed, and all the houses had winding driveways and expansive, well-groomed lawns. “You’d better scoot down in your seat,” Kyle said, “so they can’t see you.”

      605 was certainly the most impressive house on the street. It was a huge, sprawling structure, three stories high and covered with ivy. “Good God,” Kyle said. “Yeah, I guess they can afford thousand-dollar beauty treatments. That’s the old Marsh place. I used to have a boyfriend who lived on this street. He showed me who lived where.”

      “Marsh?” The Marsh family was one of the most prestigious in Innsmouth. “Kiwi said Mrs. Hamogeorgakis came here to live with relatives. The Marshes aren’t Greek.”

      “Maybe they’re related by marriage somehow.”

      Melina pointed. “What’s behind that big wall?”

      Kyle looked in that direction. A short distance behind the house was a high wall made partly of large, pale stones and partly of red bricks. “Well, we’re right on the ocean, but we had to drive up this hill a ways…Must be a cliff. Let’s turn around.”

      A minute later, they were heading back toward downtown Innsmouth. At the base of the hill, Kyle took a side road to a small seaside recreational area, with picnic benches and a white-painted metal pavilion.

      Kyle got out of the car, so Melina did, too. He nodded toward the sun-bleached cliff to their left. “There’s what’s on the other side of that wall.”

      She looked up. “Yeah, you can see a little bit of it from here. And some of their roof.” At the base of the cliff were rocks and boulders, strewn with green crap. Probably seaweed or moss. “So, Sherlock. What have we learned?”

      “Well, Mrs. Hamogeorgakis and her pal live in the old Marsh estate.” Kyle looked up toward the house. “They want you to go there late at night. And, they have a big cliff a little ways outside their back door.”

      “Do you think I’m in danger? Should I tell them to get lost?”

      “What, and lose out on the chance to make a thousand bucks?” Kyle thought for a moment. “Take your cell phone with you tonight. I’ll be parked down here with my phone. Call me if you think you’re in trouble and I’ll come help.”

      “Thank you, Kyle,” Melina said. “I’m so lucky to have you for a friend.”

      He shrugged and smiled. “Hey, if those two old harpies kill you, I won’t have anyone to mooch fancy cigarettes off of.”

      * * * *

      That evening, she parked in the driveway near the front steps of 605 Cherrywood Lane, carried a large, red plastic make-up case up to the door and knocked.

      A plump, middle-aged man with a jowly face answered the door. “Come inside. You are expected.” He picked up her case. “Let me carry that for you.”

      “Great. Thanks.”

      As she followed the man down a hallway, she noticed something odd about him. Though he had a big belly, his legs were very thin, and his shuffling gait was slightly jerky, as though simply walking was a strain for him. “So what’s your name?” she said.

      The man turned his head to reply. “Tyler.”

      “Is that your first name or last?”

      This time he didn’t turn his head at all. “Tyler Marsh,” he said gruffly.

      Melina decided the man wasn’t in the mood to talk, so she simply followed. At least someone named Marsh still lived in the house, though he seemed to be acting more like a servant.

      He led her up some stairs and down yet another hallway. Here the walls had numerous portraits hung on them. Most of the people in the pictures were fat and toadlike, like Tyler. Others were large-eyed and gangly, with loose folds of skin around their throats.

      They came to a room with a black, heavily lacquered door. Marsh tapped on the shiny surface with a knuckle. “Your visitor is here.”

      The door opened halfway and Kiwi looked out into the hall. “Thank you, Tyler. Please come in, Melina. Come and meet Mrs. Hamogeorgakis.”

      The man handed the make-up case to Kiwi and shuffled off down the hall.

      Melina entered the room. It was very large, with beautiful old furniture, including several bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes. The wallpaper pattern seemed to be either leafy vines or tendrils of seaweed, or maybe both. The carpet’s design depicted a scattering of seashells and rounded, multi-colored stones.

      Along the far wall was a four-poster bed with sky-blue silk curtains. Lounging in the middle of the bed on a pile of navy blue pillows was a willowy dark-haired woman in a white dressing gown edged with pink lace.

      She seemed normal enough—from a distance. But as Melina walked closer, she gradually realized there was something very wrong with the woman.

      Mrs. Hamogeorgakis had fine bone structure and large blue eyes. But the eyes had an intense, vicious look to them, like those of a wild animal.

      The woman’s pale skin had a slight olive cast—and was coated with a shining layer of tiny, iridescent scales.

      Her dark hair was full and lustrous—far too lustrous. It glistened with a slick sheen, as though covered with a layer of oil.

      Mrs. Hamogeorgakis smiled, revealing a mouthful of yellow, needle-thin teeth. “So this is the fancy expert,” she said in a wet rumble of a voice. “The miracle worker. Do you think you will be able to make a goddess of me?”

      Melina turned toward Kiwi, who was standing by the door, pointing a knife at her.

      “We shall begin very soon,” Kiwi said.

      Melina stared again at the woman on the bed. Woman? She looked more like some kind of deep-sea creature.

      “Do I frighten you, little girl?” Mrs. Hamogeorgakis said. “So sorry. I didn’t always look like this. I used to be very pretty, like you. Men used to fight over me. But there are families…” She paused to clear her throat, spitting a thick fluid into a handkerchief. “Families that come from the sea. Some are here in Innsmouth. Some are in Crete. And in other places, many other places. We are all related. We are the children of Dagon, the Sea Father.”

      Melina realized that these two old freaks were as scary as Hell, and whatever they were planning, they probably

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