The stone on the student union read L. A. Davis Student Union and 1952, but someone had hung a carved wooden sign that read Miskatonic University over the door. Valentine entered the unlit building, which smelled of bad plumbing. A stairway leading up had a sign reading appointments only, and a second notice board, which at one time had been behind glass, read bounty inquiries, please ring over a small hand bell. Valentine climbed the stairway.
The second floor was a warren of rooms, some with doors completely missing and others with darkened windows. A faint, Poe-esque tap-tap-tapping sounded from an inner chamber. Valentine hunted the source of the sound, which he eventually realized was a typewriter. It came from a central office with three overburdened desks, festooned with pin-filled maps and drawings of Grogs.
Under a bright electric desk lamp, a rotund and hairy man typed with two fingers and an occasional thumb. The mountain-man mass of hair on his head and face made his age hard to guess, but Valentine put the man in his late thirties, as his temples and chin were just beginning to be flecked with gray. He wore large, octagonal tortoiseshell glasses that had probably been originally worn by a woman. A bare chest that would have done a grizzly proud, fur-wise, bulged out of a sleeveless jeans jacket.
Valentine knocked on the doorjamb and broke the typist's concentration.
"Hi, can I help you?" the man asked in a friendly tone.
"I think I'm supposed to help you," Valentine said. "Are you one of the people who researches the Kurians?"
"Yeah. I sometimes think research isn't the right word, though. We're more like witch doctors trying to explain why a volcano erupts and throwing in the odd virgin to see if that helps. I think we used to put 'New Order Studies Institute' on our documents, mostly because it acronymed out as NOSI. But whoever we are, we're them."
Valentine entered the office, making his way around the desks and floor-filling mounds of binders to reach the scientist. As the latter stood up to shake hands, Valentine noticed that his pants were around his ankles.
"Oh, sorry," the man said. It was difficult to tell if he was blushing behind the beard. "Warm up here, you know. I swear that lightbulb puts out more calories than candlepower." He brought his trousers up to their conventional position.
"David Valentine, Wolf. Originally out of Minnesota. Pleased to meet you," Valentine said, taking the hairy-knuckled paw.
"David Walker O'Connor. From Indianapolis, myself. Ran away at the tender age of thirteen. I was brought here just because I knew about current conditions in Indiana, more or less, and stayed on. I read you took a Reaper outside of Weening about a year ago. What have you got for us now?"
"Do I talk to you? It's about a feeling I got when a Reaper was around. A couple weeks ago. A Cat named Eveready thought it was important enough that I should tell you."
O'Connor scratched himself under his shovel beard. "Let's go into the cellar. I need a break and a drink. You like root beer?"
"Yes, thank you. In fact, it'll be a treat. I've only had it once or twice."
The researcher grabbed a notebook and led the way out of the tangle of airless offices. The two descended into the cellar. At the base of the landing, a classic pawnshop barred door and window prevented further penetration. O'Connor pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and selected one. The door opened with a squeal from the hinges.
With the flick of a switch, O'Connor turned on a single bulb. Its pathetic forty watts did little to help the darkness and nothing at all to alleviate the musty smell coming from piles of clothing, trunks, and assorted boxes and crates heaped with artifacts.
"A lot of it is junk, but it all helps put together a story," his guide explained.
Something shuffled out of the shadows: slab skinned, inhuman, peering at them with a gargoyle face. Valentine startled, reaching for his absent weapons.
O'Connor put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Easy, Valentine. This is Grishnak. As you can tell, he's a Grog. A couple of the Team found him after a battle, badly wounded. We patched him up, fed him. He's something of a mascot. He puts up with all our little experiments, don't you, Grish?" He thumped it affectionately on the arm.
The Grog cocked its head from side to side, half closing its eyes.
"Does it talk?" Valentine asked, touching its thick horn-skin.
"He gets by with a few meaningful grunts. He's a bit of a firebug; we can't let him have matches or a lantern or any-thing. Loves to watch things burn; they all do from what we can tell. He's a living table-scrap disposal. He thinks corncobs are a real treat. Potato peels, too. Would you like a root beer, Grish?"
Valentine looked at the half-dozen badly healed bullet wounds in the creature's leg and abdomen. A long knife scar also ran across its shoulder and down its armored chest. It unrolled its tongue.
"Grish loves root beer. Let's sit down."
Valentine listened to the small noises of the empty building. "There's more than just you to this Institute, I suppose?"
An icebox devoid of ice sat next to a slop sink, and a card table stood under the inadequate lightbulb. Shelves held a few dishes and cups. O'Connor drew three drafts from a scratched plastic barrel resting in the icebox. "There's one other scholarly fellow like myself around now, and he keeps even stranger hours. We have a couple of would-be students, but they have to scratch a living so they work in the day." The Grog held out both hands for its sweet drink and scuttled off into the shadows with its cup.
"Just as well. He's kind of messy when he drinks from a cup. I think Grishnak is pretty dumb even for a Grog. They have a language, but they don't use writing. They send little rune-stones in hollow bone tubes to communicate Qver distance. And the beads in their hair are kind of like military decorations, family totems, stuff like that. But back to the Institute. The rest of the team is in the field. Our elder sage is up around Mountain Home. I don't know if you heard, but five or six Reapers are on the loose up north, well within the Free Territory, and they're causing quite a problem. They're moving around faster than word of them travels, and every time it seems like they're cornered, they slip out. There's bad weather up north, and that's hurting things."
He solemnly opened his notebook and licked the end of his pencil. "Okay, Valentine, what's the story?"
Valentine relayed the events at the Mississippi crossing for the second time in as many days. O'Connor scribbled.
"And you can't link the hair-raising feeling to anything you heard, saw, or smelled. You're positive?"